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Departmental Honors Program
The same professors teaching your classes are also engaged
in research within their particular discipline, and the opportunities to
work in their labs can provide you with experiences that are not
necessarily available when completing your structured course work. Should
you choose to complete a degree with Departmental Honors, you can then
substitute the time and credit hours that you would spend completing
elective courses with research on your own project.
Requirements for admission to the Departmental Honors
Program include:
-
You must be declared as a Biological Sciences major.
-
You must complete a total of sixty semester hours of
coursework, the last thirty of which must be in residence.
-
You must have earned a cumulative GPA of at least 3.50/4.00.
This GPA must be maintained for the remainder of your time at Eastern.
-
Students dismissed from the program because
their cumulative grade point average has fallen below 3.50 may petition
for readmission. Students must raise their cumulative grade point
average to 3.50 by the end of the term immediately following dismissal
for reinstatement.
You can complete a Departmental Honors degree in any one of
the tracks or emphases within the Biological Sciences major and even as a
double major in another field. Please consult the
list of faculty in the department whose research interests might be
aligned with your own interests.
Requirements for completion of a Departmental Honors degree
include:
-
In consultation with your faculty mentor, you must write
a brief proposal describing the research that you intend to complete.
This document should be submitted to the
Departmental Honors Coordinator.
-
You must complete at least 12 semester hours with some
combination of the following courses:
-- Bio4444 – Honors Independent Study (1 to
6 semester
hours).
-- Bio4555 – Honors Research (1 to
6 semester hours).
-- Bio4644 – Honors Thesis (3 semester hours; to be
completed during the last
semester of your degree program).
--
Bio4666 – Honors Seminar (1 to 2 semester hour).
You are eligible for all of the same benefits that are
available to Honors students outside of the major once you have been
accepted into the Departmental Honors Program. These include:
-
An earlier registration period, so you can sign up for
the courses that you want before they reach their enrollment quotas.
-
Eligibility for both scholarship and grant awards.
-
Eligibility for university housing that is set aside for
Honors students.
Additional information about Departmental Honors Programs
is available at
Eastern's
Departmental Honors Program web site. If you have questions
about completing Departmental Honors within the Department of Biological
Sciences, please contact the Departmental
Honors Coordinator.
If you are interested in applying, please fill out an
application form (PDF) and consult with a faculty mentor before
submitting your application to the
Departmental Honors Coordinator, Prof.
Stephen Mullin (Life Science Building Annex 1114, 217-581-6234) | 
