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2026 Autumn Honors Course Offerings

Year 1

HONR 120: Intro to Honors

Required for incoming, first-year students

HONR 121L: Ways of Knowing

Ways of Knowing is the DHC’s signature seminar, which is taught every semester and is required.

Years 1-4

HONR 394: Interdisciplinary Colloquia Courses

Honors Electives: HONR Prefix

Students must apply to become a Learning Assistant prior to registering for HONR 294.

Please email josh.herring@umontana.edu with any questions

Honors Electives: Honors Departmental Offerings

Honors Experiential Learning

Options include fieldwork, internship, National Student Exchange, serving as a Learning Assistant, Student Teaching (for Education majors) supervised research, and/or study abroad. Apply using the . This form should be completed by you with support and approval from your mentor and will include a description of the proposed project. The completed form should be submitted no later than the end of the third week of the semester (different deadlines for summer sessions). If you have questions, please email or schedule an appointment with your Honors advisor.

HONR 495.80 can be applied toward the experiential learning requirement, as an honors elective, or capstone project.

Honors Experiential Learning: Wild Rockies Field Institute

These courses are part of the , off campus-Field Course, “ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú Afoot and Afloat: Human/Land Relations” and only available to students who have been accepted to the program for Fall 2026. More information about WRFI, including application information, can be found on the .

General Education Requirement Key

Honors Course Descriptions

HONR 120 Introduction to Honors

This is a one-credit required course that serves as an introduction to the Davidson Honors College student experience. Here we will learn and discuss ‘all things Honors’. The course includes examination of practical, personal, and philosophical elements of an honors education, and emphasizes critical thinking, creativity, service, ethical reflection, networking and community building. Instruction will include lecture, guest speakers, discussion and group work. Required for incoming, first-year students

HONR 121 Ways of Knowing

Ways of Knowing is the DHC’s signature seminar. Offered autumn and spring. A critical assessment of various views of the divine, nature, society and the self, as seen through some of the most influential texts from the Western, Eastern, and Indigenous traditions. Required for incoming, first-year students

HONR 291.80 Personal & Professional Development

In our Personal & Professional seminar we’ll be covering all the things you need to know and do to apply for jobs, scholarships, and generally prepare yourself to reach all those amazing academic and career goals you have. What’s especially great about this course is that you’ll not only have our support, but you will also build a peer-network that you’ll be able to work within the fall semester and beyond.

HONR 294.80 Intro to Honors Learning Assistant Seminar

The seminar is designed for Davidson Honors College students serving as Learning Assistants (LA) in Introduction to Honors (HONR 120). The purpose of the seminar is to teach students what it means to be a Learning Assistant, how they should mentor and support a group of HONR 120 students and create a place where student can work together to create a positive experience for HONR 120 students. Students will learn active learning strategies, community building techniques, how to ask appropriate questions, and leadership skills. This is a seminar course where students are responsible for readings, in-class discussions, and assignments based on their Learning Assistant field placement. *Students must apply to become a Learning Assistant prior to registering. Please email josh.herring@umontana.edu with any questions

HONR 320E.80 Art of Inquiry: Research & Capstone Seminar

Offered autumn and occasionally spring, Art of Inquiry is a research methods and ethics based course designed to assist undergraduate students with their independent research projects, honors capstone completion, and self-directed scholarship. This seminar focuses on intellectual and creative strategies for completing research in most disciplines, and grounds this scholarship in ethical concerns foundational to academic research. Students will learn and practice a variety of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods along with interdisciplinary tenets of ethical inquiry and effective peer review/editing strategies as they craft a scholarly research proposal tailored to their area of interest.

HONR 392.80 Awe and Curiosity

Curiosity serves a motivator for learning, it impacts decision making, and it is essential for human growth and development. Awe affects both our bodies and brains and is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends one’s current understanding of the world (Keltner, 2023). This course will examine awe (also sometimes defined as the experience of wonder) and curiosity across histories, cultures, and disciplines, and will include discussion of nature, culture, music, design, moral beauty, collective effervescence, spiritual experiences, and life’s transitions. Our approach bridges often-separated dimensions of these phenomena with a focus on both personal and collective awareness and change. This course reinforces the DHC’s commitment to engaging students in scientific insight and inquiry to address today’s complex social and environmental challenges. Students will consider their own experiences with curiosity and awe and develop projects which put these concepts into practice in their lives.

HONR 392.81 Art and Activism

This is a class where you will be encouraged to articulate your thoughts about the wider world and bring them (whatever they may be) into art making. We will brainstorm how to extend your impact by designing follow-up steps to turn your artwork from awareness-raising into helping your viewers take action. (No experience in the arts required.) This is not a class about politics or a place where we’re going to rant about our opinions. This is not a class where we're going to hate on others. This class will present examples from the visual arts, dance and theater -- through lectures leading to discussion and through visits from practicing artists -- and culminate in hands-on final projects. Let’s do it!

HONR 392.82 Democracy

Over the last decade, many observers have been increasingly alarmed over the rise of authoritarianism around the globe and have warned about a growing crisis of liberal democracy. Prior to these events, many had assumed that democracy was the natural, default way of organizing society. Yet even then, a close read of history suggested that maintaining a healthy democracy is an on-going, never-ending struggle. In fact, in the long scope of human history, democracies have been quite rare. Those that have existed have tended to be persistently prone to internal strife and quick collapse at the hands of tyrants. In particular, the historical track record suggests that democracies have inherent vulnerabilities including a propensity for mob rule, demagoguery, and an apathetic citizenry. These persistent challenges led philosophers such as Plato to reject democracy altogether. Others, including the American founders and Alexis de Tocqueville, issued cautions about these enduring threats and sought to insulate American democracy from them. Yet questions linger about how effective their remedies were and whether they are still adequate today. This course will draw on historical and philosophical perspectives as well as contemporary analyses to explore the promise and perils of democracy. We’ll pay particular attention to the current state of democracy in America and around the world.

HONR 394.84 Sound

In the same way that sound interconnects us and the physical aspects of our daily environment, it also serves as the connection across disparate realms of human endeavors. In this class, we will use the lens of sound to glimpse into topics from physics, neurology, psychology, music, anthropology, and ecology. Open ears will serve as our open minds.

HONR 394.85 Making Documentary - Just Do It!

NO PREVIOUS PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Don’t just watch documentary, make one! This class is for those who want to meet the challenges of producing documentary – one of the most exciting and powerful genres of our time. We will begin by examining various approaches to documentary, and will then cover the basics of pre-production (research, scheduling, etc.), production (shooting, lighting and sound), and post-production (editing it all together). The class will be divided into teams of two individuals, and by the end of the semester each team will have produced a 10-15 minute documentary to be shown at the class’s “We Did It Ourselves” film festival.

Although this course is predominantly a production course, it has a humanities component as well: Our focus on production will proceed against the backdrop of a theoretically rich analysis of contemporary documentary that draws from some of the great thinkers in both ethics and aesthetics. There is no previous production experience necessary or prerequisites nor co-requisites for this class. Students from all disciplines are welcome.

HONR 394.87 The Holocaust

This course examines the Holocaust from multidisciplinary perspectives. Throughout the class, we will explore the history of antisemitism and its role in the Holocaust while also analyzing the Nazi rise to power and other extreme-right movements in Europe, anti-Jewish policies in Germany and throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945, the connection between World War II and the Holocaust, the impact of the Holocaust, and responses to the Holocaust. We will also examine the various phases of the Holocaust. The last part of the class contemplates the war’s end, the search for postwar justice, memory, commemoration and denial, and genocides after the Holocaust with the goal of understanding its lasting legacy and impact.

HONR 394.86 Communicating Science

Why do some scientific ideas reshape society while others mutate into misinformation on their way to your feed? For physicians, diagnosis is often the easy part. The real challenge lies in explaining science in a way a patient understands, believes, and acts on. The underlying science may not change, but the explanation—mechanism, metaphor, reassurance, or story—can determine whether the patient gets better or worse. This seminar examines what happens to scientific knowledge as it moves out of the lab and into the world. Who decides how a dataset becomes a graph, a paper becomes a headline, or a study turns into a viral meme? Information moves between researchers, journalists, artists, and the public, and at every step, choices shape how science is understood. Do the people making those choices bear responsibility?

Students will examine how communicators balance competing incentives—accuracy, economics, emotional impact, and politics—when translating complex ideas for their audiences. Drawing on examples from medicine, astronomy, climate science, and film, the course traces the many paths scientific ideas take as they move through society. Through discussion, case studies, and writing exercises, we will analyze how people frame scientific claims, communicate uncertainty, and navigate the ethical tension between precision and reach. Students may also have the opportunity to visit the instructor’s observatory to explore how astronomical data are translated into images for public communication. Students will emerge from the course better equipped to critically interpret scientific claims, recognize how narratives shape knowledge, and communicate complex ideas responsibly in a world where information competes for attention and trust.

HONR 495.80 QUEST

This course supports students working in the QUEST Program as a capstone experience or honors elective. The QUEST challenge will be “how can you contribute to making housing in Missoula more affordable?" We will dive deep into the issue and explore historic, national, and local perspectives on the issue. In the spring, students will continue an exploration on the topic around the themes of policy, local governance, and professional development. Students will have opportunities to receive scholarships and an internship. This course may satisfy and honors elective or experiential learning requirement. For seniors, QUEST may satisfy the capstone.