Virtual Jane Project

Virtual Jane Project
Help build a virtual reality app for Jane Goodall!

Come build a virtual reality app for a great cause with the GW Innovation Center!
The Virtual Jane project tells the story of Jane Goodall (primatologist, conservationist, and childhood hero) in a virtual reality mobile application. We’re working with the Jane Goodall Institute to create an immersive educational and recreation experience for Jane’s expansive audience.
This semester, we’re focused on rapid prototyping and curriculum development. Here’s how you can help:

  • Prototype and animate in A-Frame, Google Blocks, Maya, & Unity
  • Learn everything Jane, then design stories, scripts, and scenes to teach visitors through her story
  • Work with faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to incorporate Virtual Jane in GWU coursework

If you’re interested in joining an agile student-led team working out of GW’s new maker space in Tompkins M06, check out our website for more information. The Fall ’18 application deadline is September 21st – after that date, applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.
http://virtualjane.gwic.io
Help us extend Jane’s legacy in conservationism and gain hands-on experience with emerging tech along the way!

Honors Contracts Due Friday, 9/21

If you’re taking a contract course this semester, make sure to get your Honors Contract complete.
How do you know if you need to complete an Honors Contract? If your fall plans include pursuing any of these things FOR CREDIT through the Honors Program:

  • Internship,
  • Undergraduate Research,
  • Research Assistantship,
  • Senior Thesis (Not the same as Special Honors in your degree — that’s a different form found here)

Get the RTF-EZ here and the Contract Form here.  Don’t forget your proposal! It is also highly encouraged to make an appointment to discuss your plans.
You’ve got until Friday, September 21st.

Hike Harpers Ferry with the UHP

Already getting sick of the city life? Eager to explore beyond E and K streets? Love the smell of the Shenandoah river in the morning? Hike with the Honors Program!
On Saturday, September 15th, the Honors Program is hosting a $5 hike with your classmates, Prof. Ralkowski, and staff, and certified TRAiLS guides. We’re going to Harpers Ferry, a historic town in West Virginia, complete with actors in historic garb and a big ole mountain to climb!
We’ll meet in the Foggy Bottom townhouse at 8:15 am, and the hike should last most of the day, returning to campus in the early evening. Whether you are a professional hiker or have never even scaled an escalator, come out, enjoy the fall sunshine, and get to know UHPers outside the classroom. We’ll provide lunch and guides, you provide insightful questions and witty banter.

Sign up here by 9/12!

Senior Requirements Info Session

What’s a UHPer gotta do around here to finish their Honors senior requirements??

Not that kind of senior.

Come by the Club Room on Tuesday, September 11th between 6 and 7 for an info session about Honors senior requirements. Professors Ralkowski and Trullinger will be on deck to talk about the ins and outs of writing a thesis and Ben will be there to discuss all things UHP requirements.

Seriously, just google "confused stock photo." It's hilarious and you're welcome.

Seriously, just google “confused stock photo.” It’s hilarious and you’re welcome.

Juniors and seniors are (highly) encouraged to attend! If you can’t make it to this info session, you can make an appointment with Mary or Ben to talk senior reqs.

Perfecting Your Fall Schedule? Take a Second Look at These Classes

If you are looking for a class to switch into this semester, consider one of these UHP classes that currently have empty seats!


HONR 2047.10 Human Rights
Professor Maria Restrepo
HONR 2047:10 – 3 Credits
CRN: 27984
T 10:00-12:30 PM
Fulfills: CCAS Social Science; ESIA: International Politics concentration, Security Policy concentration; GWSB: Non-Business Elective/Unrestricted Elective; SEAS: Social Science
Course Description: The subject of Human Rights (HR) arguably lays bare the entire premise of liberal education itself. The issue of HR exposes us to the world outside our own circle of experience; and also requires us to make judgments, assessments, and interpretations of uncertain situations, often in settings where there are no clear penalties for wrong decisions or rewards for right ones. Certainly the claim of an expert that “Most students of Western developed countries have the luxury of forgetting about Human Rights” does not hold so true in today’s internet-enabled and interconnected society. This class grapples with these issues. It will teach you fresh skills to think critically about this important topic — whether it concerns ongoing situations ‘here, there or everywhere’.


HONR 2054.12 Public Poetries
Professor Thea Brown
HONR 2054:12 – 3 Credits
CRN: 27329
M 12:45-3:15 PM
Fulfills: CCAS: post-19th century English requirement or upper-division English course; ESIA: Humanities; GWSB: Non-Business Elective/Unrestricted Elective; SEAS: Humanities
Course Description: Combining the literature seminar with the creative writing workshop, Public Poetries hinges on the understanding that studying the histories of poetics, society, and culture enhances how we read and write poems. We examine poets from the early twentieth century to our contemporary moment (Yeats, Auden, Sexton, and Trethewey), investigating how various contexts inform a poet’s poetics. In particular, we consider the role of public life, conceptions of the public sphere, and the boundaries between public and private in shaping a poet’s career and oeuvre. We’ll read the collected work of each poet as well as selections from studies in poetics and aesthetics, critical theory, legal studies, and philosophy. Assignments would include a literary critical essay on each poet, creative writing exercises, and a culminating project that draws on creative practices and critical methodologies explored during the semester.


HONR 2054.81 American Jewish Experience
Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit
HONR 2053:81 – 3 Credits
CRN 27787
R 11:10-1:00 PM
Fulfills: ESIA: Humanities; GWSB: Non-Business Elective/Unrestricted Elective; SEAS: Humanities
Equivalent Courses: HIST 3367, JSTD 2002
Course Description: Crisis! Scandal! Controversy! This course explores a series of turning points in American Jewish history that prompted American Jewry to take stock of its place in the United States. Some of those moments had to do with anti-Jewish prejudice, others with economics and still others with matters of faith. Taken together, they challenged the Jewish community to define itself and its relationship with America.
Drawing on firsthand, eyewitness accounts, the course looks at what happened when Jewish merchants during the Civil War were expelled from areas under Union control, Jewish vacationers were denied admission to hotels in upstate New York and aspiring undergraduates were denied access to the Ivy League.  It also explores how one set of Jews upset another by seceding from their local synagogue, serving non-kosher food at a banquet, and behaving badly, blackening the community’s reputation in the process.

International Graduate School Fair at GWU

Join the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs at its upcoming
International Affairs and Public Policy
Graduate School Fair
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Marvin Center, George Washington University
Representatives from 25+ leading professional schools of international affairs and policy will be available to connect with prospective students. They can learn about masters, mid-career, and PhD programs around the world.
Register today and find more information at http://bit.ly/APSIADC.

First-Year Small Group Advising

HEY FRESHMEN

Get pumped for September small group meetings! What’s that, you ask? Think of small group meetings as your orientation to the Honors Program. Each month, we’ll cover topics relevant to your new life as a Colonial, hear from our peer advisors, and blow your mind with our brainy insights.
This month, we’ll:

  • Introduce you to all things Honors advising,
  • Learn how to craft a four year plan, one of the cornerstones of the Honors freshman experience,
  • Start getting to know each other, and
  • Answer your questions about all things UHP!

Every first-year student must attend one of these meetings. Each freshmen small group meeting will last 1 hour and is capped at 18 students (these are small group meetings, after all).  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday’s meetings are in District House, and Friday’s meetings will be in Shenkman Hall.

Sign up online today to make sure you get the time slot you prefer!

Note: this is an artistic rendering and may not reflect actual events.

District House, Room B114

  • Tuesday, September 4, 4:00-5:00 PM
  • Wednesday, September 5, 4:00-5:00 PM
  • Thursday, September 6, 4:00-5:00 PM

Shenkman Hall Community Room 

  • Friday, September 7, 10:00-11:00 AM
  • Friday, September 7, 11:00-12:00 PM
  • Friday, September 7, 1:00-2:00 PM
  • Friday, September 7, 2:00-3:00 PM
  • Friday, September 7, 3:00-4:00 PM

If you have trouble signing up, please contact the UHP front office at 202-994-6816 or uhp@gwu.edu.

Fall 2018 Welcome Letter from Professor Frawley

Dear University Honors Program students,
Welcome to the start of the 2018-19 academic year! I speak for the entire UHP faculty and staff in saying that we are delighted to have you, whether you are joining us as first-year students or are returning, and we are looking forward to a terrific year together. Saying goodbye to the summer isn’t easy, but the energy you bring with you to campus helps quite a bit!
We have much news on the faculty front. A new faculty member joins us this year: Professor Maria Restrepo, housed in ESIA, will regularly offer courses on peace-building, human rights, and criminology to UHP students. President-emeritus Stephen Knapp, housed in English, will regularly offer humanities courses, beginning with one on metaphor this fall and another on the Bible as literature in the spring. We are excited to welcome back UHP regular full-time faculty member Professor LaTisha Hammond, who returns to the classroom this year after her parental leave. Professor Theo Christov will be on sabbatical this fall, and his courses will be covered by Professor Craig French and Professor Summer Renault-Steele. In addition, we welcome three new faculty fellows to the program this year: Professors Kerric Harvey (SMPA), David Rain (Geography), and Mary Beth Stein (German). Last but definitely not least, we are super excited to host Thomas Keegan, a talented local actor, who will teach a course on theatre in DC this fall. Please do your best to make all of these faculty welcome and to show them what Honors students are made of!
I very much hope the academic year is rewarding for all of you. If you didn’t yet see the excellent opinion piece by Frank Bruni of the New York Times that we posted on the UHP Facebook page, have a look (and a read, of course). My favorite lines were these: “The wisest students…move into a peer relationship with the institution rather than a consumer relationship with it. They seize leadership roles. They serve as research assistants. And they build social capital, realizing that above all else, they’re in college ‘to widen the circle of human beings who know you and care about you.” The remarks capture what I love best about the University Honors Program: the people (faculty, staff, and students) who form a community of learning and caring together. We’ll provide abundant opportunities for all of you – first-year students through seniors – to spend time together outside of the classroom. Be on the lookout for a wide range of activities this year, everything from our annual fall hike to Harper’s Ferry to a night out with the Nationals to a Library of Congress trip for a reader’s card. I hope all of our huge in-coming class of first-year students will join us for our Welcome Dinner on Tuesday, August 28th (5:00 to 7:00 in the Marvin Center Continental Ballroom). Many of the faculty and the incredible team of peer advisors will be there, and it’s a great opportunity to begin getting to know one another.
My door (and inbox) is always open, should you desire to talk with me about any aspect of the Honors Program. If you’d like to talk, please just email me to make an appointment. All the very best to each and every one of you,
Maria Frawley

GW Night at the Nats with the Honors Program!

Thursday, September 6 is George Washington University Day at Nationals Park! We’ll be sending a proud cohort of nerds-who-also-like-sports from the Honors Program, so sign up now to claim your $5 ticket for a night of baseball, hot dogs, and classic Americana. The game starts at 7:05PM on Thursday, 7/6.
Please stop by the townhouse to pick up your ticket by Tuesday, Sept. 4th.  If the RSVP link is closed, please email Alex Dent (alexdent@gwu.edu) to be placed on the waitlist. Add “Nats Stadium” to the subject line.
To get you in the mood, here’s Chris Traeger singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”