Dear University Honors Program students,
Welcome to the start of the 2015-16 academic year! I hope your summer break leaves you feeling energized to start the semester. I speak for the UHP faculty and staff in saying that we are delighted to have you back and are looking forward to a terrific year together.
I like to use my welcome letter as an opportunity to share news about the Program, and I have an exciting announcement about a change in our requirements. After a lot of discussion last spring, we decided over the summer to change the Self & Society and Arts & Humanities requirements so that you have the freedom to take whichever two courses within each area best suit your intellectual interests (or scheduling needs!). Before you were required to take both Self & Society 2047 and 2048, as well as Arts & Humanities 2053 and 2054. You can still do that if you choose, but you now also have the freedom to select two 2047s or 2048s within the Self & Society offerings, or two 2053s or 2054s within Arts & Humanities offerings. Our reasoning is that we want to prioritize your ability to “hand craft” your honors education to the greatest extent possible, selecting courses for the best reasons – i.e., that the subject matter is of great interest or you desire to study with a particular professor. We will continue to try to offer sufficient sections of every Honors course each semester so that those of you using our courses to simultaneously fulfill various general education requirements can do so. We hope this change is welcome. It goes into effect immediately and any student, even one entering the program before this year, can take advantage of it.
In other news, this coming fall Professors Aviv and Christov will both be on leave, Professor Aviv to take a well-deserved sabbatical and work on his book, and Professor Christov to assume a prestigious research fellowship position with the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. We have hired some wonderful faculty to help fill in the gaps, so I hope you will help to welcome Professors Micah Tillman and Navid Hassenzadeh to our Program when you run in to them. In addition, we have four new “faculty fellows” this year who will teach courses for Honors – Professors Derek Malone-France (Religion) and Joel Kuipers (Anthropology) will teach this fall, and next spring Professors Kimberly Morgan (Political Science) and Kelly Pemberton (Religion) will teach for us. Stay tuned for announcements about the “Food for Thought” lunches; our four new faculty fellows will share their research with the whole community.
Last spring we launched a new initiative related to our ongoing efforts to plan social activities for our students. We now have a small student programming board, with student representatives from each year (and each campus) charged with helping to plan and host activities large and small, formal and informal, that appeal to students. The idea for this programming board emerged from the student peer advisor group and we think it a promising way to develop some new programming for the community. To help make it successful, though, we will rely on all of you to be engaged and responsive! Please take advantage of the many opportunities we have here to get involved, whether it is through the programming board and/or the peer advisors, or by coming to an event we’ve organized – e.g., our annual hike, attending a talk, or joining me in conversation for one of my “lunch with the director” gatherings. My door (and inbox) is always open, so you need not feel limited to those occasions. My most important priority is to be available to you throughout the year. I have regular “UHP Director Office Hours” (MVC office, Mondays at 11; FB office, Tuesdays at noon); if these times don’t suit, just email me to make an appointment.
Lots of UHP events are coming down the pike – check the blog regularly and read your Newsflash!
All the very best,
Maria Frawley
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