Honors Credit Learning Agreement
The Honors Credit Learning Agreement is designed to enhance undergraduate instruction by encouraging independent study for honors credit. Use of the learning agreement enables James Scholars to complete honors activities requirements without enrolling in a special honors course or section. James Scholars with a 3.5 (A=4.0) or higher cumulative grade point average are permitted to transform a "regular," i.e., non-honors course, into an "honors" course and to receive transcript notation for the effort. This is accomplished by a student-instructor agreement whereby the student agrees to complete a course-related activity of an extraordinary nature which may be in addition to or in lieu of regular course work. Successful completion of the agreement will be noted on the student's permanent record in the same manner as any officially identified honors course or section, with an "H" appearing beside the course entry. Unsuccessful attempts will not be noted. No honors credit will be given for agreements completed in courses taken on a credit/no credit grading basis.
Faculty and Student Guidelines for Honors Credit Learning Agreements
- The student is responsible for initiating discussion with the instructor with a view to undertaking extraordinary work and independent study in connection with regular courses. It is the student's responsibility to: develop the learning agreement, describing the work to be completed; submit the agreement to the instructor; and to deliver the completed HCLA form to 206 Engineering Hall.
- Approval and acceptance of learning agreements is at the discretion of the course instructor who may wish to limit the number of such agreements, accepting them on a first-come, first-served basis. Topics or areas of investigation may also be specified by the instructor.
- It is within the discretion of the instructor to determine whether work to be done under the learning agreement is in addition to regular work in the course or is to be substituted in part for regular work.
- A student should expect to devote approximately 15 hours of additional time to an honors project.
- The substance of learning agreement proposals will be assessed by the instructor according to professional standards. The work proposed should be extraordinary in the context of the course in which the student is enrolled. The scope of the project must be manageable within the confines of a single semester. It is recommended that the instructor and student meet several times to discuss student progress.
- The form or product of the independent study learning agreement is limited only by the creative imagination of the student, subject to professional standards of the discipline and to approval of the instructor. Possible Honors Credit Learning Agreement projects include:
- research papers
- essays
- research for preparation of new course units or segments
- special laboratory experiments
- stratified opinion surveys
- course or course unit evaluations
- preparation of films or photographic essays
- research for development of new courses and new teaching methods
At the end of the semester the instructor will indicate whether the work agreed to has been completed and whether honors credit is to be granted by marking the honors column of the grade roster as shown on Brief Instruction for Completing Grade Rosters. Honors credit will be granted if (1) the appropriate portion of the grade roster is marked, (2) the student is accorded a grade of A, B, Df, or Ex for the course, and (3) the student was eligible to receive and turn in an HCLA form. The instructor may decline to grant honors credit if the work has not been completed satisfactorily. The instructor is the sole judge of the grade earned and whether honors credit is to be granted; however, all grading decisions, including the question of granting honors credit, are subject to appeal under campus rules and regulations governing capricious grading.
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