Department members will serve as the primary Advisor for no more than one Honors Thesis per year.
For the last Department meeting of the Spring semester, the Chair of the Department will assemble transcripts for all upcoming senior majors. During that last Department meeting, members of the Department will review transcripts and nominate individual students for Honors Thesis work. Department members must make a case for the students they nominate, in particular by noting any exceptional work on the part of those students, especially at the 300-level.
Once students are nominated for Honors Thesis work, the Chair will contact nominated students and ask them to decide by the end of the spring exam period whether or not they want to pursue an Honors Thesis. If a nominated student decides to pursue an Honors Thesis, she is expected to meet with her Thesis Advisor at least once before the end of the spring semester of her junior year to discuss strategies for using the summer to begin her research.
By September 30th, each Honors Thesis student will be expected to have narrowed down his or her topic sufficiently to be able to formulate a strategy for pursuing the Thesis.
By the end of the first semester of Honors Thesis work, Thesis students will be expected to turn in a bibliography of twenty to forty sources and, at the very least, a prospectus of seven to twelve pages laying out the general approach and many of the key arguments of the Thesis.
By the weekend before Spring Break, each Thesis student will be expected to have completed a first draft of the entire Honors Thesis.
By April 1st, each Honors Thesis student should have contacted outside faculty members about serving on his or her Thesis Committee; and by April 15th, each Thesis student is expected to have a date set for the defense.