Faculty Information
The Freedom to Discover
"The CRC Honors Program gave my students the freedom to discover. The course was challenging for me, but I found it energizing and exciting."
- Andrea Salmi, Biology Professor
An Intellectual Rapport
"In an honors seminar, students can interact in small groups and explore a topic in a more intense fashion. It allows a closer intellectual rapport between students and the instructor."
- Rosalie Amer, Librarian/Humanities Instructor
The Honors Sub-Committee invites faculty to develop new seminars for this unique program which affords instructors the opportunity to teach intimate seminars in specialized and advanced topics. The committee encourages new course proposals from faculty members with research interests outside or beyond the general curriculum, who wish to further investigate with students intriguing questions or new developments in their disciplines, or who seek to promote field study of pertinent theory and methodology.
The One-Unit Seminars. These seminars of generally four to six weeks are intensive courses in which students confront and attempt to resolve the questions that arise in a careful study of the movements, trends, controversies, and philosophies within the disciplines of the college. Students in the seminars are expected to research aspects of these issues and present their findings in papers for discussion. Field trips to attend cultural events or to do research are an integral part of the Honors Seminar experience.
The Three-Unit Seminars. These courses are modeled on the new freshman/sophomore seminars at UC and Stanford. They provide the same opportunities for CRC students: experience in a small, rigorous seminar that challenges them to do bold, original, and creative thinking, confront recent theory and primary research, and express themselves in classroom exchanges and critical papers. The seminars also provide special opportunities for the instructor to conduct deeper inquiry, grapple with new developments in the discipline, and spark new ideas in bright students. Faculty can find interesting examples of seminars offered by UC Berkeley at its Freshman Seminar site. Since the allocation for these seminars is nine units (or three seminars) per school year, the Honors Sub-Committee is especially encouraging proposals of an interdisciplinary nature.
Preparing an Honors Seminar. Instructors interested in teaching an Honors Seminar are invited to submit their proposals to the Honor Sub-committee on the standard curriculum forms. Each semester the Honors Sub-committee reviews the proposals for recommendation to the Curriculum Committee. For more information, contact Rick Boeck at 688-7309 or boeckr@crc.losrios.edu