Honors Program

Course Descriptions

Honors course sections are designated by an “HP” prefix or suffix.

While Honors provides academic enrichment for highly motivated students, it is not a formal major or minor. In order to graduate with Honors (in cursu honorum), and to have this distinction designated on their transcript and diploma, students must complete the Honors Program curriculum.

The Honors Program offers Honors-designated course sections, including many options which cover core course requirements. In these sections, students are offered an accelerated curriculum and an enriched classroom experience, with smaller class sizes, more in-depth classroom discussions, and more rigorous assignments. These courses also often include special learning experiences, such as service-learning, cultural outings, or study abroad.

Some of these Honors-designated core sections include:

Students from Professor Naatus's BA-151-HP Principles of Management, a service-learning course, worked as consultants to the Washington Park Association.

Students from Professor Naatus’s BA-155 Principles of Management, a service-learning course, worked as consultants to the Washington Park Association, helping with events, fundraising, social media, research, and grants.

BA-155-HP Principles of Marketing

This Honors Business course is also a service-learning course. Not only do students learn the business activities involved in the flow of goods and services from production to consumption, but they work together on projects for the community. Past projects include crafting strategic marketing plans for nonprofit organizations and creating video advertisements for Saint Peter’s University graduate programs. 

BI-183/185 General Biology I with an Honors lab section & BI-184/186 General Biology II with an Honors lab section

General Biology I (Bi-183-HP) focuses on biological principles, including the scientific method, biological chemistry concepts, characteristics of life, cells, reactions, Mendelian and Molecular Genetics. General Biology II (Bi-184-HP) focuses on the origin of life, evolution, population genetics, diversity of life, comparative plant and animal biology, and ecology. In Honors sections of these classes, students engage in more in-depth assignments that reinforce scientific problem-solving and quantitative information analysis by studying the biological sciences and the scientific method. Honors students must demonstrate critical thinking skills, formulate, critique, and analyze scientific arguments, read and write critically and coherently, and apply fundamental scientific principles and methods of inquiry through additional reports, presentations, and assignments.

EL-205-HP Survey of World Literature

This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to modern and contemporary literature of the developing world – specifically the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Latin America – with particular emphasis on situating texts in terms of their various cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts. The class includes critical readings of poems, short stories, essays, and novels, viewings of films and documentaries, and analysis of popular music.

AR-110-HP Art in the City

This Metropolitan Seminar surveys the history of Western visual art from the prehistoric to the contemporary era through unique travel experiences, incorporating visits to museums in NYC, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MET Cloisters, the Frick Collection, the Guggenheim, and more!

Students are pictured with Professor Adler outside The Museum of Broadway.

Students are pictured with Professor Adler outside The Museum of Broadway, where they got a special tour as part of AR-250 Live Musical Art, a Metropolitan Seminar course.

AR-250-HP Live Performance Art

In this Metropolitan seminar course, students are enlightened, enriched, entertained, and educated in the history of performance art by attending NYC theatre performances representative of Broadway musicals, ballet, concerts, dance, and opera. Past performances include the Broadway revival of Spamalot, Tony-award winning musicals Wicked and Come From Away, Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House, and a tour of The Museum of Broadway!

MA-212-HP Elementary Statistics & MA-222-HP Intermediate Statistics

These courses consider the laws of probability, standard probability functions, central limit theorem, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. In the Honors seminars, students also discuss the real-world applications and consequences of statistics, big data, and artificial intelligence and examine their effects on social justice, art, medicine, automobiles, and education by listening to podcasts, watching TED talks, and reading books, such as The Noise and the Signal by Nate Silver, Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil, and Hello World by Hannah Fry.

ML-251-HP Romance Language Synthesis

This 6-credit course offers students comparative, simultaneous study of French, Italian, and Spanish, providing intensive practice in pronunciation, understanding, speaking, reading, and writing in each language.