MCLA Honors
Elevate yourself. We'll support you.
The Honors Program supports MCLA’s liberal arts mission by creating a community of curious, engaged students who love learning across disciplines. Here, students pursue interdisciplinary work in small, collaborative settings that encourage deeper thinking and sustained inquiry
Elgibility & Requirements
Any MCLA student may apply at any time to join the Honors Program by meeting with the director. To remain in good standing and receive program benefits, students must maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2 and complete at least one honors course each academic year.
Completion of the Honors Program and graduation with All College Honors require at least six honors courses (18 credits, at least half at the 300 level or higher), with a grade of B or better in each course, and a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2.
Courses
The Honors Program is an academic pathway, similar to a minor, that can be pursued alongside any major—or, with careful advising, a double major. While courses are cross-listed with departments, each is designed as an honors experience: small, participatory, and interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on intensive reading and writing and on both individual and collaborative research.
Research & Scholarship
Commonwealth Scholar
Some honors students choose to graduate as Commonwealth Scholars in addition to completing All-College Honors. This option involves a yearlong process of researching and writing an interdisciplinary thesis, culminating in a public presentation and defense in the spring. Commonwealth Scholars also present at the Commonwealth Undergraduate Research Conference at UMass Amherst.
If you’re interested, begin exploring the option early in your junior year. By the end of that year, you must secure a faculty advisor and submit a prospectus outlining your research topic, methods, interdisciplinarity, bibliography and timeline. Proposals are due to the Honors directors by March 31 and are reviewed by the Honors Advisory Board in early April.
If your research involves human subjects, you must also submit an application to the Institutional Review Board before beginning senior-year research. IRB applications should be submitted by late April.
Commonwealth Scholar FAQs
Upon approval from the HAB, students and their faculty advisor should send an email to the registrar (copying the Honors Directors) stating:
“The student STUDENT NAME has been officially approved to enroll in HONR 550: Commonwealth Honors Thesis Research in SEMESTER-YEAR. I'm copying the co-directors of the Honors Program, NAME(s). NAME will be serving as the faculty sponsor for this Honors Thesis.”
Upon approval by the honors directors, the student will again enroll in HONS 550 for the Spring semester using the same process. HONS 550 is a 4-credit course, so a Commonwealth Scholar Research Thesis totals 8 credits.
Typically, students complete research (data collection, interviews, archival work, etc.) by the end of the Fall semester. They can also produce early drafts of writing. At the end of the Fall semester, Honors Directors ask the students to submit a report, signed and approved by their faculty advisors. The directors also meet with students to discuss progress and begin selecting a thesis committee for them. The committee typically includes the faculty advisor, one Honors Director, and a third reader (ideally an external reader, though exceptions can be made as long as the reader is from a different discipline than the students' own). The faculty advisor should help students find their third (external) reader.
The spring semester mostly involves finishing writing and preparing presentations (MassURC, URC, and thesis defense). A completed thesis should be submitted to the Honors Directors and the committee at least two weeks prior to the defense. The committee will all be present (Zoom/Teams option for external readers) in late April, when the thesis defense takes place. The thesis/presentation is graded on a pass/fail basis. The committee will decide via a vote at the end of the presentation in April.
Upon approval from the HAB, students and their faculty advisor should send an email to the registrar (copying the Honors Directors) stating: “The student STUDENT NAME has been officially approved to enroll in HONR 550: Commonwealth Honors Thesis Research in SEMESTER. I'm copying the co-directors of the Honors Program, NAME(s). NAME will be serving as the faculty sponsor for this Honors Thesis.”
Typically, students complete research (data collection, interviews, archival work, etc.) by the end of the Fall semester. They can accomplish early drafts of writing as well. At the end of the Fall semester, Honors Directors ask the students to submit a report, signed and approved by their faculty advisors. The directors also meet with students to discuss progress and to start the process of deciding on a thesis committee for them for Spring semester.
Upon approval by the honors directors, the student will re-enroll in HONS 550 for the Spring semester.
Spring semester mostly involves finishing writing and preparing presentations (MassURC, URC, and thesis defense).
The committee typically includes the faculty advisor, one honors director, and a third reader (ideally an external reader, though exceptions can be made as long as the reader is from a different discipline than the students' own). The faculty advisor should help students find their third (external) reader.
A completed thesis should be submitted to the Honors Directors and the committee at least two weeks prior to the defense.
The committee will all be present (Zoom/Teams option for external readers) in late April, when the thesis defense takes place.
The thesis/presentation is graded as pass/fail. The committee will decide via a vote at the end of the presentation in April.
HONS 550 is a 4-credit course, so a Commonwealth Scholar Research Thesis totals 8 credits.
HONORS CO-DIRECTORS
VICTORIA PAPA
Co-director and Associate Professor of English & Visual Culture
victoria.papa@mcla.edu
MOHAMAD JUNAID
Co-director and Associate Professor of Anthropology
mohamad.junaid@mcla.edu
Honors Student Council
Honors Advisory Board
FAQs
Part of the point of the program is to get students out of their comfort zones, doing intensive intellectual work in areas beyond their specialties (and bringing the investigative tools of those specialties to other subject-matters). Thus it is actually best to select most of your honors courses outside your major or division.