You are invited to apply for admittance to the Department’s History of Art and Architecture honors program during the 2026–27 academic year. The application is open to any concentrator planning to graduate in May 2027. This call is for students wishing to pursue honors as senior concentrators in either HIAA or ARCH.

If you are graduating in December 2027, you should apply this spring (2026) and pursue your honors thesis over the next academic year (AY 26-27)

Applications are due by email to Nancy Safian, Student Affairs Manager (nancy_safian@brown.edu) by Friday April 3. Students will be notified of the status of their application by Friday May 1 and students accepted to the program should register for the Honors Thesis seminar during spring registration for FA26. 

The honors program is an opportunity to mobilize what you have learned in the concentration to make an original contribution to the field. 

For those admitted to the honors program in HIAA, research and writing of an honors thesis takes place over the course of your senior year. You work with a thesis advisor and a second reader. The thesis should be a research paper of no more than 35 pages in length, not including bibliography and illustrations. It is due in final draft on April 1 of the spring semester, with first and second draft deadlines established with your advisor and scaffolded over the entire academic year. At the end of the spring semester, you will present your work at a public gathering to which you can invite family, friends, and professors. 

Students pursuing honors in the Architectural Studies concentration may similarly choose to write a research paper, or to develop a design project with a complementary written component. The nature of the project is worked out by agreement with the thesis advisor. 

For registration purposes, you will enroll in two successive semesters of your advisor’s section of HIAA 1990 (Honors Thesis). Your primary thesis advisor will issue you an override code for their section of 1990 in which you should register. During both fall and spring semesters you will participate in monthly meetings of the Honors cohort, in which honors students in the HIAA concentration share their work in progress with each other and with the faculty member who supervises the seminar. These monthly meetings, usually three per semester, are mandatory. 

Students eligible for honors must have completed the majority of the concentration requirements by the application deadline, earned mostly “A” or “S with distinction” grades in the concentration, and identified a topic of personal interest. Students expecting a write a thesis are advised to have strong writing skills in hand before applying. 

The steps for applying to the honors program are these:

1.  Identify the topic on which you want to write your thesis in conversation with the faculty members who are closest to the field of your interest. After an initial conversation, ask this HIAA faculty member if they are willing to serve as your advisor. (NB: be sure to do this soon, to leave you time to develop your topic. Please also note that faculty receive many requests and have a limited number of theses they can advise.) 

2. Write a 2-page, double-spaced proposal that includes a clearly articulated research question and why and how you will research your topic and bibliography to answer this research question. 

3.  Submission of the honors application, which must include (in a single PDF):

• A brief (1-2 paragraph) cover letter that states the topic and identifies your advisor and proposed second reader. The second reader can be a faculty member in the History of Art and Architecture Department, a professor in another department at Brown or at another university, or a curator in a local museum. You should choose the second reader in consultation with your advisor.
• Your 2-page, double-spaced proposal
• 1-page bibliography that lists the books and articles most important for your topic. The bibliography should demonstrate the foundation of knowledge upon which you intend to build your work.
• A copy of your current CV or resume

Applications should be submitted to the Student Affairs Manager Nancy Safian (nancy_safian@brown.edu) no later than April 3, 2026.

• Set up a schedule of regular meetings with your advisor
• Register in both semesters of the senior year for HIAA 1990, the Honors Seminar.  Each semester carries one credit. The Honors Seminar meets once a month.
• The Director of Undergraduate Study, Holly Shaffer, supervises the Honors Seminar and will establish a schedule for researching and writing the honors thesesHonors Presentations from May 2020      2020 Sample Senior Booklet

You can find A sample budget and propsal outline here. 

These are examples to help you organize your proposal, but your application does not have to be formatted in this exact manner. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to our Student Affairs Manager, Nancy Safian (nancy_safian@brown.edu).