Guidelines for Honors Courses

Guidelines for Honors Courses at NJIT


Guidelines for NJIT Honors Courses

To ensure that Honors courses continue to meet the highest standards, the Albert Dorman Honors College sets forth these Guidelines for Honors Courses.

These Guidelines have been endorsed by the Honors Student Council and by the University Undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee on April 30, 2007. They have been reviewed and approved by the The Faculty Senate Committee on Honors Education convened on December 10, 2020.

  • The hallmark of an Honors course is excellence in teaching and learning.
  • Honors courses should challenge and enlighten students to their maximum potential.
  • Honors courses should go beyond standard courses in both depth and breadth. While there are multiple ways to achieve these goals, these qualities should be pursued in one or more of the following ways:
    • Experiential learning:
      • Applications of knowledge and methods to real-life examples
      • Research projects and laboratory projects
      • Service-learning opportunities
      • Field work and data collection
      • Travel-study opportunities (domestic and international)
    • Increased use of primary source materials
    • Contextualizing the course material within the broader field, emphasizing its broader significance
    • Interdisciplinary perspectives
    • Interactive and participatory activities:
      • Independent efforts (individually or in small groups) that result in substantial papers or projects
      • Interactive methods such as discussion, debate, oral reports, and in-class problem-solving
      • Opportunities for students to determine the direction of the course
  • Honors courses should enhance their students’ skills in areas beyond the subject matter by:
    • Developing communication and critical thinking through in-depth class discussions, and written assignments stressing critical analysis;
    • Fostering leadership skills through group work and presentations;
    • Critically examining the methods through which knowledge is attained in the field.
  • Class size should be appropriate for the attainment of the above objectives.
  • In an Honors course, students should be given grades comparable to those they would receive for the same level of achievement in a non-Honors course. Honors credit is awarded only if a student earns at least a B in the course.