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Honors Program
H-Option Courses
 
Description:

H-option courses provide students an opportunity to gain honors credit from regular courses. An H-Option section runs concurrently with a section of a regular course, and the honors student attends class with other students. The instructor and the honors student develop a special set of course requirements to fit the student’s abilities and interests; typically these include many of the regular requirements. To earn honors credit this way, a student must complete an H-Option contract form with the professor’s approval, and submit the form to the honors director, who will then arrange for honors credit if the project is completed. H-Option course sections may also be set up for internships, independent studies, fieldwork experience, undergraduate theses, or other research/creative projects.

Suggested Activities for H-option Courses:

Honors projects within a course are meant to enhance or broaden regular course work.  They may be in place of specific course activities, rather than simply in addition to those activities.  Typically the Honors student attends class and completes many assignments along with other students in the regular class.  They are, however, registered for a special, parallel H-option section.  Honors projects have included research papers, field work, visual or oral presentations, creative works, analytical library work, an annotated bibliography, a series of position papers, or any level of participation in a scientific project.  The IU Kokomo Honors Program compiles a list of regularly scheduled courses, whose professors have indicated in advance, that may be used to fulfill Honors requirements, assists the faculty and students in building an honors section and re-titling the course as an Honors-option course, or H-option for short.  A faculty member or academic division may decide certain courses are inappropriate for an H-option.

The faculty member and the student have to develop and agree to an H-option contract to do this.

Creating an H-Option Course:

Honors students enrolling in a regularly scheduled course should contact the instructor prior to or within the first week of classes to establish a basis for converting the course to an honors course. The student should notify the director of their interest.

When an agreement has been reached about honors work between the student and faculty, an H-option contract should be completed. The contract needs to be signed by the student and the instructor, then forwarded to the Honors Program Director by Wednesday of the 3rd week of regularly scheduled classes or by Wednesday of the 2nd week of ACCELerated Evening College or summer session classes.  Failure to meet these deadlines may preclude an H-option or require the student to pay course drop/add or other fees.

H-option contract forms can be requested in the Humanities Office (KO210), or you may download it as an Adobe® .pdf document. All links will open in separate windows.