Juniors who have maintained a 3.5 GPA in the major may consider writing a senior honor's thesis. These projects signify a serious engagement with independent scholarship; interested students should plan to devote a large proportion of their academic time to the project during their senior year.

Before the end of their junior year, honors candidates should contact their prospective thesis advisor and discuss the choice of an honors topic. The thesis proposal should be developed in the summer before the senior year and must be presented in written form to the department no later than Friday of the third week of classes in September. No proposal will be accepted after that date. The understanding is that the proposal needs to be in good enough shape for the advisor to circulate it to the rest of the department on the due date. The student must also identify two other faculty members to form the project's committee along with the advisor/sponsor. Students may choose to seek out, for inclusion on the three-person honors committee, one faculty member from another department whose area of research overlaps with the topic at hand.

For the academic year 2007-8, and perhaps for following years, some funding is available for archival research from a fund donated by alumn Jonathan Barry ('98). For details, please contact the department chair.

The finished thesis must abide by certain standards:

1. If the thesis has chapters, it must include a preface and a table of contents
2. The thesis must have full and professional citations, either as footnotes or endnotes; for the proper format, see the Chicago Manual of Style
3. Most theses are 50-75 pages, double-spaced, in length, but the final length and scope of the project is up to the discretion of the faculty sponsor, in consultation with the honors student.
4. Complete guidelines for the thesis can be found here
   

Faculty sponsors will ask for components of the thesis throughout the spring semester. At the end of the term, the candidate will present his or her work before the three-person committee, which will then decide if the project warrants honors.

Revised: RS, May 2008