JOE C. AND CAROLE KERR MCCLENDON HONORS COLLEGE INSIDE THIS EDITION Honors 50th Anniversary 1 Events Calendar 4 Undergraduate Journal 5 Goldwater Winners Announced 7 Faculty Notes 9 Alumni E-Mentoring 10 Expressive Move- ment Iniave 11 Honors Student Associaon 14 Honors-Specific Advising 15 Interesng Summer Course Offerings 17 Student-Run E-Newsleer 18 Undergraduate Research Day 19 Engineering Advising 20 Blogging Intellectual History 21 Cancer Research Opportunity 22 Honors College Wring Center 23 Honors Newsletter UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA MARCH/APRIL 2014 Honors Celebrates 50th Anniversary On March 5, President David Bor- en hosted a luncheon and panel discussion to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Honors at OU. The panel was made up of Presi- dent Boren, who earned a Rhodes Scholarship in 1965, and three re- cent Honors Alumni who have also all gone on to win Rhodes Scholar- ships for study at Oxford University: Jason Sanders, Andrea DenHoed, and Mubeen Shakir. Another recent alumna who has also earned the Rhodes, Sarah Swenson, was unable to attend due to her current teaching re- sponsibilities at Oxford. Before the panel discussion, Hon- ors College Dean David Ray Connued on p2
Transcript
JOE C. AND CAROLE
KERR MCCLENDON
HONORS COLLEGE
INSIDE THIS EDITION
Honors 50th Anniversary
1
Events Calendar
4
Undergraduate Journal
5
Goldwater Winners Announced
7
Faculty Notes
9
Alumni E-Mentoring
10
Expressive Move-ment Initiative
11
Honors Student Association
14
Honors-Specific Advising
15
Interesting Summer Course Offerings
17
Student-Run E-Newsletter
18
Undergraduate Research Day
19
Engineering Advising
20
Blogging Intellectual History
21
Cancer Research Opportunity
22
Honors College Writing Center
23
Honors Newsletter U N I V E R S I T Y O F O K L A H O M A M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 4
Honors Celebrates 50th Anniversary On March 5, President David Bor-
en hosted a luncheon and panel
discussion to commemorate the
50th anniversary of Honors at OU.
The panel was made up of Presi-
dent Boren, who earned a Rhodes
Scholarship in 1965, and three re-
cent Honors Alumni who have also
all gone on to win Rhodes Scholar-
ships for study at Oxford
University: Jason Sanders, Andrea
DenHoed, and Mubeen Shakir.
Another recent alumna who has
also earned the Rhodes, Sarah
Swenson, was unable to attend
due to her current teaching re-
sponsibilities at Oxford.
Before the panel discussion, Hon-
ors College Dean David Ray
Continued on p2
2
50th Anniversary, continued from
p1
recognized Provost Nancy Mer-
gler and former Associate Dean
Carolyn Morgan for their hard
work in guiding Honors as it grew
from a program into a true col-
lege with its own faculty and cur-
riculum. Dean Ray also recog-
nized Dr. Melanie Wright, Direc-
tor of Honors Curriculum, for her
hard work in helping Honors stu-
dents prepare their application
materials for prestigious scholar-
ships such as the Rhodes.
The panel discussion, entitled
“Education for the 21st Century,”
examined the role new communi-
cative technologies will play in the
future of higher education, the
continuing importance of the Hon-
ors College as community building
space, and the extent to which
public universities are (and should
continue to be)
funded through public monies.
Panel Discussants
Jason Sanders, who graduated
from OU in 2000, went on to earn a
Bachelor’s degree in Literature
while at Oxford. After completing
his studies at Oxford, Jason re-
turned to the United States and
earned a medical degree from Har-
vard Medical School , as well as an
MBA from Harvard Business
Continued on p3
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Right, left to
right: Panel
Discussants
Jason Sanders,
President David
Boren, Andrea
DenHoed, and
Mubeen Shakir
Above, left to right: Provost Nancy Mergler and Dr. Carolyn Morgan
(former Associate Dean of the Honors College)
3
50th Anniversary, continued from p2
School. An internal medicine spe-
cialist, Jason currently serves as the
Vice Provost for Planning and Ad-
ministrative Services at the OU
Health Sciences Center.
In 2008, Andrea Denhoed earned
two Bachelor’s
degrees from OU:
one in Letters and
another in Inter-
national and Area
Studies. While at
Oxford she
earned another
Bachelor’s, this
time in Literature.
Afterwards, she
earned an MA in
Journalism from
New York Univer-
sity’s Cultural Re-
porting and Criti-
cism Program.
Andrea currently
works for the New
Yorker Magazine
as a web producer and writer.
Mubeen Shakir, the Honors Col-
lege’s most recent Rhodes recipi-
ent, is currently pursuing a Mas-
ter’s degree in Medical Anthropol-
ogy at Oxford. Last year, he gradu-
ated summa cum laude with a
Bachelor’s of Science degree in Bio-
chemistry from OU. Once done at
Oxford, Mubeen will attend Har-
vard Medical School.
Honors History
President George Lynn Cross and
Professor Paul Ruggiers founded
OU’s Honors program in 1963. In
1994, President Boren began laying
the groundwork for the program to
be elevated to college status.
Provost (then Professor) Nancy
Mergler, Dr. Carolyn Morgan
(former Associate Dean of the col-
lege), and Dr. Melanie Wright were
all there as the transition began,
along with the first Dean of the
Honors College, Dr. Steve Gillon.
All were instrumental in realizing
the president’s vision and in estab-
lishing the template for the Honors
College as it now exists.
Since that time, Dr. Robert Gris-
wold and Dr. RC Davis-Undiano
have also served the college as
Deans and Dr. Randy Lewis served
as Associate
Dean for one
year. The Hon-
ors College is
now overseen
by Dean David
Ray and Associ-
ate Dean Rich
Hamerla.
Today, the Hon-
ors College is a
vibrant commu-
nity which is
free and open to
any OU student
who meets its
academic re-
quirements. Ad-
ditionally, the
college has 13
dedicated faculty members who
work with approximately 2,500 ac-
tive Honors students, an honors-
specific curriculum, a writing cen-
ter focused solely on honors stu-
dents, and a highly successful (and
largely student-led) reading group
program.
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Above, left to right: current and former students Akash Patel, Mubeen
Shakir, Jeremy Allen, and Anoop Bal at the Honors 50th Anniversary
Luncheon
4
March 29: Undergraduate Research Day. 830am-12 noon, in Wagner Hall.
March 30: Honors Student Association trip to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and to the
Bricktown rock climbing facility. 11am-6pm (meet at the Honors College) Info: 325-9088.
April 1: Tuesday Noon Concert, featuring Professor Valerie Watts on flute. Noon at the Sandy
Bell Gallery.
April 1: Jeongwon Ham Piano Concert. 8pm at Sharp Music Hall.
April 4-6 and 10-13: “The Cherry Orchard.” 8pm (3pm on the 6th and 13th) at The Weit-
zenhoffer Theatre.
April 7: “Rethinking South Africa’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic through Gogo Mtembu’s Case of Tuber-
culosis,” w/ Abigail Newely. 530pm in Zarrow Hall.
April 10: The Honors Student Association presents Dr. Julia Ehrhardt on Italian Food in Ameri-
ca. Time tba, DLB Hall, room 180.
April 14-16: New Media Collective Art Show at the Lightwell Gallery.
April 17: Honors Student Association elections will be held in DLB Hall room 180. Time tba.
April 18: “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Change and the Problem of Disorientation,” w/ Kyle
Powys White. 330pm at Sarkeys Energy Center, room A235.
April 19: Honors Student Association presents Honors College Dance. Time tba, in the Student
Union.
April 23-26: University Theatre presents “Shakers.” 8pm at the Old Science Hall.
April 25-27 and April 30-May 3: Contemporary Dance Oklahoma. 8pm (3pm on the 27th) at
the Rupel J. Jones Theatre.
April 27: Hornsemble. 6pm at Sharp Concert Hall.
May 1: UPB presents Sound Lounge, a band showcase. 700pm-900pm at Beaird Lounge in the
Union.
May 3: Iakovos Kolanian Classical Guitar Recital. 800pm at Pitman Recital Hall.
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter Honors Newsletter
Events Calendar
For a complete listing of events, go to www.ou.edu/ourpage
5
At the end of every spring se-mester, the Honors College cel-ebrates excellence in under-graduate scholarship by pub-lishing eight to twelve of the very best research essays we can get our hands on. Travis Totten is this year’s chief editor for The Honors Undergraduate Research Journal (THURJ), and I spoke with him in order to learn more about what goes into this annual publication.
Q: How are you and what have you been up to lately?
A: Things are going great! Right now, I am trying to go through all the submissions myself to make sure the proper ones don't get left out because of a
glitch in the scoring system. We have our final selection meeting on Saturday so things are really picking up!
Q: What do you like best about working on THURJ?
A: I really enjoy the editorial process, it's probably the thing I’ve enjoyed the most in work-ing with THURJ this year, but I also enjoy connecting with the other board members. I am blessed to have an amazing as-sistant editor in Paige Aber-nathy, who is always prepared in ways that I don't always think of.
Q: How many submissions did you receive this year?
A: Including creative submis-
sions, we had about 120. In my opinion, that's too low, but be-cause of severe weather during the last weeks of the fall se-mester, we were not able to chalk or distribute as many fly-ers around campus as we want-ed to.
Q: How are papers selected for publication in THURJ? I know the editorial board is comprised solely of undergraduates, but what goes into the process?
A: The papers are selected through a very extensive pro-cess. First, each paper is distrib-uted to the student 'experts,’
Continued on p6
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
The Honors Undergraduate Journal
Readies 2014 Edition
6
THURJ, continued from p5
the editors in charge of the initial grading of the submissions from an expert perspective. Submitted es-says are also sent to non-experts who evaluate them in terms of writing quality. The grading system is based on a rubric the entire edi-torial staff developed collaborative-ly.
We went over the papers and de-termined how to grade them in a meeting in order to achieve con-sistency of evaluation so everyone was on the same page. The top ranking papers (including border-line scores that we re-reviewed to see if they should be considered in the final selection) were taken back to the entire committee, where all the editors met, re-read all of the papers and had a long discussion over how to rank them.
Q: What else would you like to tell us about your work on THURJ?
A: I love doing this. It gives me great pleasure doing something that I love, and working with words in any way pleases me greatly. I've learned a lot about respect, my peers, using time efficiently, and now I have acquired amazing expe-rience working with awesome indi-viduals who have excelled here at OU.
Q: One of the best things about this whole process is that, in addi-tion to recognizing strong under-graduate research, it also gives Honors students the chance to beinvolved in a formal peer-review process. How can other students get involved with THURJ?
A: I encourage any-one who is interest-ed in writing, ed-iting, or just learning to get involved with THURJ in any way they can. Submitting a paper is free, easy, and worth it. Being able to tell people that you are a pub-lished researcher is a big thing, as well as the hundred dol-lar prize for being published. I also en-courage students to apply for positions on the board. I nev-er thought I would have been a candi-date for selection to the board before I applied, but now I've been on the board three times, and this year I even got to serve as chief editor!
For more infor-mation regarding THURJ, please con-tact chjef editor Travis Totten at [email protected].
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
The editorial board of the 2014 edition of The Honors Undergraduate Research Journal is pleased to announce the fol-lowing nine authors whose research pa-pers will be published this year:
Morgan Brokob: “Speaking Out Through Fiction: Taslima Nasrin, Litera-ture, and Activism in Bangladesh”
Arthur Dixon: “Two Faces of an Elite Reformation: Lay Reading and Thomas Cranmer's Preface to the Great Bible of 1540”
Audrey Hopkins: “The Pedagogy of Alcoholism: Using Paulo Freire's Model of Oppression to Examine Cyclical Alco-holism”
Daniel Meschter: “The Empty Well: Yemen's Groundwater Crisis”
Chase Miller: “Architecture and So-cial Problems: Citizen Architecture and Lessons from Pruitt-Igoe”
Sarah Otts: “I'm Pink, Therefore I'm a Man: Gender Norms and the My Little Pony Fandom”
Brandon Ranallo: “Navigating Multi-ple Oppressions in Modern America: The Unique Struggles of Black Gay Men in American Postsecondary Education”
Laura Wilcox: “The Grimm Face of Disney: From Sordid to Sales”
John Michael Zubialde: “A Drug Fueled Insurgency”
THURJ received more than 100 submis-sions this year. The Honors College facul-ty and the THURJ selection committee wish to congratulate all of the selected winners.
7
University of Oklahoma honors stu-dents Sydney Bader, Laura Figueroa and Yuan Rui have been named 2014 Goldwater Scholars, with Joshua Wadler receiving an honorable mention. The prestig-ious scholarships are awarded on the basis of potential and intent to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering.
Bader, a junior majoring in biochemistry, is from Rich-land, Washington. She is working with Susan Schroeder, OU associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, as a research assistant investigating the structure and function of viral RNA. She began re-search at the Pacific North-west National Laboratory (PNNL) her senior year of high school as a Young Women in Science intern. For the past two summers she worked with Lizabeth Alexander, senior research scientist at PNNL. There, Bader participated in several projects, exploring how the molecular composition of soil could effect climate change. Upon graduation from OU, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in virology and structural biology and work toward disease prevention.
Bader holds a 4.0 grade-point aver-age and is a member of the OU Honors College, a member of the University Symphony Orchestra
and plays the violin, and serves as the international student outreach leader for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. A National Merit Schol-ar, Bader’s honors and awards in-clude an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program research grant, the Chris T. Memorial Un-dergraduate Research Fellowship, the Elks National Foundation Schol-
arship, the President’s Honor Roll and the Dean’s Honors Roll. This summer she will study in Ireland and then plans to volunteer with a youth mentoring organization in her hometown.
Figueroa, originally from Bogota, Colombia, is a junior whose family lives in Claremore, Okla., maintains a 3.96 grade-point average and is pursuing a degree in biology. She has worked extensively with Eliza-beth Bergey, associate professor of biology and associate heritage biol-ogist with the Oklahoma Biological
Survey. Since last year, she has as-sessed the current state of Oklaho-ma bumble bee species as part of her honors thesis, and since 2012 she has participated in the Urban Snail Survey Project, which evaluat-ed the status of non-native snail species in lawns. She continues to assess the impact of controlled burning on snail populations. Part of her research on snails was pub-
lished last year in a scien-tific article for which she was listed as a co-author. This summer she will be an intern with the Har-vard Forest. Her future plans include obtaining a PhD in ecology and evolu-tionary biology and con-ducting research on con-servation.
Among her awards and honors are the OU Scholars award, the M. Blanche Adams and M. Frances Scholarship, The Herbert and Lela Mitchell Berlin Scholar-ship, The David C. Steed Arts and Sciences Scholarship, The Rita H. Lottinville Prize for Outstanding Achievement, the R. Boyd Gunning Scholarship, the Robert E. and Mary B. Sturgis Scholarship, the Colombian Student Association Scholarship, and several other hon-ors. A member of the Biology De-partment student advisory com-mittee, Figueroa has also
Continued on p8
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
Goldwater Scholarship Winners Announced by Dr. Melanie Wright
The National Scholarship competition is con-ducted by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholar-ship and Excellence in Education Program. This year, 1,166 college sophomores and jun-iors across the country competed for the 283 scholarships. 247 students received Honora-ble Mentions. The one- and two-year schol-arships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maxi-mum of $7,500 per year.
8
Goldwater, continued from p7
participated in BioBlitz, a group that inventories Oklahoma’s biodi-versity, and has been a member of Science Outreach, the Sierra Club, OUr Earth, and the Colombian Stu-dent Association.
From Norman, Okla., Rui is a junior majoring in chemical engineering with a 4.0 grade-point average. She began research her freshman year with Brian Grady, Conoco-Dupont professor of chemical engineering and Director of the Institute for Applied Surfactant Research, inves-tigating the crystallization of ki-netics of an ionized polymer. She is first author on two articles, one that is published and another un-der review, and she has presented the final results of her work with Grady at the 245th American Chemical Society national meeting and exposition. Currently working with Grady and Jeff Harwell, Asahi Glass Chair in chemical engineer-ing, and in conjunction with Asahi Glass Company in Japan, Rui is re-searching the electrical and me-chanical properties of fluoropoly-mer and carbon nanotube compo-site materials. Her research plans for the summer are to continue the carbon nanotube-fluoropolymer project with Grady and Harwell. With a career goal to conduct re-search in materials engineering and in particular nanotechnology, Rui will first obtain a PhD in chemi-cal or materials engineering.
A member of the OU Engineers Club, Rui has also served as an ori-entation volunteer for new inter-
national students and was a mem-ber of Chi Alpha Ministries. A Na-tional Merit Scholar, she has also received the Sooner Opportunity Scholarship, and the 2011 Oklaho-ma Academic All-State Scholarship. This year, she will represent OU at Research Day at the Capitol, a poster competition held at the Ok-lahoma State Capitol.
A sophomore meteorology major with a 4.0 grade-point average, Wadler is from Brooklyn, NY. After obtaining a PhD in meteorology, he plans to conduct research on tropi-cal cloud microphysics and teach at the university level. While still in high school, Wadler was an intern with the National Oceanic and At-mospheric Administration’s Coop-erative Remote Sensing and Tech-nology Center (NOAA-CREST).There, he analyzed the rela-tionship between the average pre-cipitation rate of a storm with nine different atmospheric variables that are derived from radar or sat-ellite images. His project won awards from the New York City Sci-ence and Engineering Fair, the American Meteorological Society and NOAA. Since 2012 he began an internship with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) Warning Research and Development Divi-sion analyzing airborne radar data from the dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation research project. His work includes trying to under-stand vertical motion within the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The MJO has been shown to influ-ence worldwide climate, including hurricane activity in the Atlantic
Ocean. Fully understanding vertical motion within the MJO, which mainly occurs over the Indian Ocean, will lead to a more compre-hensive understanding of world-wide weather phenomena. This summer, he will continue his re-search with David Jorgensen, direc-tor of the NSSL Warning Research and Development Division.
A University of Oklahoma Award of Excellence recipient, Wadler has also received the WeatherBug Freshman Scholarship from the American Meteorological Society/Earth Networks, the OU School of Meteorology Scholarship, an AP
Scholar with Distinction award, and the Thomas Shortman Training Ser-vice Fund Undergraduate Scholar-ship from the Employees Interna-tional Union Local 32BJ. He has al-so been listed on the President’s and Dean’s Honor Rolls every se-mester. A Resident Adviser for OU Housing and Food, he is also active in the School of Meteorology where he is chair of the Under-graduate Curriculum Revision Com-mittee, a co-sophomore repre-sentative of the Student Affairs Committee and the co-director of the Undergraduate Town Hall Committee. Since August 2012 he has been a forecasting shift leader at the Oklahoma Weather Lab and is a member of the OU chapter of the American Meteorological Soci-ety.
Wadler wishes to thank his par-ents, Jack and Lisa Wadler, for their continued support and encourage-ment.
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
9
Teaching Dr. Marie Dallam will bring a guest speaker to the Honors College on April 21-22. Dr. Benjamin Zeller (Lake Forest College) is the author of "Prophets and Protons: New Re-ligious Movements and Science in Late Twentieth-Century Ameri-ca" (NYU Press, 2010). Zeller's cur-rent research focuses on Heaven's Gate, a religious group that com-mitted mass suicide in 1997. Zeller will be on campus to speak with students of Dr. Dallam's classes about making sense of the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Dr. Julia Ehrhardt will lead a group of OU students to Ireland this sum-mer. The course will focus on food in Ireland and is part of the College of Arts and Sciences summer pro-gram in Ireland. Dr. Melanie Wright will lead a group of students to Oxford this summer, where several courses ranging from literature to anthro-pology will be offered.
Grants and Awards
Dr. Andreana Prichard received a Junior Faculty Fellowship from OU to spend the summer completing her book manuscript, Spirit of the Nation: Women, Missions, and the Development of Nationalism in Tanzania, 1860-1970.
Research Dr. Marie Dallam’s book, Religion, Food and Eating in North America, was published in March by Colum-bia University Press. She is the book’s co-editor, as well as the au-thor of its introduction. Dr. Dallam also had a chapter pub-lished in the Bloomsbury Compan-ion to New Religious Movements (Bloomsbury Press, January 2014). The chapter is entitled "Race and Ethnicity in the Study of NRMs."
Dr. Robert Lifset’s new book, American Energy Policy in the 1970s, is set to be published this year by the OU Press. Dr. Amanda Minks recently pub-lished her book Voices of Play: Miskitu Children’s Speech and Song on the Atlantic Coast of Nica-ragua with the University of Arizo-na Press. In 2013 Dr. Minks also published a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Children’s Musical Cultures, and became the Convener
of the Music and Sound Interest Group of the American Anthropo-logical Association. Last November Dr. Minks also pre-sented new research at the Society for Ethnomusicology conference entitled “From Indigenous Folklore to Intangible Heritage: Inter-American Cultural Policy, Henrietta Yurchenco, and P’urhépecha Music of Music.” Dr. Andreana Prichard will be pre-senting a paper called "Christianity, Ethnicity, and Nationalist Develop-ment in Tanzania, 1864-1964" at the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism Confer-ence on Nationalism and Belonging at the London School of Economics, March 31-April 4.
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
Faculty
Notes
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
Congratulations to Dr.
Amanda Minks!
Dr. Minks earned tenure
this semester and was pro-
moted to the rank of Asso-
ciate Professor in the Hon-
ors College.
10
Are you looking for advice about professional, educational, or personal opportunities?
Successful Honors College graduates are offering their time and advice through the new e-mentoring corre-spondence program! Our e-mentors are experienced with:
Medical Schools and Careers in Medicine
Working and Living Abroad
Government Affairs, Politics, and Public Policy
Graduate Schools
Law Schools and Law Careers
Energy: Oil and Gas
Business Schools and Professional Development
Computer Science and Engineering Programs
Just go to www.ou.edu/honors/mentor and log on to the program. Browse through the list of e-mentors and select the mentor(s) you would like to contact. Then, write to [email protected] and the Honors College will put you in communication with the e-mentor(s) of your choice.
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
Honors Alumni
e-Mentoring
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
11
Emily Scheele is a Mathematics/Pre-Med Honors student at OU and is also the founder of the Expressive Movement Initiative (EMI). Ac-cording to its Facebook page, EMI volunteers from the University of Oklahoma “bring the art of creative movement to children with devel-opmental disabilities at the JD McCarty Center.”
Q: What is the Expressive Movement Initiative?
A: The Expressive Movement Initiative allows volunteers from the University of Oklaho-ma to bring the art of creative movement to children with developmental disabilities at the JD McCarty Center. Our goals are threefold:
1) to help our students devel-op physically, socially, and creatively,
2) to change the perspectives of our volunteer teachers re-garding the capabilities of children with ranges of devel-opmental disabilities, and
3) to eliminate the social stig-ma associated with retarda-tion and disabilities in Nor-
man and the surrounding commu-nity.
Q: What is your background and how did you come up with the idea for EMI?
A: My background is pertinent to the origins of this program: I began dancing when I was three, and con-
tinued my training at the Academy of Colorado Ballet until I began teaching at a couple of local studi-os in high school. During this time, I was also a volunteer math tutor for kids with special needs. When I came to the University of Oklaho-ma, I decided to combine these interests and first conceived of the
idea for this program in the spring of 2013, at the end of my freshman year. I became certified in After-School Pro-grams Administration through the American Camp Association over the summer, and achieved an emphasis on Special Needs by shadowing a ballet teacher at the Colorado Conservatory of Dance with a similar pro-gram.
Q: How did you get involved with the JD McCarty Center?
A: I approached the JD McCarty Center with my proposal and began working with the Direc-tor of Physical Therapy and Vol-unteer Coordinator at the same time that I was applying to make the program an official student organization at OU.
Continued on p12
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
Student Uses Dance to Improve the
Lives of Area Children
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
12
Dance, continued from p11
As soon as the groundwork had been laid, I began advertising for volunteer teachers and received such an overwhelmingly positive response that I had to make this a competitive process. Since we have a one-to-one student-teacher ratio with the kids, we can take no more volunteers than we have students signed up for the class.
All volunteers go through an exten-sive application and interview pro-cess at the beginning of each se-mester. After its trial run in the fall of 2013, the program was taken on by the JD McCarty Center as an outpatient service that costs $50 for eight weeks and culminates in a final recital for family and friends. We are anticipating our first recital this April.
Q: Can other students get
involved, and if so, how?
A: Other students can defi-nitely get involved. Applica-tions go out at the begin-ning of each semester and an interview process fol-lows. They can get more information by sending an email to [email protected].
Q: Emily, what do you get out of this work?
A: I find this work extreme-ly rewarding. It has been beautiful to see the pro-gress made in the students and the impact it has had on volunteer teachers. I can picture no better use of time.
The mission of the Expressive Movement Initiative (EMI) is to is to introduce children with developmen-tal disabilities to the art of dance as an expressive outlet. Volunteers from the University of Oklahoma meet each week to teach a modified bal-let class to patients between the ages of three and nineteen at the JD McCarty Center in Norman. Originally, the goal of this project was to provide a small group of inpatients with a physically therapeutic activity that could double as a means of improve-ment for social and communication skills. Within the first few months of the program, outreach has expanded to in-clude both inpatients and outpatients with congenital or ac-quired disorders. This project is in-nately creative in that it inspires crea-tivity in the minds of young children; it incites volunteers to both choreograph with, and advocate for, a better understanding of special needs; and it is the only pro-gram of its kind that cultivates a partnership between undergraduates and children with disabilities through the medium of creative movement. Emily Scheele
(OU student and former ballet teacher) and Holly Schmidt (faculty member of the OU Dance Depart-ment) conceived of the program in January 2013. The JD McCarty Center expressed interest in hosting the
program under the condition that Holly Schmidt, a certified instructor of crea-tive movement, would supervise classes. When Ms. Schmidt decided to leave the university in May 2013, Ms. Scheele became cer-tified as a creative movement supervi-sor. Over the sum-mer, Ms. Scheele took a 15-hour course and received ACA Certification as a Programs Adminis-trator with a special emphasis on Dance/Movement Therapy. Her training provid-ed her with the skills necessary to safely and appropriately modify movement for those with disa-bilities. To acquire experience, Ms. Scheele shadowed a
movement therapist with the Colorado Conservatory of Dance for eight weeks. After being presented with the newly acquired accreditations, the CEO of the JD McCarty Center accepted the program as a temporary inpatient extracurricular in the fall of 2013.
January 2014 March /April 2014
The Expressive Movement Initiative
Honors Newsletter
14
January 2014 March /April 2014
Honors Student Association News and Events
*On March 30th, join the Honors Student Association for an exciting trip to Oklahoma City, from approx-imately 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.! We will leave from the Honors College and drive as a group to Brick-town to eat lunch at Hideaway Pizza (students will have to buy their own lunch). You can then choose to attend either the Oklahoma City Museum of Art where there will be an Ansel Adams exhibit or go rock climbing at the Rocktown Climbing Gym. All fees for both of these are covered. This is a great way to see part of the Oklahoma City community and both parts of the trip will be a lot of fun! Sign up on this form.
We will be driving as a group so we are asking you to please volunteer as a driver and take some other students with you. Please indicate on the form if you can drive and how many extra seats you have.
Since we are driving, everyone must fill out and sign a WAIVER (see Lisa Tucker for this). The original signed copy must be sent to the attention of Lisa Tucker in the main office of the Honors College, Room 160 David L. Boren Hall. The waiver must be received by 12:00 noon Friday, March 28 if you wish to par-ticipate.
*On April 10, the H.S.A will host Dr. Julia Ehrhardt, who will make a presentation concerning Italian Food in America. DLB Hall, room 180, time tba.
*Honors Student Association Elections for 2014-2015 academic year will be held on April 17. DLB Hall,
room 180, time tba.
*On April 19 H.S.A will host the Honors College Dance at the Student Union, time tba.
At the departmental level OU does a good job of advising students, helping them map out their course schedules so they can graduate on time with no surprises. Many Hon-ors students take advantage of the OU Scholars during their first year as well.
But what about the honors curric-ulum? For advis-ing help designed to help insure that they make pro-gress toward earn-ing the cum laude designation, all honors students should meet with Dr. Carolyn Mor-gan and Kelsey Lunsford.
Together, Kelsey and Dr. Morgan work to make sure that every Honors student understands what courses must be taken in order to graduate with honors. Starting in the fall of 2014, Jeff Cooper will also be involved in this important process. Jeff cur-rently serves as an advisor in the OU Scholars Program, and will bring eight years of advising exper-
tise to his new job.
We recently spoke with spoke with Kelsey to learn more about Honors-specific advising
Q: When it comes to advising, what do you do?
A: I work very closely with Carolyn
Morgan to better the communica-tion between students and the Honors College to increase aware-ness of the opportunities and re-sources that are available to them and to get the most out of their Honors experience.
Q: What do Honors students need to know?
A: Honors students need to know that there is a supportive staff in the front office for when they have questions about requirements, re-search opportunities, graduating with honors, etc. It is much better
to clarify things sooner rather than later. Don’t be scared to ask!
Q: Why is it im-portant to grad-uate with hon-ors?
A: Aside from earning the cum laude designa-tion and having that indicated on your diploma, which is the ob-vious ultimate goal, being a part of the Hon-
ors College enrich-es students’ edu-cation. The read-ing groups, Honors
Student Association, small classes, and close-knit student body lend themselves to an intimate, intellec-tually thirsty community that is sometimes lacking in the main campus.
Continued on p16
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
Honors-Specific Advising
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
Dr. Carolyn Morgan and Kelsey Lunsford are here to help Honors stu-
dents work through their course requirements in order to earn the
cum laude designation
16
Advising, continued from p15
Q: Are there any important dead-lines students need to know about as they plan out their college ca-reers?
A: We send out most of our im-portant information about aca-demic and extra-curricular oppor-tunities through email, so pay attention to your Honors emails and write down important dates!
Q: How do students set up appoint-ments to meet with Dr. Morgan?
A: Students can set up appoint-ments with Carolyn through iAd-vise.ou.edu. If students have a quick question, just come by our office. We are available to help 8-5 Monday through Friday. You can also always ask questions through our homepage (which actually are answered by me) or email me di-rectly at [email protected], and the phone is always quickest: 325-5291.
Q: What else would you like to add?
A: As a former honors student, I wish I had taken more advantage of the academic and social oppor-tunities I had in the Honors Col-lege. I didn’t know that such a sup-portive and focused community was available to me, which would have made navigating college life so much easier. I am so happy to be able to help students find their place within the cream of the crop of this university.
courses: HON 2973: “American Politics and Society Since 1945” and HON 3993: ”Rethinking the 1960s.” Dr. Gillon is the former Dean of the Honors College and the current Resident Historian for the History Channel.
Dr. Robert Lifset will teach HON 3993: “Petroleum Cinema” during May in-tersession.
Dr. Amanda Minks will offer HON 3993: ”Music and Culture in Everyday Life.”
Oxford The Honors at Oxford Program, led by Dr. Melanie Wright, will feature the following HON 3970 courses in June, prior to leaving for the UK:
“British Fiction at Oxford,” taught by Dr. Melanie Wright
“Appearance/Reality,” taught by Dr. Alan Velie
“Censorship of British Literature,” taught by Dr. Brian Johnson
Honors at Oxford will then take up again at Oxford Uni-versity in July, and will offer the following HON 3993 courses:
“Oxford and Archeology”
“Environments of Fiction”
“Bio/Soc in Atomic Age”
“Shakespeare at Oxford”
“Banned Books in Great Britain”
Ireland In July, Dr. Julia Ehrhardt will offer CAS 3900: “Food & Culture in Ireland,” as a part of the College of Arts and Sciences Study Abroad Program.
Several interesting course options exist for students wishing to work with Honors faculty this summer.
Summer 2013 Honors
at Oxford Program
participants
18
Formally introduced in the fall of 2012, the OU Honors College’s “Don Quijote E-Newsletter” (DQ) publishes the fruits of an informal and extracurricular course of study followed by willing students. Students engage with any of sever-al wildly different materials, includ-ing chapters from Feynman’s phys-ics lectures, Shakespeare plays, sections of Edith Hamilton’s Greek Way or Roman Way or Mozart’s compositions. Afterwards, they write essays on these materials, which are then uploaded to the e-newsletter. With Dean David Ray’s help, Hon-ors students Sarah Smith and Wil-liam Lonn have been working on DQ since its inception. Together, they have written many of the es-says appearing in DQ and have helped copy edit submissions re-ceived from other Honors stu-dents. Since its beginning, DQ has recent-ly expanded to include essays on great books and poetry. DQ pub-lishes these essays with the hope of stimulating intellectual discus-sion amongst OU Honors students and to provide curricular structure for students interested in thinking and engaging in classic works out-side their classes. Sarah and William “encourage all our readers to comment on essays
they like, disagree with, or have questions about.” According to Sarah, the main pur-pose of DQ is to “maintain intel-lectual interests in the Honors College and to promote conversa-tion amongst Honors students concerning intellectual topics.” Sarah goes on to note that, through participating, “I personal-ly have benefited from practicing my writing, from learning about stuff outside my ordinary field of study like physics (which I would have a hard time convincing my-self to study on my own), and from making more connections between material I'm learning in classes and things I study or think about on my own--this last part is especially important to me be-cause I think making those con-nections helps me to retain infor-mation better all around.” William adds that DQ provides an outlet “for writing about inter-esting, engaging material outside of class” and believes that stu-dents should “get involved be-cause it's a really good way to dis-cover or get reacquainted with great art and knowledge.” Interested students are urged to get involved by emailing DQ at [email protected], or by looking around on DQ, which can be found at www.oudonquijote. wordpress.com.
Are you a member of the Honors College? Are you an Engineering Major?
The Honors Engineering Liaison, Javen Weston, is available to give
you advice on various topics:
How to fit Honors Electives into an Engineering curriculum. How to complete the Honors Research (3980) requirement How to contract for Honors Credit
Advising is available for Engineering Honors College Students
Mondays and Wednesdays
9:30am-12:00pm In Carson, room 411
Fridays
9:30am-12:00pm In Boren Hall, room 125
Alternatively, e-mail Javen to set up an appointment: [email protected]
21
Dr. Ben Alpers is an Honors faculty member who also writes for and helps edit the U.S. Intellectual His-tory Blog (http://s-usih.org/blog).
Q: Upon which topics does the blog primarily focus?
A: As the name suggests, the core of the blog is U.S. intellectual histo-ry. All of our eight bloggers – who are a mix of faculty, graduate stu-dents, and independent scholars – are intellectual historians of the United States. We try to relate is-sues within our subdiscipline to the broader world around us. Though we do our fair share of simply blog-ging about ideas in the American past, many of our posts are moti-vated by current events in academ-ia, American culture, or the wider world.
Q: What do you see as the relation-ship between online scholarship and more traditional forms?
A: That’s a complicated and im-portant question! Blog posts come both before and after more tradi-tional genres of scholarship. That is, blogs can be places to test the first version of ideas that later manifest themselves in conference papers, journal articles, and books and be a place where we can dis-cuss conference papers, journal articles, and books that have ap-peared. My current book project, for example, started as a blog post on the film American Graffiti.
But blogging is more and more be-
ing considered scholarship in its own right. Last year, a journal in religious studies published an arti-cle that was a response to a blog post.
This was rather controversial, not so much because it took the post seriously, but because some feel that blog posts are work-in-progress and shouldn’t be treated as more than that. But I truly be-lieve that this is the wave of the future. We need to ask ourselves both how to evaluate blogging as scholarship and how to encourage the production of better scholar-ship on blogs.
Q: What are the chief benefits of online scholarship and of academic blogging?
A: Most basically, by providing an-other outlet for our research and creative work, blogs encourage the production and dissemination of knowledge, which is kind of the heart of what we do. Among their more particular virtues are the breadth of their (potential) reach and the speed of their production process. While articles and books take months or even years from the time of their writing to the time of their appearance in print, blog posts are basically instant. And with instant publishing comes nearly as instant feedback. Of course, these virtues can also be vices: blogging is a particularly blunt form of publishing. Like eve-
rything else on the internet, if you don’t want everyone in the world to know you’ve said something, you probably shouldn’t put it in a blog post. And short, even instan-taneous, production process means that there’s a lot less imme-diate quality control than there is with refereed journal articles and books…though comment sections perform a kind of back-end peer review, which has the added virtue of being open source and of per-forming a usual invisible aspect of academia for a broader audience.
We’re still in the very infancy of digital scholarship. How it will evolve, and what role blogs play in its evolution, are still very much open questions, which academics (on and off line), bloggers, and our institutions will all have a say in determining.
Q: What else should we know about the blog?
A: I hope that students and alumni visit it. Whether you’re interested in literature, movies, television, or sports…or even the more tradition-al subjects of intellectual history (ideas and the people who think them), you’ll likely find something of interest on the blog. And if you do visit, please do not feel shy about commenting. We like to en-courage open and vigorous discus-sions (just please be civil…and don’t be troll).
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
Honors Professor Blogs on Intellectual History
22
Each year, the President’s Mentor-ship Program provides one OU Honors student with the oppor-tunity to participate in high-level cancer research at Columbia Uni-versity Medical Center in New York City in the lab of Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Staff Oncologist, and Pu-litzer Prize Winning Author of The Emperor of All Maladies. The pro-gram will fund the student for eight weeks this summer, begin-ning June 2 and providing both
travel and living/boarding stipends. This program is open to Honors students who desire a career in biomedical research or medicine, with preferences to those who will continue graduate studies in re-search.
To be eligible, students must be full-time Honors students no high-er than junior status (that is, in-tending to return to OU and be en-rolled in the academic year follow-ing the mentorship summer).
Applications for the program can be picked up at the Honors main office.
If you would like to know more about the OU-Columbia President’s Mentorship Program in Cancer Re-search or any program in the Joe C. and Caroled Kerr McClendon Hon-ors College, please call (405) 325-5291 or submit your questions to the “Question and Feedback” sec-tion of the Honors College web site, www.ou.edu/honors.
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
OU and Columbia University President’s
Mentorship Program In Cancer Research
23
If you are interested in becoming a Writing Assistant, contact Dr. Brian Johnson, Director of the Honors College Writing Center, at 325-0711 or [email protected].
Students wishing to be considered for the position of Writing Assis-tant need to:
Take and earn an “A” in an “HON 2973: Perspectives on the American Experience” course.
Submit two writing samples which exemplify your skill with the written word.
Submit a letter of recommen-dation from a member of the Honors faculty.
Take and earn an “A” in the “HON 3970.001: Writing Workshop” course.
The “Writing Workshop” course introduces Honors stu-dents to the field of rhetorical theory and helps them continue developing their own unique writing skills. The course operates on the assumptions that writing skills can be developed though working with one’s peers, that
writing is essentially a social act, and that writing should be produced with an audience in mind. "Writing Workshop" is a space for students to learn more about the craft of writing, the nature of aca-demic discourse, and the expansion of audience awareness. The course is also an introduction to good tutoring prac-tices which prepares students to become Writing Assistants within
the Honors College Writing Cen-ter. Key questions addressed in the class include: What is “good writing?” How can we develop our own
rhetorical skills? How can we help others to be-come better writ-ers?
Throughout the semester students read, write, ob-serve, and discuss in order to better answer these and related ques-
tions. At the end of the semester, students will know more about themselves as writers and will be much more qualified to provide feedback to others who are strug-gling to write well. Obviously, the course helps prepare students to work in the Honors College Writing Center, but it also serves those who intend to teach or to otherwise guide would-be writers at any level or in any discipline.
January 2014
Honors Newsletter
March /April 2014
Honors Newsletter
The Honors College
Writing Center
Whether you think of yourself as a "good” writer, a “bad” writer, or somewhere in between, the Hon-ors College Writing Center wants to help you discover and develop your unique rhetorical tal-ents. We operate on the as-sumption that all Honors students can become stronger writers by meeting with skilled, trained, and interested Writing Assistants. We won’t merely edit your paper for you. Instead, we’ll work hard to help you become more adept at expressing yourself through the written word and more able to meet the expectations of the Honors College.
