The Senior Project

• Synthesize the components of the major
• Offer original insights into the central focus of the major
• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the academic foundations on which the project is built.

Many projects are research papers, usually around 40 pages in length. However, the senior project may take the form of a performance, exhibition, composition, or whatever other expression is appropriate to your focus. An exhibition may be the appropriate outcome of a study of the relations between insanity and the visual arts in European cultures. A performance might be the result of an interdisciplinary study of seventeenth-century musical instruments. Projects other than research papers must be accompanied by a substantial essay describing and documenting the ways in which the project explores the major.

Before beginning your senior project, you must develop a proposal and present it to your faculty committee and the Faculty Council for approval. Your faculty .committee should be consulted throughout your project's development. Then, no later than the middle of the last semester before graduation, you must submit the project to your faculty for evaluation. The committee then makes a recommendation to the SDM Faculty Council, who will meet with you. If both your faculty committee and the Faculty Council approve your senior project (and you have successfully completed all the courses in your SDM major with the required 2.8 cumulative gpa), you are recommended for graduation.