Departmental Honors–Wesleyan Scholar
Unless otherwise specified, students are eligible for the Departmental Honors Program and may enter their department’s program at any time with the approval of the faculty of the student’s major program and a GPA in their major of 3.5.
Students in the Departmental Honors Program must complete at least six (6) hours of honors credit. The content and requirements of the honor’s credit are determined by each student’s participating academic department or program. Students must complete a minimum of 30 approved credit hours in an academic discipline to be eligible for departmental honors in that discipline.
Biology
Students who meet the requirements for entry into the Honors Program in Biology must complete the following requirements to complete the Honors program in Biology.
All Biology majors must take the following four upper level courses: BIO 3431H , BIO 3470H , BIO 4412H , and BIO 4426H . Students who receive Departmental Honors in Biology must maintain an overall GPA of 3.75 for these four courses. Additionally, students must complete Honors requirements for two of the four required upper level courses. The Honors requirement for the upper level Biology courses is completion of an additional term paper (10-15 pages) that will allow students to explore topics related to the course. Topic choices for the term paper will be determined by the instructor of the specific course.
Additionally, students who receive Departmental Honors in Biology must complete the Honors requirement for the Supervised Research courses within the Biology major (BIO 3352H and BIO 4351H ). Students must complete the requirements of these courses and receive a 90% on each assignment in these courses. Students who are pursuing Departmental Honors must also present two primary research articles in each course and receive a 90% or greater for these additional presentations.
All student material that is submitted for fulfilling the Honors requirement will be evaluated by all faculty within the department.
Chemistry
In order to fulfill the 6-hour Advanced Chemistry Honors curriculum, a student must complete two semesters of Chemistry research (CHE 4251H and CHE 4252H ), with a minimum of 10-12 hours completed per week (as opposed to 8 for non-Departmental Honors students). The student must also complete a Research Thesis (guidelines to be set by the departmental faculty) and present a 60-minute defense of the Research Thesis to a committee of three faculty (two faculty from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and one faculty member from another department).
Criminal Justice
The Criminal Justice Program at Texas Wesleyan offers enhanced educational opportunities for criminal justice majors through departmental honors.
The Criminal Justice Departmental Honors Program consists of:
Six hours of honors thesis coursework: All honors students must complete a senior honors thesis by enrolling in 6 semester hours, 3 hours in the Fall and 3 hours in the Spring. The student will be required to write a 15-20 page paper in addition to the course requirements. The Senior Thesis will be advised by a tenured or tenure track faculty member in the Criminal Justice Department. In addition to the advisor, at least two additional faculty members will serve on the committee with one member being from outside the department. All students will defend their theses in a public forum such as University College Day or at a local or national conference. The paper requirements are at the discretion and may be modified by the instructor and tailored to meet the specific needs of the class. If a student has already taken a course, he/she is not permitted to retake the course as honors-enriched.
Students must maintain a GPA in their major of 3.5 to graduate with Departmental Honors designated on their diploma.
Education
The Departmental Honors Program in Undergraduate Education provides recognition to education students who have exhibited high levels of success in their coursework, including performing well above the standards established for professional development and scholarly endeavor.
Students may be admitted to Department Honors program upon admittance to the Teacher Education Program if they have a minimum 3.5 GPA in their major. A Departmental Honors Program application is available in the Undergraduate Education Department office.
Students Must Enroll in and Successfully Complete 6 Hours of the Following Honors Courses in Education:
The students must apply for honors recognition with the Office of Student Records the semester prior to graduation. Departmental Honors will be conferred to students who successfully complete six hours of departmental hour’s courses in education and have attained a minimum of 3.5 GPA in their major. Departmental Honors will be indicated on the transcript and diploma.
History
In order to complete the 6-hour requirement for Honors in History, the student will need to complete HIS 4391H History Honors and HIS 4392H Seniors History Honors . HIS 4391H is devoted to researching their selected thesis topic. In HIS 4392H , the students will write their Honor Thesis.
These 6 hours of the History Honors Seminar are in addition to the 36 hours required for the history major.
Mass Communication
In order to be considered for departmental honors in Mass Communication, a student majoring in Mass Communication must have a grade point average of at least 3.5 and at least 45 semester hours of college credit prior to enrolling in departmental honors courses. Then the student must complete the 9-hour requirement consisting of departmental courses designated as the Honors version of specially designated departmental courses. Though other courses may be added by the department, the following are so designated:
Note
These are regular departmental courses given a special “H” designation. Honors students will do the regular course assignments, plus write a research paper of 10-20 pages on a topic agreed upon by the students and their instructors or students may undertake some other comparable project approved by the instructor. The three courses chosen by the student should include one that includes international or cross-cultural study.
Mathematics
Students who meet the requirements for entry into the Departmental Honors Program-Wesleyan Scholar and have completed 9 hours of 3000 level or above math courses must complete two of the three-hour courses (6 hours) listed below and make one presentation of an honors paper at University College Day to complete the Honors Program in Mathematics.
These courses will not count towards the 36 hours of math required for the math degree.
Political Science
In order to complete the 9-hour requirement for Departmental Honors in Political Science, the student will need to complete three designated honors version, departmental courses at the 3000 or above level. The courses must represent advanced political science coursework from each of the three field tracks, so that a student will complete three credit hours from the Global Studies track, three credit hours from the Pre-Law track, and three credit hours from the Government and Politics track. Although other courses may be honors designated by the department, the following classes are so designated:
Choose Three Hours From Each Track:
Government and Politics Track
Psychology
In order to be considered for Departmental Honors in Psychology, a student majoring in Psychology must have at least 75 credit hours of college credit prior to enrolling in departmental honors courses. In order to receive departmental honors a student must do the following:
- Achieve a Major GPA in Psychology of a 3.5 or higher upon completion of the B.A. or B.S degree
- Complete PSY 4376H Senior Capstone with a Service Learning Component
- Complete PSY 4380H Counseling & Social Services Internship with an in-depth paper that conceptualizes experiences at the site with relevant counseling theory; OR complete PSY 4382H Research Internship with completion of a poster, manuscript, or conference proposal; OR complete PSY 4384H Teaching Internship with a portfolio that includes test questions, assignments, and lecture notes created by the student.
Religion
In order to be considered for Departmental Honors in Religion, a student majoring in Religion must have a grade point average of at least 3.5 and at least 45 semester hours of college credit prior to enrolling in departmental honors courses. Then the student must complete the 9-hour requirement consisting of Departmental courses designated as the Honors version of specially designated Departmental courses. Though other courses may be added by the department, the following are so designated:
Note
These are regular departmental courses given a special “H” designation. Honors students will do the regular course assignments, plus writing a research paper of 5-10 pages on a topic agreed upon by the students and their instructors or undertaking some other comparable project approved by the instructor. The three courses chosen should include one that involves overseas or cross-cultural study.
Sociology
Sociology Honors courses consist of both stand-alone seminar courses and upper division courses with a contractual Honors component. In the course of completing their program of study, it is expected that Sociology students will complete at least 6 hours of Honors credit.
Courses that have an Honors component will be Departmental electives taught by a full-time Wesleyan faculty member. The honors component in these courses will generally consist of extra reading and an extra, full-length term paper. Content of the reading would be determined in one of two ways. 1) The Honors student submits a list of readings which is then approved by the Instructor. 2) The instructor selects relevant readings that would be appropriate to the course. In general, the amount of reading is likely to be equivalent to an extra book (less if it is very dense, more if it is easier reading). The Instructor will be available for discussion on the subject during office hours or before and after class time, as the student arranges.
Alternative Honors content will consist of doing professional sociological research, either supervised by the instructor, or in conjunction with an instructor, in which case the student could collect original data, conduct interviews, observe behavior or do content analysis of text and images. Or, the student may perform secondary data analysis, and develop theoretical or conceptual analyses of a sociological issue.
Each student will complete a written copy of their extended term paper, and will also present their project at a Departmental meeting at the end of the semester, at which faculty and students attend. Students will be encouraged to invite parents and/or friends to attend as well.
Sociology courses with Honors component could be taken by a non-Sociology major (in particular, Liberal Studies).
Sociology Courses That Could Include an Honor Component Are as Follows:
Note
Stand-alone courses will be offered periodically, on varying topics. These are likely to be scheduled in the summer or May term, outside of the regularly rotation of courses. Guest lecturers are also a possibility. To make the most of these opportunities, stand-alone honors courses may include non-honors students, with the caveat that non-honors students would not get honors credit and should understand it may require more work than the normal course.
Spanish
Students will be admitted to the Departmental Honors in Spanish if they have at least a 3.5 GPA in Spanish and Departmental approval.
In order to fulfill the 6-hour requirement for Honors in Spanish, students will need to enroll in an H-designated version of one of the following courses. The honors portion of the course will be determined by the professor and the student.
