Honors Sections of Departmental Courses
Students in both the Honors College and the SAS Honors Program are required to complete a certain number of honors credits; the number varies according to the school of enrollment. SASHP students are required to take at least four honors courses. For many students, the most popular honors courses are honors sections of first- and second-year foundation courses, such as Calculus, General Chemistry, General Psychology, Physics, Economics, Political Sciences, and SAS Signature Courses.
Honors sections of foundational courses are sometimes free-standing (usually smaller lectures than the general course), sometimes recitation sections of a larger, general lecture course (usually taught by the lead professor), and sometimes an additional one-unit recitations that only honors students take, added to a general course (again, the recitation is usually led by the lead professor).
- The SAS Honors Program and the Honors College work closely with departments that regularly offer the most highly enrolled, lower-level honors sections in determining how many sections we need from semester to semester.
- We ask that departments let us know of their intention to offer honors sections well in advance of the semester so that we can assist in letting students know and, if necessary, in attempting to help locate any additional resources needed.
- Honors courses that are required for majors or fulfill SAS Core requirements are most likely to fill quickly.
- In considering whether to offer honors sections of lower-level courses, departments should keep in mind general demand for the course. As a guideline, approximately the top 14% of students entering SAS each year are enrolled either in the SAS Honors Program or in the Honors College. Thus, if demand for a course is such that 1/7 of the students could fill an independent section (or a large enough one to run), then it is likely to have enough honors students to make an honors section feasible.
- While some departments prefer to handle enrollment in honors sections through special permissions, in general it is more efficient and easier for the students if these courses are coded in CSS as "honors students only" in both the Honors College and the SAS Honors Program.