Honors

SENIOR THESIS AND GRADUATION WITH DISTINCTION IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM
The Environmental Program faculty recognize the educational benefits for any student of doing original research and presenting it in writing and orally. Therefore, any senior EV major may elect to undertake a senior thesis. A senior EV major who completes a high quality senior thesis, presents it orally at the Environmental Science senior seminars, and has a high grade point average (for details of the GPA requirement see the section on Graduation With Distinction below) will receive Graduation With Distinction. This honor will be recorded on the student’s official transcript and noted on the commencement program at graduation. On the other hand, if a student meets the senior thesis and presentation requirements, but does not have a high enough grade point average, s/he will not receive Graduation With Distinction, but the successful completion of the senior thesis requirements will become part of the student’s official transcript under EV 499 Senior Thesis.

SENIOR THESIS
The option of undertaking a senior thesis must be initiated by the student and approved by an EV Progam faculty member (primary research advisor), who will supervise the student's research and senior thesis. In addition, another faculty member (who may be in another CC department if the area of research falls under the other faculty member's area of expertise) must agree to act as a secondary advisor. (Faculty members may decline to be thesis advisors because of other commitments.) The primary and secondary research advisors comprise the thesis committee. The thesis committee will establish the format and requirements of the research and thesis, read and suggest revisions in the thesis, and determine whether the thesis is of sufficient quality to qualify for Graduation With Distinction.

Ideally, the decision to write a senior thesis should be made in the fall of the junior year so that the spring may be devoted to a survey of the literature and planning for the research. The research itself should begin by the following summer. Work on the writing of the research must begin by the fall of the senior year. The senior thesis is based on original research done by the student. A literature review, although a necessary part of a senior thesis, is not in itself considered to be a thesis.

OFF-CAMPUS RESEARCH
Off-campus research projects done in such programs as the Woods Hole Ecosystems Center, the ACM Tropical Field Research Program in Costa Rica, a Hughes Undergraduate Research Program (HURP) grant-supported research at another institution, or other approved research experience at a laboratory or field station may be used for the research on which a senior thesis is based. Students should be aware, however, that sometimes research supervision is these programs is not very good, and that they could end their off-campus program without having obtained suitable data for a senior thesis. A student should approach a CC biology faculty member about being the student’s primary research advisor before the student undertakes the off-campus research. When the student returns to CC after finishing the off-campus research, the primary thesis advisor will judge whether the results of the student’s off-campus research project is worthy of a senior thesis. Students are additionally cautioned that the actual writing of the senior thesis based on off-campus research must be done by working closely with the CC EV Program faculty member who has agreed to be the student’s primary research advisor. In this case the primary thesis advisor supervises the data analysis and writing of the thesis, rather than supervising the actual research.

REGISTRATION FOR SENIOR THESIS
Students must arrange for a thesis committee consisting of a primary research advisor, who must be a Biology Department faculty member, and a secondary advisor, who may be in another academic department. An oral presentation advisor, normally the primary research advisor, is also necessary.
Also by the end of block 2 students planning to do a senior thesis should be signed up for EV 499 Senior Thesis through the Registrar’s Office. Enrolling in EV 499 and completing the EV Program’s requirements for a senior thesis (a high quality written senior thesis and an oral presentation at the EV senior seminars) will provide an official record of the senior thesis on the student’s transcript. There is an option of signing up for EV 499 as a regular block course, or if a student does not want to use a regular block for this course, s/he may enroll in EV 499 as an extended format course.

Students may enroll in one extended format course per semester for 1/2 CC unit at no extra tuition cost. The instructor for EV 499 should be the primary thesis advisor. Unless a senior wants to take some other extended format course, s/he should sign up for EV 499 as an extended format course for each of the two semesters of the senior year.

ORAL PRESENTATION OF THESIS
In addition to the written senior thesis, a student must make a high quality oral presentation of the thesis research and results. Ordinarily, this presentation will be at the annual spring Environmental Science senior seminars. The presentation is prepared under the supervision of at least one EV faculty member who is also part of the thesis committee. Normally the oral presentation advisor is also the primary research advisor for the senior thesis, unless circumstances dictate otherwise. The student's oral presentation advisor will help the student fit the presentation into the time available for the seminars, make suggestions about organization and the preparation of slides, and help set the level of the talk appropriate for the CC audience. The talk must be a well-planned, rehearsed, understandable, and professional presentation of scholarly work. Students who do off-campus research as a basis for their senior thesis are cautioned that they must work closely with their CC presentation advisor to prepare their talk, even if they have orally presented the results previously as part of their off-campus research experience. This will help insure that the presentation will meet the EV Program’s standards of quality.

At the EV senior seminars, the EV faculty will evaluate the presentation (see the sample evaluation form, Appendix II) and will give the completed forms to the student's oral presentation advisor, who will discuss the evaluations with the student. After discussing the evaluations with the student, the advisor will report the results of the evaluation forms to the whole EV faculty for purposes of evaluation for distinction.

The student must inform the EV Program Coordinator (Sharon Neely) of his or her intention to give an oral presentation at the EV student seminars and must submit an abstract on the presentation in advance. The Program Coordinator will attempt to send instructions for the abstract via campus mail or e-mail to all those students who have submitted a form declaring their intention to write a senior thesis (see section on Registration for Senior Thesis); however, it is the student’s responsibility to check his/her Worner box and e-mail regularly and make certain that his/her abstract is submitted in a timely manner.

TURNING IN THE FINAL COPY OF THE SENIOR THESIS
By the first Friday of Block 8, a final, clean, and professional-looking original of the thesis, signed by the thesis committee (on a title page as shown in Appendix III of this handbook) must be turned in to the EV Program Coordinator. By signing, the thesis advisors have judged that the written thesis meets the standards of quality necessary for Graduation With Distinction. The copy will be kept on file by the EV Program and should be presented in a folder with a typed label (title, student's name). It is customary to give each advisor a copy of the thesis.