Honors Courses

Course Description: These courses make up the John Martinson Honors College (JMHC) First-Year Experience. They are a set of specialty courses all honors students take during the first eight (8) weeks of their arrival at Purdue, and again in the first eight (8) weeks of the spring semester of their first year. FYE courses are designed to introduce students to college-level honors education. In the JMHC, this means preparing you with a “world-ready” education based in learning across difference and across different disciplines of knowledge. 

These courses use innovative pedagogical techniques and engaged learning practices to develop students’ critical thinking ability, interdisciplinary awareness, collaborative skills, and global awareness. The intentional course design is to build interdisciplinary community and to develop both independent and lateral learning practices.

This course is for new beginners to Purdue and the Honors College only.

3 sections 

This course meets the university's core requirement for Written Communication and Information Literacy. 

Section Instructor(s): 

J. Peter Moore, Honors College (SYNC ONLINE)

Deanna Tomasin McCormick, Honors College (SYNC ONLINE)

TBA (IN PERSON) 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: This course is a writing-intensive course in which students learn how to find, evaluate, and use credible information, how to express themselves well in a variety of different written genres, and how to write for different audiences.

2 sections

Section Instructor(s):  

Ashima Krishna, Honors College

Kristen Bellisario, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 2 

Course Description: This course is for new members of the Honors College community, who entered as continuing Purdue students or transferred to Purdue. It, being your first or one of your first courses in the Honors College, is designed to help you hone some of the fundamental learning outcomes of an honors education: interdisciplinary thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, research thinking, collaboration, and global awareness. You will also engage with the pillars of the Honors College and develop community within the Honors College. 

To accomplish these objectives, the course is simultaneously project-based and experiential. You will work in multi-disciplinary teams on applied research that emphasizes critical and multi-dimensional thinking about real-world problems. Through project-based learning, you will move your skills beyond identifying and understanding a problem to identifying and formulating solutions to that problem. The problem addressed in the course is local or global in scope and has social, economic, political, and/or environmental implications for our local and/or global community as well as begs a multi-disciplinary, innovative solution. 

2 sections: 16 weeks and 2nd 8 weeks 

This course meets asynchronously online. 

This course meets the university's core requirement for Human Behavioral and Social Sciences. 

Instructor(s): 

Deanna Tomasin McCormick, Honors College  

TBA  

Credit Hours: 2 

Course Description: “Exploring Place” is an examination of the cultural, social, and historical dynamics that influence communities and relationships of a site. Blending independent study and distance learning, in this experiential learning course, the student and the instructor work together to design an individualized, in-depth study of the place in which the student is located. This study will be attentive to the social, cultural, political, economic, and other forces that have shaped this place historically and today, while also focusing on community life and the relationships between residents, institutions, organizations, and others. Exploring Place offers students the opportunity to better understand the people and places around them, expand their worldviews, and increase their self-awareness as they engage within these spaces and understand their place in them. 

This course meets synchronously online. 

This course meets the university's core requirement for Human Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Instructor(s):  

Kristin Leaman, Libraries and School of Information Studies 

Credit Hours: 1 

Course Description: This course is available to students who have had an internship involving research, original design, or creative arts experience outside of coursework. In this course, students will bring the expertise they gained through their internship experience to our “research thinking community of practice” (that is, the students and instructors involved in the course) to explore how and why we apply our research thinking in different contexts. Students will strive to articulate the contributions of their internship experience to a broader field of knowledge, to translate their work for different audiences, and to reflect on the place of research in society.   

Students may combine their experience with this one-credit course in the fall to fulfill the scholarly project requirement. 

This course meets synchronously online.

Instructor(s):   

Nathan Swanson, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 2 
 
Course Description: In this course, students from Purdue University, Unisinos (Porto Alegre, Brazil), and Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco (Cuzco, Peru) will collaborate virtually in interdisciplinary teams to identify solutions to a global or trans-local challenge. At the start of the course, students from all three universities will meet together to learn about the topic from a range of disciplinary perspectives through guest lectures, assigned readings, and class discussions. Students will then be divided into interdisciplinary teams with members from all three universities and provided a prompt related to the theme. Teams will spend the remainder of the course focused on researching, developing, and packaging their solutions, which they will present publicly at the end of the term. In addition to increasing knowledge of the topic and improving teamwork skills, students in this course will advance in intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes through their international collaborative experience. Those completing this course will be given first priority to enroll in a subsidized study abroad program to Porto Alegre, Brazil, over Spring Break 2025 for 2 additional credits.

Instructor(s):  

TBA 

Credits Hours: 2 

Course Description: This course is intended for JMHC students who have been awarded the Lead Forward Fellowship Grant. The course provides Lead Forward Fellows a space to receive further instruction on social impact leadership, to share their experience with enacting social impact projects, and to support each other's success and learning. Depending on availability, students who are undertaking social impact projects but are not Lead Forward Fellows may also enroll in the course, per approval from the course instructor.  

This course meets asynchronously online. 

Instructor(s): TBA 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: This course acts as an asynchronous, curricular companion to students’ extracurricular leadership experience. Students will choose from a menu of course modules, allowing them to tailor the instruction they receive to their own leadership context. A portion of the course is designated as a leadership lab, which makes time devoted to the leadership role part of the course. Ultimately, the course will enhance students' performance in their leadership roles, promote deeper learning about leadership best practices, and help students cultivate a research-based leadership approach that is suited to their strengths and values.  

Instructor(s):  

Temi Adeoye, Honors College  

Credit Hours: 4 

Course Description: This course prepares students to help Lafayette youth with their homework and other learning assignments after school. Students will engage in critical class activities and discussions examining how culture supports the educational achievement of students of color. Students then visit an afterschool program where they will apply learned practices that integrate youths' interests, knowledge, and cultural experiences to support youth achievement. This course introduces students to the concepts of culture, class, and funds of knowledge with the opportunity to apply course content in service of local youth. No prior community or youth service experience is required. A background check will be required to confirm enrollment in this course. 

This course meets asynchronously online. 

Instructor(s):  

Kathryn Dilworth, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: This course will cover the history and motivation behind philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, the US Nonprofit Sector as well as the role of ethics in private action taken for the public good. Students will also learn the fundamentals of nonprofit leadership and fundraising.  

This course meets during Fall Break, October 5-8, 2024 

Instructor(s): 

Adam Watkins, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 1 

Course Description: Honors Leadership Retreat is for Honors students who want to take meaningful steps on the path to becoming an exceptional leader. The retreat consists of a highly interactive two-day, one-night stay at Camp Tecumseh over Fall Break. Here, students can explore principles of leadership excellence in a fun, supportive, low-stakes environment, while also making connections with other Honors leaders.  

*There is an additional fee for this course. Students can apply for need-based support.* 

This course meets during Fall Break, October 5-8, 2024 

Instructor(s):  

Muiris MacGiollabhui, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 1 

Course Description: This fall break course will bring students back to the nineteenth century in Chicago at a time of steam engines, robber-barons, and railway strikes. In Chicago, we will explore the lives of laborers, who were often migrants newly arrived in the United States, as they navigated the crushing economic inequality of the Gilded Age. We will explore the rise of labor unions and radical agitators who faced off with men like Rockefeller and Carnegie. The first day will be spent exploring the Driehaus Museum, where students will be tasked with thinking through the cultural and societal forces that brought on the Gilded Age. The second day will be spent in the Pullman Neighborhood investigating how laborers, suffocated by their working conditions, elected to strike, leading to the largest railway strike in US history. On the final day, we will explore the site of the Haymarket Affair, a bombing blamed on European anarchists, and the legal trials that followed. Students will be asked to think about their current historical moment and the commonalities between the present day and the Gilded Age.   

*There is an additional fee for this course. Students can apply for need-based support.* 

This course meets during Fall Break, October 5-8, 2024 

Instructor(s): 

J. Peter Moore, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 1 

Course Description: This four-day course offers students a hands-on introduction to the Honors College Print Bay, a fully-equipped center for the experiential study of letterpress printing. This vintage method, once the dominant form of industrial printing, has over the past several decades experienced a dramatic revival. At a time when the campus is overwhelmed with posters and flyers that all look the same—with the usual fonts, preset templates and stock images—letterpress introduces into the visual landscape an unmistakably warm and vibrant alternative. A synthesis of art and machine, letterpress is an analog process that allows the user to physically compose layouts, and work within a completely unique set of visual constraints. The resulting prints testify to the beauty of irregularity, the joy of a meditative tactile practice, and the benefits of collaboration. By the end of our course, students will receive instruction in the following skills: grid layout, typesetting, form lock-up, make-ready, press operation, plate etching, press maintenance, and all relevant safety precautions. While no previous experience is necessary, students with an interest visual design, mechanical technology and/or creative expression are encouraged to enroll. 

This course meets during Fall Break, October 5-8, 2024 

Instructor(s): 

Natasha Duncan, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 1 

Course Description: In this immersive course, students will participate in a simulation of an electoral campaign. Students will take on roles as candidates, campaign managers, fundraisers, field directors, pollsters, communications directors, and policy advisors to learn about electoral politics and think critically about the democratic process as represented in US elections. 

This course fulfills the university's core requirement for Science, Technology, and Society.   

Instructor(s): 

Katie Jarriel, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: In this STS section, "Exploring Spatial Data,” we examine what is our place in the world? We often mean this question metaphorically, but our literal place in the world – the spaces we inhabit, the built environment around us, and even the ways we think about space – influences us in profound ways. Insights from geospatial analysis are sometimes amazing: for example, the 1854 map of cholera outbreak made by Dr. John Snow in London led him to hypothesize that the disease spread through contaminated public water sources. However, spatial data can also be used to create inequalities within society, such as gerrymandering, redlining, and the colonial practice of partitioning cultural groups. In addition to learning about different approaches to space throughout history, students will also gain skills in geospatial analysis, geographic information systems (GIS), and agent-based modeling (ABM). Course days alternate between class discussion and technical assignments. For the final project, students will create and analyze a spatial dataset of their choosing. 

This course fulfills the university's core requirement for Science, Technology, and Society.  

Instructor(s): 

Lindsay Weinberg, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: This STS section "Surveillance and Society," introduces students to critical approaches to the study of surveillance in the United States. Students will consider historical, feminist, and critical race approaches to the study of surveillance, and examine the use of surveillance by government and commercial entities. Students will also study the ways that popular discourse, literature, film, and art critically engage with the practice of surveillance. Ultimately, students will be able to articulate how surveillance is enacted through various technologies in different spaces, under varying conditions, and in ways that enable regimes of capital accumulation and state control.  

This course meets the university's core requirement for Human Behavioral and Social Sciences. 

Instructor(s):  

Anish Vanaik, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: What is the way out of the climate crisis? This course will examine the different answers that are emerging to this question in popular conversations and in policy circles. Over sixteen weeks, we will analyze and understand the motivations and visions behind the solutions being proposed and the key forces that speak for and against them. In doing so, in this course, students will explore the entangled relations between humanity and the environment from multiple social contexts and time periods.  

This course meets the university's core requirement for Humanities. 

Instructor(s):  

Muiris MacGiollabhui, Honors College 

Credit Hours: 3 
 
Course Description: This course offers students an opportunity to focus on cultural landscapes/contexts, to learn how race and ethnicity permeate cultural texts, genres, and industries. Specifically, “Exile” introduces students to the role of banishment and exile in the making of the modern world. Seen as a less cruel form of punishment, and an alternative to public execution, governments around the world have used banishment and exile as a method to control their populations, creating diasporic communities as a result. Those forced into exile left embittered communities behind, scarred by the expulsion of their compatriots. In the communities that received them, they were met with skepticism, and at times, resistance. For the exiles themselves, the trauma of forced removal changed them in important ways. Some became radicalized as a result. Others yearned for home and put their hand to artistic pursuits to work through their grief. At other times, the bringing together of disaffected populations created networks of solidarity. Students will explore the psychological impacts of exile on those affected, how it has affected populations intergenerationally, the art that has blossomed in exiled communities, and the efforts to bring reconciliation and justice. Students will be exposed to exiled communities trans-historically, including the Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka, Irish exiles, the Jamaican Maroons, and the French Acadians. 

Instructor(s): 

Matthew Hannah, Libraries and School of Information Studies 

&  Jean-Pierre Hérubel, Libraries and School of Information Studies 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: Robert Hassan describes our contemporary social context as the "information society." We live in a world completely awash in information, from social media to algorithms to artificial intelligence. Such information is both profitable and problematic, and students will engage information challenges that impact them daily. Each week, we will discuss topics such as algorithmic literacy and bias, social media and identity, artificial intelligence and its discontents, mis/dis/mal/information, and the information economy. This course will be taught as an active‐learning, discussion‐based experience in which students will read common texts from both scholarly and popular sources to form the basis for a seminar‐style discussion of the underlying issues. Students will be encouraged to contribute their own disciplinary training to tackle important social and cultural problems within the information society. 

Instructor(s): 

Paulo Borges, Visiting Fulbright Scholar, Honors College & School of Construction Management Technology

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: We are going to need all kinds of thinkers to revolutionize the way we build houses so that they meet the needs of a 21st century world!  This course welcomes students from all majors interested in the future development of green and low-cost 3D-printed houses. We will explore how this industrialized method of construction may be used to create social housing with reduced cost and low environmental impact. The topic is relevant for communities with social inequality conditions, high housing deficits, and/or spiraling housing costs. The course covers the potential and challenges of the architectural design; state-of-the-art of 3D-printing of houses worldwide; employment of low-carbon and locally available materials; environmental impact of buildings; and public policies towards social housing, among others. Students will have the opportunity to hear from/meet with experts in 3D-printed houses from around the world and across campus. 

In completing all aspects of this course, students fulfill the requirements for an Honors College Scholarly Project. This course is only open to 3rd and 4th year students. 

Instructor(s): 

Dr. Jason Ware, Honors College  

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: Tokyo, Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Munich are the five most livable cities in the world when using metrics to measure crime, emergency services’ response time, transportation networks, cycling culture, food, drink, retail, and the number of independent bookshops. Many surveys exist to rank the world’s best cities, but wealth is one theme that emerges from among the varying indices and their respective results. The metrics—indeed, the participants responding to the metrics—represent populations of people with high levels of discretionary income. How might the metrics reflect different values if these indices include a different kind of participant, such as the urban poor? Our goal in this course is to investigate indicators of community well-being related to quality of life within urban poor communities. The underlying premise is that urban poor communities across the globe have negligible influence in determining the criteria for measuring a city’s livability. We’ll imagine that material realities of poverty manifest in issues of failing infrastructure and poor living conditions that compromise healthy living, and that social realities manifest in decreased educational attainment and outcomes. All of which suggests that urban poor communities may produce collectively a set of indicators that create a different picture of what it looks like to live within urban environments. We’ll plan to work with urban poor communities within the Greater Lafayette area to create and capture these indicators, the result of which will be a set of inclusive indicators for influencing policy and producing enhanced local future outcomes and community wellbeing. 

This course meets synchronously online 

In completing all aspects of this course, students fulfill the requirements for an Honors College Scholarly Project. This course is only open to 3rd and 4th year students. 

Instructor(s):  

Deanna Tomasin McCormick, Honors College  

Credit Hours: 2 

Course Description: This course establishes a new pathway for Honors completion through a critical reflection of a student’s engagement with the Undergraduate Research pillar of the college. This course empowers Honors College students to leverage their research, scholarly, and creative experiences in curricular as well as co- and extra-curricular experiences toward completing the scholarly project requirement. The major assignment of the course is a reflective portfolio, which will serve not only as a record and reflection of past experiences, but also will be an opportunity to undertake self-reflection about how your time as an Honors College student has shaped your research thinking and helped prepare you for life beyond the university.  

This course meets synchronously online.

In completing all aspects of this course, students fulfill the requirements for an Honors College Scholarly Project. This course is only open to 3rd and 4th year students. 

Instructor(s):  

Aparajita Jaiswal, CILMAR 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: CILMAR is the Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research at Purdue. CILMAR designs curriculum and assessments to measure the intercultural development competence of students on Purdue Campus. If you’ve taken a study abroad course or engaged in projects that involved cross-cultural understanding, odds are that you’ve benefitted from CILMAR’s work. Now, CILMAR needs your help. 

In this scholarly project course, students will work in teams on research projects with existing data sets collected by CILMAR.  Teams will be assessing the effectiveness of intercultural initiatives such as study abroad programs, classroom interventions, etc. The goal of each project will be to understand students’ perceptions of intercultural competence and measure their intercultural growth. Research teams will learn to navigate academic databases, critically evaluate sources, synthesize information and write succinct literature reviews. Beyond just research skills development, this course is dedicated to the practical application of research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods analysis of data sets, setting the stage for students to emerge as researchers and active participants in scholarly dialogues on intercultural competence. 

In completing all aspects of this course, students fulfill the requirements for an Honors College Scholarly Project. This course is only open to 3rd and 4th year students.  

Instructor(s):  

Stacey Connaughton, Communication 

& Jason Reinhardt, Industrial Engineering 

Credit Hours: 3 

Course Description: In Deterrence & Diplomacy, students will (1) build literacy and awareness of international security and strategic stability challenges facing the US, its allies, and its partners; (2) adopt a systems-thinking approach; (3) practice diploma􀆟c and strategic communication as well as perspective taking; (4) further international security research by engaging in novel thinking about current strategies through wargaming. In the end, students will generate strategy briefs based on their research and learning, as well as final presentations summarizing their insights. They will develop final papers for submission to the USSTRATCOM’s academic conference to present alongside students from the military academies and other higher education institutions in the United States.