SMCC’s Honors Program has two Spring Semester honors-designated courses aimed at challenging students who want to enhance their academic experience. 
Students can take part in the Honors Program by either enrolling in a designated honors course or by completing an honors option in a class that’s not designated as an honors course. Either way, the program provides students an opportunity to enrich their learning experience, build their academic resume and enhance their career credentials.
This semester’s designated honors courses are:
• Literature and the Environment (ENGL 245), taught by Robert Vettese. This writing-intensive course explores the genre of nature writing over the last 200 years and how writers have connected with nature. The class will focus on creative non-fiction, travel writing, memoirs and fiction, and students will also spend time with poets, filmmakers and philosophers who consider nature and environmental issues in their work. There will be a field trip, possibly to Walden Pond, the Portland Museum of Art or Prouts Neck.
• American Environmental History (HIST 139), taught by Eben Miller. This course explores the interaction between humans and their environments throughout U.S. history from colonial times to the contemporary era. Focusing on how Americans and their communities have both shaped and have been shaped by the environment, the course also emphasizes Americans’ perspectives on the environment throughout history, including the idea of wilderness, the advent of conservationism, the study of ecology, and the modern environmental movement.
Students can also complete honors option projects in virtually any program, from Nursing or Political Science to History or Communications & New Media Studies. Students work with their instructors and the Honors Program coordinator to design and complete honors option projects that may include extended writing assignments, artistic work, technical productions, business proposals and service learning experiences.
Students who want to graduate as SMCC Honors Program scholars must complete any combination of four honors courses and/or honors options with a minimum of a B, while maintaining an overall 3.3 GPA.
Students with questions or who want to participate in the Honors Program should contact Professor Eben Miller at emiller@smccME.edu.