On Friday, April 17, 2015, CSIE|UM held its final regular session of the 2014-15 year, with a panel session on the question “What is Honors?”

Professor Brian Coppola, Dr. Heidi Henrickson, Dr. Ginger Shultz, and Dr. Amy Gottfried served as the panelists.

There are two kinds of Honors at U-M. For undergraduates in the College-level Honors Program, students satisfy course/GPA requirements for a certain number of Honors credits. With the major, all departments offer Honors versions of their degrees, which most often involves a GPA requirement and an undergraduate thesis.

Panelists agreed that the purpose of Honors was to broaden and deepen the students’ undergraduate experience in the discipline, in whatever way that made sense for the course, the instructor, and the department.

Different models for earning Honors credit exist, including a diverse array of options within the department. In Chemistry 210 & 215 (Organic), as well as Chemistry 130 (General) and Chemistry 260 (Introductory Physical), supplemental instruction with peer leaders has been used. Small groups (8-20) meet weekly with upper level undergraduate leaders, who are in turn under the supervision of the course instructor, on generative tasks that take on the character of work often seen in a studio course in the arts. Thanks to cooperation with the Honors Program, non-Honors College students can participate and earn the “Honors” designation on their transcripts, which allows the course to cater more toward the science content and attracting students to it for that reason.

Chemistry 215 (second term Organic) also has a specially designated and separate course section in which the students all participate in the supplemental instruction (called Structured Study Groups) as well as co-enroll in an integrated and dedicated lab course.

In Chemistry 260 (P-Chem survey) and Chemistry 302 (Inorganic), the method of Honors conversion has been used. If just a few students in the course would like Honors credit, instructors, at their discretion, can assign an additional project, usually some kind of literature-based writing, along with various milestones for drafts, etc., for the students to have their participation ‘converted’ to an Honors designation. This is only available for students in the Honors Program.