Program Components - Courses

DHC-Only Freshman Seminars (FRS): Open to 1st-and-2nd-Year DHC Students. These classes are mostly offered in Winter and Spring and may count for 1 Challenge Section or Course. Enrollment in DHC freshman seminars is limited to fifteen students.

Effective Fall 2007, in collaboration with the Teaching Resource Center (TRC), the DHC will be offering select 1- and 2-unit Freshman Seminars for DHC course credit. Taught by DHC faculty and only open to DHC students, these DHC Freshman Seminar courses focus on a current intellectual interest of the faculty member. Freshman Seminars emphasize student participation, providing intense intellectual exchange among students and between student and teacher. The small size (Enrollment is limited to 15) and nature of the seminar allows students to sharpen their critical reasoning. Students learn how to interact with faculty members and fellow students as intellectual colleagues. In short, the Freshman Seminar exposes the student to the "life of the mind" that characterizes much of what university work is about.

Honors Challenge Section: A section linked to a General Education course that is led by the professor teaching the course. These sections provide students with a more challenging encounter with the material in the course. Enrollment in honors challenge sections is limited to fifteen students.

Honors Course: A General Education Course open only to honors students. Enrollment is usually limited to twenty students.

Research Seminar: A collaborative, multi-disciplinary exploration of a complex, contemporary problem. Research seminars seek to model the modern work place by asking students to develop strategies addressing open-ended problems. Students work in teams and gain experience with group dynamics and collaborative decision- making. Each seminar presents its findings to the entire DHC community.

Research seminars are led by faculty members chosen for their commitment to undergraduate education, their willingness to create an active learning environment, and their ability to nurture higher-level reasoning skills. Seminars are offered only in the winter and spring quarters. Enrollment in each seminar is limited to twenty students.

Honors Contract: A one-unit student-designed program of independent study done in conjunction with an upper-division course. Each student develops an individual educational plan, which must be approved by the course instructor.

Third-year Honors Seminar: Team-based work on actual problems drawn from the public or private sector. Each team collaborates with an outside interested party. Students conduct research, analyze data and develop solutions. Final reports are presented to the outside party in oral and written form.

Fourth-year Honors Project: Year-long project in which students develop their own independent research projects and form teams based upon common interests and goals. The primary goal of the yearlong project is to research an issue within the surrounding community and, through careful analysis, develop a solution. At the end of the year students give a formal presentation of their projects and findings.