Honors Program

HONORS IN ART HISTORY
Students may be nominated for honors in art history upon 1) demonstrating a distinguished record in the major, normally a grade point average of 3.5 or above in departmental and related courses, and 2) completing a senior honors thesis, prepared during two quarters of a 399 course taken with the thesis advisor, and presented to the departmental honors committee at the end of April in the senior year. For more information, see the honors description document below, and consult the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

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Complete Honors Guidelines, updated June 2009:

Thesis Requirement:

To be nominated for Honors in art history, a student must have written and submitted a senior thesis in the final quarter of the senior year. The deadline for the submission of the thesis is generally the third week of April; the precise date will be announced as early as possible, and no later than February. The deadline is firm; no extensions will be given. If a thesis is submitted after the deadline, the student will receive credit for the two independent study courses taken in conjunction with the thesis, but the student will not be eligible for honors.

Preparation:

A student who wishes to write a senior thesis must maintain a 3.5 GPA or above in required and related courses for the art history major, and he or she must secure a faculty advisor for the thesis project. At the end of the junior year, the Director of Undergraduate Studies will require students to submit 1) the topic of their proposed senior honors thesis, 2) the name of the faculty member who has agreed to advise the thesis, and 3) a calculation of grades in the major and related courses, and a transcript, as documentation of having achieved a 3.5 GPA or higher. (In some cases it may be possible to have a senior thesis project approved during the first week of classes of the fall quarter of senior year.)

Character of Thesis:

A senior thesis is expected to take the form of a major research paper and be around 25-30 pages long. Students are expected to engage in original research and to pursue important intellectual questions in their projects. The goal of the thesis is to make an original intervention into a field of knowledge; this intervention can involve research that uncovers new knowledge; new critical or theoretical interpretation; or, ideally, a combination of the two.

The finished thesis manuscript must be double-spaced and paginated, and submitted with:

• a title page with the author’s name, the title of the thesis, the date, the advisor’s name, and the phrase “A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Art History, Northwestern University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Art History”

• a brief abstract (no more than one page) preceding the main content

• full footnotes and bibliography, preferably following the format of The Chicago Manual of Style

• numbered color or black and white illustrations, labeled with full information, including author, title, dimensions, and location, where available or relevant

• a separate illustrations list complete with the information given in the labels

• in some instances, depending on length, a table of contents and appendices will also be necessary.

The Writing and Advising Process

Each student writing a senior thesis must take two 399s (independent study courses), with his or her advisor, one each in fall and winter quarters of senior year. (One of these 399 courses can count toward the required 300 level courses in the major; the second cannot.) In special cases the advisor may let a student substitute a senior seminar (390) for the first of the 399s. But this should only occur if the student plans to write a senior thesis on a topic that draws from the material covered in the senior seminar.

Starting in the fall of senior year, the thesis writer will meet regularly with his or her advisor to discuss progress on the project. The advisor will set guidelines for what the student needs to produce by when, such as: a coherent description or abstract of the project; an outline; a bibliography; and sections of the thesis itself (the first one preferably submitted by the end of fall quarter), culminating in a full draft delivered well in advance of the final deadline (preferably before Spring Break). When submitting sections of writing to the advisor, the student must keep in mind that the advisor will require adequate turn-around time to read and offer feedback.

The Senior Thesis Colloquium

In addition to the student’s relationship with the advisor, the department requires that thesis writers participate in the Senior Thesis Colloquium. This is not a course, but a series of required meetings of the thesis writers, convened by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. After an informal meeting at the beginning of fall quarter of the senior year, the Colloquium will hold approximately two substantive meetings during the fall quarter, and two during the winter/spring quarters. The purpose of these meetings is to bring thesis writers together into a community; to help students learn about the various forms a thesis can take; and to set deadlines for the submission of an abstract, outline, bibliography, and sections of writing (these deadlines may or may not correspond to those set by individual advisors, though usually they work together well). These submissions are peer-reviewed by the group. The Colloquium requires that students begin the actual writing process before the end of fall quarter.

Honors Nomination Process:

All senior theses are evaluated by an ad-hoc department faculty committee that decides which theses will be nominated for Weinberg College Honors. Senior theses are judged by the following criteria: 1) originality, 2) clarity of writing, organization and argumentation, 3) the scope and ambition of the research project. After the Departmental Honors Committee has completed its deliberations, it forwards its recommendations to the WCAS Honors Committee which makes the final decision regarding the award of honors.

In addition, one student each year may be awarded the Carson Webster Prize, a department award, for best thesis in Art History.

Department of Art History
Northwestern University
June 2009