Honors Contract information for faculty

Honors Contract information for faculty

The Honors Contract is designed to enable qualified students to engage in Honors work in courses that are not specifically designed as Honors courses. The student who registers for an Honors Contract in your class will be doing academic work beyond what is normally required of a student in your class in addition to the regular work.

All Honors Contract work should be completed by the end of the semester, and the student’s grade should be reported at the end of the semester when grades are due. Students MUST complete their Honors project once they have submitted their Honors Contract application to the Honors College office. The Registrar’s Office creates a special Honors section of the course for the student, and he/she cannot be moved back to the original section after being moved to the Honors section. If for any reason a student is unable to complete the project within the semester, he/she has only two options:

  • Completely withdraw from the course.
  • Ask the faculty member for an Incomplete, and finish the Honors project as soon as possible.

In addition, students must notify Lisa Ruch (lruch@iu.edu) in the Honors College if they are not going to complete the Honors project within the semester.

Definition and examples

The Honors Contract is an opportunity not provided by regular assignments during which course content is addressed in a deeper, broader, or creative manner. Simply increasing the quantity of course work does not constitute an Honors Contract.

Honors Contracts can include–but are not limited to–the following examples:

  • An independent project that employs the research methods taught in the course.
  • A paper whose references are the primary sources addressed in a textbook.
  • The production of teaching materials (e.g., test question or a PowerPoint presentation) for a course.
  • The presentation of course materials or the results of research to the class.
  • Designing and completing a special project, performance, or product.

Examples of Honors Contracts can be found on the Honors College Faculty & Staff Resource Site on Canvas. To be added to this Canvas page, please let us know at iuihc@iu.edu.