English Major with Departmental Honors

The English departmental honors major offers an opportunity for motivated and capable students to engage in more extensive interaction with faculty and to complete challenging individual research or creative writing projects that will further their personal and professional goals. These majors are supervised by the honors project coordinator. Individual projects are mentored by a faculty member whose expertise guides the students through the project.

Application to the Major: To be accepted in the program, students must have an overall GPA of 3.50 and a GPA in the major of 3.70 by the end of winter quarter of the junior  year. Interested students should apply to the department Honors Project Coordinator in spring quarter of the junior year or fall quarter of the senior year. A Change of Program form must be submitted to the Office of the Registrar.

Completion of the Major: During senior year, departmental honors students will complete 10 credits of independent study under the supervision of their faculty mentor. These 10 credits must be taken as ENGL 477  Departmental Honors Directed Reading and ENGL 479  Departmental Honors Thesis Supervision. From these courses during the senior year, students will complete an honors project consisting of a major research paper or long creative text. Students who commit themselves to the honors project must complete their project (with a grade of at least A-minus) one month prior to the end of their final quarter at Seattle University and  present the project orally in an appropriate context to be determined by the honors project coordinator. Students who complete departmental honors must earn 65 credits in English courses (10 more than the usual  major requirement and earn a cumulative and major/program grade point average of 3.50), which may include ENGL 480 , ENGL 481 , ENGL 482 , ENGL 483  and ENGL 487  in the core curriculum.