Honors Thesis Project
The Chancellor’s Honors Program graduation requirement includes a 3-credit hour Honors Thesis Project which is an independent, faculty-mentored academic undertaking that culminates and concludes the student's Chancellor’s Honors Program experience. As such, the Honors Thesis Project is a defining feature of the program and is supervised with the utmost seriousness. The required forms are located on the right.
Most CHP students conduct their Honors Thesis Project in their major discipline and under the direction of a UT faculty member in that same discipline. However, there is no formal limitation or constraint on the topic, method, style, or discipline of a Senior Project. Each is uniquely conceived, executed, and presented. Each is a singular intellectual and creative achievement, even when embedded within a team or capstone academic enterprise. The sole and essential disciplinary limitation is the fact of required faculty oversight, which assures academic credibility without unduly restraining creativity, innovation, and experimentation.
All students who anticipate undertaking a Honors Thesis Project should consult with their prospective faculty advisor. In most cases, the faculty member’s department will offer an equivalent to 499 Senior Honors Program (UH 499). For example, the Department of Geography offers 498 Honors: Senior Thesis (3 credit hours). Other students will be required by their major to participate in research sequence (as in the Department of History), and/or a capstone research or design course (as in College of Engineering majors), the completion of which will substitute for the Honors Thesis Project requirement. The same is true for students in specialized honors programs. Only one Honors Thesis Project is required to meet the graduation requirements of any UT honors program. For example, students in the College Scholars Program who are also members of the Chancellor’s Honors Program complete CHP’s Honors Thesis Project requirement with the completion of their required College Scholars Program project. For a list of the commonly accepted courses equivalent to UH 499, please click here.
Students should enroll in a Honors Thesis Project course (either UH 499 or one of its equivalents) the semester during which they will complete the project. Incompletes for UH 499 are only offered in situations of extenuating circumstance; an incomlete must be replaced by a letter grade at the end of the following semester.
Students must take care to have all Honors Thesis Project forms properly completed and submitted by relevant deadlines. Try as we do, we cannot closely monitor the progress of each individual who is undertaking a Honors Thesis Project. For this, we rely on the student’s self-monitoring and good efforts to keep their faculty advisor and the Chancellor’s Honors Program informed as to their progress. The student is not only principally responsible for their project’s completion, they should also strive to facilitate the work of their faculty advisor, including the submission of the proposal, progress, and completion forms.
Honors Thesis Projects are usually presented at the annual Exhibition of Undergraduate Research & Creative Achievement and/or at the annual statewide meeting of the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council and/or at regional, national and international meetings of academic and professional societies. Honors Thesis Projects are also displayed at the annual Chancellor’s Honors Program Graduation Brunch, and plans are being made to publish especially meritorious Honors Thesis Projects on-line in a CHP-edited journal.
Please contact Professor Kathryn Salzer, Associate Director, with any questions regarding the Honors Thesis Project.
