Bing Honors College

Bing Honors College (BHC) brings Honors students to campus in early September to work with faculty leaders, graduate mentors, and peers on research and writing related to their Honors theses. BHC participants work individually and in departmental or program cohorts during the College. As a result of their BHC participation, students begin senior year with a strong sense of intellectual purpose and a serious commitment to independent scholarship.

Honors College was inaugurated in 1993 as part of the Bing Teaching Initiative, a series of curricular innovations designed to improve the quality of undergraduate education at Stanford. Begun as a pilot program with 28 students from three departments, BHC has grown steadily over the years. It currently accommodates roughly 100 students from a wide range of undergraduate departments and programs.

BHC Activities and Course of Study

The BHC program balances cohort-sponsored activities with ample time for writing, library research, individual conferences with advisors, and informal interactions among students.

Each Bing Honors College cohort organizes collective activities to develop skills needed for successful scholarship and to help students join an intellectual community. Cohort-sponsored activities organized by faculty leaders may include the following:

• Oral presentations by students for one another and peer reviews of writing and research plans
• Seminars with reading assignments and discussion of research approaches in the field
• Review of previous Honors theses and development of a model thesis
• Library orientations, including meetings with curators and demonstrations of research tools
• Special skills workshops, such as statistical analysis and software applications
• Thesis writing or prewriting workshops
• Oral communication workshops
• Faculty presentations on their own research and writing processes
• Field trips to local archives and bookstores
• Culminating assignments for the end of Bing Honors College including poster sessions, oral presentations, or written work