The work produced for the Honors Creative Scholars distinction should be over and above that produced for one’s required senior project, senior recital, senior thesis, etc. Your creative activity should be original work. You do not want to simply redo what has been done before. The product that results from a Scholars creative activity is more than a class assignment. Ideally, you would like to prepare a portfolio suitable for performance, display, or publication in an appropriate professional forum. Keep in mind that you must complete your creative endeavor and prepare a polished product by early-April(or early November for fall graduates). Choose your topic accordingly. You should include the following information in your proposal, with each section labeled accordingly for the convenience of the reader. Note that we use the term “art” in its broadest meaning to include the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, creative writing, etc.
Lay out the creative project that you wish to pursue and suggest why it is a significant endeavor. Summarize pertinent previous work in this field, showing the relation of the material cited to the proposed project, documented with citations. The introduction need not be a complete bibliography, but should indicate that the state of knowledge of the proposed field has been surveyed. The references should be in a format consistent with professional journals in the discipline.
You should describe the proposed product; e.g., original paintings,sculpture, musical scores, choreography, short stories, novella, etc.; performance measure(s) to determine the success of the project; and plans for documentation, evaluation, and dissemination of the creative work, as appropriate.
The creative merit of the project should be addressed. Aspects of creative merit may include the following:
Briefly review what you propose to do, how you propose to do it, and what you intend to learn, to convince readers that the activity to be done is important and has a reasonable chance of success.