Examples of Mutually Beneficial Honors Contracts

The work students do for Honors Contracts can be helpful for faculty too!

Teaching Tools

ContractBenefit to FacultyBenefit to StudentExample
The student conducts a literature review of recent publicationsProvides faculty with up-to-date knowledge in their disciplines. Enables faculty to keep up with regularly published journals and the changing needs and sentiments of students.Teaches students key skills such as how to complete a relevant literature review and define what constitutes good research and professional writing. A pre-med student can do a literature review that explores the debate surrounding how doctors use technology to communicate with their patients. 
The student researches and produces electronic content that faculty can use in online classes Provides faculty with informative and educational media content. The benefits vary depending on the content. It can be an informative and fun experience for the student. If a nursing student is planning a trip to England, they can create a video contrasting nursing in the United Kingdom with nursing in the United States. 

Collaborative Research

ContractBenefit to FacultyBenefit to StudentExample
The student can work on data collection and analysis.Provides help and saves time for the faculty.The student enjoys both a focused learning experience and an opportunity to share their findings at an undergraduate conference.Students work with their professor to compare obesity rates in Japan with the United States.
Students can also be involved in the publication process. They can collect articles for a literature review, assist with experiments, and draft or edit parts of the text. Faculty gains precious assistance and support in accomplishing essential academic and professional goals. The project enables students to build concrete, meaningful research and professional experience.Students find and summarize a group of case studies to be included in a textbook that the faculty member is writing.

Promotional Material 

ContractBenefit to FacultyBenefit to StudentExample
The student can create promotional material such as a newsletter, brochure, presentation, or video for the university or their department. The faculty/department gets relatable, timely promotional materials, especially for recruiting a college-age audience.The project teaches students how to present an overview of a subject in a way that will catch peoples' attention.Marine biology students can film an educational video showcasing experiments and activities they do in class. Then, they can explain what they're learning in the footage in a way that prospective students can understand.

Grant Applications

ContractBenefit to FacultyBenefit to StudentExample
The student can perform preliminary searches for promising grants, complete literature reviews, compile topic histories, locate supporting documents, collect and analyze preliminary data, and contribute to budget drafts. Faculty gains precious assistance and support in grant applications.Working through the entire process gives students valuable experience in how to identify and apply for a grant, which they can use in their future careers.Students can work with faculty on a grant application to increase funding for researching alternative electric vehicle fuel cells.

Community Engagement

ContractBenefit to FacultyBenefit to StudentExample
The student can be involved in community development exercises.Helps the faculty member to pursue, not only professional obligations, but also personal research interests in the community.Students also get the fulfillment that comes from helping the community. Students also get to practice skills they're working on in a real-world context.A professor who works with the Spanish-speaking community devises a project that sends a group of Honors students in a Spanish language course into a Spanish-speaking community to collect data about the government services they receive, their level of satisfaction, and inquire about what services were lacking.