HSP Course Information
Honors addendums typically follow a rotation of honors sections. It is important that honors students make note of this rotation, since they need to know which honors addendums will be offered in the future. This will ensure that the student takes the parent courses concurrently with the addendums and fulfills the requirements for honors certification. Following is the current rotation of Honors addendums; students should always consult the schedule of classes:
Administration of Justice 100 HSP
This course explores the roots of our current justice system and the interaction of its various sub-systems (law enforcement/prosecution, judicial and corrections). Emphasized is the organizational structure and legal consideration relevant to each. Topics include the origin of law, theories of crime causation, an overview of criminal procedure and a discussion of sentencing philosophies and alternatives. Students are also introduced to the research methodology and sources of information/statistics relevant to the discipline.
Please contact Patrick Connolly for further information.
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Anthro 101 HPS
The honors section for Anthro 101, the Introduction to Biological Anthropology, will allow students to do some hands-on work relating to the course material. Additional readings will be assigned to complement the parent course, and a series of short projects will allow students to explore the concepts more independently and creatively. Students must be able to attend these weekly sessions in order to enroll. However, students may be enrolled in any parent course taught by any professor, as the honors material will be broadly applicable. There is a required book that students should purchase and bring to the first meeting.
Please contact Betsy Pain for further information.
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Art 260 HSP
Since the parent course, History of Modern Art 260, encompasses a broad expanse of rich history – the late 18th century to present, students receive more or less a brief introduction into the wide variety of art styles within this modern/post-modern period. The material presented is somewhat like serving an appetizer platter: a sliver of Impressionism, a dice of Cubism, a smattering of Abstract Expressionism, or a slice of Feminism. Offering an “honors” course allows for more in-depth exploration of some major themes of the periods. This is accomplished in particular through field trips so that students may actually see art firsthand. While viewing the art, the issue of context: why, how, and who it was made for will be discussed. A short paper reflecting on the field trip is required.
Please contact the Art Department for further information.
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English 201 HSP:
This semester, both the Honors Scholar Program (HSP) and Honors Berkeley (HB) will focus on the theme of transparency and how literature functions as such. We will first read and discuss Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin in order to elaborate on how this text illuminates and projects to a broad audience the realities of life in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Much like a photographic slide, the authors shed light on the otherwise unimaginable daily life of a simple people and the extreme poverty in which many Central Asians subsist. Without Mortenson’s transparency, much of the Western World would continue to see this region of the Middle East through a clouded lens of ignorance and misunderstanding.
Students will then have the opportunity to choose a novel that also functions as a transparency so that they may expand on how their particular text illuminates an otherwise often overlooked social issue such as race, class, gender, cultural stereotypes, etc. Collectively, we will consider which factors perpetuate a blurred, unfocused view of any particular issue. Why are only certain people able to clarify an issue? What makes the rest of us incapable, or unwilling, to adjust our focus? Why do many people settle for an unclear view of our world? What makes Mortenson, and ultimately your author of choice, credible and why?
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Film 101 HSP
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Geology 101 HSP
Students enrolled in the Geology HSP research and present a contemporary, relevant topic in geology. This semester’s theme of Geology HSP will be “Geology and Natural Disasters” and may include specific geologic events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunami's. Students will write an abstract based on their research, and produce a comprehensive Power Point presentation which is presented to the instructor and the other HSP students in a final meeting near the end of the semester. Students are encouraged to publish their abstract and present at the annual University of California Irvine honors transfers council meeting.
Please contact John Turbeville for further information.
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History 100 HSP
Please contact Jan Heinzmann for further information.
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Psychology 101 HSP
Please contact Judith Phillips, PhD. for further information.
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Sociology 101 HSP
Students meet for seminar discussions of a specific topic examined from a sociological perspective. Discussion questions are typically available to help students prepare, and each student is responsible for leading a group discussion. Seminar activities generally include reading articles and/or a book linked to the topic, viewing films, creating, completing, and presenting a project, and a final writing assignment. Examples of topics covered in past seminars include: a cultural comparison of secular Western values to Eastern religious values, teenage suburban suicide, and why children need super heroes, fantasy, and violent play.
Please contact Karen Baum for further information.
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Anthropology 102 HSP
The honors section for cultural anthropology allows students to delve more deeply into the three sections of the semester: anthropology as a science, cultural ecology, and a bio-cultural perspective on the human life cycle. For part one, honors students are asked to read and discuss one of the classic accounts of an anthropologist's experiences during her ethnographic fieldwork among the tip of Northern Africa. We discuss her unrealistic expectations about life in the field, and her tremendous growth as both a scientist and a person. In part two, honors students are asked to view various films that portray ethnographic material, and to discuss how each culture shows adaptations to its environment. The most demanding assignment of the honors section relates to the third portion of the semester. Each honors student is asked to identify and interview a person who grew up in a culture very different from "our own." Students learn about interview techniques and, through their interviews, paint a portrait of their subject's own cultural development. Simultaneously, each student is assigned a written ethnographic account of the subject's culture. Each honors student writes up his/her interview findings in a final major paper, which compares the interview material with the ethnographic account. Thus honors students become anthropologists themselves, collecting and analyzing data about how humans live their lives.
Please contact Lynne Miller for further information.
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Biology 202 HSP
Students take an active role in research projects. The course begins with an introduction to the process of biological research in an academic setting and a general overview of the two or three larger studies from which the students will be selecting mini-projects, each requiring approximately sixteen hours of (independent or supervised) lab or field work. Students' progress is reported and findings discussed at regular meetings. At the end of the semester, students summarize their findings to the class with oral presentations.
Please contact Jeff Ihara for further information.
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History 101 HSP
World History is a fascinating and complex topic both to study and to teach. Organizing and managing such a wealth of material covering the internal development of, and the interaction between, the major world civilizations is a constant challenge. In History 101 we can cover most world civilizations, and contemporary problems, in general, but don’t usually have time to explore any of them in detail.
This is why offering History 101 as an HSP class offers such an exciting challenge. There is so much information and so many complex topics from which you, as an HSP student, may choose to pursue in greater detail as a research topic. In History 101 we will be dealing with six major areas of civilization: East Asia (China and Japan), South Asia (India), West Asia (particularly Islam), Africa (emphasizing sub-Saharan Africa), the Americas, and Europe. But as an HSP student you will have time to go more deeply some aspects of interest in one or several of these areas. This should be a stimulating—and important— experience now as we begin to realize, as Thomas Friedman has noted that, indeed, “the world is flat!”
Please contact Jan Heinzmann for further information.
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Humanities 101 HSP
Frequency of seminar meetings: typically 8-12 times in the span of the semester
Theme for the Semester: “The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences” (Phi Theta Kappa Honors Topic for 2008-2010).
A Brief Preview of HSP Humn. 101:
I model this HSP class along the lines of an upper division (junior/senior year) college or university seminar that focuses primarily on a course project / paper rather than an in-depth, systematic treatment (discussion, analysis, testing) of the Humanities 101 course material. I've selected this approach partly because of the time restraints (16 hours as opposed to the 45 classroom hours that students would have in a three-credit-hour seminar at a four-year college or a university) and partly because I think this paradigm is one that honors students are likely to encounter after they transfer and one that encourages "team" participation in each student's research project. Typically this (HSP) class also includes an optional field trip which incorporates a visit to a museum or architectural site and a professional theatrical or musical performance.
To be sure, particulars from the parent course are not excluded from our discourse (and writing); and a solid knowledge of parent course material is vital for success. But by nudging students towards a particular artist or her work as it relates to the HSP theme or suggesting a turning point in a style or an art epoch, provided of course that the chosen topic holds some interest for the student, I believe we can combine a manageable focus for each student with gaining some in-depth insights and eliciting questions and suggestions from one's peers. Ideally, each participant, including the instructor, becomes both a teacher and a learner in the process of academic investigation and communication. Among skills that this approach seems to nurture are the abilities to balance frankness with courteousness and sensitivity, to discern cross-referential connections, and to participate constructively in a lively dialectic where what one student knows (and is able to appropriately interject in the discussion) can help another.
While we occasionally may have to split up into two groups, each student will present (orally) at least a substantial part of her or his paper to other seminar members and to the instructor and will turn in a topic proposal, an outline, at least one draft, and a polished, final version of the paper to the instructor. A few students may be invited to present a version of their paper to one of the sections of the parent Humanities 101.
Please contact Robert Archer (Letters Department 760 757-2121, ext. 6228) for further information.
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Music 115 HSP
Music 115 HSP focuses on the listening experience and concert reports. Students attend concerts and write critiques both academic and journalistic. Verbal presentations to the other students are expected.
HSP students will attend two or three on-campus weekend concerts. Meetings will be held either before or after the concerts (TBD) for review and discussion.
Please contact the Music Department for further information.
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Psychology / Sociology 104 HSP
Students enrolled in Behavioral Statistics HSP will gain a greater understanding of statistics and its application within the behavioral sciences. In addition to discussing statistical topics (e.g., significance testing, power, effect size, exploratory statistics, etc.) in more depth, we we be working with actual data and published journal articles. The honors course emphasizes hands on learning and critical thinking, as students evaluate research hypotheses, data, and statistical conclusions. Students will communicate their critical evaluations and analyses by writing reports and making oral presentations.
Please contact Lise Flocken for further information.
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