The Honors Program at Puget Sound offers students a chance to fulfill their Core Requirements in courses that focus on classic texts of Eastern and Western civilization. Each year, 34 students are selected to participate in this four-year program. These students will take classes together and build a common base of knowledge from which to draw on in subsequent classes. During senior year, each student in the program will write an Honors Thesis in their major or field of study and then present their research to the community. At graduation, students who complete the program will be designated as Coolidge Otis Chapman Honors Scholars.
The Honors Program fosters a sense of community among its students by sponsoring activities such as trips to the Seattle Opera, the annual Langlow Haunted House which benefits the Kids Can Do! mentorship program, frequent discussions, presentations by members of the campus community or visiting scholars, and the Honors Film Series. Fourteen students may also live in the Langlow House during their freshman year, which serves as a central meeting place for the program.
Theses from 2022
Life Insurance Access and Financial Resilience: Fostering Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Latin America, Nicolas Thompsen
Theses from 2021
PROTO-NATIONALISM IN SCANDINAVIA: SWEDISH STATE BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE AGES, Alexander Jacobson
Theses from 2020
The Half Life of Environmental Racism: Reproductive Justice and Nuclear Technology on Indigenous Lands, Katherine Gladhart-Hayes
Mindful of a Profit? A Critical Analysis of Meditation Apps in the Context of Neoliberalism and Western Constructions of Religion, Kylie I. Gurewitz
Those Who Stay - U.S. Immigration Policies and the Impact of Migration on the Communities of Oaxaca, Mexico, Aliah McCord
Theses from 2019
Cicero and His Exploration of Frienship, Madison Brown-Moffitt
Distinguishing Mitigated and Unmitigated Agency and Communion and the Implications for Dating Relationships, Payton Gubser
Epistemic Injustice and Suicidality, Sam Lilly
An April Anarchy: Non-realist dramaturgical approaches to Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning, Molly S. McLean
Theses from 2018
TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH: ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, Yiqing Dong
Soundscape Composition: Music as Environmental Activism, Megan A. Reich
Of Queens, Incubi, and Whispers from Hell: Joan of Arc and the Battle Between Orthopraxy and Theoretical Doctrine in Fifteenth Century France, Helen W. Tschurr
Theses from 2017
Gravitational wave behavior at a vacuum-matter interface, Jake Litterer
Evolvability: What Is It and How Do We Get It?, Matthew Moreno
Putting Care Back into "Health Care:" An Analysis of the Place of Community Health Workers within the U.S. Health Care System, Megan Schowalter
Theses from 2016
Healing Powers; An Examination of Medical Ethics, Benevolent Lies, and The Doctor-Patient Relationship in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain, Rosa Dale-Moore
The effect of music on isokinetic peak torque during performance in female collegiate athletes, Olivia Fair
César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major: The Significance of a Neglected Composer’s Influence on the Violin Repertory, Clara Fuhrman
Confronting the Past: Corruption in Post-Communist Hungary and Romania, Michellie Hess
Joseph Joachim: Collaborator, Composer, Interpreter and Inspirer, Brandi Main
China's ineffective water pollution policy: an issue of enforcement, Taili Ni
Theses from 2015
Playing with Death: The Potential for Violent Video Games to Induce Mortality Salience, Beth Anderson
Dum conderet urbem: Poetic Portraits of Aeneas as Political Commentaries on Augustus, Alicia Matz
Growing up on the spectrum: How High-functioning Young Adults with Autism Transition to Independence, Brittany Walker
Theses from 2014
Revolution or Reform: Contradictions Within the Ideology and Actions of the Black Panther Party, 1969-1970, Jana Cary-Alvarez
The [ftaires!] to Remembrance: Language, Memory, and Visual Rhetoric in Chaucer's House of Fame and Danielewski's House of Leaves, Shannon Danae Kilgore
The Feasibility of Citywide Public DRT: Door-to-door Bus Service in Tacoma, Nathan Pastor
Determining the Potential Activity of Wnt Signaling During Zebrafish Oocyte Maturation, Nathan Pincus
Theses from 2013
Beyond Hippies and Rabbit Food: The Social Effects of Vegetarianism and Veganism, Anna Lindquist
Theses from 2012
Some Comfort to the Order of Things: A Journey Through the Terrain of Silence, Grief, and Nature, Laura Derr
ROK and Rac mediation of PRL-1 function in the wings of Drosophila melanogaster, Rosemary Dinkins
ANGRY YOUTH: PATRIOTIC EDUCATION AND THE NEW CHINESE NATIONALISM, Rachel Gary
Silencing Sacagawea: Eva Emery Dye & the Origin of an American Myth (1902-1905), Tedra Hamel
"[Breaking] the back of words": Dimensions of Gothic Unspeakability in Poe, Faulkner, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Elizabeth Kirsch
Theses from 2001
A Study of Japanese Animation, Michele Gibney