Common Errors Made in Honors Contracts

All contracts must by typed, signed, and dated; otherwise, they will not be accepted!

Almost all Honors Contracts are approved by the Honors Committee without incident. Sometimes, however, contracts have to be returned to the student and faculty member to be revised. In asking questions about proposed Honors Contracts, the Honors Office and the Honors Committee are showing that they take their responsibility to evaluate Honors Contracts and to protect the integrity of the Honors Program seriously. This list of common errors is offered in that spirit and with the hope that you and your students will find the experience of participating in the Honors Program a positive one

• Specific contents of the Honors Contract not indicated. In order to help the Honors Committee understand the contract it is important that the contract be as detailed as possible. Indicating that the student will write a 5 page paper on "The Letters of Paul" does not provide the Honors Committee enough information to evaluate the suitability of the project..
• Honors Project not focused. It is important to make sure that the Honors project is focused enough to allow the student to do work which is in-depth, substantial and specific enough to meet the honors quality standard and to be completed within the scope of a single semester. Honors Projects can take a variety of forms and cover a vast array of subjects. Please try to make your students projects as specific and focused as possible.
• "Honors" dimension of the project not explained in detail. The distinguishing characteristic of Honors work is not that it is additional work, though that may be the case, but that it is different work. Honors work should help students develop knowledge and skills which go beyond the normal expectations of the class at the same time as it stretches and extends the students intellectual opportunities. The Honors Committee wants to know what is distinctive and special about the work done in the Honors Contracts.
• Precise tasks to be completed by the student not indicated in the contract. It is important to say more than that the student will write a paper or conduct a survey and report its results. The Honors Committee needs detailed information about what the student will do to complete the project in order to evaluate the project.
• Honors Contract evaluation standards not specified in detail. You should indicate for example if the student's work must conform to MLA standards if appropriate. If you will use a rubric to evaluate the paper, it would be helpful to give the student a copy when the project begins and attach a copy of the rubric to the contract when it is turned in.
• Honors Contract not filled in completely. It is important to fill in the course code, the course number, the date when the contract will be completed, and related information..
• Honors Contract not filled out in standard correct English. The Honors Committee expects that Honors Contract will be written in standard correct English. The present policy of the Honors Office is to return contracts which have errors for correction prior to Honors Committee review.
• Proposing Honors Contracts unrelated to the course. It is important to make sure that the connection between the course and the contract are made clear in the contract if that connection is not obvious. The Honors Office thinks that it is the responsibility of the faculty member to make sure that the proposed contract is relevant to the course.
• Proposing Honors Contracts for developmental courses numbered above 100. In conjunction with the CIMT the Honors Office has determined that some courses numbered above 100 are essentially developmental and can not receive honors credit. In addition, all courses below 100 are ineligible for Honors credit. The agreed upon list of the ineligible courses numbered above 100 is as follows: OIS 109-111 - Keyboarding. Eng. 108 - Reading and Learning Strategies, and Math 111 - Intermediate Algebra.