Honors Option Contracts allow students to receive Honors credit for any University course. Contracts allow students to work closely with a faculty mentor to develop their own academic interests, knowledge, and skills.

In the contract, the student and faculty member will lay out the work involved to receive Honors credit, the work product that will result from this project, the schedule of individual meetings with the instructor, and how the student can use their work to benefit the class or community.

By expecting the student to take charge of directing the alternative work, informed by regular feedback from professors, these contracts foster independent learning and discipline. This type of preparation is immensely important for capstone work and personalized professional development.

In some previous Honors Contracts, students have read and developed an extensive annotated bibliography in preparation for their capstone. Other contracts have been more exploratory, such as doing more sophisticated lab work for a chemistry or physics class, writing a short story or play for a literature or drama class, or translating a cookbook for a foreign language class.