Honors
The history department offers an honors program for students who wish to research and write a thesis during their senior year. In addition to writing the thesis, honors students must maintain a 3.5 average in their history courses, take the Honors Proseminar (History 400) plus an additional 400-level seminar, preferably during their junior year, and complete 10 courses in history (for 3 or 4 credits each). During the second term of sophomore year or early in junior year, interested students should speak to a faculty member or faculty adviser about the honors program.
Before the beginning of senior year, the candidate presents in conversation or in writing a thesis proposal to an appropriate member of the faculty. The faculty member who approves the proposal ordinarily becomes the thesis supervisor. If for any reason it is necessary to change supervisors, this arrangement should be confirmed no later than the fourth week after the beginning of the candidate's senior year.
Honors candidates should register in History 401, Honors Research, with their supervisors. Any exceptions to this must be approved by the Honors Committee. History 401 is a 4-credit course that permits honors candidates to conduct research and to begin writing the honors essay. At the end of the first semester of the senior year, as part of the requirements for History 401, the student submits to the supervisor a ten-to-fifteen page overview, or, alternatively, a preliminary draft of some part of the thesis along with an outline of the whole and meets with a committee consisting of the student's supervisor and one other department member who will eventually serve as a reader of the thesis. That committee then recommends whether the student may proceed to enroll in History 402, Honors Thesis, during the final semester of the senior year. History 402 is a 4-credit course that permits honors candidates to complete the honors essay and to demonstrate their understanding of the ways in which the themes explored in the thesis fit into a larger historical context.
The completed thesis is evaluated by three readers, including the two faculty members who administered the preliminary oral interview in December.
The text of the honors essay may not exceed sixty pages except by permission of the chair of the honors committee and the student's supervisor. Two copies are due during the third or fourth week of April. In May each honors candidate is given an oral examination administered by the supervisor; examination focuses on the essay as well as the specific subfield of history in which the student has conducted research (e.g., Periclean Athens, seventeenth-century science, nineteenth-century America).
To qualify for a bachelor of arts degree with honors in history, a student must (1) sustain at least a 3.5 cumulative average in all history courses and (2) earn at least a cum laude grade on the honors essay and on the oral examination.
Note: History majors who wish both to study abroad (or in Cornell-in-Washington) and to enter the honors program should consult their advisors or the DUS as soon as possible after declaring a major. The department requires honors students to enroll in History 400 before writing a thesis in their senior year, so planning ahead is essential, especially if you intend to spend a full year abroad.