A key part of the Honors curriculum is Honors 1000, the Freshman Seminar. All incoming freshman honors students are required to register for Honors 1000, which is a one credit hour pass/fail seminar that meets once a week. Taught by senior faculty members on a topic related to their own research, and with a maximum of 15 students, these courses are designed to introduce students to the challenges and opportunities of work at a research university.
With nineteen different sections offered for fall semester 2012, Honors students could choose from a wide range of topics in many disciplines, and many faculty members had the opportunity to interact with small groups of bright students on issues related to their current research. Topics often read like a list of the most controversial issues of our day, ranging from the roots of the current economic crisis to the problems of health care reform, and from War, Politics and Religion to Drug Use and Abuse. This past semester, Dr. Sean Richey, a faculty member from Political Science and an expert on polling, taught a seminar on the presidential election of 2012. It’s difficult to get more current than that.