Conversion Information for Supervising Faculty

Students in the Honors program have the opportunity to convert a particular class to Honors by working with their professors to enhance their learning experience. This close interaction with a professor on a project will allow students to learn from your experience, insight, and knowledge, and has the potential to inspire future research or coursework.

An Honors conversion project should consist of work that enriches and deepens the student's experience of the course material. However, because we recognize that professors and courses are unique, the exact content and format of the Honors conversion project are left up to you and the student to decide together. Previous projects have included research papers, film reviews, interviews, in-class PowerPoint presentations, or even case study analysis. We encourage you to look at examples of Honors conversion projects that have been completed by students in the past.

Students doing conversions often comment that the best part of their conversion was the ability to work closely with their professor on a project; so, you should expect to be in contact with your converting student(s) throughout the term. The level and regularity of contact is up to you and the student to decide together: for some it makes sense to have scheduled meetings outside of class while for others staying in regular e-mail contact with the occasional informal chat before class is sufficient. You may use any resources that our office can provide for this project, and we are happy to show you what is available. While we do not anticipate that this conversion will greatly add to your own work for this course we hope that you will put time into establishing a relationship with the student in order to enhance the student's learning from this conversion project. Many instructors have found the conversion process as gratifying for them as it is for the students; each semester we hear how much the instructors enjoyed their conversations with their converting students and how interesting the instructors found their topics and project results.

We expect that this project will extend throughout the term rather than be tacked on at the end of the semester, so we ask that the arrangements for the conversion project be finalized within the first three weeks of class. Please sign conversion form and have the student bring it to Honors office no later than Friday, October 1, 2010.

A note about counter-signatures: Typically, Honors conversions a) must be supervised by an LSA faculty member, and b) cannot be approved for courses for which there is already an Honors section or Honors equivalent course (for example, Intro Philosophy, because there is an Honors Intro Philosophy or Anthro 101 because there is an Honors discussion section). Students may request an exception be made to either of these policies by filling out the necessary parts of the conversion form. If a graduate student instructor will supervise the project, both the graduate student and the faculty member teaching the course must sign the form. If a student is requesting to convert a course that already has an Honors component, s/he must provide a statement as to why s/he is requesting this exception and the supervising instructor must endorse the statement with his/her signature. Approval of these exceptions is at the discretion of the Associate Director of the Honors Program.

At the end of the semester, you will receive an email from us to asking whether that the student completed the Honors conversion project. Once you confirm that it was completed, we will add "Honors" to the course on the students' transcript. While the conversion project is independent of the grade in the class, a student must earn a C or higher to earn Honors in the course.

We wish you and your student a rewarding conversion experience! Please contact us if you have any questions.