Hello alumni! We’d love to “get you up to speed” with where the program’s at at this point in time. Enjoy!
Who runs the program right now?
An excellent question! As you’ve probably seen, our current Director is Dr. Bethany Cobb Kung, who also teaches for us and the Physics department. Our list of current faculty is as follows:
- Eyal Aviv, Assistant Professor of Honors and Religious Studies & International Affairs
- Theodore Christov, Associate Professor of Honors, History, and International Affairs
- Bethany Cobb Kung, Associate Professor of Honors and Physics
- LaTisha Hammond, Assistant Professor of Honors and Biology
- Mark Ralkowski, Associate Professor of Honors and Philosophy
- Elvira Maria Restrepo, Associate Professor of Honors and International Affairs
- Joseph Trullinger, Assistant Professor of Honors and Philosophy (on sabbatical this semester)
- William Winstead, Assistant Professor of Honors and Political Science
And then our staff are the following:
- Eydie Costantino, Assistant Director for Finance and Administration (a constant through the years!)
- Ben Faulkner, Program Manager and Advisor
- Brianna Crayton, Program Manager and Advisor
- Josh Mays, Program Coordinator
What sorts of courses are we offering?
We currently offer five categories of courses: Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought, Scientific Reasoning and Discovery, Arts and Humanities, Self and Society, and our month-long Capstone courses for Seniors. You can see the specific courses on our Course Descriptions page!
How have we been handling the pandemic?
The pandemic has been rough for us, as it has been for the whole university (and, well, the whole world). But we’ve been pushing through! You may have seen our work behind the Digital Townhouse Project– trying to establish a virtual community that can fill the whole of the physical townhouse while we’re virtual. We’re hosting virtual events, trying to create online spaces for casual community, and hosting weekly opportunities to win townhouse tokens (to be collected on students’ return)!
Diversity and Inclusion Updates
We’ve also been working towards making the program more inclusive for all our students, particularly our students of color, during this time. This has included establishing a Diversity & Inclusion working group and discussing ways of reaching out to more applicants of color, re-evaluating our admissions standards, working through the diversification of existing curricula, ensuring that our students are aware of all the resources the university provides on this issue, and much more. We’re excited to see where it goes!
