honors thesis northwestern

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

• Undergraduate
• Honors Thesis

Honors Theses 2020 - 2021

Ali abdullah | inequality beneath the surface: nonprofits and unequal immigrant services in chicago.

When it comes to helping immigrants to the U.S. adjust economically, socially, and civically, the work typically falls on local government and nonprofit organizations. And in most major cities, nonprofits take the lead in administering crucial services in specific communities, with cities playing a supporting role. However, the immigrant community is not a monolith, and a nonprofit-led social safety net risks letting disadvantaged portions of the immigrant community fall through the cracks. This thesis aims to answer the question of how the city-nonprofit relationship ignores or even contributes to inequality between segments of the immigrant community, as well as providing recommendations for cities and nonprofits to ensure an equitable approach. Drawing on survey data and interviews with individuals at Chicago nonprofits, this project attempts to understand the immigrant services landscape from the nonprofit perspective to offer perspectives for an equitable path forward.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Jaime Dominguez

Thomas Abers Lourenço | “Where Our Heroes Were Kept”: Social Status and Political Prisoner Campaigns in Northern Ireland, Palestine, and South Africa

Why do some imprisoned opposition leaders launch campaigns to mobilize society while others do not? This thesis seeks to answer this question by comparing the cases of Irish Republican prisoner Bobby Sands, Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti, and South African prisoner Nelson Mandela. While incarcerated, both Sands and Barghouti struggled to draw attention to the condition of political prisoners and rally support for them outside prison walls. Mandela, by contrast, spent decades in jail without engaging in such activism. Explanations that emphasize despair over living conditions and extreme isolation fail to make sense of this variation. I propose that perceived loss of social status causes prisoners to launch campaigns to mobilize society. Imprisoned leaders may tie their social status to the legitimacy of the political movement they represent. When their status comes under threat, they can interpret this not only as a personal issue, but as a movement issue which requires action. I examine this hypothesis using evidence from autobiographies and press releases, as well as from semi-structured interviews I conducted with former political prisoners and experts.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Wendy Pearlman

Alison Albelda | Politics Versus Policies: Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ghana

COVID-19 serves as a stress test for democratic consolidation. Ghana proves a case study demonstrative in the nuanced coexistence of democratic consolidation in terms of programmatic policy creation and backsliding in terms of enforcement mechanisms. The programmatic nature of government assistance bodes well for democratic consolidation in the country while the preexisting clientelistic tendencies reflect the complex transparency and accountability difficulties in the country. When pressed the government cuts corners, resorting to patron client politics affected by scarcity of resources. The performance is impaired by the fall back of patron-client politics, which was an issue in the country prior to the pandemic.

Thesis Advisor: Professor William Reno

Eli Baum | It’s A Rich Man’s World: The Effect of Campaign Spending on Primary Election Outcomes in the United States

The effectiveness or lack thereof of campaign spending has significant implications for campaign finance issues. While research on the impact of campaign spending is not uncommon, it is rarely used to explore primary election spending. This study attempts to measure the relationship between primary spending and electoral outcomes while also adjusting for a number of confounding variables. Using data from the last decade of U.S. Senate primaries, the study finds that even after adjusting for these variables, there is a statistically significant positive relationship between primary spending and electoral outcomes.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Jason Seawright

Eliott Brown | The Political Influence of White-Collar Workers in the AI Revolution

Existing discourse surrounding the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies centers largely around the ramifications that are predicted to be felt by blue-collar workers. This project focuses on examining a different aspect of the AI revolution by looking to the political impacts created by the potential involvement of white-collar workers in job losses, especially in the light of their disproportionate wealth and influence on politics. By looking to mentions of technology-driven job losses in the media, party platforms, and legislation, I attempt to quantitatively test whether there is evidence that at-threat white collar workers are driving a more robust social and political response to technology-driven job losses now when compared to the automation-driven job losses of the 20th century that implicated only blue-collar workers. I find that technology-driven job losses are unquestionably more prominent in the media discourse now, but any thrust by white-collar workers to create change in this area is yet to register in the later stage political indicators of party platforms and legislation.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Benjamin Page

Catherine Buchaniec | Collapsing Agreements: Understanding the Durability of U.S.-Russia Arms Control

Over 75 years have passed since American bombers dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last hours of the Second World War. In the decades following, the world carefully avoided the use of nuclear weapons in the context of war despite a years-long arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the world’s two largest nuclear powers at the time. Some experts point toward nuclear arms control agreements between the two parties as a key factor in preventing the introduction of nuclear warheads into the realm of warfare. Despite initial support, several of these agreements have fallen into a state of disarray, and ultimately, collapse. This study examines four nuclear arms control treaties between the United States and the USSR/Russia — the INF Treaty, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), START, and New START — and considers each treaty as a case study. The results of this study suggest that no one factor is responsible for the collapse of these treaties. Instead, this study shows that the nature of nuclear arms control faces the same problems as other types of alliance-building. Nuclear arms control treaties are not robust and do not exist outside the larger context of the relationship between the involved entities, therefore, they are subject to the same variability as other manners of diplomacy and international engagement.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Hendrik Spruyt

Mia Cavener | A Dragon Guarding Gold: Do Natural Resources Drive China’s UN Peacekeeping Participation in Africa?

In recent years, scrutiny over China’s increasing participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations has grown, with many worrying that China’s participation will lead to a weakening of human rights norms in peacekeeping missions as well as a decrease in the efficacy of peacekeeping missions. An argument often made by the Western news media is that China’s interest in peacekeeping, especially in Africa, is driven solely by China’s dependence on African resources and the economic dividends reaped from resource extraction and trade. In response, there has been an increase in peacekeeping literature addressing China’s motivations when it comes to participating in UNPKOs. Several of these disregard, or wholly discredit, the claim that resource interests motivate China’s deployment of peacekeepers to UNPKOs. This thesis finds that while trade and resources play a role in China’s decision-making process, they are not the sole explanation for the deployment of Chinese peacekeepers.

Zachary Colton-Max | Are the Justices Really “Doing Better?” An Analysis on Supreme Court Clerk Racial and Gender Diversity

This thesis analyzes Supreme Court clerk data to evaluate whether a justice’s ideology, race, gender or birth year affects the racial and gender diversity of their clerk hires. It first provides updated statistics on clerk racial, gender, and law school diversity from 1994-2018. After evaluating the research question using established clerk recruitment models, the thesis develops a distinct method for evaluating the impact of justice identities on clerk hiring outcomes using multi-level models and link-function comparison. The paper concludes that a justice’s ideology impacts the racial and gender composition of their clerks. Additionally, the paper finds that a justice’s gender and birth year impact their clerk gender diversity, with mixed evidence regarding the impact of these traits on clerk racial diversity. By exploiting clerk hiring as a novel form of judicial decision-making, the thesis finds support for the different voice, representational, and informational theories of gender and judicial decision-making.

Thesis Advisors: Professors Chloe Thurston & Joanna Grisinger

Adam Downing | The Digital Front: Understanding and Evaluating National Responses to Cyber Attacks

Despite its relative infancy, clear trends regarding interstate reactions to cyber attacks have begun to emerge. This thesis investigates whether or not nations respond disproportionately mildly to cyber attacks. Three distinct national case studies are compared utilizing Mill’s method of agreement to attempt to answer whether or not nations respond more mildly. The concluding results confirm that nations respond less aggressively toward cyber attacks when directly compared to like physical attacks. This thesis further posits that this disparity stems from both a neoliberal as well as realist school of thought as national and international leaders lack norms governing how to respond to interstate cyber conflict between nations with asymmetric digital infrastructure.

Julian Freiberg | The Revolving Door: Private Detention Center Corporations, Bureaucratic Capital, and Political Influence

Private prisons and detention centers are prominent topics in political discourse due to concerns of inhumane conditions and unfair treatment of detainees. Despite these concerns, private detention center corporations house over 70% of detainees and continue to procure contracts with the federal government. This paper examines the bureaucratic capital that the private corporations have accrued by hiring powerful public sector employees, a phenomenon known as the “revolving door.” I first created a database of all revolvers at the five major private detention center corporations and then conducted quantitative analysis. My findings show that the revolvers generate an inequality of influence among corporations. Next, I used qualitative analysis to understand ways that revolvers impact the contract procurement process and threat of corruption that powerful revolvers pose within the industry. Lastly, this paper offers prescriptive policy recommendations intended to limit the revolving door and resolve ethical and normative political concerns.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Jacqueline Stevens

Rasa Kerelis | Exploring Social Norms through Fiscal Policy in the European Union: A Case Study of Refugee & Migrant Programs in Italy, Germany, and Greece

Having been founded on the principles of economic and social cohesion, the European Union succeeds when its Member States succeed. A major avenue for maintenance of economic and social cohesion, the EU Budget funds countless programs throughout various Member States and provides financial stability and additional funds for grant-seeking projects. When the 2015 Migrant Crisis brought an influx of migrant and refugee populations in, programs tasked with integrating and resettling those populations along with programs aimed at crisis and terror prevention received institutional funds through the EU Budget. In order to ensure proper distribution, the EU Budget and its various distributary agencies maintained social cohesion between Member States and incoming third-country nationals. So how are funds distributed within the European Union? This project explores the relationship between the European Union as an Institution and the various actors by which it disseminates, legitimizes, and reinforces social norms through fiscal policy and answers the question, how are norms affected by fiscal policy within International Institutions? While creating a standardized and legally binding set of communal values helps mitigate crises and aides in streamlining ethical financing at an institutional level of ground-level programming, several key accountability issues arise. Within existing institutional structures, high-quality accountability is necessary for the effective internalization of norms throughout all levels of EU society. Transparency, knowledge of impact, and the exclusion of non-citizens each pose distinct issues for the Budget of the European Union achieving its goals of promoting cohesion.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Galya Ben-Arieh

Aran Mehta | The Hindu Rashtra Meets Dar al-Islam: The Impact of Hindu Nationalism on India’s Relations with Muslim-Majority Countries

Since 2019, tensions between Hindu nationalists and Muslims in India have received greater attention in mainstream political discourse. This thesis evaluates the impact of Hindu nationalism on India’s relations with Iran, Turkey, and Malaysia during Narendra Modi’s premiership. While Modi’s increasingly Hindu nationalist agenda has provoked rhetorical condemnations from these three countries, the direct impact of Hindu nationalism on bilateral relations is negligible. Although this trio’s criticisms of India are partly out of solidarity with Muslims, they are largely symptoms of their desire to challenge Saudi and Emirati hegemony in the Muslim world. Through detailed analysis of current scholarship, newspaper articles, government publications, and interviews with experts, I demonstrate that Hindu nationalism plays a superficial role in India’s relations with these three countries, and is ultimately outweighed by pragmatic considerations. This research draws attention to an understudied area of India’s foreign relations and the intersections between religion and foreign policy, painting a clearer picture of India’s great power trajectory.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Jacob Montgomery | “Music to Kill To”: The Impact of Media in Civil Conflict and the Importance of Contributing Factors

The role media institutions play in civil conflict is a widely contested topic in political science. Some scholars view the media as watchdogs, while others see media institutions as powerbrokers of public discourse. This work seeks to demonstrate the importance of contributing factors in the study of media and civil conflict. Using a mixed methods approach, this study seeks to highlight the second-order impact the RTLM broadcasts had on Rwandan political culture through the lens of deference to authority and normalization of violence. Through the exploration of both the Concordia RTLM transcript and ICTR transcript databases, this study concludes that the RTLM transcripts did have a contributing effect on the Rwandan genocide through short term changes in civilian political culture. The results of this paper suggest that scholars need to rethink their approach to explaining the onset of political violence and highlight the importance of the ‘contributing factors’ theory.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Ana Arjona

Benjamin Nober | Regulating Government Use of Artificial Intelligence

Over the last decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a mainstay in the everyday lives of Americans. This thesis seeks to better understand what conditions can foster greater regulation of government use of AI systems. The present government reliance on private politics and the relatively low level of traditional government regulation of AI poses strong technical and ethical concerns affecting the liberties of Americans. Critical to answering questions surrounding regulation of AI are the legislative and electoral influences involved. How do legislator preferences, interest groups, and public pressure affect whether lawmakers are incentivized to engage in proactive regulation or to continue the current path of narrow, reactive measures? I argue that the pace of technological change and the place of government as the direct consumer of AI provide sizable regulatory hurdles. As a result, I hypothesize on the importance of the role of outside influences in driving regulation of government use of AI systems.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Laurel Harbridge-Yong

Akash Palani | Long Distance Nationalism: Indian Americans and Hindutva

What explains Indian American attitudes toward Hindu nationalism? Following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, has become a potent political force in India. In the Indian diaspora, particularly in the United States, the past decade has seen an increase in public activity related to Hindu nationalism. From the World Hindu Congress in Chicago, to President Trump and Prime Minister Modi’s massive joint rally in Texas, to demonstrations against Hindu nationalist citizenship laws in India, Indian Americans are more vocal than ever about politics in India. This study employs regression analysis to identify key predictors of Hindu nationalism among Indian Americans. Religious identity and behavior, Islamophobia, and certain benchmarks of assimilation emerge as statistically significant. Little empirical work has been conducted on the subject of Hindu nationalism in the United States, especially after the ascendance of the BJP in 2014. As one of the first surveys of Indian Americans focused on Hindu nationalism, this work evaluates the existing theoretical explanations for the phenomenon and helps set the agenda for future research. Furthermore, this study puts forth a method for quantitatively measuring attitudes towards Hindu nationalism, the index of Hindu nationalist sentiment.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Julie Lee Merseth

Lawrence Raia | This Isn’t Funny Anymore: An Analysis of the Evolution of the Usage of Humor in Presidential Campaign Speeches from 1960 to 2020

This thesis is an analysis of 100 presidential campaign speeches from 1960 to 2020. The questions guiding this prospectus are: does Donald Trump’s rhetoric represent a distinctive increase in negative partisan humor in recent decades? In other words, can we document a shift in political humor from more positive to negative? It was found that Donald Trump, while an extreme case, did fit within the overall rhetorical trends of the Republican party.

Hayden Richardson | Cheerleading at Northwestern University: A Case Study of Institutional Failure

This paper describes the sexual harassment, race discrimination, and endangerment experienced by Northwestern cheerleaders during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years and investigates the University’s response to multiple complaints. To understand the case, this paper presents evidence based on interviews with cheerleaders, the design of which was approved by the University’s IRB.

Supplementing the case study is a close textual analysis of the University’s long, inconsistent, and disorganized Title IX Policy. The analysis highlights the disorienting interactions had by those accessing the Policy and seeking help from the University’s Office of Equity. These interactions occurred under the guise of the Office serving as a resource for students. I also review recent scholarship addressing Title IX implementation limitations and its impacts on those who report.

This analysis advances two conclusions in tandem. First, it demonstrates that the abuse and other problems detailed were not the result a single bad actor but were widespread and persisted after multiple formal complaints to NU’s Title IX administrators. Second, it demonstrates that the University’s Office of Equity exercised its discretion in ways that prioritized the University’s interests and excluded cheerleaders from participating in the disciplinary process. 

The University’s Policy resulted, intentionally or not, in a power imbalance between students trying to access resources articulated in the Policy and Title IX administrators in the Office of Equity. This power imbalance gave administrators excessive control, discretion, and personal protection when responding to complaints of harassment and discrimination.

Cheerleading at Northwestern University: A Case Study of Institutional Failure shows that decisions of great consequence for both individuals and the University were made by individual administrators with great discretion and little oversight. The case of Northwestern cheerleading detailed in this thesis is an exemplary case of institutional failure. Students were told the Office of Equity exists to support them. Support is not what they found there.

Thesis Advisors: Professors Kimberly Yuracko & Sara Monoson

Victor Wang | Do Republicans Pay Fewer Tariffs? Steel and Aluminum Tariff Exclusion Requests and the Political Affiliation of American Firms

In March 2018, President Donald Trump acted to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Not all firms have to pay tariffs though. American companies can receive tariff exclusions by applying for them at the Department of Commerce. Using a unique dataset containing tariff exclusion request decisions made between March 2018 and June 2019, I study how the political affiliation of American firms may impact their ability to secure tariff exclusions from the Department of Commerce and examine how increasing partisanship in the United States has impacted bureaucratic decision-making with respect to individual American firms. The results of data analysis suggest that the Trump Administration and the Department of Commerce favored American firms with no partisan political affiliation as well as firms affiliated with the Democratic Party when making decisions to grant or deny tariff exclusion requests. In addition, the Department of Commerce was more likely to grant tariff exclusions submitted by smaller Republican-affiliated firms, larger Democratic-affiliated firms, and smaller firms with neither affiliation.

Thesis Advisor: Professor Stephen Nelson

Drew Weisberg | Synergy or Discord: Domestic- & Foreign-Owned MSME Interactions in Kenya

Over the last decade, researchers have paid increasing attention to the phenomenon of foreign entrepreneurs opening micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya. Existing research on this subject has found that these foreign-owned firms often outcompete their Kenyan counterparts and that the interactions between these two groups tend to be tenuous. This research adds to the existing literature by taking a micro-level approach to understanding the outcomes of interactions between Kenyan and foreign-owned MSMEs, through an original large-N survey and interviews with Kenyan businessowners, union leaders, and a government official. The analysis of these data has resulted in several key conclusions: that the possession of proprietary assets by Kenyan firms provides them leverage in bargaining with their foreign-owned counterparts, that the extent of collective action established between Kenyan firms in a given industry can grant them an advantageous bargaining position in inter-firm negotiations, that the degree of legal codification of inter-firm arrangements can provide incentives for a given party (the foreign firm is examined here) to defect from an agreement or not, and that Sino-Kenyan business relations in particular are shaped by existing understandings of inter-firm trust and Chinese cultural mores, as well as the existence of an oft prohibitive language barrier. These conclusions yield multiple implications, namely that greater unionization within the MSME sector in Kenya can benefit domestic business, legal education could reinforce partnerships and increase institutional trust, a more robust language education system in Kenya can reduce friction in inter-firm interactions, and more realistic depictions of inter-firm interactions in Kenya can increase relational trust between the studied groups.

Jacob Yalowitz | The Layered Development of Chicago Anti-Machine Politics: Mayor Lori Lightfoot as a Qualified Progressive

For most of the 20 th and 21 st centuries, political scientists studied Chicago politics due to its powerful and infamous political machine. Due to the dominance of the machine, students and observers of Chicago politics often failed to notice the current of cohesive anti-machine politics slowly developing in opposition to the long-tenured machine mayors. This thesis gives a comprehensive account of the development of anti-machine politics from 1955 to present, studying both winning and losing anti-machine mayoral candidates, and providing a new framework for analyzing differences in machine platforms. Through a layered understanding of political development, this thesis shows how anti-machine politics has changed over time, leading to three main categories of ideology – reform, progressivism, and qualified progressivism. 

Thesis Advisor: Professor Daniel Galvin

Juan Zuniga | The 2020 Protests: Disparities in Police Response to Left and Right Wing Demonstration

In 2020, the United States and world was impacted greatly by the COVID-19 Pandemic. In response to the pandemic, several state governments created rules and regulations to limit travel and necessitate mask wearing and social distancing for the summer and into the fall. As a result, many right-wing groups began to protest these executive orders and regulations at state capitols, federal buildings, and public spaces. In May of 2020, the murder of George Floyd sparked the largest civil rights protest movement in American history. Many communities began to question their role in policing, and many protests, although peaceful, were met with seemingly arbitrary state-sanctioned violence. Through the use of a multinomial logarithmic regression model, this thesis finds that protest ideology has a significant impact on how state agencies respond to a given demonstration. Notably, the size of the protest does not heavily determine the given outcome of a protest. 

Thesis Advisor: Professor Reuel Rogers

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

• Undergraduate
• Major in Physics

Requirements for the Honors Program

Any physics or astronomy major who satisfies the following criteria is eligible to participate in Departmental Honors:

• An overall GPA of 3.3 or higher
• A GPA of 3.3 or higher in all physics, astronomy, and mathematics courses.
• A refereed publication or an honors thesis (see below for details)
• At least 2 quarters of Physics/Astronomy 398 (Honors Independent Study) or Physics/Astronomy 399 (Independent Study) spent working on the publication or thesis project.

Students who meet the above criteria and wish to participate in the Honors Program must notify the Director of Undergraduate Studies during or before fall quarter of senior year.  All necessary documents (see below) must be submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by May 1 of senior year. 

Why Pursue Departmental Honors?

Departmental honors is a great way to highlight the skills you have learned, pursue a project you are interested in, teach others about your research and potentially publish a paper. For more information and reasons to do an honors thesis, talk to your advisor and to the director of undergraduate studies. 

Details of the Honors Program

The core of the Honors Program is participation in research supervised by a Physics & Astronomy faculty member.   Physics and astronomy are highly technical fields, and thus it is quite unusual for undergraduate students to make completely original research contributions.  It is more feasible for students to participate in ongoing research projects within the department, and to make self-directed contributions to those projects.  Also, it is rare for research projects in physics and astronomy to be “tidy” enough that they can be completed in less than six months.  Students should therefore expect that their Honors research will extend over at least two quarters, and more typically over a year.

To this end, Honors candidates must be enrolled for at least two quarters of Physics 398 (Honors Independent Study). However, Physics 399 (Independent Study) can be used in lieu of 398 if the Director of Undergraduate Studies determines that the work done is directly relevant to the student’s Honors research project.

Honors candidates must present evidence that they have contributed in an original way to an ongoing research program in the department.  This may be done in one of two ways.

1. Honors Thesis

The thesis must describe a contribution to a research project, and must consist substantially of work performed by the candidate.  A paper that only reviews or summarizes a research field will not merit honors.  The mere presence of data, without application or interpretation, will also not normally qualify as an honors thesis.

In certain cases, the construction or development of experimental apparatus or computer software may be of sufficient originality as to merit Departmental Honors. The student may submit a thesis describing these technical contributions, and detailing how these have contributed to the work of the research group. 

The thesis should be concise, and written in the style of a professional journal publication.  Long, pedagogical treatments are not appropriate. The thesis should contain the following parts: 

• A one-paragraph abstract
• A brief overview of the research problem, and a short discussion of why physicists are interested in this problem.
• A discussion of the research performed by the student. Evidence should be presented that the research involved a substantial amount of independent thought and/or self-directed effort.
• Acknowledgements

Sample Theses from previous years' Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Research Winners:

• Rebecca Diesing 
• Charles Kimball

2. Professional Publication

If the student makes a contribution to a research group of sufficient importance as to merit inclusion as a co-author on a refereed publication, a copy of the paper may be submitted to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee instead of a thesis.  In addition, students must submit a short report describing their specific contribution to the published journal article, and outlining how their work fit into the overall research project of which they were a member. Students who submit a paper rather than a thesis will qualify for honors but will not be eligible for the prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Research.

In all cases, the necessary documents must be submitted to the research advisor for review and approval by April 15. After revisions if any, the research advisor then sends the documents to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by May 1, along with a letter (typically 1-2 pages) in support of the student’s claim to an Honors degree. An independent letter of evaluation from another P&A faculty member is also required, and this is normally solicited by the student’s advisor. This letter (typically less than one page) should be sent directly to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by May 1.

Spring of Junior Year/Fall of Senior Year:  Students who meet the above criteria and wish to participate in the Honors Program notify the Director of Undergraduate Studies.  

April 15 of Senior Year  (or earlier): Honors candidate submits all necessary documents to the research advisor for review.  Any corrections or changes recommended by the advisor should be made by May 1.

April 15 of Senior Year  (or soon afterwards): Research advisor identifies a suitable evaluator (normally a faculty member in Physics & Astronomy), sends the draft documents to him/her, and requests a written evaluation (less than one page). 

**May 1 of Senior Year : Research advisor sends the final documents to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, along with a supporting letter (1-2 pages). The evaluator also sends a letter directly to the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

For more information, email the Director of Undergraduate Studies at  [email protected]

• Faculty Intranet

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

• Undergraduate
• Economics Major

Honors in Economics

The Honors Program in Economics gives outstanding senior majors an opportunity to design and carry out a research project on a topic of their choice, under close supervision of faculty. Students who are interested in pursuing honors in economics should apply during their junior year. The research project culminates in a senior thesis which, together with the student's record in economics courses, forms the basis for faculty decisions on the award of departmental honors.

The program is administered by the Department's Committee on Undergraduate Honors and Awards. The Committee consists of the Director of Undergraduate Studies and two faculty appointed by the Chair of the Department. (The faculty member directing the Senior Seminar, Economics 398, is not eligible to serve on the Committee.) The Director of Undergraduate Studies serves as the departmental honors coordinator.

Honors Program CRITERIA

Students who are interested in pursuing honors in economics should apply during their junior year by contacting the Director of Undergraduate Studies .  Typically, successful students should have:

• An overall GPA of 3.5 or higher.
• Completed, by the end of the junior year, all core courses in economics: Economics 201, 202, 281, 310-1, 310-2, 311.
• A GPA in economics courses of 3.5 or higher, and no grade below a B in the following courses: Statistics 210; Economics 281, 310-1, 310-2, 311.
• Completed, by the end of the junior year, at least two of the six 300-level field courses required for the economics major, and when combined with the registration for the fall quarter of the senior year, have taken at least four of the six required field courses.

Students who fall somewhat short of these criteria but are highly motivated to write a senior thesis should discuss their application beforehand with the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Students will receive a formal notification of the acceptance of their application to the Honors Program.

Structure of the Program

Honors candidates must complete two additional courses in economics, beyond those required for a major, in which they undertake the research and writing of a thesis. Three options are available for these two courses.

• Economics 398-1,2, Senior Seminar Nearly all candidates elect this option, because it provides a structured environment for pursuing research and allows students to interact with a small group of excellent students who are similarly engaged. A faculty member directs the seminar and provides general instruction in doing empirical work and preparing a research paper. The faculty member will also oversee the progress of each student. However, it is usually the case that students will be referred to another faculty member who specializes in the chosen topic and can give detailed direction and advice. A "K" grade is awarded at the end of the first quarter of 398; a letter grade is awarded at the end of the second quarter which is posted on the transcript for both quarters.  Normally 398-1, 2 is taken in the winter and spring quarters of the senior year, but arrangements can be made for students who intend to graduate in quarters other than spring quarter.
• Two quarters of Economics 399, Independent Study Occasionally a student may already have initiated a line of research with a particular faculty member and may wish to continue working with that person. However, 399's will not fulfill the requirements for honors unless a student has been invited to the Honors Program before enrolling in them. Moreover, students who elect this option must give an oral presentation of the thesis in the Senior Seminar.
• A two-quarter graduate level field sequence, for example, Economics 450-1,2 Industrial Organization This option is very rarely used. It is appropriate for a student who has completed all requirements for the undergraduate major, who has a serious interest in economic theory, and who wishes to use the senior year to explore economic analysis at greater depth and rigor. This option usually requires taking at least the first quarters of Economics 410 and 411, the first-year graduate courses in microeconomic and macroeconomic theory before embarking on the field sequence. 410 and 411 require extensive preparation in mathematics. Students who elect this option must still complete an honors thesis, which would be written in conjunction with the field courses, and they must give an oral presentation of the thesis in the Senior Seminar.

Departmental Honors

Completion of the Honors Program is necessary to be eligible for departmental honors, but it does not assure such an award. The Committee on Undergraduate Honors and Awards makes final recommendations on departmental honors, and its recommendations are subject to approval by the WCAS Committee on Superior Students and Honors.

The departmental Committee considers the following criteria in its deliberations:

• Two faculty readers should find the candidate's thesis to be of  very high quality . Members of the Committee may serve as readers. At least one reader must be a faculty member who did not serve as the student's immediate supervisor. Each reader must submit a written evaluation based on careful examination of the thesis and a recommendation regarding the award of honors. The evaluation must describe the original contribution of the work and comment on its strengths and weaknesses. In case of a division of opinion, a third faculty reader is solicited.
• The candidate should have attained a minimum GPA of 3.3 in the two additional courses taken in the Honors Program.
• The candidate should have attained a minimum GPA of 3.5 in economics courses offered for the major.
• The minimum GPA requirements in items 2 and 3 may be relaxed if the thesis is judged to be of extraordinarily high quality.

A majority vote of the Committee is required to recommend honors. The Committee's vote on each candidate accompanies its recommendations to the WCAS Committee on Superior Students and Honors.

Guidelines for the Honors Thesis

The thesis must constitute an original contribution to economic analysis and must consist substantially of independent research performed by the candidate. A paper that reviews and summarizes a body of literature on a particular topic will not merit honors, unless it arrives at an especially novel and provocative synthesis of ideas. The mere collection of data without some theory-based application or interpretation of the data will also not normally qualify as an honors thesis.

Any of the following styles of research are acceptable and may result in a successful thesis:

• A thesis may use economic theory to model an economic or social problem, develop interesting hypotheses, and examine the empirical validity of the model and hypotheses using suitable data and econometric methods. The model may pertain to contemporary economic issues or to issues in economic history or the history of economic thought. The model itself need not be original; the innovative contribution may instead lie in examining it with new bodies of data, or employing superior econometric methods to those used in previous work, or pitting conflicting hypotheses against one another in new ways.
• A thesis may study a model or class of models that cannot be estimated but is instead analyzed through simulation methods.
• A thesis may focus on a policy issue, applying standard tools of economic analysis to arrive at new insights about the likely impacts of past or prospective policy interventions.
• A thesis may involve only economic or econometric theory, in which case it must develop new methods for studying economic phenomena, or arrive at significant refinements of existing tools or concepts.

Aspects of these approaches may often be combined in a single thesis, and a novel integration of them to study a given problem may also qualify as original research.

Careful preparation of the final thesis is essential. The thesis must include the following:

• A title page
• Acknowledgments
• A one-page summary
• Text, arranged in major sections and subsections, as appropriate
• Endnotes (if footnotes are not entered on text pages)

The document must be typed and carefully proofread. Endnotes (or footnotes) and references must be prepared in a consistent, accepted style.  The thesis is normally submitted in one electronic file (word processing format or a PDF file) to the faculty member teaching the Economics 398 Senior Seminar.

The text should begin with an introduction describing the issues to be studied and the approach to be taken. It would usually proceed to a review and summary of past studies of the topic. The next section would usually lay out the model and hypotheses. If econometric work is undertaken, following sections would describe empirical implementation of the model, the data used, and the statistical results. In other cases, these sections would present the new analyses, insights, interpretations, or theorems. A concluding section would summarize the principal findings and their implications, highlighting the original contributions of the research. It would also note shortcomings of the analysis and propose directions for further research.

Selecting a promising research topic is a great challenge. Broad issues of economic policy are often attractive to students, but unless a topic is narrowed down sufficiently, completion of an original contribution within two quarters of research is unlikely. Even when the topic is suitably restricted, a definitive treatment will usually not be achieved. Thus, it is important that students show awareness in the final text of additional aspects of the problem they might have investigated, or additional statistical tests they might have performed, or improvements in the data they might have made, or additional methods of analysis they might have employed, had they had more time to work on the subject.

Copies of previous honors theses   are available for review from the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

• Undergraduate
• Honors, Awards, and Research
• Senior Thesis Seminar

Current Thesis Students

A thesis is a historical analysis based on a student’s individual research using primary materials that makes some original contribution to the field. The variety of methods and approaches currently used in the discipline of history means that no single type of thesis constitutes a model. The originality of the thesis may lie in its explication of untapped sources, its reinterpretations of familiar sources, its new synthesis of existing interpretations, or some other novelty. A thesis will almost invariably include: 1) an introduction to set out the problem, state the argument, limit the scope of the inquiry, and position the thesis in relation to the current state of historical opinion on the topic, 2) a set of chapters to present and analyze the relevant evidence, and 3) a conclusion to summarize the findings and suggest future avenues of research. A thesis is typically 40-60 pages in length including a thorough bibliography.

The final thesis is due in early May to allow your faculty adviser and seminar instructor time to read and review your work in advance of the mid-May deadline for submitting honors recommendations to the College.

Authors must submit a digital copy of their completed thesis to three people: the adviser, the 398 instructor, and the Undergraduate Coordinator. Please submit the thesis both as a pdf file and as a Word file. Printed copies are no longer required unless requested by the adviser or the 398 instructor.

The submitted thesis must include a title page, acknowledgments, a one-page summary with five keywords, the core text, footnotes, and a bibliography. The thesis must be carefully proofread and the references prepared carefully and in a consistent style.

Recommendation for Honors

Completion of the 398 seminar does not assure the granting of Honors. The Undergraduate Awards Committee makes a recommendation on Honors, and its recommendation is subject to approval by the WCAS Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence. The department uses the following criteria in its deliberations:

• Two readers of the thesis must judge it to be of very high quality. One will be the faculty advisor; the other is the instructor of the senior thesis seminar. In all cases, both readers must submit a written evaluation of the thesis, explaining their recommendation for (or against) the granting of Honors, and commenting on the originality and quality of the work. In rare cases where there is a difference of opinion, the Director of Undergraduate Studies will read and report on the thesis as well.
• The candidate should have a minimum GPA of 3.5 in history courses.
• The candidate should have a minimum GPA of 3.5 overall.
• Exceptions will be made to the minimum GPA requirement in items 2 and 3 if the thesis is judged to be of extraordinarily high quality.

If the department recommends Honors, the candidate’s name is forwarded to the WCAS Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence, which makes the final determination of honors. Be advised that there have been cases in which the department has recommended Honors but the College has declined to confer Honors.

Undergraduate Research Support Grants

The History Department provides eligible students with up to $250 to help support research undertaken as part of the senior Honors Thesis program.

In order to be eligible for an Undergraduate Research Support Grant from the History Department, students must:

• Be writing a senior thesis in the History department;
• Have already applied for and been granted an Academic Year research grant from either the Office of Undergraduate Research or the College of Arts and Sciences;
• Have documented expenses above and beyond those covered by the AY grant

In order to apply for funds, students should submit the following to the Director of Undergraduate Studies:

• The original proposal and budget provided for the Academic Year grant
• Receipts demonstrating that the student's costs went beyond the funds provided by the AY grant

Undergraduate Research Support Grants will be assessed on a rolling basis between October and May of each academic year.

The Johnston Prize

The Grace Douglas Johnston prize is awarded to the student whose honors thesis is judged to be of the highest quality. The award is made by the department’s Undergraduate Awards Committee.

Mechanism for Student Complaints

• Faculty/Staff Intranet
• Graduate Student Intranet

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

• Undergraduate
• Senior Theses and Honors

2023 Honors Theses

Students graduating with Honors in Anthropology 

Annalise C Biesterfeld

"Big and Small Nature: An Ethnographic Case Study of Lawns in Evanston, Illinois"

Blair Donohue

"What We Talk About When We Talk About Evidence: A Cultural Analysis of the Term Breech Trial"

Bengi Norah Rwabuhemba

"Indigenous Postcolonality: Asserting Being in the Wake of Historical Disavowal"

Stephanie Torello

"Effects of Early Life Factors on the Infant Gut Microbiome in Cebu, Philippines"

"Baby got Bac: Associations Between Maternal Psychosocial Stress and Infant Gut Microbiota in Cebu, Philippines"

MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

• Undergraduate

Thesis & Honors

All MMSS students are required to design and carry out a research project on a topic of their choice, under close supervision of faculty during their final year at Northwestern.  The research project culminates in a senior thesis which, together with the student's record in MMSS courses, forms the basis for faculty decisions on the award of departmental honors.

Thesis Library

• SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
• Policies and Procedures

Posted January 27, 2021 by cac3791

Dean’s List (SoC)

Each quarter, students who are enrolled full time and obtain a GPA of 3.75 or higher for the quarter (not the cumulative GPA) are placed on the SoC Dean’s List.

Departmental Distinction

Each department may designate the top 5% of its graduating seniors as graduating with departmental distinction.  This honor is entered on the transcript.

Department Honors (Honors Thesis)

The departments of communication sciences & disorders, communication studies, performance studies, and theatre (including dance majors) have honors programs in which students take an honors seminar and/or write a thesis. Contact your academic advisor for more information. You should begin discussing doing an honors thesis with your advisor in the fall of your junior year. Some of the programs require you to apply for the honors program in the winter quarter of junior year. Departmental honors, when successfully completed and approved by your faculty advisors, is entered on the transcript.

Honors Program Applications

Latin Honors   

The top 5% of the graduating class in the School of Communication determined by cumulative GPA are awarded degrees summa cum laude; the next 8% are awarded magna cum laude; and the next 12% are design ated cum laude.  See the university’s academic catalog for additional details:  https://catalogs.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/requirements-policies/graduation-degrees/graduation-honors/  

Lambda Pi Eta  

Lambda Pi Eta is the national honor society for college students pursuing studies in communication-related disciplines and the official honor society recognized by the National Communication Association. The purpose of Lambda  Pi Eta is to recognize, foster, and reward outstanding scholastic achievement in the field of communication; stimulate interest in the field of communication; promote and encourage professional development among communication majors; provide an opportunity  to discuss and exchange ideas in the field of communication; establish and maintain closer relationships between faculty and students; and explore options for graduate education in communication studies. The School of Communication founded Northwestern’s  Pi Theta chapter in 2004; the chapter is devoted to fostering and supporting student-driven projects that build community within the school and that showcase communication students’ creative and academic work.  

• Commons Intranet
• For Faculty

Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

• Undergraduate
• Enrichment Opportunities
• Student Honors and Awards

Honors in Your Major

Related awards.

Students who do outstanding work in their Weinberg major may pursue graduation with department or program honors in that major.

There are several requirements for graduating with honors in your major, and details vary among departments and programs; be sure to consult with your major adviser or the director of undergraduate studies.

Common requirements

• An honors project: Completion of a substantial research project or other integrative type of work is always required. The project must culminate in a written report or some other tangible record. Working on an honors project lets you learn more about some area within your major that you find especially intriguing and, in many cases, gain first-hand experience that resembles that of practitioners in your field. Often, you are not just learning what has come before; you are creating or discovering something new.
• Excellent grades in your major courses:  Complete with distinction the standard courses required for the major and at least two quarters of 398 or 399 or a combination thereof. (There are limits on counting 398 and 399 credits  toward graduation requirements.)

Departments may add other criteria to this list.  Departments and programs offering an option to pursue honors in the major have a written honors policy that meets standards set up by the Weinberg Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence to preserve uniformity throughout the college.

You must be formally nominated for honors by your department or program in spring of the year you complete your honors project and then approved by the Weinberg College Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence. Nomination to this committee does not guarantee the award of honors; the committee makes the final determination.

If you are working on a thesis in a Weinberg major during your senior year and hope to be considered for nomination for honors, you should not plan to graduate in Fall or Winter Quarter of that year. Decisions about honors are made in the spring, and students who have graduated are not considered. You do not need to register for classes during Spring Quarter, but should indicate a Spring Quarter graduation term on your Petition to Graduate. It is also fine to graduate in a term later than Spring Quarter of the year you pursue honors.

Plan ahead to pursue honors

If you are considering pursuing honors in your major, you should speak with your College Adviser and your major adviser as soon as possible, even if you don’t have a particular project in mind.  There are several reasons to plan ahead.  First, completing an honors thesis can influence a number of other decisions, such as whether to study abroad or complete a second major.  Second, departments have different timetables and methods for selecting students for their honors program and for when students begin work on their project, and you’ll need to know the protocol in your major.  For example, some select potential honors candidates in spring of the junior year. Finally, since your overall record plays an important role in determining whether you can pursue honors, the more you can prepare and strategize with your advisers, the better.

Honors in two departments 

A student with two Weinberg majors who is interested in pursuing honors in both subjects should indicate that intent to each department or program in initial discussions about honors and should mention it in department or program honors applications. If the projects are distinct, the student may pursue honors in each department. If, however, the projects overlap and inform each other, the student may do a single, synthetic project designed to lead to honors in interdisciplinary studies. See our webpage on Pursuing Honors in Two Departments or Programs  if you are interested in either of these options.

Libraries | Research Guides

How to find northwestern university dissertations and masters theses, northwestern university dissertations and theses, northwestern dissertations in the university library.

• Masters Theses
• Dissertations from Other Universities

Ask a Librarian

Northwestern dissertations are required to be submitted to ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. The link below will allow you to search for dissertations by keyword, broad subject area, publication date and more. 

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window With more than 2 million entries, PQD&T offers comprehensive listings for U.S. doctoral dissertations back to 1861, with extensive coverage of dissertations from many non-U.S. institutions. A number of masters theses are also listed. Thousands of dissertations are available full text, and abstracts are included for dissertations from the mid-1980s forward.

Currently, bound dissertations and theses through 2006 are located at the Oak Grove Library Center and must be requested  through the record in NUsearch . After 2006, all Northwestern University dissertations were required to be submitted electronically for degree completion. 

• Next: Masters Theses >>
• Last Updated: Oct 9, 2023 1:21 PM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/dissertationsandtheses

University of Minnesota

Digital conservancy.

•   University Digital Conservancy Home
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Dissertations and Theses

Dissertations and Theses  [14966]

Dissertations and theses in the University Digital Conservancy comprise the official, approved version of these works. The dissertations and theses in the Digital Conservancy are submitted through the Graduate School in accordance with University standards . Works contributed to the Conservancy serve as a permanent University of Minnesota record of graduate student scholarship. Electronic submission of dissertations to the Digital Conservancy date from 2007. Master's Plan A theses date from 2009.

Online availability of earlier dissertations and theses include a majority of works completed prior to 1923 as well as works made available by individual alumni. Earlier dissertations and theses may be accessed onsite in paper form, or through interlibrary loan, or through the online Digital Dissertations database. Check the University Libraries catalog for holdings information or contact the University of Minnesota Archives for these earlier works. For more information, please see the FAQ on Master's Theses and Dissertations .

Collections

Dissertations [10397], master's theses (plan a and professional engineering design projects) [4576], recently added.

The Sedimentology and Petrology of the Upper Cambrian Mt. Simon, Eau Claire, and Galesville Formations in Southeastern Minnesota 

The plant ecology of soil nutrient supply from species to ecosystems 

An Exploration of Loneliness Across the Psychosis Spectrum 

Concurrent detection and introgression of novel loci controlling yield component traits and stem rust resistance from Triticum turanicum into T. aestivum 

Nonthermal Plasma Synthesis of Silicon-Based Materials 

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