Honors mentors play a pivotal role in a student's Honors Project. Below are general guidelines to help mentors navigate and understand their part of an Honors Project:
  • Support your mentee in defining or narrowing project topic and ideas 
  • If your mentee is not using a course to fulfill the Honors Project course requirements, please assist your student in the creation of an Independent/Directed Study or Senior Research section with you by either providing a permission number for your Independent/Directed Study, or contacting your Department Head to either create a Directed/Independent Study or add your mentee to an existing Independent/Directed Study 
  • Coordinate a timeline for project completion with your mentee 
  • Assist your mentee in drafting an Honors Project Proposal 
  • Establish project deliverables with your mentee and ensure these are included in the proposal 
  • If your mentee is completing an Honors Add-on to a Capstone Project assist your mentee in determining an appropriate scope and scale for their add-on component  
  • Assist your mentee in finding (a) Committee Member(s) 
  • Approve your mentee's proposal and sign the Honors Project Proposal Form 
  • Meet with your mentee about the project weekly or biweekly 
  • Provide timely, actionable feedback  
  • Respond to mentee emails within a week 
  • When your mentee is ready to present the project, coordinate a time, date and location for the presentation with your Honors Department Liaison or, in the case of interdisciplinary projects, with the Honors College 
  • Review mentee’s project documents at least a week before their presentation 
  • Attend your mentee's Honors Project Presentation  
  • Approve mentee’s project revisions and sign their Completion Form so that it is received by the Honors College by the end of finals week of the semester in which they present (unless they've been granted an official extension) 
  • A grade must be posted for the course being used as the Project in SIS by the deadline to post semester grades 

Standard Honors Project Presentation Format

  • Students present on panels with other students of their department or college
  • Presentations of each project must be a minimum of 12 minutes followed by Q&A and discussion
  • Mentors, Committee Members, and a Representative from the Honors College must attend the presentation
  • After the presentation the Mentor and Committee Member sign mentee's Project Completion Form 
  • The Honors Representative initials the form and indicates the date, time, and location of the presentation
  • Mentee uploads their Honors Project final documents to the HONR 4910 course shell for online archiving
NOTE: Presentations may deviate from the standard presentation format if the presentation fulfills presentation requirements set by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Commonwealth Honors Program (presentations must be live, include a Q&A, be at least 12 minutes in length, and the Mentor must be present).