General Honors Program Description

The Cook College General Honors Program provides highly motivated and promising students a challenging intellectual environment. Honors students participate in a four-year program that includes interdisciplinary seminars and a graduated introduction to research.

First year: Honors Exposition and Argument (3 credits) and Readings in Biology (1 credit) in the first semester. An interdisciplinary Honors Seminar in the spring semester.

Second year: Sophomores register each semester for a 1-credit research tutorial. A second Honors Seminar in the spring semester.

Third year: In either/both semesters, a minimum of 3 credits of tutorial, honors research or experiential education, supervised by a faculty member or appropriate professional.

Fourth year: An additional honors tutorial or George H. Cook Scholar (senior honors thesis) project for a minimum of 6 credits.

Honors Seminars : The team-taught seminars take an interdisciplinary approach to a different topic each year. Some recent topics:

• The American West: Image and Reality
• The Politics of Science
• Health and Disease: Perception and Experience, Practice and Policy
• Food
• Biological and Cultural Diversity

Honors Tutorials: Recent student research topics:

• Effects of Biodiversity on Community Closure in Protozoan Microcosms
• Developing a Protocol for the Analysis of Gelatin Capsule Degradation and Content Release
• Feasibility Study of Wind Turbines as an Alternative Energy Source for Jersey Shore Communities
• Changes in Cryphonectria parasitica Gene Expression Caused by Infection with Two Reoviruses
• Effect of TPA Alone and in Combination with Capsaicin on the Growth and Differentiation of Breast Cancer Line MCF-7

Activities: The honors program sponsors occasional theater trips, receptions, movie nights, picnics and other activities suggested by the students.

Application Procedure: Interested students first apply for admission to Cook College through the Office of University Undergraduate Admissions. Students who have been admitted and have indicated Cook College on the Rutgers University application form as their first or second choice among the colleges qualify for consideration on the basis of their SAT I scores and GPA. They are invited to interview for the program in the spring.

Selection Criteria: Students are selected to participate in the Cook College General Honors Program by a faculty honors committee on the basis of their participation/performance in the following: a writing sample, an individual interview and a group interview. Each year at least 22 first-year students enter the program.

Scholarship Awards: General Honors Program participants receive merit scholarship awards. In the first year the award is at least $1000. In subsequent years, the faculty Financial Aid Committee will determine the amount of the award for each student, with a minimum award of $1000 per year. (Students applying to Rutgers University for financial aid and deemed eligible will have the General Honors Program merit award included in the financial aid package.)

Note: Those students who receive the Rutgers University Presidential Scholarship and select Cook College are automatically admitted to our General Honors Program and need not attend the interviews. However, they should notify the honors program office of their decision to attend Cook College.

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