James Donnen
Director, Student Services
Jackson School of International Studies
In my years as Jackson School honors adviser I've detected a fairly common shift in perception among the juniors who are deciding whether to apply to the program. Completing Honors in the School-wide program (JSIS's Comparative Religion major has its own Honors option) involves coursework, to be sure - two formal seminars, in fact, a structure that draws students into a cohort with the bonds that result from "being in this together." But the members of the junior cohort quickly come to realize that "doing honors" in JSIS isn't a matter of signing up for certain classes with high-achieving peers. Essentially all of their honors work will be focused on producing a significant piece of academic research.
Even among the strongest students, this process isn't everyone's cup of tea. But where the fit is right, the program offers an excellent opportunity to work closely with at least two scholar-mentors, wrestle with the challenges of a project far beyond the scope of college term papers, and get a meaningful taste of what graduate-level study in the social sciences would entail. I sometimes tell them: once you've done a JSIS honors thesis - and the best compare very favorably with strong master's theses - you'll very likely know whether you want this type of research and writing to play a central role in your future. Even if the answer to that question is ultimately no, you can lay claim to having learned an impressive amount about investigation and analysis, not to mention the satisfactions of delving deeply into a complex and in some cases provocative international issue. Those outcomes have the broadest possible relevance, regardless of what comes next. Our program is one recipe, in short, for a memorable and productive capstone experience.
Deborah Porter
Associate Professor
Jackson School of International Studies
The Jackson School undergraduate Honors Program is intended for students with the capability and commitment required to pursue a year-long, in-depth research project. The heart of the program is centered on the writing of an honors thesis, which allows students to develop a solid grasp of the scholarly writings on a research topic, and to refine the content of an original argument with regard to that topic. Part of this process is carried out in two required courses, SIS 397 and SIS 491, offered in the spring of junior year and autumn of senior year and taught by the director of the program. The former course focuses on writing a 25-page proposal, in which a Research Question, a Tentative Hypothesis, a concise Review of the Scholarly Literature as well as a Methodology section is presented. The proposal is evaluated by the Honors Committee, which includes the director and two other faculty members of the Jackson School of International Studies. The second required course is devoted toward guiding the students as they write an extensive (25-30 page) Review of the Literature. Often this document serves as the first substantial chapter of the thesis.
After the completion of these two courses, Honors students take the winter and part of the spring quarters to write up the results of their analysis, which they do in conjunction with mentors who are experts in their chosen topics. To conceptualize a specific research question and to situate the answer within scholarly conversations in an original argument requires broad reading, deep exploration of research methods, critical acumen as well as stamina and ingenuity to carry this out over an extended period of time.
Alyson Dimmitt
B.A. 2008 - International Studies (General)
B.A. 2008 - Community, Environment, and Planning
The Jackson School of International Studies Honors Program centers around a year-long research thesis, a rare chance in undergraduate education to experience the sweat and blood of the full research process. When my peers and I first sat around the table as a Jackson School Honors cohort, we had plenty of impassioned ideas about what we might research, all of them overly broad and hazy. Professor Deborah Porter invested her mind and heart in developing our research and writing skills and fostering our intellectual rigor. We learned to read more deeply, write more clearly, critique more precisely, and understand data more creatively and thoroughly. We had the chance to throw ourselves into questions we cared about, and to see each other's work transform into well-defined academic writings.
I had many wonderful professors in the Jackson School and Honors Program, but nowhere else did I experience such investment and accountability in my academic efforts. My advisors spent hours during that year working with me on my writing and ideas. Perhaps most rewarding was sharing the process with a group of peers, learning to give each other effective feedback and letting them teach me about places and ideas they were so passionate about - cooperatives in Venezuela, women's health programs in rural India, soccer in China.
The process and skills I learned have been fundamental to me since I left the classroom, preparing me to listen to clients as a legal advocate, to conduct fieldwork abroad, and now to study law. But perhaps most importantly, my advisors and cohort taught me to keep my intellectual pursuits true to my own heart and interests. Students leave the Jackson School Honors Program not only with the capacity to sustain research, but also the integrity to seek true answers to meaningful questions in whatever field they will work.
Byron Gray
B.A. 2012 - International Studies (Asia)
B.A. 2012 - Political Science
B.A. 2012 - Law, Societies, and Justice
When I first entered the University as an undergraduate focused on studying the politics of law in South Asia, I was often frustrated by the fact that I found myself drawn to a variety of questions and issues which the limits of regular coursework prevented me from pursuing in depth. As a triple major in Political Science; Law, Societies, & Justice, and South Asian Studies I've the good fortune of interacting with many wonderful instructors and being exposed to a wide variety of ideas; JSIS Honors gave me the opportunity to tie all of that together.
This wasn't just valuable in an intellectual sense; the ability to focus my work on an individual project gave me a touchstone for applying for grants which allowed me to spend seven months doing research on religion, law and feminist activism in India. As someone who had been considering specializing in South Asia, the opportunity to actually live and travel in my area of interest reaffirmed my desire to pursue a career focused on this part of the world. Thus I would not hesitate to say that JSIS Honors has been one of the most transformative experiences of my time at the University of Washington.