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Baccalaureate Honors Program
Picture yourself in a typical honors classroom at Rider University and this is what you'll see:
An intimate gathering of smart, talented students ... an intriguing academic topic ... and two enthusiastic scholars.Does this sound exciting? It is!
Students who have lived the BHP experience at Rider tell us that BHP classrooms are exciting places in which to learn. Our classrooms create environments where discussion and debate are the norm. We are proud to acknowledge our Baccalaureate Honors Program as an extraordinary opportunity for our gifted students. Entering students are automatically considered for this program based on their academic record. Continuing and transfer students with a minimum 3.3 GPA, wide academic interests, and excellent critical-reading and writing skills may apply to join by contacting the program director.
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Baccalaurate Scholars graduating in 2007 |
The Baccalaureate Honors Program is structured around the following components:
- The heart of our Baccalaureate Honors Program is its innovative team-taught seminars. These distinctive learning experiences feature two professors, from diverse disciplines in the arts, humanities and sciences, who collaborate on important ideas, historical periods and contemporary issues. At least four interdisciplinary, team-taught courses are required. Students may complement these with more interdisciplinary courses or choose to take one or more single-instructor courses, whether honors versions of existing courses or courses developed uniquely for the honors program.
- First-Year Seminars (BHP100:Great Ideas I and BHP 150: Great Ideas II) focus on a core of classic readings complemented by texts that reflect the professors' special expertise. Through critical, reading, writing, and discussion, students develop their critical, interpretive and expressive skills. These courses replace the Composition sequence, CMP 120 and CMP 125.
- Upper-Level Seminars offer students the opportunity for in-depth inquiry into specialized and innovative research areas that may cross conventional boundaries between disciplines. These courses usually count as core requirements. They may also be taken as electives.
- The Senior Thesis or Project is guided by a faculty mentor in the BHP or in the student's major discipline and allows students to develop original research or creative projects.
BHP students receive special advising, the opportunity to live in a residential learning community in freshman year, priority in course registration, and opportunities to attend co-curricular events (e.g., art exhibits, film screenings, poetry slams, theater previews) planned by the BHP faculty team.
Eligibility and Graduation Requirements
Students invited to join the Baccalaureate Honors Program at Rider must meet the following requirements:
- Students are invited to the Baccalaureate Honors Program as entering freshmen, and may apply as currently enrolled freshmen or sophomores, or as transfer freshmen or sophomores. Invited students are generally among the 10% of the entering class. Students currently enrolled at Rider must have at least a 3.3 GPA at the time of application to the program.
- In order to graduate as a Baccalaureate Scholar, a student must earn an overall GPA of at least 3.3 as well as a minimum 3.3 GPA in the eight required honors courses, including the Senior Capstone.
- Honors courses may be team-taught (interdisciplinary) or taught by a single instructor. At least four of the eight honors courses must be team-taught and interdisciplinary. These typically include the freshman seminars,BHP 100 and BHP 150
A sampling of past BHP Seminar Topics:
- Genetic Engineering and the Philosophy of Science (Biology/Philosophy)
- Moments of Vision: The Painter or the Poet (Fine Arts/Literature)
- Political Culture of the High Tech Society (Global Studies/Sociology)
- Human Creativity and Artificial Intelligence (Fine Arts/Computer Information Systems)
- Europe's Armageddon: The First World War in History and Literature (History/Literature)
- Literature of the Fantastic in England and the Americas (Literature/American Studies)
- Musical Expression and Political Culture (Music/Political Science)
- European Historical Fiction in the Nineteenth Century (Literature/History)
- Politics and Philosophy of the Sixties (Political Science/Philosophy)
- Natural Adventures: Journeys in American Ecology and History (Biology/History)
- Text and Context: George Orwell's 1984 and Cold War Politics (Literature/Journalism History)
- The Guilty and the Innocent in Law and Literature (Sociology/Law/Literature)
For more information, contact:
- Dr. Arlene Wilner
Director, Baccalaureate Honors Program
Professor, Department of English
Phone: (609) 895-5567
Email: wilner@rider.edu
Phone: 800-257-9026
E-mail: admissions@rider.edu
