We will be offering the following Honors courses this fall:

ENGL1102 (03) M/W/F 1-1:50 Discourse and Composition (Instructor: Patricia Spradlin)

This course is an enhanced introduction to composition.  Students will gain familiarity with the conventions of usage, jargon, format and documentation in academic disciplines.  Students will complete assignments that are designed to channel their critical thinking skills as well as their writing abilities in interesting directions and at a slightly more elevated and complex level than the assignments they tackled in a regular 1102. In addition, students will complete and present a multi-genre essay, and they will read, discuss, and write about a novel selected by the instructor.

IDST2226 (01) M/W/F 10-10:50 Civilization and Literature 2 (Instructor: Janet Holtman)

This course will examine one of the most complex and contentious ideals in American cultural history: The American Dream.  The United States is often thought to be a classless society, built upon equality and liberty, a country in which hard work and good character lead to some measure of individual success and perhaps even make possible prosperity and upward social mobility.  While some people do seem to live some version of the dream, for most, the reality is more complicated, and possibilities for changing one's social status are more limited than such a pervasive hope would indicate.  This course will investigate what American writers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have said about the gaps between ideal and reality by examining closely several works of American literature that take up the subject and by contextualizing these works historically and culturally along the way. 

NTSC1100 (04) T/R 2:30-3:50 Scientific Reasoning and Methodology (Instructor: Kurt Shoemaker)

Science is a discipline that seems to be fraught with controversy.  Ideas that are politically inconvenient (like global warming) or that conflict with individuals' worldview (like biological evolution) are often dismissed as "just theories" - but how can they be "just theories" when theories are the end result of the scientific process of inquiry, and are among the most robust and powerful explanatory ideas humankind has ever devised?  We will examine the history and development of and the evidence for some of these controversial theories, and examine the role of controversy in the sciences - how controversy within the sciences leads to advancement and how controversy about science can impede progress.  Students will engage in activities which emphasize the dynamic, interactive nature of research in the natural sciences, and in the process will develop an understanding and appreciation of the scientific method, and will hone their scientific reasoning skills.