Scholars Program

INFORMATION FOR FACULTY

The Scholars' Program at Caldwell College is the College's honors program. Students with at least a 3.3 GPA are invited to enroll in the program, and they must maintain that average to successfully complete the program. Students also must complete two scholars' courses (seminars) and an outcomes project to be designated as a scholar at gradation. Past experience has indicated that this Program has helped attract solid academic students and has been instrumental in retaining those students.

Faculty members interested in teaching within the program have created new courses (seminars). It is time consuming to propose new courses, however, scholars' seminars are offered on a rotating basis, so it is likely that any given class will be taught more than once. All the seminars offered in the Scholars' Program substitute for specific core classes. Therefore, the courses created must meet departmental core objectives. The courses are taught in seminar style, with students expected to use and discuss primary sources and an assortment of outside readings that supplement the professor's chosen text. It is intended that each of these courses offered in the honors program will include both scope and perspective that extend into other areas of study.

The scholars' chair would like to encourage new course proposals from our Caldwell College faculty. It is especially important that departments underrepresented in the past be present on the list of seminars. All new courses must be approved by the Curriculum Committee, and are presented to that committee as formal proposals. Course proposal should include: course objectives, tentative syllabus, and a list of academic references. Interested faculty members are encouraged to speak to the chair of the Scholars' Program for additional information. Faculty should review the course descriptions on the upcoming seminars page of the Scholars' Program's web site so as to be sure the new course being considered will complement the program in content.

In addition to the regular seminars, the Scholars' Program particularly needs freshman seminar classes that would appeal to and be available to a variety of freshmen from different majors. These freshmen seminars do not have prerequisites and are offered to incoming freshmen on scholarship every fall. Freshmen can use these honors courses as core substitutions and as one of the two scholars seminars needed to complete the Caldwell College Scholars' Program.

All faculty are encouraged to develop course curriculum to supplement our honors courses and are also asked to encourage students to apply to the Scholars' Program. Seminars are open to students in the Caldwell College Scholars' Program or to Caldwell students with at least a 3.0 GPA. The enrollment of a scholars' class is capped at 15.