HONORS 135: Ideas in Honors is a one-credit minicourse intended to introduce first-year Honors students to topic-driven scholarship at the advanced undergraduate level. We recruit students who will be graduating in the next academic year and who are completing an honors degree to serve as undergraduate instructors for these courses.Senior Honors students create their own topics and develop their courses with the support of an Honors Program advisor, and with the supervision of the program director, who is the instructor of record for all Honors 135 sections. Please see past LSA Course Guide descriptions for examples of Honors 135 sections.
Eligibility: Upper-level Honors students (in good standing) who will be beginning their final year next fall are eligible to apply. You must be on campus, in Ann Arbor, during the fall term.
Compensation: This position carries a stipend award of $1990.
Honors 135 Proposal: The application will require you to suggest a potential Honors 135 topic and a rough syllabus outline of what you will teach. Most successful applicants propose to teach something related to their Honors thesis, but you can suggest any topic in which you have a reasonable academic background.
Timeline: The application opens annually on the third Monday in January and closes at noon the third Monday of February. Decisions will be returned by late March.
Application details: In addition to your basic contact information, the application will ask the following:
- Provide the name of your potential Honors 135 course. The name should reflect your chosen topic and will appear in the Course Guide, if your proposal is approved.
- Describe what you will teach and how you will engage first-year students. This will include attaching a rough draft of a potential syllabus using this syllabus template (you will be prompted to make a copy of the template before editing).
- Explain why you are interested in teaching first-year students.
- Provide the name of a reference. Ideally, this will be someone who has taught you in a relevant class. [We will reach out to the faculty member to request the reference. Do not send a reference in advance. We encourage you to discuss this reference with them in advance so that they are prepared and the request does not come to them as a surprise.]
Questions? Email Honors135@umich.edu
