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Pursuing a Thesis

Senior Concentrators wishing to graduate with honors in the Department must produce a senior thesis and carry academic standing of Group II or better, with a minimum GPA of 3.00 in concentration grades. In deciding whether one wishes to fulfill the honors requirements, students should consider their academic interests, commitment to independent research, and other deadlines and obligations during the thesis year. Many students find the task of producing a substantial piece of critical scholarship interesting and rewarding, but others find the senior thesis can become a frustrating and unwieldy burden. Some students prefer the freedom to take elective courses or savor extra-curricular pursuits during their last year at the College unhampered by the encroaching demands of thesis preparation. In general, it may be remarked that students are unlikely to do well in the honors program who are not already proven practiced writers committed to the process of scholarship; the senior thesis is not the place to acquire basic skills in writing, design, and/or research. In considering the Department's honors requirements, it should be remembered that students with honors grades overall may graduate with University Honors (Cum Laude) even if they do not receive Honors in History of Art and Architecture. The Undergraduate Program Coordinator (Marcus Mayo), Director of Senior Theses (Carrie Lambert-Beatty,) Director of Undergraduate Study (Jennifer L. Roberts), and Director of the Architecture Studies Track (Megan Panzano), are each available for consultation when determining if pursuing honors is the right decision for any individual student.

Department Timeline of Thesis Preparation 

A schedule of departmental dates and deadlines relative to the thesis will be available by the beginning of each Fall on the respective thesis-course Canvas site by the beginning of each fall Term. The thesis writer and faculty thesis adviser should agree on a working schedule which will adequately conform to these deadlines.

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Late in the fall semester, each concentrator pursuing a thesis will deliver a twenty-minute presentation on the their thesis topic, illustrated with digitally projected images, at the Senior Thesis Presentations. All departmental faculty and students will be invited to these presentations. By the end of winter break, each student will submit a complete first draft of the thesis, complete with illustrations.

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These dates apply to all HAA students wishing to pursue an honors thesis. For further criteria specific to students preparing a design thesis in the Architecture Track, see Academic Requirements: Design Thesis in the Architecture Track

Please consult the Senior Thesis Seminar Canvas site, or reach out to the Undergraduate Program Coordinator, for specific dates.

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• October: Initial Meeting. Junior concentrators are invited to meet with the Director of Senior Theses and the Undergraduate Program Coordinator for an introduction to the senior thesis writing process.

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• Early April: Short Proposals Due. Students submit a basic proposal outlining preliminary ideas, along with a list of three potential faculty advisers. Before submitting, students are expected to have corresponded or met with each one of their potential advisors to discuss their proposals. Faculty advisers are assigned to thesis projects in late April or early May.
• Late Early April: Applications due for Pulitzer and Abramson Travel Grants. See Undergraduate Prizes, Grants and Opportunities for details on grants and applications. If wishing to request funding for summer thesis research travel, students are expected to submit their applications to the Undergraduate Program Coordinator at the same time as their thesis proposal. See Undergraduate Prizes, Grants and Opportunities for details on grants and applications. Information on how to apply will be provided by the Undergraduate Program Coordinator. Grant recipients will be notified by email.

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• Late January: First Draft. Before the spring semester begins, students submit a full draft of the thesis, with illustrations, to the their faculty adviser for comments.
• Late February/Early March: Second Draft. Students are encouraged to submit the near-final draft to their faculty adviser for a final review before formal submission to the Department.
• Week before Spring Break: Final Submission Deadline. Late submissions will not be accepted. On the afternoon of submission, all students are invited to attend the Thesis Reception.
• Late March: Gallery-Style public reception and presentation of Design Thesis projects. All architecture track students that have prepared a design thesis will present their work informally at this event. All HAA thesis writers, as well as faculty and graduate students, are encouraged to attend.
• April: Thesis Review and Honors Recommendation. Senior Honors Theses are read and critiqued by Members of the Faculty in HAA (and the GSD and the Harvard Art Museums, where relevant) at the request of the Director of Senior Theses. Department Faculty meet to vote on final honors recommendations, after which thesis writers will receive an email from the Director of Senior Theses notifying them of their thesis grade and recommendation for honors. Students should speak with their Allston Burr Senior Tutor for the anticipated final honors decision of the College.
• Mid-April: Senior Thesis Poster. All senior thesis writers are expected to prepare a digital file for a 24 x 36” poster summarizing the thesis to be exhibited in the HAA Department for the following academic year. A suggested template will be provided and a workshop will be held in late March for assistance with poster preparation. The printing and associated costs are taken care of by the Department. Examples of previous posters can be found here (AY21-22), here (AY22-23), and here (AY23-24).

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The process of taking honors and producing the thesis in the Department is overseen for all concentrators by the Director of Senior Theses, Professor Carrie Lambert-Beatty. The Director of Senior Theses leads the Fall Term thesis-writing seminar (HAA 99A) and directs the meetings for departmental approval once theses have been submitted. faculty meetings at which rising senior advisor assignments and senior honors grades are determined.

Faculty Thesis Adviser 

When submitting their initial proposal in the spring of the junior year, students should include a list of three possible faculty advisers. The Department will then match , each of which they have previously met or corresponded with to discuss their plans. The Department will then match students with advisers according to student preference and faculty availability. Faculty thesis advisers should generally be full faculty members of the History of Art and Architecture Department, although Harvard museum curators with relevant expertise may also serve as advisers at the discretion of the Director of Senior Theses. Students in the architecture track pursuing a design thesis must also secure a second adviser from the faculty of the Graduate School of Design. Joint concentrators will generally select one faculty adviser from each department Design thesis students will be provided with a separate network of advisors to consult with at the GSD via the Director of the Architecture Studies Track, Megan Panzano. Joint concentrators with HAA as their primary field will be expected to secure an additional advisor from their allied concentration. Allied joint concentrators are expected to follow the recommendations of their primary concentration when determining advisors.

The adviser ought to serve as a critic of synthesized ideas and writings/designs, rather than as a director of the project. The adviser should be chosen with consideration more to compatibility in overseeing the process of the work than to being an expert in the field. If you have trouble identifying an appropriate adviser, please consult with the Director of Senior Theses or Undergraduate Program Coordinator before the spring deadline for the Thesis Proposal.

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Megan Panzano, Program Director of the Harvard Undergraduate Architecture Studies Track, oversees the execution of the two studio courses “HAA 96A – Architecture Studio I: Transformations” and “HAA 96B – Architecture Studio II: Connections”, as well as the senior design-thesis seminar “HAA 92R – Design Speculations.” She is available to consult for general advice on the design-thesis process and in finding a suitable advisor from the GSD. She coordinates the assignment of readers to senior design-thesis projects in consultation with the Director of Senior Theses and Undergraduate Program Coordinator.

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The Undergraduate Program Coordinator, Marcus Mayo, is available to consult at any point regarding general questions about the senior thesis writing process. In conjunction with the Director of Senior Theses, they will coordinate the initial meeting of concentrators interested in writing a thesis in the spring fall term of their junior year. The Undergraduate Program Coordinator collects and distributes thesis proposals, summer funding proposals, advisor assignments, as well as completed theses, grades and reader comments. They hold examples of the written requirements (thesis proposal and prospectus) and of the Pulitzer and Abramson Grant applications which students might wish are encouraged to consult as paradigms.

Academic Requirements – Written Thesis

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The writer must indicate the source of material drawn from others' work, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College.

Academic Requirements: Design Thesis in the Architecture Track

The HAA Architecture Track asks students to select an Area of Emphasis for fulfillment of their degree -- either Design Studies or History and Theory. Students wishing to pursue an honors thesis in the History and Theory Area of Emphasis will usually complete a written senior thesis paper and presentation on the same model as the thesis for general concentrators (see Academic Requirements: Written Thesis).

Students in the Design Studies Area of Emphasis The use of ChatGPT or any other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is forbidden at all stages of the writing process, including preliminary drafts, unless otherwise specifically stated by the instructor in writing.

Academic Requirements: Design Thesis in the Architecture Track

Students in the Architecture Studies Track who wish to pursue a thesis project may choose either a traditional thesis or a design thesis project. Design theses are creative thesis projects featuring a combination of written analysis and visual and physical design materials, as described below.

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1. HAA 92r Design Speculations Seminar – required
1. Course prerequisite: Completion of either HAA 96A (“Transformations”) or HAA 96B (“Connections”) studios.
2. This course requires that students secure a pair of faculty advisers – one adviser from Harvard History of Art and Architecture (HAA) Faculty and one from the Harvard GSD to support their research work within the course; course faculty advisers then serve as the faculty thesis advisers for the design thesis.
3. Megan Panzano, GSD Architecture Studies Director, and Jennifer Roberts, HAA DUS, can both help make faculty adviser connections for students pursuing this path.
(optional)
1. using the same process as written thesis students (See “Advising” section above).  
2. HAA 99A Senior Thesis Tutorial – attendance in this seminar is encouraged but not required in parallel with HAA 92r .- optional
3. Presentation of design work to HAA and select GSD Faculty as part of HAA Thesis Colloquium in December) – required

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1. Visual Bibliography (visual project references with annotated description)
1. Assemble a visual bibliography of references for your research project. The references included should be sorted into categories of your own authoring in relation to the research. Each reference should be appropriately cited using the Chicago Manual of Style, and each reference should also include an affiliated image. The bibliography should include a brief (approx. 200-word) annotation, describing the rationale behind the sorted categories.
2. Written Manifesto  (text describing specific research focus and the role of design in its address)
1. A written design manifesto of a minimum of 2,000 words that concisely articulates the issues, problems, and questions embedded in and engaged by your research project. The manifesto should address:
2. Discourse: the role and significance of architecture relative to the project topic of interest, and;
3. Context: the relationship of the project topic to broader surroundings which include but are not limited to the discipline of architecture, cultural contexts, technical developments, and/or typologies.
4. The final statement should reflect deeply upon the character of the design process for the project, and discuss how the design process reinforced, inflected, or complicated the initial research questions. For most students, this final statement will be an elaboration upon the presentation text prepared for the fall senior thesis colloquium. The final text should capture and discuss the design elements that were further explored in the spring term as means to address initial research questions (i.e. include written descriptions of the drawings and/or physical models produced in relation to the thesis topic).  
3. Visual Method(s) Diagram (description of design methodology for research)
1. A visual drawing or info-graphic that describes the process of design research undertaken for your topic. This should include the initial criteria developed for evaluating the project, the steps taken in examining the topic, the points in the process where it became necessary to stop and assess outputs and findings, and final adjustments to the methodology as the project neared completion.
4. High resolution drawings, animations, and/or diagrams and photographs of physical models (if applicable) that were produced through research. These should be assembled in single-page layouts of slides to follow preceding elements listed here.

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Each thesis will have two readers chosen by the Department. A student’s faculty thesis advisor will not be asked to provide a reading. All readers will be asked to submit written comments and grades , which will be factored equally to produce the final grade of the thesis. A third reader may be referred to if an irreconcilable disparity in grades is received from a student’s two readers. In this case, the mean grade from all three readers will be used to produce the final grade. Individual grades are not released. When grades and comments are distributed, the readers no longer remain anonymous. There exists a procedure by which a writer may request, via the Director of Senior Theses, to speak with a reader provided that they are willing to discuss the work in further detail or expound on the written critique.

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Grade Report and Honors Recommendation 

At the end of each term, Fall fall and Springspring, the student's progress in the Senior Tutorial (HAA 99) will be graded SAT or UNSAT. At the end of the Department's Honors Review process, the Director of Senior Theses calculates a recommendation for Honors based on the factored grades of the thesis and the student's grades in concentration courseworkcourses taken for concentration credit up to this point. With this in mind, students are encouraged to consult with the Undergraduate Program Coordinator early in the spring semester of their senior year to ensure that their academic record is up to date. This recommendation is presented to the Faculty at their meeting in April for review. A faculty vote is taken and this decision is passed as an honors recommendation to the Registrar of the College. For joint concentrators, the faculty will make recommendations to a student’s primary concentration but will defer the final grading process to them. The decision of Final Honors to be granted on the degree is made by the Registrar based on departmental recommendation and the student’s College-GPA. Students should consult with their Allston Burr Senior Tutor to determine what final honors might be anticipated at Commencement.

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Senior Honors Theses which are written by students who graduate Summa or Magna are deposited in the University Archives in Pusey Library. Copies of theses which are awarded the Hoopes Prize are held in Lamont Library. Many of these are available digitally via HOLLIS. Further examples can be provided by the Undergraduate Program Coordinator on request. Students are urged to consult past theses as much can be gained in exploring precedent or seeking inspiration.

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