Honors Program

Faculty

Welcome to the NKU Honors Program web site. 

A Note: Especially for Capstone Mentors

Here are some relevant points and ground rules when working with an Honors student on their Capstone project:

  1. At the beginning of the first semester of mentoring, students must submit a proposal that should be dated and signed by both student and mentor.  It should offer a summary of the work to be done, including an approximate timetable of the work.  The student and mentor should also agree on the frequency and function of their meetings.  This work needs to be graded; we highly recommend that the grading criteria be outlined in the proposal.  We know that these are year-long projects so the work is not complete at the end of the first semester but we have found that students who apply to graduate and professional schools are inconvenienced if their first semester research project shows up as an “Incomplete” in their graduate applications/transcripts.  If it is absolutely necessary to award your student an “I”, of course we can do that, and change it when they complete the project in accordance with the registrar deadlines.
  2. Grades: for bookkeeping convenience the grades are recorded by us here at the Honors office if your student is signed up for HNR 491-01, -02 or -03.  If your student is signed up for an independent study in your department, then that grade must be entered by you.  In that case your student will also be enrolled in HNR 490, a 0-credit course which serves as a marker; Honors will need to record a P or F for that course.
  3. In the second semester, the grade is awarded after the student electronically submits a final copy of their project along with a 100-200 word abstract, and does a twenty minute presentation, typically at the Conference of Honors.
  4. Eqach semester we will send you a mid-term progress report (by email) to make sure everyone is on track.  
  5. Format of the project: we usually expect that the project conform to the requirements of the discipline, but this is something about which you should reach an agreement with your student. 
  6. If you are co-sponsoring a project, please select one mentor to be the contact for mid-term and grade reports.  Let Capstone Project Coordinator Jodi Ferner know which of you will be taking on this responsibility. 

Finally, if you have any questions please contact Jodi, the Capstone Coordinator.  She's here to help in any way she can and will be the point of contact for both you and your students through much of the process.  Again, many thanks for your support!