More Honors Courses, Qualifications Still Unclear

Yeshiva College is slowly developing an "honors presence" in order to satisfy students seeking a more challenging workload beyond that of the regular college classes. Although many universities offer honors courses to their students, these colleges often bind their students within the program, and limit the entrance to the program with specific admissions requirements. As it stands right now, however, the classes labeled "Honors" at Yeshiva College, with the exception of the Freshmen English Honors Seminar, are open to all students.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that administrators are working daily to expand the Honors College, it is still unclear to both students and administrators at Yeshiva College what criteria actually define an honors course. According to Dean Norman Adler, YC deans and faculty members are currently working with the student senate in determining the criteria that define honors classes. So far, the courses labeled as "Honors" have proved extremely popular among students.

One of the most popular and inventive honors courses offered this semester is English professor Dr. Joan Haahr’s class entitled, "Arthurian Legends." As a survey of the legends of King Arthur and his knights, the Dr. Haahr’s class examines the legends as they continue to appeal to the populace through the ages and how various artists exploit them for non-literary ends. Dr. Haahr based her course on similar courses taught by Dr. Deborah Everhart and Dr. Martin Irvine at Georgetown University, as well as other professors throughout the United States. In addition to Dr. Haahr’s classroom lectures, students interact over the Internet after classes in independent discussions about the lectures.

The fourteen students in the class are required to propose weekly critical discussion questions via e-mail to a class list serve, and to present a group oral presentation. Moreover, they must submit two hypermedia research projects that include a thesis– driven text, in addition to images and links to other materials. They are encouraged to visit Arthurnet, an Arthurian discussion group.

Arthurian Legends and its format, Dr. Haahr said, "encourages [students] to explore far beyond the actual class syllabus and to look into the large amount of available material… It allows for a new kind of learning."

The Internet-based nature of this class and for her other medieval literature courses like Chaucer is advantageous for students in the course because much of the medieval materials are not in print and much of it is esoteric. In order to compensate for the limited accessibility of these books, students can exploit the web, since many of the works are out of copyright, to get material that otherwise they cannot access.

Dr. Haahr expressed the interests of other faculty members in incorporating the technological advancements, like the Internet into their own courses. Dr. Carl Feit, Professor of Biology, currently is working on an advanced course in AIDS that also depends heavily on the Internet, and Dr. Brill is setting up a web-site for his course labeled, "Modern Jewish Intellectualism."

Dr. Brill echoed Dr. Haahr, stressing the need for the Internet in order to access rare medieval and early modern manuscripts. "At this point, much information, from medieval geography to the Nuremberg trials are accessible immediately with one click."

Thus far, students have indicated their satisfaction with the honors courses. "The class makes [the students] think in a coherent, structured, and logical fashion. Dr. Haahr appreciates and encourages serious work. The Internet projects makes [students] collect information from different sources, assemble them together, and present it in an original and professional manner. The work Dr. Haahr did for this course is praiseworthy and remarkable," commended Boris Gelfand, YC ’99, about Arthurian Legends.

While the specific criteria defining an honors course remains amorphous, one class certainly deserving of the title is a six credit one semester Elementary Latin course, offered by Dr. Louis Feldman. After being repeatedly asked by a student to offer the class, Dr. Feldman agreed. The class is structured so that Dr. Feldman teaches two three-hour sessions every week. The class concentrates on Latin vocabulary, grammar, and usage, as well as the significance of some of the Latin words and phrases in Roman culture, and its influence on the English language.

Also well received is Jewish History professor Dr. Alan Brill’s course, "Jewish Historiography and Philosophy of Jewish History," a study of nineteenth century Jewry’s categories of tradition and modernity. The course explores extensively the standard modernist narrative of Enlightenment and Emancipation and topics relevant to it, while encouraging critical thinking and analytic writing and discussion of the issues surrounding the relevance of Jewish history.

By any subjective test, the courses labeled "Honors" certainly deserve the title. However, the administration is still working on objective parameters, in order that they may objectively measure the qualifications of the courses for the future.