Honors Curriculum Information



**** New Honors Curriculum ****

The College is pleased to announce the Liberal Arts Honors Curriculum, which continues the very successful twenty-six year history of the Honors Program. Honors has received wide national recognition, and, more important than that the program jump-started the academic and professional careers of an entire generation of students. To say the least, the Honors Program has been a very special academic experience, and the new Liberal Arts Honors Curriculum offers current students the same opportunity to participate in an intense and intellectually challenging academic program, but now packaged as a two year degree granting curriculum. Before, students leaving the Honors Program would eventually receive degrees in Liberal Arts or General Studies. Now students completing the Honors Curriculum will receive degrees in Liberal Arts Honors.

The Liberal Arts Honors curriculum is designed especially for students hoping to immerse themselves in a rigorous intellectual community here at CCP, in preparation for a high-powered professional career later. If you enroll in Honors you can expect to significantly improve your academic performance at the four year college or university to which you transfer. Many Honors students, most really, later continue their studies in graduate or professional schools. That's what the two year curriculum is designed to accomplish.

If your academic profile suggests that you may be the sort of student who would especially benefit from the Liberal Arts Honors curriculum, please contact me or the other faculty listed below for a no-obligation interview. To apply to the Honors curriculum you must have achieved a 3.0 grade point average here at CCP, be a liberal arts major with an intention of transferring to a four year college or university, and switch from your current major to the Liberal Arts Honors Option (LAHO).

For the fall 2008 semester, students interested in enrolling in the Honors curriculum may register for a full time (five course-fifteen credit hours), during the day section, and for two sets of linked courses (English 101 and Psychology 101 or and English 101 and History 103). Students in the full time sections of Honors will be registered for five (fifteen credit hours) in courses such as History, Philosophy, Literature, Writing and special cross-disciplinary Seminars.

We know that students who come into Honors tell us that they are looking for a more consistently challenging intellectual experience than they've encountered elsewhere, and may have grown used to. Honors is supposed to change the way students think about themselves as students and future professionals. It works to develop academic styles and skills that will really make a difference when the competition toughens down the road. We know it works. The Honors program has been around for a long time and worked for a lot of students.

We don't pretend that Honors is for everyone. But since it may be for you we have included in this message a short list of frequently asked questions to help you make a preliminary judgment about its suitability for you. Of course, we can't cover all the bases quickly, so we invite you to come in and chat with us about these and any other concerns you may have.

If you think you might like to talk with someone about pursuing a major in Liberal Arts Honors, please call me or the other faculty listed below.


Ralph M. Faris, Coordinator
Honors Curriculum
Professor of Sociology
rfaris@ccp.edu
215 751-8283

Brian Seymour, Co-coordinator
Honors Curriculum
Professor of Art History
bseymour@ccp.edu
215 751-8312
Room M2-32G
Professor Gary Mullin at 215 751-8865 Room M3-23A (gmullin@ccp.edu)



Please see Frequently Asked Questions Below

Some Questions Which May Have Occurred To You


What is so special about Honors anyway?

1. The entire student group is talented and committed. The group is intentionally kept small since there is nothing quite like individual attention and mentoring.

2. The Professors are among the finest at CCP. Many of them have been recipients of the college's annual Linback Distinguished Teaching Award.

3. The activities, lectures, seminars, and writing groups, are very tightly focused to achieve the rapid academic growth the curriculum promises.

4. The Honors Program from which the Honors curriculum has emerged has achieved an outstanding record of success. Graduates have gone on to excel at universities and graduate schools throughout the country. They are in professions from law and medicine to business; from psychotherapy to advertising; from kindergarten teaching to teaching at universities.

Since I have to work fifteen or twenty hours each week, perhaps Honors will prove too much for me to handle.

Welcome to the club; you're not unique! Students in Honors students typically work about twenty to twenty-five hours. That may just be another way of noticing that CCP students are adults, with adult responsibilities. If you get yourself on a consistent schedule, you should not find Honors overwhelming. I've only recently returned to college, and as a nontraditional student I worry about being overwhelmed by the challenge of Honors, so perhaps I should continue to take regular courses at CCP.

Every student entering Honors worries about that. But look at it this way: Honors is not Harvard. It doesn't assume that students are already at the very top cut of students everywhere. What Honors assumes is that in the right sort of academic setting, and with the right sort of academic activities, students who have done well in regular courses or who have done well in high school can become extremely competitive with students from the best colleges. Although students have to be good when they come into Honors, they only have to be terrific when they leave.