GW Monogram

University Honors Program

 

Self and Society

Students must complete two sections of HONR 2047 between their second and fourth years. In HONR 2047, students choose from a selection of social science introductory courses that provide a foundation in the language, perspectives, methods, and research approaches of a specific social science discipline.

Spring 2027 Courses

Cross-listed Honors courses

NOTE: Students must be registered in the HONR section in order to receive UHP credit. For courses that are cross-listed with another department, the UHP can add "credit" for a course to the student's DegreeMAP within the major and/or minor's requirements block. Students must have officially declared the major or minor with their respective school, and it must be reflected on their DegreeMAP at the time of the request. Students may also petition their school/major to accept HONR courses they find are relevant to their curriculum requirements. For any questions, please see a UHP Program Manager. 

A cross-listed course is a course that is shared with another department, please pay careful attention to the GPAC attributes associated with each cross-listed course.

Upper-Level Course Substitution Option

On occasion, a UHP student may have a particular interest in a certain course or topic outside of their major which we are not able to offer formally through the UHP but which may nonetheless conform to some or all of the ideals of an Honors course. If a UHP student can demonstrate that they will benefit personally and intellectually from that course, they may be granted an exception to count one non-UHP course toward the UHP upper-level course requirements. Please review the upper-level course substitution option webpage for more information.

Ambitious Multilateralism: Global Social Change

Professor Laura Engel

HONR 2047: 10 - 3 Credits

CRN: 72215

TR 11:10AM - 12:25PM

 Fulfills: 

  •  

Course Description: Is it better to live in a multilateral world? Why is it good to be multilateral? Is multilateralism just everyone talking while the powerful hit mute?

It has been said that the challenges of our global interconnected and interdependent world require “an ambitious multilateralism” (Bautista, 2024). Different from the past, individuals around the world are encouraged to step outside of their local and/or national interests to explore, take part, and embody a shared agenda or set of activities with others; to champion a global vision of shared humanity; to tackle problems of a global scale. The United Nations 2030 Agenda, marked by 17 global goals, is one such global effort and movement aimed at sustainable development and the pursuit of peaceful, inclusive, just, and sustainable societies. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), comprised of 17 distinct, yet interrelated goals, aim to offer the world a roadmap. The SDGs are not just a list of goals with targets and indicators, but can also be understood as a global social movement, defined as networks of key actors that pursue and shape an agenda across national borders, are impactful on global governance, as well as national and local political agendas around the world. Envisioned in the 2030 Agenda is multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approaches to global challenges. Yet, critiques abound – from the lofty nature of the goals to the agenda being driven only by select groups, classes, or global regions, undermining their mission of representative democracy and global equity.

Through this course, students will build knowledge about the history and contemporary multilateral institutions, talk with individuals in and visit international agencies, learn about the challenges of implementing the global goals, and offer opportunities to make their mark through a research project related to the global goals in context. In the process, the class will grapple with big questions, like Is multilateralism the best way to solve global problems? Has the UN helped create a more peaceful world? Is multilateralism just everyone talking while the powerful hit mute? Do global goals help or hurt people? Through these inquiries, we will better understand how countries work together through multilateralism, how they could work together, and develop the kinds of skills and dispositions needed to navigate our respective places within these dynamics.

Bio:  Dr. Laura Engel is a Professor of International Education and International Affairs with GW's Graduate School of Education and Human Development. A recipient of GW's 2022 Morton A. Bender Teaching award, Dr. Engel's research interests focus on the influence of global education policy trends in national and regional systems. 

Applied Health Equity

Professor Maranda Ward

HONR 2047: 12 - 3 Credits

CRN: 72491

M 6:10PM - 8:40PM

Fulfills:

  • GPAC: Critical Thinking in the Social Sciences

Course Description: Achieving health equity is among the nation’s health goals outlined in Healthy People 2020. The concept of health equity moves public health conversations, interventions, policies, and research beyond the individual unit of analysis to emphasize the social, legal, political, and cultural systems in which people are embedded. Where people live, work, study, play, and age- or the social determinants of health- are at the crux of understanding and assessing health equity. This course is designed around the three recommendations offered by the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (2008) to close the gaps in health outcomes: 1) improve daily living conditions, 2) tackle inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources; and 3) measure and understand problems and assess impact of action. Students will apply their understanding of these recommendations to the work of a local community-based organization that serves Black residents who live in a Washington, DC neighborhood East of the Anacostia River. Localized understanding of global health equity concepts will allow students to practice and/or strengthen public health competencies to address structural inequities that allow health disparities to persist for vulnerable populations. 

Bio:  Dr. Ward is an Assistant Professor and Director of Equity in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Her research focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and antiracism educational interventions as well as stakeholder-engaged community-focused studies on HIV, Black women's health, and youth identity. She is a recipient of GW's 2021 Morton A. Bender Teaching award.

US Interventions in Latin America

Professor Logan Puck

HONR 2047: 13 - 3 Credits

CRN: 77621

W 12:45pm - 3:15pm

Fulfills:

  • GPAC Critical Thinking in the Social Sciences

Course Description: Was the US’ recent invasion of Venezuela an anomaly or the continuation of a pattern of US interventions in Latin America? Using a case study-based approach, this course will examine the history of US political, military, and economic interventions in the region and shed light on the many motivations driving US intervention, including free trade, regional hegemony, anti-communism, the war on drugs, democratization, and more. The course will also look at how Latin American states and societies responded to these interventions and the consequences for the region as well as US interests and power. Finally, students will gain an understanding of how US interventions in Latin America have shaped US foreign policy decisions across the world.

Bio: Prof. Puck is a Professorial Lecturer in Honors. His research focuses on public and private security in Mexico with an emphasis on the relationship between the state and the private security industry.

Leading Authentically

Professor Gelaye Debebe

HONR 2047: 82 - 3 Credits

CRN: 77719

W 3:30PM - 6:00PM

Fulfills:

  • GPAC:Critical Thinking in the Social Sciences

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047 section 82 (CRN:77719)***

Course cross listed with IAFF 2040 Section 81 (CRN: 77538)

Course Description: Leadership ability is in high demand in all professions and at all levels. This course is a semester-long exploration of leadership within a dynamic and supportive learning community. The course seeks to dispel myths of heroic leadership as well as common beliefs that conflate leadership with having a formal position of authority. Authentic leadership is a dynamic capability that is anchored in values, influenced by the social environment, and learned and honed with practice. Students will learn from seasoned leaders, formulate personal leadership development goals, experiment with new leadership behaviors and gain insights into their leadership strengths and weaknesses. These objectives will be accomplished through a variety of activities including results obtained through lectures, 360-degree feedback, peer leadership coaching, interviews with established leaders, film analysis, and presentations. After taking this course students will develop an understanding of leadership as an art and science. Each student will leave the course with a conceptual grasp of leadership, leadership practice, leadership effectiveness, ethical leadership, and the role of social identity in leadership. Equally important, by the end of the course, each student will understand their leadership strengths and areas for development and will have a clear understanding of what they can do to continue to grow and develop as leaders.

Bio: Gelaye Debebe PhD is Associate Professor of Organizational Sciences and director of the graduate program in Organizational Science. She is passionate about teaching and researching leadership—check out her book: Women’s Leadership Development: Caring Environments & Paths to Transformation (Routledge).

Holocaust Memory

Professor Walter Reich

HONR 2047: 83 - 3 Credits

CRN: 72734

W 3:30PM - 6:00PM

Fulfills:

  • This course has no GPAC designations
  • CCAS: Upper-level History European Regional requirement
  • ESIA: The approved ESIA concentrations are:Comp. Political, Economic, & Social Systems (EFCA), Conflict Resolution (EFCB) , Contemp. Cultures & Societies (EFCC), Int'l Politics (EFCH), Security Policy (EFCI), Europe/Eurasia (ERCC), Middle East (ERCE)
  • GWSB: Non-Business Elective/Unrestricted Elective
  • SEAS: Social Sciences

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047 section 83 (CRN:72734)***

Course cross listed with JSTD 2002 Section 80 (CRN: 73299) and IAFF 3205 Section 80 (CRN: 73512)

Course Description: The sources, construction, development, nature, uses and misuses of the memory, or public consciousness, of the Holocaust. How do different publics in different countries, cultures and societies know, or think they know, about the Holocaust from diaries, memoirs, testimonies, fiction, documentaries, television, commercial films, memorials, museums, the Internet, educational programs and the statements of world leaders—some of them historically accurate and some of them highly distorted, often for political and national reasons. The challenge of representing the Holocaust with fidelity and memorializing its victims with dignity and authenticity. The impact of Holocaust memory on contemporary responses to other genocides and crimes against humanity. The increasing efforts to use, misuse, abuse, minimize, deny or attack the Holocaust for political, diplomatic, strategic, ideological, antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or other purposes, including the growing efforts to create false or distorted narratives of the Holocaust in Europe in the service of nationalist ends. The effectiveness—or lack of effectiveness--of Holocaust memory in teaching the Holocaust’s contemporary “lessons,” especially the vow of “Never again!” The roles of Holocaust memory, and of Holocaust denial or minimization, in international affairs, including in the Middle East in general and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. The psychological, national and diplomatic role of Holocaust memory in Israeli consciousness and behavior. The effects on Holocaust memory of the passage of time since the event. This course uses a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing on the fields of politics, society, ethics, literature, history, cinema, individual testimony, group psychology, social psychology, individual psychology and international affairs.

Bio: Dr. Reich is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He formerly served as a Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Media, Power, and Society

Professor Steven Livingston

HONR 2047: 84 - 3 Credits

CRN: 73587

TR 12:45PM - 2:00PM

Fulfills:

  • This course has no GPAC designations

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047 section 84 (CRN: 73587)***

Course cross listed with SMPA 3194 Section 84 (CRN: 73586)

Course Description: This seminar considers democracy in the United States through the lens of social and economic power structures.  Drawing on sociological and historical accounts, discussions are organized around a core hypothesis: Democratic decay is the consequence of endemic power disparities along class and racial lines.  The seminar is also informed by the instructor's fieldwork in Michigan during the 2024 elections.

Bio: Dr. Steven Livingston is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs and International Affairs and is the Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics. Dr. Livingston studies the role of digital technology in governance and the provisioning of public goods, including human security and rights.

Justice and the Legal System II

Professor Jill Kasle

HONR 2047: 85 - 3 Credits

CRN: 74841

T 12:45PM - 3:15PM

Fulfills:

  • GPAC: Critical Thinking in the Social Sciences

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047 section 85 (CRN: 74841)***

Course cross listed with PPPA 2001 Section 80 (CRN: 72510)

Course Description: Justice and the Legal System II is a continuation of Justice and the Legal System 1 (but Justice and the Legal System 1 is not a prerequisite for Justice and the Legal System 2).  Law school teaching methods are used.  The readings are Supreme Court opinions. Although the topics change from year to year, you can be fairly certain that we will cover due process, equal protection, and the First Amendment. Again, the best description of this course was written a few years ago by a student: "This course is the law school you go to before you go to law school."

Bio: Prof. Kasle is both a lawyer and Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration. She has extensive experience in telecommunication policy, has served on the Board of Advisors for GW's Undergraduate Law Review Journal, and was GW's university marshal for over two decades!

Empires from Rome to Washington

Professor Theodore Christov

HONR 2047: 87 - 3 Credits

CRN: 77948

MW 11:10AM - 1:00PM

Fulfills:

 

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047 section 87 (CRN: 77948)***

Course cross listed with HIST 2001 Section 83 (CRN: 77858)

Course Description: What gave rise to, and continues to sustain, a common aspiration to a single humanity and world citizenship, from antiquity to the present? This course traces the various ideologies of empires from ancient Rome through the great colonial powers of early modern Europe to imperial resurrections in our present day, such as the World Bank, the IMF, and US power globally. ‘Empire’ here should be understood loosely to embody a universal set of beliefs about the legitimacy of certain ways of life and political formations. Clearly the modern democracies of the ‘West’ are not empires in the widely understood sense of the term, but there are many – particularly in the developing world – who would claim that the objectives they pursue are distinctly ‘imperialist’. Yet what modern democracies seem to share in common with ancient empires is a single understanding of what a ‘civilization’ is, and the conviction that such things as rights, freedom of expression and association, even access to free markets, are the properties of all human beings, and not merely the concerns of one particular hegemonic culture. In examining modes of justification used to theorize ‘empire’, the course focuses on how Europeans came to think of themselves as possessing a distinctive understanding of the world, which they had a duty (and a right) to export, and often impose on others, and how that understanding has come to shape the modern ‘Global Neighborhood’.

Epidemics in American History

Professor Vanessa Northington Gamble

HONR 2047W: 82 - 3 Credits

CRN: 74115

MW 12:45PM - 2:00PM

Fulfills:

  • WID Requirement
  • This course has no GPAC designations

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047W section 82 (CRN:74115)***

Course cross listed with AMST 4701W Section 80 (CRN: 74118) and HIST 3301W Section 80 (CRN: 74117)

Course Description: This course surveys the history of epidemics in the United States from the late nineteenth century to today. It examines the development of the medical and public health responses to epidemics and the social, political, cultural,and economic impact of epidemics on American history and culture.This semester we will focus on the 1918 influenza epidemic; race, ethnicity, and epidemic disease; polio; and the tensions between public health and civil liberties, including the development of anti-vaccination sentiments. We will use primary documents, historical accounts, museum visits, and films to understand the history of these diseases and topics. Of course, we will conduct our study of the history of epidemics in the shadow of the contemporary COVID-19 pandemic. However, we will not focus on COVID-19 in this class.

Bio: Prof. Gamble is University Professor of Medical Humanities and Professor of American Studies.  A physician, scholar, and activist, Dr. Gamble is an internationally recognized expert on the history of American medicine, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care, public health ethics, and bioethics. She chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain an apology in 1997 from President Clinton for the United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.

Her many honors include appointment to the National Council on Humanities; election as a Fellow of the Hastings Center; membership on the Penn Med Board; an honorary degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University; and the Distinguished Graduate Award from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  A proud native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble is an elected member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine.

Identity: Theory & Politics

Professor Ingrid Creppell

HONR 2047W: 83 - 3 Credits

CRN: 74570

W 12:45PM - 3:15PM

Fulfills:

  • WID Requirement
  • This course has no GPAC designations

***Note that UHP students will only receive Self & Society credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2047W section 83 (CRN: 74570)***

Course cross listed with PSC 3192W Section 80 (CRN: 77593)

Course Description: What is identity? A simple answer – identity is who we are, who you are, who I am. It is who you or they claim to be. It is who we, they, or you are defined by others to be. The human world has always appeared organized along the lines of what we now (often) call “identity groups.” Ancient tribes differentiated themselves through adornments or totems. Today, individuals and groups define themselves in myriad ways. However, identity at the individual and collective levels is anything but straightforward and simple as an experience, issue, or topic of study. In the modern world, identity became a heightened and central question and issue in culture and politics for a variety of reasons. The aim of this course is to explore the identity question in its contemporary incarnation. Through studying works of philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, history, literature, and film, we will develop an understanding of this complex phenomenon and its political and ethical importance.

Bio: Dr. Creppell is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. She is currently working on enmity as a conceptual, normative, psychological and historical phenomenon.