Departmental Honors

Departmental Honors, which is a degree distinction, is awarded in accordance with the following procedure:

Professors nominate students who have submitted exceptional seminar papers (papers written for 4000-level courses). Should a person wish to accept nomination, he or she will then revise that paper, if it needs revision, along lines suggested by the professor usually over the course of a semester long independent study.

Submission to the committee: Whether revised or not, that paper will be submitted to a committee of three professors from the department who will examine the candidate. This examination, which will be an oral interview and which will last about one hour, will not only probe the paper's thesis and the methods of investigation and analysis employed by the student, it will also ask the student to place his/her work into a larger historiographical context.

Upon successful examination: Upon successful examination, the student will be awarded Departmental Honors provided that he/she is a History major and has a graduating average in all History courses of at least 3.3.

College Honors

Students who have a GPA of at least 3.4 are eligible to apply for permission to undertake an honors research project during their senior year. Additional information is available in the Dean's office.

Goran Prize in American History

The History Department annually recognizes an outstanding junior or senior major working in the field of American history. Candidates for the prize are nominated by faculty on the basis of academic achievement and all nominees are required to submit a major piece of academic writing in being considered for the award. Intended to honor the academic achievements of a student who hopes to pursue a career in history or the public humanities, the prize was established in 2014 by UVM alumnus Arnie Goran '54 and his wife Mariel.

URECA! (Undergraduate Research Endeavors Competitive Awards)

The purpose of this program is to provide prestigious, competitive awards to outstanding undergraduates who wish to pursue a specific research project under the mentorship of a faculty member. In this way, undergraduates have the opportunity and resources to pursue independent research as well as work closely with active faculty members who are leading scholars in their fields.

Paul D. Evans Award

The History Department annually recognizes its outstanding graduating senior history major with the strongest academic record (as measured by overall grade point average and grade point average in History courses) with the Paul D. Evans Award for Excellence in History. Paul D. Evans had a distinguished career as a professor of history from the 1930s until his retirement in 1972. Consideration is also given to the level of difficulty of the courses taken within the major and preference accorded to those students doing a senor honors thesis in History.

UVM History Department Alpha Alpha Psi Chapter Requirements:

Undergrads: Seniors or Juniors with 15 or more UVM earned credit hours (5 classes) in History; 3.6 History GPA; 3.4 overall GPA

Graduate students: 15 or more UVM earned credit hours (5 classes) with 3.75 History GPA

Further details are available from our Phi Alpha Theta faculty advisor, Professor Sean Field. Additional information about the National Honor Society can be obtained on Phi Alpha Theta National website.