Curriculum

Honors courses are designed to challenge you—but we offer personalized support through small class sizes, approachable faculty, and direct connection to support services across campus including individual research consultations with our friends in the Library, as well as a close working relationship with our friends in the Writing Center. 

Because the Honors Program is open to students of all majors, your classmates will all bring different perspectives and strengths to the proverbial table, and this diversity produces a rich and rewarding learning environment. In all courses, you’re asked to learn from one another and to be willing to consider new ideas and approaches.

Tier I Courses

The first-year seminar courses are special courses for first-year students to enhance their academic and social integration into college. FYS provides an introduction to the nature of higher education and a general orientation to the functions and resources of the university. The course is designed to help first year students adjust to the university, develop a better understanding of the learning process, and acquire essential academic survival skills. The course also provides a support group of students in a critical transition by examining problems common to new students. Each fall, the Honors Program offers a special section of FYS reserved exclusively for incoming Honors students and students interested in the Honors Program.

A skills course emphasizing writing, reading, speaking, thinking skills, collaborative learning, diversity, research, and the use of technology in an academic setting. Readings and discussion of texts-in-common selected by Honors faculty and studied in preparation for possible project presentation at the Mid-East Honors Conference in the spring. Ordinarily taken during the first semester of study at IU Southeast. Part one of the required two-semester seminar sequence for Tier One students. Generally fulfills two General Education requirements (Written Communication and Ethical Questions).

Continuation of H 103. Builds on skills attained in the first semester with continued reading and discussion of texts-in-common. Students will begin to envision, research, and refine projects for possible presentation at the Mid-East Honors Conference in the spring. Ordinarily taken during the second semester of study at IU Southeast. Part two of the required two-semester seminar sequence for Tier One students. Generally fulfills two General Education requirements (Oral Communication and Critical Thinking).

Tier I & II Courses

These seminars are multidisciplinary in nature, but their topics (which vary from semester to semester) are most closely connected to the humanities and social sciences. Students enrolling in these courses need not be a 300-level student in the humanities or the social sciences, but they are expected to challenge themselves and be open to new ideas and approaches.

Past and upcoming courses include:

  • Work and Life’s Meaning
  • Truth in Storytelling
  • Political Freedom
  • Buddhist Meditation
  • Medical Humanities
  • Art and Terrorism
  • Critical Thinking and Being Human
  • The Autobiographical Image

Please note: Provided they meet the minimum number of courses for their Honors Program path of study, students may take any combination of 300-level Honors Program courses they like. In short, there is no requirement that you take both H306 and H307: instead, you should enroll in courses that fit your intellectual interests and scheduling needs.

Please remember: Honors Program seminars are often offered only once, so if a course piques your interest and suits your schedule, you’re strongly encouraged to enroll.

As with H306, these seminars are multidisciplinary in nature, but their topics (which vary from semester to semester) are most closely connected to disciplines outside the humanities and social sciences. Students enrolling in these courses need not be a 300-level student in the discipline most closely related to the course topic, but they are expected to challenge themselves and be open to new ideas and approaches.

Past and upcoming courses include:

  • Sustainable Action Workshop
  • How Do We Know Things? Lessons from Scientific Woo
  • Computer-Based Problem Solving for Every Field
  • Natural and Technological Disasters

Please note: Provided they meet the minimum number of courses for their Honors Program path of study, students may take any combination of 300-level Honors Program courses they like. In short, there is no requirement that you take both H306 and H307: instead, you should enroll in courses that fit your intellectual interests and scheduling needs.

Please remember: Honors Program seminars are often offered only once, so if a course piques your interest and suits your schedule, you’re strongly encouraged to enroll.

This independent study course is for students undertaking individual research or creative projects. Students will work closely with a faculty mentor, and they will collaborate with other students engaged in projects to discuss larger issues such as research strategies, publication, and ethics. It may be repeated for up to 4 credit hours.

See what courses are offered each semester

Summer I 2020

"Sustainable Action Workshop” emphasizes learning to do the work that brings sustainability theory into the world. Projects will focus on three areas of sustainability, Economy, Environment, and Society, but the emphasis will be on Environmental projects. While covering basic sustainability theory and using established examples, each student will construct sustainability artifacts during the course. Students will learn to build and demonstrate that they have built—sand filters, rainwater capture devices, vermiculture habitats, basic hanging and stationary gardening structures, site maps, compost processing devices, solar ovens, personal and work budgets, neighborhood maps, trash art, community plastic bag artifacts, basic event planning, and basic food preparation during our short time together. All project artifacts will be filmed and posted for class viewing. Students will complete discussion boards, daily readings and consumption of other relevant media, short theoretical writings, the creation and video capture of each sustainability artifact above, and there will be a final piece of writing. Students will not be asked to purchase books or videos, but they must find or purchase materials to create all projects above.

Can be taken in Summer I or Summer II.

Designed to meet the needs of Honors students undertaking individual research or creative projects, this course permits students flexibility and the opportunity to work with a faculty mentor.

See the Summer I 2020 Schedule of Classes  Register now

Summer II 2020

Ghosts. Poltergeists. ESP. Spiritualism. Cryptozoology. Little Green Men. Did you know that these topics (and more) have been scientifically investigated by serious scholars and researchers throughout the years? Or perhaps that Duke University once had a research lab dedicated entirely to the study of extrasensory perception? In this class, you will discover that the ‘weird’ can be a wonderful thing to research! Students will choose a topic that many consider to be on the ‘fringe’ of accepted reason – this could include parapsychology, ghosts/hauntings, ufology, cryptozoology and much more. The summer semester will be spent researching these topics through a critical and rigorous academic lens, resulting in a research paper that not only challenges the notion of accepted science but which will also challenge the stereotypes surrounding what it means to be an academic. Additionally, we will deconstruct issues surrounding acceptable research and ‘fringe topics’ and how these things can find their places within academia. The weird can be wonderfully intellectual; register to see how.

Can be taken in Summer I or Summer II.

Designed to meet the needs of Honors students undertaking individual research or creative projects, this course permits students flexibility and the opportunity to work with a faculty mentor.

See the Summer II 2020 Schedule of Classes  Register now