Guidelines for Honors Program Thesis Advisors

Let us begin by thanking you for your willingness to work with a student in the Honors Program as
he or she moves through the process of completing an Honors thesis. We understand that assisting a
student through this process involves a commitment on your part, for you will be sharing both your time
and your expertise. Over the past thirty years the involvement of our faculty in guiding Honors students
through this capstone experience has been a hallmark of the program. Our students’ success reflects the
dedication of involved faculty.

The Honors Thesis can be understood as a process. Oftentimes, when students first speak with
potential advisors, their ideas for the project will be quite broad, perhaps rather vague. In the HON 350
Beginning the Honors Thesis class most of them will take in the first semester of their junior year, we
encourage them not to focus narrowly too soon before they have begun reading and researching, begun
exploring what resources will be available to them. The first work thesis advisors often will do with their
students may be to help them find the questions they may want to pursue – help them, in other words,
to find ways of focusing within the broad areas of their interests. This often takes time, but as long as
the student is engaged in exploring his or her interests, in reading, and in developing questions
potentially to pursue, progress is occurring. Your work at this stage may be primarily to pose questions
that your student may want to explore and maybe suggest specific readings or field explorations they may
do which could lead to a more specific articulation of the thesis project.

As the process proceeds, the student may need guidance specific to the kind of project: help in
creating surveys (and in navigating the process of approval from the Human Subjects Review Board to
administer a survey), help in securing lab space or time with particular equipment, help in arranging for
recording of musical or theatrical performances, guidance in how to approach people outside the
immediate Oswego academic community whose input might be useful to the project. The guidance you
can provide will be particular to the project, to the student, to you. You have experience how things get
done that they will benefit from learning.

As the student reaches the drafting stage and presents written material to you for your response, our
suggestion is to ask to see the project in sections rather than wait until a final first draft is complete. The
length of Honors theses varies widely from discipline to discipline, from student to student. The
“average” thesis is around forty pages, including all the various components. We encourage students to
break their project into sections – to think of the thesis as a series of 8–12 page sections. Asking students
to submit sections as they draft has the advantages of (a) getting a sense of how they are progressing and
(b) identifying early if there appears to be a significant problem with the direction they are pursuing. Of
course, how you choose to receive the thesis – in sections or as a completed draft – is your decision to be
made with your student.

Each Honors student will have two advisors for the thesis. One of those advisors will be designated
as the first/primary advisor. Typically, the student will register for credits in the home department of
this advisor. These credits must be registered for using the Honors Independent Study Form, but the
course will NOT be HON 499. In cases where the student is registering for credits in a department
outside of this first advisor, the second advisor MUST be able to assign a grade for that course. And this
second advisor, MUST be listed as the primary instructor on the independent study form. The student
will sign up for an independent study with the first advisor in the semester he or she is anticipating
finishing the thesis. Students planning a thesis in the departments of biological sciences, chemistry, or
psychology should consult with the honors office before registering for the thesis credits. Ideally,
students will be making progress in their thesis during the spring semester of junior year and the
summer going into their senior year. This means many students could be close to completing the thesis
during the fall semester.

The two advisors are required to discuss the completed project and thesis to determine a final grade
for these credits. The staff in the Honors Office do not assign grades for the thesis credits. We suggest
that you discuss how the grade will be determined with the student prior to signing the independent
study form. You should also agree on any deadlines you wish to impose.

The relationship between the first and second thesis advisors can follow a number of models.
Frequently, they are essentially coequals, each meeting on a scheduled basis with the student, offering
guidance and reading drafts as the student finishes them. Occasionally, however, there will be clearly
different roles: a first advisor will take on the various responsibilities outlined above; the second advisor
will offer advice early in the process but then meet less frequently with student and wait until a
completed, semi-final draft of the thesis is submitted for comments. The degree of communication and
the definition of relative degree of involvement of the two thesis advisors through the process is a matter
of choice, to be worked out clearly among the student and the two advisors early in the process.

Finally, we would like to add a final observation. This is a B.A./B.S. thesis and not an M.A./M.S.
thesis or doctoral dissertation. The Honors students are academically strong, motivated, and generally
hard-working, but they are still undergraduates and unlikely in most cases to be completing projects that
accomplish what would be expected of graduate students. Sometimes the completed project does not
meet the expectations of both the student and the advisors. We would encourage all involved to gauge
the Honors thesis success, or lack thereof, looking at the entire process. Have the students learned
things about themselves and about the methods of research or the creative process that have enabled
them to grow? Will this experience prepare them to tackle more complex projects as they move along in
their education or into the professional world? It is on these bases that we determine whether each
student has met the expectations of completing an Honors thesis.

At any point as you work with your Honors student, if you have a question or concern, please do not
hesitate to contact us in the Honors Program office, 221 Marano Campus Center, ext. 2190, or
honors@oswego.edu.

Checklist of Honors Thesis Advisor Responsibilities

o Aid students on THEIR project idea with your experience and expertise.
o Be available to the student through the completion of the thesis. Typically, this is a three (3)
semester and one summer long project.
o Provide research space, facilities, and/or tools as required and reasonable for the project.
o Ability to supervise and grade a 499 course in the department that the student will be registering
for the 499 credits.