Honors Requirements
General Information
Eligibility
Environmental Studies majors with a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.80 at the end of the January term of the junior year or with special department approval are eligible to participate in the Environmental Studies Honors Research Program. Students must be on campus for the final semesters of their senior year. Students are encouraged to work on their projects during Janplan and should work with their thesis advisor to discuss their JanPlan thesis work. Students are encouraged to spend the summer prior to their senior year working on their honors thesis project.
The ES honors program will include successful completion of an independent research project, an oral presentation at the Colby Undergraduate Research Symposium, an oral thesis defense, and all required coursework for the ES major. The student fulfilling these requirements will graduate “With Honors in Environmental Studies.”
Students must complete an ES research capstone course (ES494 or ES493) in addition to their thesis projects. Honors thesis projects must be distinctly different from their capstone research projects. If there is overlap between their capstone research and honors thesis students must have a meeting with their capstone instructor and their thesis advisor to discuss how best to appropriately distinguish these as separate projects.
ES Honors Procedure
Finding a thesis advisor and planning the thesis project – During the spring semester of their junior year, interested eligible students should meet with a potential faculty advisor to discuss the possibility of doing an honors thesis project. Thesis advisors should be ES faculty members or affiliated faculty members (those who teach cross-listed courses in ES). If the advisor and student come to an agreement about a project, they should then create a rough timeline for the project. The details of the timeline may shift over the course of the project but the student and advisor must communicate about any timeline changes. Each thesis student must complete a significant writing portion of their thesis by the end of the fall semester of their senior year. This may be a thesis proposal, literature review, or introductory chapter. At the start of the fall semester, the student and advisor should agree on the details of this fall writing assignment and the specific deadline (no later than the last day of fall semester classes).
Thesis work – If possible, thesis work should begin during the summer before their senior year. The specific work done will be determined through discussion with the student’s thesis advisor. This may include question identification, methods development, data collection, or conducting a literature review. Thesis work will continue throughout the fall semester, JanPlan, and spring semester in accordance with the timeline agreed upon between the student and advisor. Each thesis project must include the collection or compilation of a unique dataset, a novel analysis of this data, and an original written description of the project (typically in the form of an academic journal article). The student is solely responsible for this writing and the writing must be unique to this project. Thesis projects that overlap with capstone projects, other class projects, or previous research must be clearly delineated from this past work.
Thesis Credits – During their senior year, students must register for a total of 6-9 thesis credits. The specific number of credits they register for and how these are distributed across semesters will be determined by working with their advisor and discussion of the timeline of their project.
Thesis Committee – Each honors student will have a thesis committee made up of their thesis advisor and two others. During the fall semester of their senior thesis students must determine which faculty will make up their thesis committee. The committee must include at least one faculty member from the Environmental Studies Department. This is typically the thesis advisor. But, if the advisor is appointed in another department, at least one of the thesis committee members must be an ES faculty member. Other members of the committee should be faculty with familiarity in an area of the student’s project. In cases where the student is working with an outside research group or organization, one member of the thesis committee may be a representative of this non-colby entity.
Thesis meetings – Honors students should meet regularly with their thesis advisor during their senior year. They should meet with each of the members of their thesis committee at least once in the fall semester and once again in JanPlan or early spring semester to discuss their plans and get feedback.
Thesis presentation – Each spring semester, during the Colby Liberal Arts Symposium the environmental studies department will hold a session for students to present their thesis work to the community. All honors thesis students must present at this event or if unable, arrange a similar public presentation around the same time of the semester.
Thesis Defense – The oral thesis defense will be held before the during the final weeks of the spring semester. Students should schedule this defense with their committee members early in the spring semester. Students will be asked to give a 10-minute summary of their thesis work and to answer questions from the thesis committee. The thesis advisor, and two committee members will participate. At the end of the defense, the thesis advisor will review with the student the committee decision and any changes to the thesis mandated by the committee. Once the student completes thesis revisions, the thesis advisor and student will review final thesis editing and formatting.
Submission of final Thesis – Before the end of spring semester examinations honors thesis students must submit their final revised and formatted thesis to their advisor for approval. Once approved the thesis should be submitted to the library archive system:
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu
Information on thesis formatting can be found at this link.
If students or advisors would like to have a hard-bound copy of their thesis made, the ES department will pay for and facilitate this. Contact the ES administrative office for details on this process.
This thesis format template can be used to simplify the thesis formatting process.
Past honors honors theses can be found at: