Undergraduate Studies
Honors Program
The Spanish Honors Program is designed for students who wish to take advantage of an academic challenge beyond the requirements of the departmental major. It provides highly motivated students with the opportunity for tutorial instruction and independent research during the junior and senior years of their undergraduate study. The Honors Committee of the Department solicits from the Spanish and Portuguese faculty nominations for the Honors Program and then screens and interviews the nominees in order to admit into the program those who are most likely to succeed. Students may, in addition, apply directly to the program by contacting the departmental Honors Advisor. To be eligible, a student must ordinarily have an overall 3.35 grade-point average with a 3.5 average in Spanish courses, and also have completed S310, S312, S331, and S332.
The Honors Thesis
The heart of the Spanish and Portuguese Honors Program is the senior year thesis, an independent project that a student undertakes with the help of a faculty director and two faculty readers, selected by the student in consultation with the Honors Advisor. The topic of the thesis can focus on any area of Hispanic or Luso-Brazilian literature, language, or culture. The student may earn up to three hours of credit for S499/P499. These credits do not count toward the required hours of the major. The honors thesis is conceived as a special project to be completed in addition to the usual requirements. The credits count towards completion of the Honors degree. The thesis may also be designed to include interests of the student's minor field of study, a second major or the student's special interest, in which case one reader should be a member of the minor field or second major department. The thesis will vary in length according to the nature of the project-30 pages is a reasonable minimum-and must follow the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. The student will normally meet weekly or every two weeks with a faculty director and hand in early drafts of the project to the director. Copies of the final draft of the project will be delivered to the two faculty readers no later than three weeks before the end of the semester. Once the thesis has been approved by the student's committee, the student will deliver two copies of the final, approved project to the faculty director; one copy will remain in the permanent files of the department. The grade for S499/P499 is determined by the thesis director, in consultation with the two faculty readers.
The Honors Seminar
As preparation for the senior-year project, each Honors student normally takes the S498 Readings for Honors or P498 Portuguese Honors Seminar, ideally in the junior year. It is strongly recommended that the student write at least one 10-page paper in a 400-level course. S498/P498 affords an intensive study of literature and other areas of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian culture, through readings, discussion, and, especially, the writing of a 10-page paper.
Important Note
On the basis of the student's performance in S498/P498, continued high GPA, the thesis, and a possible oral defense of the thesis, the Honors Committee decides whether or not the student is to graduate with Honors in Spanish or Portuguese. If the Honors candidate plans to study abroad, arrangements can be made for meeting the requirements of the program. In this case, the student should select a faculty advisor and the thesis project before departure. With its emphasis on creativity, individual expression through writing and other language skills, the program will provide strong training for anyone interested in such disciplines as Law, Business, Journalism, and Communications, as well as students who plan to enter a graduate program in the humanities. It can also be valuable for students as yet undecided about their career future.
Recent Honors Theses
Jessica Lynn Arnett, “Comparaciones en la pronunciación de frases declarativas y los efectos del estudio en el extranjero” 2004 (Díaz-Campos)
Diana Clark, “La Entonación de las Interrogativas Españolas y el Contexto de Aprendizaje: Un estudio de estudiantes estadounidenses en México” 2004 (Díaz-Campos)
Carla De La Barra, “La Unión de las Voces de Tlatelolco” 2004 (Cohn)
Jarrod Franklin, “Phonetic Analysis and Access to Research in Cuba” 2004 (Geeslin)
William M. McCune, “Brazilian and Continental Portuguese vowels: A spectrographic study of context and style in vowel duration and quality” 2004 (Clements)
Kimberly Ray, “The Basque and Catalan Nations and their Relationship with Spain” 2004 (Thesis done for International Studies major but directed by Prof. Josep Sobrer.)
Andrea Shin, "A Study on the Role of Salience in Input Processing by Second Language Learners of Spanish” 2004 (Geeslin)
Kevin Simonelic, “Diferencias en la Percepión de /bdg/ y/ptk/ entre niveles diferentes de estudiantes de Español” 2004 (Díaz-Campos)
Erin Eliabeth Cory, "La familia, ¿Nido de seguridad o mecanismo de tormento?: Explorando la familia como vehículo de progreso y opresión en Aves sin nido y Sap" 2003 (Mejías-López)
Meghan Matuszak, "The Effects of Linguistic and Individual Factors son Schwa Use During the Acquisition of L2 Spanish" 2003 (Geeslin)
Kyle Mathews, "Resonances of Faulkner in La Muerte de Artemio Cruz" 2003 (Cohn)
Andrew Cook, "A Festa de Ivan Ângelo e a 'Terra Chata'('Flatland') de Ken Wilbur" 2003 (Sadlier)
Karen Carter Biddle, "José Asunción Silva's De sobremesa: The Painting-Literature Connection and the Evolution of the Pre-Raphaelite Woman" 2002 (Dávila)
Katherine Ruddick, "La boca en flor: Delmira Agustini and the Feminine Poetic Identity" 2002 (Larson)
Kathleen Plinske, "A study of factors affecting interpretation of clitic pronouns in Spanish" 2001 (Geeslin)
Jason Jones, "El mundo fantástico de Julio Cortázar" 2000 (Bieder)
Jeremiah Byrd, "Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Spanish Word Order" 2000 (Clements)
For additional information please contact:
Professor Carl Good, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Ballantine Hall 844, Indiana University
E-mail: Professor Carl Good
Download the Honors brochure in Adobe Acrobat format. 
