Honors Capstone Requirement

Students who have been accepted into the University Honors Program (UHP) are eligible to declare an anthropology BA or anthropology BS at the honors level.

Honors students enrolled in either the anthropology BA or BS must do the Independent Capstone Project I and II in order for their capstone project to count as the honors thesis.

Honors Thesis Committee

All honors theses must be approved by a committee of three members—the main thesis advisor and two other readers. 

  • One member (not necessarily the main thesis advisor) must be a tenured or tenure-track faculty member in your home department.
  • Other members may be tenured, tenure-track, contract, affiliate, adjunct, emeritus, and/or P&A faculty members at the University of Minnesota.
  • Committee members may be from other departments or colleges at the University of Minnesota.
  • Faculty members from other institutions, graduate students, and community members with expertise relevant to the student's topic may serve on the committee if approved by the departmental honors faculty representative and by UHP.

The process for approval is for the honors faculty representative to email UHP's director to explain in a couple of sentences the potential committee member's qualifications, and to then receive approval from the director.

Thesis Requirements

A summa thesis must include a public presentation. It is also expected to comprise original research conducted at the highest level and completed with exceptionally good writing. The University Honors Program provides information on thesis requirements and evaluation criteria.

See the University Honors Program page on major requirements for Latin honors for more details.

Evaluation of Honors Requirement in ANTH 4013(H)

75% of the grade for his class is assigned by your Capstone thesis supervisor.  As such, if you are taking the ANTH 4013(H) version of this course, you should consult with your primary Capstone thesis supervisor to establish their requirements for an Honors thesis and communicate their requirements to the instructor of this class.  In addition, if you have constituted a committee for the purposes of defending a Summa thesis, you should also consult with those faculty members to ensure there is agreement among your committee members for expectations for a Summa thesis.