Honors Syllabus Examples and FAQ - Engineering Honors Program - Purdue University

Listed below are examples of honors syllabi and addendums for approved honors contracts in previous College of Engineering courses.

Note: This list is not intended to be comprehensive, and faculty and students are encouraged to consider other creative approaches for honors contracting. Ultimately, a good honors contract should involve learning experiences that go above and beyond the standard learning objectives of the course being contracted, and it is understood that no single list can capture the wide range of novel activities that would be appropriate as a basis for an honors contract.

• Example No. 1 — This is a fairly traditional honors syllabus for an honors contract.
• Example No. 2 — This is for a team-based honors contract. As long as the syllabus identifies which student is doing what work, using one syllabus for each student's honors contract is perfectly acceptable. (In this example, student names were removed for privacy reasons.)
• Example No. 3 — This gives a lot of detail concerning the project to be completed. Extra details can be very helpful in getting an honors contract approved.
• Example No. 4 — This describes a contract that involves extended problem-solving. In general, requiring extra homework or exams is not considered appropriate for an honors contract. (See the FAQ question below.) This syllabus goes into some detail to explain how the objectives of this work extend the learning that would normally occur in the class.
• Example No. 5 — The work described in this is centered on analysis. While the deliverables may seem meager, the key idea is the work ties together and extends work done in class, which makes it suitable for an honors contract.
• Example No. 6 — The Honors College calls this an honors addendum. It is a description of an honors project that shows up in the regular syllabus for a course. Any student wishing to earn honors credit for the course must complete the indicated project; there would not be any individualized honors contracts.

How long should the honors syllabus be?

We recommend that the syllabus be around one page long — shorter tends to be skimpy on details, which makes it harder to approve the contract.

What information has to be included in the honors syllabus?

At a minimum, there needs to be a description of the work to be done for the honors contract (including descriptions of deliverables and due dates), plus a revised grading scheme for the course that incorporates the work being done for the contract into the course grade.

Does all of the information on the honors syllabus template have to be included?

The template does indicate what items are optional. However, it is still recommended that at least some of this optional information be provided in the syllabus, since often it is this information that makes it clear how the contract work goes above and beyond the regular requirements of the class. Also, having more details cuts down on the chance of a misunderstanding occurring between a student and the faculty instructor regarding expectations.

Why is a revised grading scheme necessary? Can't the honors designation just be removed from the course if the contract is not completed?

Honors contracted courses must have their grade mode changed at the beginning of the semester in order to be eligible to award honors credit. The Registrar's Office does not allow the grade mode of a course to be changed after the ninth week of the semester, so once the course is completed, there is no way to separate the honors work from the regular work done for the course. So the course grade needs to reflect both the honors and regular work done by the student.

How big of a change is needed for the revised grading scheme?

The Honors College leaves this decision up to the individual instructors. However, a good rule of thumb is that the honors coursework should contribute enough to the overall course grade such that failing to complete this work satisfactorily will result in a "noticeably" lower course grade. Typically, honors coursework contributes about 10% to the overall course grade, but other interpretations are possible.

Can extra homework (or an additional exam) be assigned to the student for their honors contract?

Honors contracts should not involve more work simply for the sake of making the class harder. The goal is to give students opportunities to learn about something relevant to the class that they would not have had the chance to learn in the absence of an honors contract. Requiring more homework or an extra exam does not meet this threshold unless it is clear that the extra work involves concepts that the other students are not expected to have seen.

Who can I talk to if I'm not sure about what to put into the honors syllabus?

If you have questions or concerns regarding acceptable items for an honors syllabus, please contact Timothy Whalen at whalen@purdue.edu.