University of Richmond

Honors Program

The history honors program provides able and dedicated majors an opportunity to intensify their study of history.

Recruitment and Admission

  • Students are recruited to and apply to the program in the spring of their sophomore year.  Applications are due around March 10.
  • To be eligible for the program, a student must have completed 22 units overall and 4 units in history with a grade average of at least 3.3 and must have endorsement of a faculty member in the department.
  • Applications are reviewed by the department honors committee and should include: a one-page statement from the student explaining his/her interest in the program, a letter of nomination from a department faculty member, the student's transcript and a course paper written by the student that best represents his or her work
  • Students admitted at the departmental level will apply for admission to the university honors program the following fall.

Program Requirements 

Fall, Junior Year
History 410. Historiography.   In this course students take a close look at the various ways historians have defined their craft and approached the study of the past.

Spring, Junior Year
History 411. Prospectus Preparation.  Working with appropriate faculty, each student prepares a research prospectus for his/her honors essay.  The prospectus, approximately 1500 words, plus a list of sources and preliminary bibliography, is distributed to the entire History faculty and discussed by the students and faculty at an informal meeting around April 1.  Students who for some reason (for example, study abroad) cannot enroll in History 411 in the spring may work out their prospectus in absentia over the spring and summer and present it to the honors committee by October 1 of the following fall. In that event, the one hour of credit will be awarded in the fall.

Senior Year
History 412-13.  The Honors Essay. Normally completed in the senior year, this is an extended piece of research and writing usually running to about fifty pages. Students enrolled in this course are exempt from the History 400 requirement. Their projects differ from those undertaken in History 400 in that they will have complete freedom to choose the topic and will immerse themselves more deeply in it.

Students will give presentations of their work at the School of Arts & Sciences Student Symposium in April.

Honors students have regularly won various prizes and awards for their essays. In recent years, Patrick Elgin won the George M. Modlin Book Collection Award for "Military Leadership: Personal and Universal," Michael Hinchcliffe won the Snead Award in Early American History for "The Role of Madison's Factions in the American Republic," Patrick Salland won the George M. Modlin Book Collection Award for "The World of the Pharaohs," Matthew Scutari won the Arts and Sciences Symposium Award for "American Travelers in Palestine: Origins of Holy Land Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America," and William Wilkes won the James W. Jackson Library Research Award for "Baptism of Fire: Civil War Soldiers Recount their First Battles."

Please address questions about the honors program to Dr. Robert Kenzer.