The Thomas Hunter Honors Program
- Admission
- Curriculum
- Certification
- Philosophy of the Program
ADMISSION
Students may apply for admission to the Program on their
own, or they may be asked to participate.
Students in BA programs who have accumulated between 24 and
60 non-remedial credits (at least 24 of which are Hunter credits),
with a 3.65 or better cumulative average are invited to be
interviewed for the Program. These interviews are conducted
in the early fall and spring by two members of the Council
on Honors.
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CURRICULUM
- Students in the Thomas Hunter Honors Program are released
from strict compliance with the provisions of the Distribution
Requirement, but the Council requires that all students
take or be exempt from expository writing. Students are
expected to maintain breadth in their programs, and to create
a significant pattern of courses, approved by a Council
advisor, in a division other than that of their primary
concentration. They must also have taken at least one course
in each of the three divisions -- Humanities and Arts, Social
Sciences, and Science and Mathematics -- before graduating.
In the Division of Science and Mathematics, it is required
that students take a course with a lab component. In addition,
all students are required to take three special interdisciplinary
honors colloquia to fulfill our major. Students must take
one colloquium in their first year in the Program and two
thereafter. While the specific content of these courses
varies from semester to semester, the underlying principles
remain the same
- There are two levels of honors colloquia:
- The 200-level colloquium is always taught by one professor,
usually a member of the Council on Honors, who attacks
a specific problem using materials and methodologies of
two or more disciplines. Students may take more than one
of these colloquia if they so desire, even if they are
juniors or seniors, but at least one should be taken in
their first year in the Program.
- The 300-level colloquium usually involves two professors
from two different areas, who focus on a given problem.
Occasionally, 300-level colloquia are taught by only one
professor, but in those cases there are invited guest
speakers from different areas. Students may also take
more than one of these colloquia if they so desire.
Some examples of recently offered honors colloquia are:
"Integrating the Irrational" - This 200-level
colloquium examines the ways in which a variety of human
intellectual systems attempt to integrate phenomena which
challenge their assumptions and violate their structures.
Examples are chosen from literature (Bulgakov's Master
and Margarita, Aeschylus' trilogy, Sophocles' Oedipus
Rex and Oedipus at Colonus); psychology (selected texts
of Freud and Jung); anthropology (texts by Evans-Pritchard
and Levi-Strauss); and painting (Bosch and the surrealists).
"The Broadway Musical" - A 200-level colloquium
which studies the musical from several vantage points:
music, words, theater, American history, and American
society. Students become familiar with a number of shows
by such creative artists as Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, Hart,
Hammerstein, Porter, Styne, Bernstein, Robbins, and Soundheim.
Social issues considered include race relations, sexism,
generation gaps, labor-management controversies, ethics
in entertainment, and family relationships.
"South Africa and Southern Africa after Apartheid"
- a 300-level colloquium that examines the events which
have shaped the history of South Africa and Southern Africa
and the forces that contributed to the dramatic transformation
from apartheid to democracy that have occurred in South
Africa over the last six years. The course culminates
in the Southern Africa Simulation Game. With faculty guidance,
students select and research team and individual roles
based on the important players in the South African situation.
The simulation game is conducted on a weekend at the end
of the semester. It has very carefully constructed rules
and controls and begins with an interesting scenario projected
some time into the near future.
"Sources of Twentieth Century Thought" - another
300-level colloquium. This course aims to uncover the
presence of the past by studying books and authors who
have determined not only what we believe to be true and
important, but the very terms and concepts with which
we think and speak. The reading list includes works or
parts of works by Machiavelli, Luther, Descartes, Voltaire,
Hume, Kant, Goethe, Novalis, Darwin, Marx, Dostoevsky,
and Freud.
The colloquia offer breadth of exposure, but even more
importantly, they demonstrate how knowledge gained from
a variety of disciplines can be related and integrated
in an effort to understand complex processes and phenomena.
All of these colloquia involve the writing of at least
one major paper in which the students should themselves
try to apply the methodology of the course to material
in an area of particular interest to them. In these colloquia,
a student is together with other students in the Program,
and a sense of belonging to something special develops.
Students newly admitted to the Program particularly appreciate
being together with other good students among whom they
find people with similar preoccupations and concerns.
Students continue in the Program throughout their academic
careers at Hunter. They continue to take colloquia in
their junior and/or senior years or register for HONS
491.51, Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies. Most of the
services and privileges of the Program are important to
the juniors and seniors in the Program who have decided
to continue their education on a graduate level. Even
those students who already have established close working
relationships with professors in their specific majors
make use of our advising and services.
- Area of Concentration or Major
All certified students in the Thomas Hunter Honors Program
have Special Honors Curriculum as one of their majors.
Students who wish to design an interdisciplinary major
for themselves without any other standard major may do
so in consultation with the appropriate Council adviser.
Most students in the Honors Program, however, elect to
fulfill the requirements for one or more specific departmental
majors as well as those of the Special Honors Curriculum
major. These students have to abide by departmental criteria
for each major/minor and may also be eligible for their
specific departmental honors.
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CERTIFICATION
Final certification into the Program, with the privilege
to have Special Honors Curriculum as a major, is usually made
after two full semesters (24 credits) in the Program (for
part-time students, certification will, of course, take longer).
Students who have maintained a cumulative index of 3.5 or
better and who have completed the necessary colloquium (one
200-level) with a grade of B or better, have completed or
been exempted from English 120, and have 18-24 credits of
200-and/or 300-level courses in a variety of disciplines are
considered for certification into the Program. When a student
has completed the above requirements, the Council reviews
his or her record, and if the record and the continuing academic
promise so warrant, the Council certifies the student as a
permanent member of the Program. Once that determination is
made, a transcript comment "Special Honors Curriculum"
is placed on the student's record by the Office of the Registrar.
Before this time, membership in the Program is considered
provisional. A student who has failed to maintain a cumulative
index of 3.5 at the time of certification is allowed one semester
in which to raise his or her cumulative grade point average.
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PHILOSOPHY OF THE PROGRAM
The basic task of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program is to
nurture and encourage the best and most intellectually curious
students who have chosen to attend Hunter. The Program gives
these students (who might otherwise feel thwarted, lost, or
unappreciated in their early years here) a focus and a sense
of belonging to a group about whom the College cares.
The Program provides these students with a chance to design
individualized curricula, and helps them find their way as
soon as possible to professors interested in working with
good undergraduates. The Program also helps them define and
achieve their academic goals with the least possible waste
of time and bureaucratic frustration.
The support provided by close advising is crucial. Students
in the Program know that they have almost immediate access
to an adviser when they need help with academic and bureaucratic
problems, or when they wish to discuss more general questions
and long-range goals. To make certain that all members of
the Program are following a coherent curriculum, each student
is required to see an adviser once a semester to discuss his
or her general progress, and, in addition, all students must
have their programs approved every semester.
You may also be interested to know that during past academic
years, half of the newly inducted members-in-course of Phi
Beta Kappa were members of the Honors Program, and most of
the graduating seniors in the Program who applied to graduate
schools were accepted in the disciplines and institutions
of their choice.
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