Honors Program

This Honors Credit option requires a student to work closely with the Honors Program Director as a mentor and participate in a broad, rigorous intellectual exploration of a timely topic through lectures, film and written critical responses. It requires very little of the professor in whose class the student contracts for honors credit. For this contract, the student will compose six separate essays in response to specific topics.

The student agrees to do the following to receive honors credit in this class:

• Earn a grade of A or B in the course linked to the contract.
• Attend the two Great Issues Lectures hosted at Rose State College this semester. Information on the lecture topics, times, and place can be found on the Rose State College web page “Honors” link. (Note: In cases of schedule conflict, the student may make arrangements to instead view the lectures online or by DVD later in the semester.)
• Select two archived Great Issues Lectures from previous semesters to view either through Canvas on iTunesUniversity or by checking out the DVDs from the Rose State Honors Program Office.
• Write a 500-word minimum, typed critical response to each of the four lectures. These responses are not summaries of the lecture; rather, they are the student’s own thesis (idea) and support of that thesis written in response to each lecture’s material and must meet the standards outlined in the Rose State College Honors Program Handbook.
• View one of the popularly produced films listed on the Honors Program Canvas site as part of the Great Issues Lecture Series. Then, write a 500-word minimum, typed critical response, analyzing how the theme for the lecture series is developed in the film.
• Write a final 500-word minimum, typed analysis in which the student explains how what was learned in the parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 above connects to the content of the course for which this honors contract was approved.
• Two copies of all analyses must be submitted by the student to the Honors Program Canvas dropbox no later than the last day of classes before final examinations for the semester.

To submit an Great Issues contract, please submit the form (link below) below within the first three weeks of the semester. Your professor's consent to participate in the program will be verified before the contract is approved.

Great Issues Honors Contract Form

Archived Great Issues Lectures

Many of our Great Issues Lectures from previous semesters are available for download on the Rose State College iTunes U page.

• What are They Thinking? Poverty as Cultural Paradigm by Sherry Alexander
• Affluence Issues in Oklahoma's Native American Culture by Gena Timberland
• The State of Our Environment: It's Not All Doom and Gloom by Daniel Ratcliff
• The Federal Stimulus in Oklahoma by Steve Burrage
• Democratization of Information Defined by Suzanne Thomas
• Media Representation of Women and Consumption Patterns by John Carl
• Censorship in the Arts by Kristin Hahn
• Information Overdose: Democratization of Communication and It's Unintended Consequences by James Hochtritt
• Truthiness and Wikipedia by Caryl Gibbs
• Spinning Democracy: How Advertising and the News Use Propaganda and How You Can Detect and Fight It by John Wood
• Malcolm, Martin, and Bobby: Values Embodied by Leaders of a Short but Large Life by Robert Davis
• Sharing of Information:  How It Has Evolved and What Its Future Might Be by Sharon Saulmon
• If the Fence Could Talk by Brad Robison
• Your Health Records: Who Has Access? by Linda Whaley
• Masculinity on Display: The Knight's Tale as Public Spectacle by Kevin Caliendo