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Honors Courses are designed and delivered with the pillars of the Honors Program in mind: collaborative in practice and focus, developed with and through interdisciplinary perspectives, oriented toward public-facing audiences in some capacity (sometimes physically, sometimes virtually), and invested in cultivating the keenest of problem-solving skills, knowledge, and understandings. They do so by integrating principles of design-thinking and high-impact educational practices. Because the Honors Program experience can look very different for students with different backgrounds, courses of study, and post-undergraduate aspirations, we believe these types and varieties of courses offer crucial elements that provide all Honors students with the best possible shared experiences.
The Habits of Mind sequence begins with SC 125 (First-Year Seminar) or SC 325 (Transfer Seminar), which focuses on students’ transition into higher education in general, and Whitworth specifically. It continues into SC 126, an interdisciplinary one-credit seminar that allows students to examine how different areas of knowledge might come together to solve problems or explore ideas. This set of courses is designed to help students contemplate the breadth of opportunities that occur both inside and outside the classroom at Whitworth and begin to chart a path that allows them to take full advantage of that breadth.
In many ways, SC-126H offers the ideal entry point into Honors Program investments. The Honors versions of these courses take up multiple topics, but they add specific focus on introducing design-thinking principles and practices. Course offerings have ranged from the creation, marketing, and sale of “Table Top Games” taught by professors in Communication Studies and Business; a course titled “How to Tell Darn-Near Any Story,” taught by professors of Computer Science and Rhetoric/Composition; and “Vocation and Excellence,” a practicum taught by a Biology and Creative Writing, which employs design-thinking principles to life design.
The Honors Program takes the best of Whitworth’s innovative Shared Curriculum Program and doubles down on its investments in the liberal arts experience. The Honors Program requires students to take an Honors version of Shared Curriculum courses in each of the four Inquiry Groups (Belief, Culture, Expression, Science).
Sample courses include:
Belief: Core 150H
Culture: EL 115H
Expression: EL 110H, CO 126H
Science: BI 114H; MA 256H
Building on the foundation of SC 126H and Shared Curriculum Honors courses, students can take a variety of credit-earning coursework that helps them take the next step in the applied liberal arts.
Students discuss design thinking principles, interdisciplinary connections, and project management to empower them to develop proposal for their projects. By the end of this course, students should be able to articulate design thinking principles and apply them to real-world situations; explain how interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity benefit project work; craft a comprehensive project proposal including purpose, logistics, evaluation and resource needs
Honors students bring their projects to a successful close and prepare to present it to the public at the Honors Exhibition. The overall purpose of this course is to provide support and guidance as you complete your project. Launching an independent project is a challenge, but so is bringing one to a resolution. This course will not only offer a structured conclusion to your work, but also provide a cohort of colleagues experiencing the same process with whom you can collaborate and commiserate. By the end of this course, students should be able to produce a project outcome that reflects their proposed Honors project; plan and execute a presentation / exhibition of their project results that is appropriate to the project; and articulate the role of interdisciplinarity in their project process and outcome.
These two, interwoven, 1-credit courses serve as the capstone experiences of the Whitworth Honors Program.
We will be running these courses for the first time in 2022-2023, so check back for reports on Honors Projects and Exhibitions.
Want to see what Honors courses are offered in upcoming semesters? Click this link to browse all the course offerings for Jan Term and Spring Term 2023.
