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Honors Program
The purpose of the Hood College Honors Program is to create an atmosphere in which students are encouraged to engage in personal and intellectual development in the context of community membership and service. Our award-winning program offers exceptional undergraduate students four years of exciting coursework and co-curricular activities. The program, which is interdisciplinary in approach, is designed to cultivate students' ability to examine our complex world, and to create a community for serious students. The classes are small, discussion-oriented and enhanced by guest speakers and field trips.
Every year, the Honors program also offers its students an array of extracurricular and social activities. This year's events include a fall trip to the Blackfriars Playhouse in Virginia for a backstage tour of the theatre and a performance of Macbeth; a visit to Washington to see a performance at the Kennedy Center; a spring trip to New York City to see the sights and a Broadway play; and guest speakers on topics ranging from the role of women in international politics to sexuality in Renaissance art. In the planning stages is a hike on the Billy Goat trail, which runs along the cliffs at the edge of the Potomac River, and a visit to the Washington Zoo.
The Honors Program is housed in the Marx Center, a beautiful building conveniently located close to the residence halls. Featuring a lounge with audiovisual equipment, a student computer workroom, a kitchen and sunny patio, the Honors Suite serves as a gathering place, study space and "home away from home" for Honors Program students, all of whom have round-the-clock access to its facilities.
Freshman Year:
In your first year, you'll take two engaging Honors Colloquia (seminars), each with a different theme, and each of which is further enhanced by co-curricular offerings and opportunities such as all-college lectures and field trips.The Fall Colloquium is designed to help students acquire skills in critical thinking, writing, and speaking by examining significant works from various periods of history and various cultures. Through discussion and writing about these works, students will examine their assumptions about themselves and the world. The theme has an ethical dimension—past themes have included "Social Justice," "The Other" and "Evil"—and the course focuses on the humanities and/or social sciences.
The Spring Colloquium continues the Fall objectives but focuses on a theme that explores the sciences and their relation to society, for example, "Science, Knowledge, and Art" or "Science and Gender." Readings are drawn from the humanities, social sciences and sciences in order to provide a variety of perspectives.
Sophomore Year:
In the Fall semester, Honors sophomores take a third Colloquium course, in which they investigate different ways of looking at the world and of thinking about and interacting with the world, including their own roles in society and within academic disciplines. Readings are drawn from a wide range of theoretical, narrative, poetic and historical works.In the Spring semester, Honors sophomores conclude their required Honors coursework with the Honors Practicum, in which they design an individual or small-group learning project within the context of community service that is a critical hallmark of an educated person. The project includes an experiential and a research component, both of which are tailored to the student's personal and academic interests. Students work with faculty advisors of their choice.
Junior and Senior Years:
Students in the Program complete their required Honors credits by selecting from among Honors electives, study abroad, Departmental Honors Paper, an Honors thesis and the Honors Seminar.Honors electives fulfill specific requirements in the civilization section of Hood's Core Curriculum. You may also elect to study abroad. For example, Hood students have studied in Strasbourg, France; Seville, Spain; London, England; Berlin, Germany; Guadalajara, Mexico; Megiddo, Israel; and Seoul, Korea. Study abroad counts as one honors elective.
A highpoint of the Honors Program is the senior seminar. You and your classmates will choose a topic of social, political, historical or international significance that you'll investigate together. Previous seminar topics include Revolutions; A Century of Change; The 1980s; Millennial Mayhem and Apocalyptic Anxiety; and Minority Issues in the New Century. You'll also choose the faculty member who teaches your seminar.