Departmental Honors
Honors students in their junior or senior year will engage in an
in-depth study of a particular topic in their field of interest.
These "Departmental Honors" projects can assume a wide
variety of forms, and individual students have a great degree of
latitude in designing them. One possibility is to engage in research
with a faculty member, an opportunity generally not accessible to
an undergraduate at a large university.
Randolph-Macon College awards fellowships for
summer research to its students, and several Honors students
have been awarded such fellowships and used them to complete their
departmental honors. Research completed by students in the Honors
Program have included projects in Biology, Chemistry, Classics,
Computer Science, Environmental Studies, Mathematics, Physics, and
Psychology. Other possibilities for the completion of departmental
honors include one-on-one courses (one student, one professor) at
the 400 level and "honors contracts" in which the student
signs a contract to do some additional in-depth work in the context
of a regular course. It is even possible in some instances to use
an internship to complete departmental honors.
Students have presented results of their research projects at state
and national meetings of various professional societies, such as
the American Psychological Association and the Mathematical Association
of America, and some of their results have been published. The forms
needed for Departmental Honors may be downloaded here.
Completion of the Honors program requires successful completion
of two units (semesters) of Departmental Honors.
Contract Creation
Form (Word version)
Contract Creation
Form (pdf version)
Contract Completion
Form (Word version)
Contract Completion
Form (pdf version)
Departmental
Honors (487-488) or Senior Project (496-498) Forms (Word Version)
Departmental
Honors (487-488) or Senior Project (496-498) Forms (pdf Version)
SURF Completion
Form (Word version)
SURF Completion
Form (pdf version)