Student-Led Honours Seminar

Ideally, students are in their senior year when they follow this course. The criteria are:

• Minimally 60 EC 
• Methodology requirements completed
• Minimally three level 2 courses at the time of application for the course
• Minimally one complete track before the semester in which the course runs
• GPA is circa 3.3 or higher

The course does not count for any graduation requirement. It must be extra to all course requirements, meaning that students must complete 180ECs as well as this course on graduation. It cannot be taken as a fifth course. It is a Pass/Fail course.

Email from Honours Director

The Honours Director (HD) sends an email to all students around September 15^th, reminding students that they can design their own course and that the course proposal is due by October 1^st. There can be up to 3 parallel groups of INTHON32, each with a different topic and different supervisor. Each group should consist of around 6 students. HD asks UCSA to publish this on the Student facebook page. 

The email contains:

• the link to this page with application procedure, timeline, personal application form. On the same page they can also find the “overview of previous topics”;
• the link to the course description;
• the date of an informal info session with Q&A in the HD’s office around September 20^th;
• the date of a second info section with Q&A around September 27^th.

STEP 1

Proposal of Course Outline - (one for each INTHON32 group) must be written on a shared document and shared with the Honours director (ucu.honoursdirector@uu.nl) by October 1st. This shared document will be updated every time that a new version of it is due.

1. What is the topic and the provisional title of the student led honours course you and your group want to organize?
2. From the framework and methodology of what disciplines and in what way(s) are you going to research your selected topic? Make the interdisciplinary dimension evident: what kind of integration are you expecting? I.e. in what ways will insight from the different disciplines involved complement each other, rather than existing next to each other? Also: show that your topic –or the methodology you use to approach the topic– is not covered in any UCU course).
3. Include an approximate budget (think of attending a conference, a play, visiting a museum, a performance, thanking guest speakers with book token or wine; snack and drinks for the final symposium);
4. the names of the students who intend participate;
5. name of UCU professor(s) who are potential course supervisor(s)– the course supervisors will help the students revising the outline of the course, will meet them at least once a week, will grade the papers that belong to their discipline; check whether students keep their log (or contribute to the log) and write a narrative evaluation of each student by the end of the semester and send it both to the student and to the HD.
6. essay supervisors — when students plan to write a final paper that are outside the expertise of the course supervisor, students will ask teachers who have the relevant expertise to grade their final papers.
7. guest speakers;
8. grading criteria (check the course outline for the necessary elements).

Feedback HD

The Honours Director gives feedback. Most of the time students proposals are not clear about point 2. Students might need help in finding supervisors. The University College Utrecht supervisor(s) of each INTHON32 group receives 80 hours, up to a max of 3 groups. The supervisor(s) need to discuss this with their Cluster Chairs.

STEP 2A

Personal Application must be emailed to ucu.honoursdirector@uu.nl the Friday before the Fall break. Each student who wants to participate fills in an individual form, which requires them to reflect on how the course will benefit them, what contribution they can give to the group and what difficulties they see – on top of mentioning their GPA and giving other information on their academic progress. [This form can also be used after this deadline but before pre-registration deadline by students who have been ‘recruited’ by participants in an INTHON32 group already approved by the Honours Director]

STEP 2B  

Share again the link to the shared document with the revised outline with the honours director. The outline must take the feedback of the HD on the proposal into account and must include:

1. What is the topic and the definitive title of the student led honours course your group wants to organize?
2. From the framework and methodology of what disciplines and in what way(s) are you going to research your selected topic? Make the interdisciplinary dimension evident: what kind of integration are you expecting? I.e. in what ways will insight from the different disciplines involved complement each other, rather than existing next to each other? Also: show that your topic –or the methodology you use to approach the topic– is not covered in any UCU course).
3. Include an approximate budget (think of attending a conference, a play, visiting a museum, a performance, thanking guest speakers with a book token or wine; snack and drinks for the final symposium);
4. names of all students;
5. name of UCU professor(s) who have accepted to be course supervisor(s)– the course supervisors will help the students revising the outline of the course, will agree to meet them at least once a week, will grade the papers that belong to their discipline; check whether students keep their log (or contribute to the log) and write a narrative evaluation of each student by the end of the semester and send it both to the student and to the HD.
6. essay supervisors —when students plan to write a final paper that are outside the expertise of the course supervisor, students will ask teachers who have the relevant expertise to grade their final papers.
7. guest speakers;
8. grading criteria (check the https://cursusplanner.uu.nl/course/UCINTHON32 for the necessary elements).
9. course aim/learning goals - what are the learning goals of this course: what do you aim to achieve?

At this point your outline does NOT need to include: the timeline of lectures, meetings, final symposium; deadline for final paper, but it might include them.

Feedback and (conditional) approval of HD

Honours Director gives feedback and approves of course before course registration deadline (usually the third Thursday after the Fall break) and informs the tutors that they can register students. Without point 5 the course cannot be approved. Students might find difficult to elaborate on the course aims.

Final Course Outline: before Spring semester starts. 

Share again the link to the shared document with the revised outline with the honours director. Include the following:

1-9.

10. timeline of lectures and meetings,

11. date of final symposium (to be discussed with the Honours Director, who needs to be present and to grade the symposium)

12. deadlines for final paper and other assignments for which there is a deadline

13. How will the course log be kept? In what form, how often will it be updated?

Previous topics have included:

• “Music and resistance: thresholds of sound, touch, and identities” —Spring 2023, Supervisor: Sander van Maas. Student reflections
• "The Butterfly House. Art and Resistance” - Spring 2022, Supervisor: Gerard van der Ree”. Students' reflections and week-by-week overview.
• “Stories and Myths in Space and Time: Understanding the Human condition through ‘psychophilosophy’” - Spring 2021, Supervisor: Gaetano Fiorin. Students’ reflection.
• “Deconstructing Race and Racism: A Contextual and Intersectional Approach to Racial Constructs, Relations and their Effects” - Spring 2021, Supervisors: V.C. Wright, P.J.H. Mepschen. Students' reflections. 
• “Femina Universalis: An interdisciplinary approach to the sexualization of ‘the woman’” Spring 2021, Supervisor: Simon Cook. Students’ reflections.
• The Zoöp: An interdisciplinary approach to navigating a more-than-human world. - Spring 2021, Supervisor: Gerard van de Ree. Students’ reflections.
• The Constitution of the Subject: An Exploration through a Prism of Embodiment, Language, Play, and Time —Spring 2020. Supervisor: Gerard van der Ree. Student reflections.
• The Modern Balkans: History, Society, and Politics – Spring 2019, Supervisor: Jos van der Linden. Student reflections. The students studied the Balkans as a region and explored long-term history, social structures and transformations, sociological concepts, and political processes. They particularly focused on themes likenationalism, ethnic relations, transitional justice, and democratisation.
• Overcoming Narratives of Dichotomy – Spring 2019, Supervisor: Gerard van der Ree. Student reflections. The students used Buddhism and Queer theory to deconstruct the conceptual oppositions that make up so much of our everyday world: human/nature; man/woman; work/play, authentic/inauthentic, self/culture.
• Postcolonialism in Independent Africa. A critical approach to African studies of development, culture and politics. – Spring 2018, Supervisors: Dr. Rhoda Woets and Dr. Corey Wright. Student reflections.
• Enlightenment Revisited - Critical Approaches to Rationality, Individuality, and Liberty – Spring 2017, Supervisors: Dr. Gaetano Fiorin and Dr. Gerard van der Ree
• Narratives of the Everyday – Spring 2016. Supervisors: Dr. Gaetano Fiorin, Dr. Gerard van der Ree, Dr. Longina Jakubowska. Course website.
• Sister Republics: The Netherlands and America – Spring 2016. Supervisors: Prof. dr. James Kennedy, Dr. Rosemary Orr
• Order, Chaos, and Complexity – Spring 2015. Supervisors: Dr. Floris van der Burg, Dr. Anton van de Ven
• Engaging the Reader – Spring 2015, Supervisors: Dr. Birgit Kaiser, Prof. dr. Peter de Voogd
• Sustainable Society – Spring 2015, Supervisors Prof. dr. R.J.F.M. van der Vaart, Denise de Ridder, Sarah Denie
• The United States and its Place in the World after – Spring 2014, Supervisors: Dr. A.M. Van der Linden, Dr. K. Van der Wijngaart

And also:
Memory (with plasticity of the brain as a focus), Quantum Mechanics: the Physics and Philosophy crossover, Modern East Asia, Complex Network Dynamics, Critical Theory, Computational Linguistics, Consciousness and the Brain, the Financial Crisis, and the Role of History in Art.

Role of students

Students of this course take on the teachers’ role: they select readings, moderate discussions, organize excursions, invite guest speakers, peer review each other papers (before submitting them to the supervisors), give lectures and presentations, etc.

In organising these things, the students shape their own learning experience. They identify what is there to be learned, develop ways of teaching that to themselves, and make themselves publicly accountable to their learning. This will come with limits and failure; we expect the students to do something beyond their capabilities and training. It is therefore expected that the students carefully document their learning experiences, insights, and failures, as they go along, so that they can use them as a resource for their final reflection. 

Students who apply for this course should be prepared for a learning experience which will be:

• Boundary-crossing
  • Breaks boundaries between disciplines, methodologies, and fields of knowledge
  • Might break  boundaries between academia and ‘outside world’, between theory and practice
  • Might break boundaries between high-performance in a specific area and a broader, holistic being-in-the-world
• Self-directed & self-reflexive
  • Requires ownership: what is to be learned is identified, developed, and assessed primarily by the learner
  • Requires being attentive and responsive to failures, weaknesses, inabilities and frustration, rather than through perfect performance;
  • Requires self-reflexivity, with its two aspects
    • Performance: reflecting on what went well and bad, and how to do better
    • Learning: reflecting on how we learn, how we respond to learning, how we grow, and what that reveals about who we are in the world
• Transformative
  • Learning to deal with conflicting paradigms, methodologies and worldviews
  • Learning how to navigate one’s own ‘not-knowing’: how to go on when being stuck or lost

Students will be accountable for their learning outcomes in the following ways. They:

• Define the goals of their own learning
  • Connecting these goals with the Liberal Arts and Sciences goals of University College Utrecht
  • Formalising them in conversation with University College Utrecht representatives (supervisor, honours director)
• Set the pathway towards those goals
  • Define the steps of their learning trajectory themselves
  • Set the procedure for grading and assessment
  • Share, invite feedback, and make accountable to the institution (supervisor, honours director)
• Account for the changes they make along the way
  • Changes in the learning path are made in consultation with the supervisor
• Make their learnings publicly accountable to the institution
  • Harvesting takes place through a final relfection that is shared with the institution (honours director, heads of department, supervisor)
  • The harvesting includes an account of grading process and outcomes
• Share their learnings with the community 
  • Content-level outcomes of the learning are publicly disseminated
  • The broader learning experiences, outcomes of reflections, etc are shared with the community in several moments during the process

• Practical information

In September of the Fall preceding the course (which takes place only in the Spring semester) students may approach UCU lecturers to ask them to supervise their course.

The Supervisor is encouraged to let the students know whether they accept, by 1 October, after having spoken to their Cluster Chair. The University College Utrecht supervisor of each INTHON32 group receives 80 hours (up to a max of 3 groups). These hours are funded by the Honours budget.

In the Fall preceding the course, the course supervisors help the students revise the outline of the course.

In the Spring semester they meet the students at least once a week, grade the final papers that they are confident to grade (and help students find other colleagues to grade the remaining papers); help students keep their log; and by the end of the semester provide a narrative evaluation of each student, either orally or in writing. They will make sure that the HD receives the P/F grade for all students by the Spring grading deadline.

• The role and attitude of the supervisor 

The supervisor should act and participate in the discussions as if they were an experienced student: they need to teach by example, not by lecturing or correcting. Teaching by example means, for instance, showing how to contribute to a discussion that is not geared towards winning the argument but to increase understanding of all involved; and how to deal with selected readings, both the ones written from frameworks we are acquainted with and with which we are not. Teaching by example means to show openness, intellectual humility, and care when dealing with any object of inquiry.

Simultaneously, the supervisor helps the student ‘holding the learning space’, by keeping an eye on the group dynamics, the quality of the conversation, and the direction that the course takes. This will include helping students identifying bottlenecks and ‘elephants in the room’ without simply solving those for them. Instead, the supervisor acts much more as a coach, asking questions, and helping the students find their own way through things.

Supervising Student-led seminars has been a beautiful, but also challenging experience to me. It is a profound joy to work together with students who are intrinsically motivated to learn and create their own teaching environment. It is stunning to see how they are able to teach themselves in courses they themselves have never been taught in. And it is inspiring to see how deep, transformative, and wholesome their learning is in these seminars. 

For me, the challenge has been around the question: what do I do when they are teaching themselves? What is my role and place in that process? If teaching is, as German philosopher Martin Heidegger has it, ‘letting learn’, what do I then do to let them learn to be their own teacher? 

In the course of supervising several of these seminars, I have started to discover three main principles that guide me in this challenge: Hold the space. Hold the process. Hold the safety. 

Read the full testimonial. 

Get inspired about the Student-Led Honours Seminar through an interview with students Gideon Frey and TJ Querio or through the testimonials below.

"We ran a UCU honours course called "Engaging the Reader" for a semester. The course focused on literature that was provocative, in the broad sense of the word - texts that made the reader work to understand what was going on. Works discussed ranged from the ever-engaging magical realists (i.e. Marquez and Murakami) to the rebels of the Beat Generation (Kerouac, Burroughs) and finally the most recent body of literature so vaguely described as postmodern. Though the course came with a heavy workload, it was truly a unique experience. We learned a great deal from having to design a course from scratch, setting our own deadlines and test criteria and then running that same course from beginning to end. Above all, I believe our particular course theme taught us what interdisciplinarity really means: that scholars of physics, mathematics, philosophy, performing arts, museum studies and linguistics can have incredibly fruitful discussions by 'meeting in the middle' over a work of literature." -Tomas Buitendijk, class of 2015

"My personal experience with the honours course was a seminar in 2015 titled Order, Chaos, and Complexity. We looked at the interdisciplinary and extremely diverse field of complex systems science, which deals with systems that consist of many parts that all interact with each other in way or another, usually in a rather chaotic way. In fact, many systems studied by science today can be seen as complex systems, such as the economy, the brain, social circles, and the weather. But what exactly is a complex system? How is this different from other, reductionist scientific views? And how can we deal with the complexity of these systems and effectively and efficiently study them? These were some of the questions we tried to answer during the seminar. The first part of the seminar was entirely devoted to guest lectures by experts in the field, who all worked on complex systems, but on very diverse fields: mathematics, sociology, biology, and others. The chance to interact with established researchers was one aspect of the seminar that I valued immensely, along with gaining significant experience in contacting and inviting these people. The second part of the seminar was devoted to a personal project, supervised again by experienced academics from the field. In these projects, we were fully able to pursue our own topic of interest and to learn as much as we could from our supervisors. I wrote my project in cancer biology and complex systems, a field extremely relevant in diagnosing, observing, and treating cancer in these modern times. I think the skills and experiences gained from interacting with these experts, as well as knowledge and insights gained from the seminar itself will aid me tremendously in the future." -Tim Coorens, class of 2015