The Honors Program in the Department of Sociology is designed to facilitate significant independent research by our department's finest students. Not every student is eligible to complete the Honors Program, and those selected among eligible students are expected to sustain rigorous engagement with their project throughout their senior year. 

We hope that the following guidelines will help you in deciding whether or not to pursue honors in sociology at Kenyon. We have a growing list of honors theses on file in the departmental office. We are proud of them and encourage you to look through them. Many of the authors have moved on to graduate study in sociology and related fields, and we expect many of you will do so as well.

Eligibility Criteria

  • Senior sociology major during the time of the honors project

  • An overall College GPA of at least 3.2

  • A major GPA of 3.5

The Honors Proposal 

Proposals are due to the faculty in sociology by the end of the first week in April of the junior year. 

In the spring of junior year, prospective honors students must reach out to a member of the faculty with whom they hope to work as their honors advisor. If the faculty member agrees, the department will review the proposal itself, along with the student's past classroom performance, motivation to pursue excellence, and demonstration of the organizational skills required for successful completion. Students interested in completing the honors program should meet with a faculty member no later than March of the junior year to discuss procedures and develop a proposal. 

Students who are planning to study abroad during their junior year and who expect to pursue honors based on independent study conducted in that context are strongly encouraged to discuss their plans with a relevant member of the faculty prior to their departure.

Proposals should be a maximum of three single spaced pages, and include the following:

  1. First and foremost, the proposal should clearly define the research question. 

  2. Second, it should describe the method of data collection, historical research, and/or theoretical examination. Ideally, an explicit theoretical orientation will guide your analysis. 

  3. Third, the proposal should include an initial bibliography demonstrating a literature adequate for dealing with the issue at hand. 

Take the proposal as seriously as you will your honors research. Write it carefully and succinctly. Proofread it closely; don't rely only on a computer spell-check.

The Honors Committee

The integrity of the program depends upon informed support and criticism. Accordingly, we expect that you will propose a topic that at least one member of the faculty is capable of professionally evaluating. We reserve the right to decline approval of an honors topic that no faculty member feels competent to advise. We teach in a wide range of areas here, and individuals may be willing to "stretch" a little for exceptional candidates.

In consultation with the project advisor, the student goes on to build an honors committee consisting of two members of the sociology faculty (including the advisor), one member from another department on campus, and one member from another institution of higher education (chosen by the advisor, offered a small honorarium, and invited to campus for the defense). 

It may be helpful for you to know that our faculty's areas of expertise are as follows:

  • Marci Cottingham: Emotions; health and healthcare; gender; culture; social psychology; qualitative methods; contemporary theory
  • Austin Johnson: Social institutions; lgbtq sociology; transgender studies; public and applied sociology; social movements; southeastern United States

  • Jennifer Johnson: Social movements; border studies; globalization; qualitative methods; law and Latin America

  • Marla Kohlman: Gender; race and ethnicity; stratification; family; sexuality; intersectional theory; law and justice

  • Chris Levesque: Law and society; immigration; demography; mixed methods

  • George McCarthy: Social theory; political economy; knowledge, science, ethics and social justice; social philosophy 

  • Nick Theis: Environmental sociology; rural sociology; sociology of science; research methods 

  • Celso Villegas: Culture, development, comparative and historical methods, social change, class formation, political regimes, Southeast Asia and Latin America

The Honors Project

Students approved for participation in the sociology Honors Program enroll in two semesters of "Senior Honors" (SOCY 497, 498) in their senior year. Students spend their senior year engaging with independent research and writing, while regularly meeting with their honors project advisor for feedback and guidance. While you receive course credit for your honors research, the work is typically of a much greater magnitude than other college classes. You would be well advised to look at the honors program as a "course overload" for your senior year. That said, if the work is more demanding, it can also be more rewarding in the end. Students who are unable to sustain rigorous engagement with their project throughout the Fall semester may be advised or may choose to forgo the honors program, and instead receive credit for an independent study, in place of SOCY 497, for their semester of work. Students who forgo honors will be expected to enroll in a traditional course during spring semester, in place of SOCY 498. 

A successful honors thesis is the result of effective organization and sustained effort on the part of the student and the committee. Consequently, the department encourages you to meet with your project advisor during the first week of your senior year and establish a schedule of goals and accompanying deadlines for their attainment. Some of you will have original materials collected in the field or data available for secondary analysis; others will be relying solely on library research. Obviously, then, there is no way that the department can construct a single schedule appropriate to every honors student's work. But, in general, we suggest the following:

  1. Schedule regular monthly (or bi-weekly) meetings with your advisor. The first meetings may well be of the "this is what I read,” “this is the progress I’m making in the field,” or "this is what is perplexing me" variety. You will find that simply meeting with your advisor and discussing your analysis will help you to unpack your ideas more easily. It can also keep you from becoming unknowingly derailed. Keep a thick skin in that regard. When a faculty member says "How in the world did you get that idea?" it is an opportunity for you to further refine your understanding before you ever put your fingers to the keyboard. In your initial meetings, you and your advisor should agree not only on what the deadlines will be, but also on what constitutes unacceptable work. Once you set your deadlines, meet them. Neither faculty nor students are well-served by a last minute submission of an unseen "completed" project. For that reason, some advisors have a stringent policy on missed deadlines (e.g., miss one deadline and you get a warning; miss two and you forfeit your honors).

  2. Whenever possible, your field and/or archival research or secondary analysis should be completed by the beginning of the spring semester. That will leave you the remainder of the year to write up your results in a timely manner, with time for feedback and revision before your defense.

  3. Copies of the completed thesis must be submitted to each member of the committee. In addition, you must present one copy each to the department and to the College library. The final draft of your thesis must conform to the format and style guidelines established by the library (see "Guidelines for Preparation of the Library Copy of Honors Theses," available at the Olin Library).

  4. Plan to have the thesis completed a full three weeks before the scheduled date of the defense. That will give all the members of the committee ample time to read the thesis as a whole and make helpful suggestions regarding your preparation for defense. Defenses are typically scheduled for the middle of April.

The Oral Defense of the Honors Project 

Having completed the written work, you are required to discuss your ideas and approach in an oral defense of the thesis. The oral defense is attended by all the members of your committee, including the outside examiner. This session typically lasts approximately ninety minutes. 

The defense begins with a brief statement (about ten minutes) from you about your honors work. Because everyone in attendance has read the thesis, there is no need to reiterate your argument at this point. Instead, students take this opportunity to make a personal statement about their motivations for the study and the significance honors work has had for their intellectual or personal growth, followed by a very brief abstract of the thesis.

The remainder of the defense is taken up with questions from the committee. You will be asked to defend particular points in the written work, justify the approach you took in the thesis as a whole, and consider implications of your work that extend beyond the thesis itself. At an appropriate point, the advisor will close the discussion. You will then be asked to leave the room briefly so that the committee can evaluate your thesis and defense and determine the outcome of your work. You will then be called back into the room to learn the results of the committee's deliberation.

The Evaluation of the Honors Project

Once the thesis is defended, the members of the honors committee convene to determine whether to award No Honors, Honors, High Honors or Highest Honors. In general, higher levels of honors are reserved for students who show particular sophistication and creativity in the development of the thesis and demonstrate unusually high command of the issues and material in the oral defense.

The following questions will be considered in deciding on the level of honors:

  • How original was the research question and how innovative was the argument?

  • How effectively was the thesis organized?

  • How well was the thesis written?

  • How thorough was the research?

  • How well did the student articulate orally the reasoning behind the project?

  • How well did the student withstand and respond to criticism?