Attention: This page is designed using recognized Web standards. You are seeing this message because your browser does not support those standards. You will have full access to the content of this page, but it will look much better if you use a recent browser such as Internet Explorer 7.x (Windows), or Mozilla Firefox (Windows/Mac). Learn more...

Academic Affairs > Teaching Opportunities in the Honors Program

Teaching Opportunities in the Honors Program

Teach Honors

The Indiana University Honors Program seeks dynamic and thoughtful instructors to teach in the Common Intellectual Experience Courses (Honors 103 and Honors 104), as well as in the multidisciplinary seminars (Honors 306 and Honors 307) offered through the Honors Program. We seek faculty members for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Perks of Teaching an Honors Course:
  • Classes are capped at 15 students, allowing for more personal interaction with students.
  • Honors Students are generally ambitious, intellectually curious, thoughtful, and self-motivated.
  • The Honors Program will bear the expense of your adjunct replacement in your home department.
  • Teaching an Honors course is an invigorating experience for all involved.
  • Multidisciplinary seminars are designed to expand students' ability to see questions and issues across disciplines.
What is Expected in Honors Courses?

Honors courses at the 300-level have included:

  • Social Justice (Fall 2008)
  • Digital Story Telling (Spring 2009 and Spring 2011)
  • Genocide (Spring 2010)
  • The Vietnam Conflict in Literature, Culture, and History (Spring 2010)
  • American Culture and Society in the 1920s (Fall 2010)
  • Evolutionary Psychology (Fall 2007 and Fall 2010)
  • Globalization (Spring 2008 and Spring 2012)
  • Literature, Culture, and Politics in a Post-9/11 World (Spring 2011)
  • Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery?  Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (Spring 2011)
  • Insects and Human Affairs (Fall 2011)
Upcoming Honors courses:
  • The Culture, Power, and Science of Sex in the 20th Century (Spring 2012)
  • Globalization (Spring 2012)

These courses, like all HP courses, are expected to be multidisciplinary in content, in order that students might grow in their ability to see questions and issues across disciplines.  Students in the Indiana University Southeast Honors Program (IUSHP) are a delight.  They're generally ambitious, intellectually curious, thoughtful, and self-motivated.  They are not, however, graduate students. Thus, you should be aware that the Biology majors probably won't know MLA format, and the English majors might never have worked with SPSS.  They're smart, and they are rewarding students with whom to work; however, when you think of your course, or envision teaching them, you should not envision these students as upper-level students in your field of study.  If you keep that in mind, you should be able to design a challenging and rewarding course for the IUSHP students, and enjoy your time working with students outside your field.

While the curriculum of the 100-level courses is somewhat more prescribed (in order to fulfill general education objectives, as well as create a Common Intellectual Experience for our students), faculty members who work with the 100-level students get to play a formative role in these students' education.  Prior to book ordering time, these faculty members negotiate readings for all the H103 and H104 students to have in common.  These faculty members also guide students through year-long individual and group research projects which culminate in presentation at the regional honors conference (generally held in late March) and/or the student research conference in April.  In addition, they'll help Honors Program students become more poised and polished writers and public speakers and critical thinkers.  It is an invigorating experience for everyone involved.  Mr. Marty Rosen, Dr. Charlie Pooser, Dr. James Beeby, Dr. Larry Miles, Mr. Michael Abernethy, Dean Samantha Earley, Dr. Leigh Viner, and Dr. Angela M. Salas have all taught in the 100-level sequence, and can serve as sources of information for you if you think you might be interested, but need to put a human face on this possibility. 

If you would like to teach a 100-level course next year, please send me an email, your Curriculum Vitae, your philosophy of teaching Honors students, and your preferred semester teaching (if one semester is preferable to another).  If you'd like to offer a 300-level course for consideration, please also include a course title and a description of the course as you currently envision it.  The more information you have about what your course will encompass, the projects students will undertake, and your grading and assessment methods the better.  Know, as well, that the Honors Program will bear the expense of your adjunct replacement in your home department when you teach in the Honors Program.

For additional information, please contact Angela Salas, Honors Program Director, at amsalas@ius.edu

What Faculty Members are Saying about the Honors Program:
Dr. Gary Pinkston

pinkston honors image"Magical is the word that comes to mind when asked about my experience with my Honors class. It was like a walk off the beaten path in the forest with a friend by your side, each exploring, discovering, and sharing new things along the way. For me it was probably the most rewarding and memorable course I have ever taught."

-Dr. Gary Pinkston, Associate Professor of Educational Technology

 

Dr. Jean Abshire

abshire image"I love teaching in the Honors Program! There are a variety of features of the HP that offer the opportunity for a very different kind of experience from the professor's perspective, and they are differences I enjoy a lot. First, the classes are smaller than almost any other classes I teach and this permits completely different approaches that involve much more interaction and engagement with the students. Second, it seems that the kind of students the HP attracts are ones that have learning as their top priority, despite sometimes lots of demands from work or family. There's a good dynamic when everyone is on the same page in terms of focus and motivation.  Third, the HP creates a sense of being a community of learners and that also creates a different dynamic in the interaction between faculty and students. I often feel much more like a mentor and less like a rule enforcer than I sometimes do with other classes."

"I have taught two Honors Seminars and they both developed different dynamics, but I really came out admiring the commitment and efforts of the students in both groups. In the seminar with a theme of globalization, all of the students were incredibly active in engaging with the material. I would begin the class meeting with a question, and they were amazingly good at arguing different points and (respectfully) disagreeing with one another and challenging the others' views. Sometimes I had to make an effort to have a chance to speak to add some additional perspectives or redirect to another question, and a few times, when they felt I had talked too much and they wanted to resume control of discussion, they told me, respectfully, to be quiet – and I loved that. It was exciting to see them so thoroughly grappling with the material. The other seminar I taught had a theme of genocide, which is obviously an incredibly difficult and depressing subject. I felt a huge amount of respect for the commitment and courage of the students who did not falter in the face of tough subject matter. They were willing to devote a huge amount of time and energy engaging with this material with the belief that it was important to know this dark side of human interactions – that takes both perseverance and heart. The chance to work closely with a small number of smart and motivated students made both of these teaching experiences very unique ones for me, and I was enriched, personally and professionally, by both."

- Dr. Jean Abshire, Associate Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of Political Science

Referring Students to the Honors Program

If you've a moment, though, I'd be thankful if you'd forward to me the names of any students you think would prosper in the Honors Program. I'd like to extend those students an invitation to apply to the Honors Program.

The HP is meant to augment students' experiences at Indiana University Southeast, not simply offering them multidisciplinary courses, but also presenting them with additional opportunities to attend conferences, participate in social and service events with student-colleagues, and develop close friendships with other students. Thus, the Honors Program welcomes applications from high-potential students, students with a wide array of interests, students with excellent work ethics, and students who "simply" desire to learn and improve themselves. Therefore, when you're thinking about students to refer to the Honors Program, you needn't confine yourself to thinking about the students with the highest grades; rather, you might also consider the student who reads more than is assigned, who follows you to your office after class, who is already talking about the class materials with his or her colleagues when you enter the classroom, or whose essays are delightful in their potential, if not always in their execution. Potential is a wonderful thing.

Cordially,

Angela M. Salas
Honors Program Director
iushp@ius.edu
812-941-2587