Honors Program in Psychology

Honors work in psychology is available as a three-semester honors sequence, beginning in the spring semester junior year, to students who have demonstrated high scholastic achievement and the ability to work as scholars. Students apply, in conjunction with a faculty sponsor, in the fall semester of their junior year by petitioning the department and providing a description of a proposed research project. Materials should be submitted to Professor James Cordova (jcordova@clarku.edu), who will then notify students whether the department's faculty committee has accepted them for admission. The honors sequence is a series of three capstone-style courses designed to provide honors students with more in-depth knowledge of the history of psychology, philosophy of science, psychological theory, and psychological methods of inquiry. Students in the program carry out an independent research project under the sponsorship of one or more faculty members. This research provides the basis for a thesis that, upon completion, is presented and defended by the student before an examining committee and the student's project advisor. The project is presented at a departmental honors research fair. Level of honors (Highest Honors, High Honors, or Honors in Psychology) is determined by the full department on the basis of recommendations from its examining committees. The honors major should be especially, but not uniquely, attractive to students interested in pursuing graduate study in psychology or another related discipline such as medicine, teaching, and law.

This represents a change in the honors program. Other noteworthy points:

• Beginning in 2008-09, junior honors will be required to participate in senior honors. This means that anyone who wants to do an honors project in the academic year 2008-09 will have to be registered for Junior honors in the spring semester of 2008.
• In 2007-08, all honors students will be grandfathered in under the current system in which senior honors is independent of junior honors. In other words, 2007-08 will be the last year that it will still be possible to take senior honors without having taken junior honors.
• Students interested in Study Abroad will be encouraged to spend the fall semester of junior year abroad and then participate in junior honors in the spring semester of junior year.