Completing, Defending, & Certifying the
College Honors Thesis
Once an application is approved, the Committee does not have any
further oversight regarding the content of the student's thesis. The only remaining
function of the Committee is to certify to the Dean of the College of Arts
and Sciences that the student's thesis has been successfully completed.
Once the proposal has been approved by the Committee, the student should secure
two additional people to serve as an advisory committee. The bulk of the work
on a College Honors thesis is carried out in consultation with the student's
advisor, although, members of the advisory committee may wish to be involved
as well.
College Honors students are expected to:
- Produce the thesis itself.
- Defend the thesis in an oral examination (a "defense")
before a three-person "thesis committee" comprised of the following
people secured by the student:
- The student's advisor (who must be tenured/tenure-track).
- A faculty mentor from outside the department in which the
thesis was completed, who will serve as chair of the committee. (The
chair conducts the defense.)
- Another faculty mentor, typically from the same department
as the student's advisor.
Specific steps in the completion of the thesis:
- Schedule a defense, which must
be held on or before the Friday of the last week of classes of the second semester
of thesis work:
- Talk to your three committee members and find a day, time,
and location they (and you) can all agree to.
- Ensure that your Thesis Advisor submits the Schedule
of the College Honors Thesis Defense form at least 2 weeks prior
to the scheduled defense.
- Submit one copy of the thesis to each
member of your thesis committee at least one week prior to the date of the
scheduled defense.
- Print out the Evaluation
of the College Honors Thesis Defense form for your thesis committee to complete at your defense.
- Attend your defense:
- At the defense, you will be asked to explain your project
and answer a series of questions about it.
- A defense will normally last between
1.5 and 2 hours.
- After the questioning ends, you will be excused while your
thesis committee decides whether the thesis and oral defense are of a
quality sufficient for earning College Honors, and assigns a grade for
the 6 credits of thesis work. Your thesis advisor should ensure that the grade for your thesis is applied to both semesters of College Honors work. Please contact the Dean's Office with any questions about this process.
- Your thesis committee may recommend that some corrections
be made to the written thesis. These corrections should generally be
completed within a week following the defense. You may be asked to submit
a copy of the corrected thesis to one or more members of your committee.
- At this point,
the chair of your thesis committee will complete the Evaluation
of the College Honors Thesis Defense form and return it to the Honors
Committee (by way of the Dean's Office at 438 College Street).
This form must be received in the Dean's Office by the last day of the
examination period in the second semester of the project. In addition,
you must submit one copy of the defended and corrected thesis to the
College Honors Committee (438 College Street) by that date. At that point, the Chair of the College Honors
Committee will certify that the thesis work has been completed successfully
and will instruct the Registrar to designate "Awarded College Honors" on the student's transcript.
The thesis will then be deposited in the University Archives.
Last modified September 16 2009 04:55 PM
