Honors Program
COM Honors Program Mission Statement
The College of the Mainland (COM) Honors Program provides highly motivated students challenges above and beyond their typical coursework. Students may enroll in honors courses or seek honors contracts and work one-on-one with COM faculty to develop independent projects. Honors contracts enhance students’ work ethic and provide opportunities to expand academic networks.
How to earn honors credit in regular classes
Honors contract requirements:
- The student must complete a research paper, special project, performance or creative project, or other work in addition to the usual requirements of the course. The student will complete at least 15 hours in addition to normal course work on the project.
- The professor must approve the honors project for his/her course.
- The honors committee must approve the project.
- If the honors project involves human subjects, contact COM’s Institutional Review Board at ir@com.edu before starting.
- The student will present their final results.
- The student must earn an A in the contracted course.
- The student must develop a meeting schedule with the professor.
- The student and the instructor must sign the honors contract.
- Submit a completed original typed copy of this form to the honors committee co-chair(s).
- The student and professor will develop a rubric for assessing whether a completed honors project merits honors credit.
- Co-chairs may contact the faculty to learn the status of the project.
- The student must submit a final report to one of the co-chairs prior to the contract deadline. The final report must include the rubric developed jointly by the student and professor with the professor’s comments on whether the student satisfied the criteria in the rubric and should receive honors credit.
Honors scholars recognition
Any student who completes at least 12 honors credit hours, maintains a GPA of 3.5 or higher, completes at least 24 hours of approved community service and completes at least 18 hours at COM will be recognized as a COM scholar at graduation.