Thesis Advisors

Your honors thesis advisor will be critical to your success. He or she will help you to understand and begin to master the topics and techniques of original scholarship—the foundation on which faculty careers are built.

Your advisor will help you to settle on a precise topic and/or research question(s), set up your investigation, and complete your inquiry. As an expert in the same discipline that houses your thesis topic, your advisor will be able to point you in the direction of relevant existing theory and literature in the field.

Working with the Honors Thesis Program director, your advisor will help you develop a focused research plan, paring down your initial ideas if they are too broad and turning them into something that can be completed successfully within three semesters.

Your advisor may even recommend a more specific thesis topic, and the completed paper can become a joint conference publication with your advisor—or, in some cases, even a joint publication in a national or international journal.

There are concrete roles and responsibilities for everyone involved in the thesis process: program director, faculty, and students.