Do you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas about the UHP? Do you love food? Join us this Friday, September 21, in the Townhouse Club Room from 12-1 PM for a lunch with our Executive Director of the UHP, Maria Frawley!
Spots are limited, so sign up here!
Category: Featured
Food for Thought w/ Prof. Trullinger
Welcome back UHP! Join us for our first Food for Thought of the semester on Friday, September 14 from 12:15-1:15 PM in the Club Room at the Townhouse. Food for Thoughts are a great way to get involved with the UHP community. At these events, UHP professors give a casual presentation on their individual research over a lunch. This month, we will be hearing from Professor Trullinger. Make sure to RSVP to save your seat and your lunch!
“Are We Finished?: Hope, Utopianism, and Human Unfinishedness”
Lately there doesn’t seem to be much of a basis for hope for the future. In my talk I will discuss the importance of utopianism for Latin American liberation theology, and how it offers us intriguing philosophical and theological reflections on the possibility of hope in the midst of hopeless situations. Utopianism challenges our sense of the limit of what is possible, underscoring the need to try what seems impossible. This will be tied to Paulo Freire’s theory that human beings are (or ought to be) eternal students, and by seeing ourselves as perpetually unfinished, we remain capable of radical change without losing the humility we need to avoid self-destruction.
RSVP HERE!
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!
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
First-Year Community Welcome Dinner & Monument Walk
Today is the first day of classes and we’re so excited that you’re here! There’s going to be a lot going on your first week at GW, but don’t miss the Honors Community Welcome dinner, exclusively for incoming Honors first-year students, on Tuesday, August 28th from 5-7 PM in the Marvin Center Continental Ballroom on the third floor of the Marvin Center. Can’t make for the whole event? No problem! Come late, leave early, just swing by when you can!
This is going to be a super fun, no-pressure way to get to know your new peers, meet some staff and faculty, and grub on some free dinner! We can’t wait to assimilate – I mean welcome – you to the Honors Program!
After dinner, join the peer advisors and Alex and Natalie (the West Hall Honors RAs) as they head to the National Mall for a monument walk! How’s that for an #onlyatGW moment?
Summer 2018 Recommended Reading List
Finals are over and three long months of downtime loom ahead. You know what that means, right? The return of reading for fun! A UHPer recently asked the faculty for some recommended summer reading, and they were eager to oblige. So if you’re looking for a book to keep you company as you come down from finals, take a look at these suggestions:
Maria Frawley. “I’d like to recommend George Eliot’s Middlemarch, the novel Virginia Woolf famously declared to be ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.’ It’s a door-stopper of a novel (800 some pages!) that needs to be enjoyed over several months, and it’s the best study I’ve ever encountered of the hows and whys we fail to live up to our ideals.”
Bethany Cobb Kung: “Oops, I can’t pick just a single book! I’d recommend Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz. Many parts of this book frustrated or infuriated me — many other parts I wholeheartedly agreed with. AND/OR Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger A little history, a little science, and a little human interest, too!”
Mark Ralkowski: “This is the book I’d like to recommend: At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others, by Sarah Bakewell.It’s a great mix of philosophy and biography, and it provides a lot of the backstory to the rise of phenomenology and existentialism in the 20th century.“
In
grid Creppell: “I recommend Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones. This 2011 National Book Award Winner tells the story of a poor family living in southern Mississippi waiting and preparing for Hurricane Katrina. I found the writing mythic and at the same time of the most intimate concreteness – showing how dreams and passions of real individuals tangle with the inescapable hardness of the past, and yet they achieve a measure of salvation in this forgotten rural landscape.”
Joseph Trullinger: “I would recommend an essay by Mary Midgley, “Trying Out One’s New Sword.” Midgley explores the purported ancient Japanese custom of allowing samurais to kill peasants to “try out” the sharpness of a new sword. In particular, it’s a great essay about whether and how we can judge the practices of other cultures, and by implication, our own. It’s one of the most insightful pieces I’ve ever read about cultural relativism, and the presuppositions that go into it.”
William Winstead: “I recommend Robert Kuttner, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? (Norton, 2018). The best account yet of the origins of the global outrage directed at the neoliberal juggernaut undermining the future prospects of young and old alike—essential for anyone who wants to make sense of the current scene.”
Eyal Aviv: “I recommend A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel by Ruth Ozeki. Ozeki, an author and a Zen priest, tells a gripping story about three women: a Canadian-Japanese writer, a troubled Japanese teenage girl and her grandmother, an elderly Zen nun.The story moves between the three characters and connects them with a network shrouded with mystery that is rooted in the Zen philosophy of Eihei Dōgen. This is a remarkable story that will both touch you and invite you into a meditation about time, space and the intricacies of human relationship. “
Theo Christov: “I recommend No Name in the Street, by James Baldwin. This book weaves in and out of the Algerian war of independence, the tyranny of Francisco Franco, the 1963 March on Washington, and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr, revealing the legacy of the past in the US and how to cope with such a legacy in the present.”
Spring 2018 Extended Study Hours
FINALS ARE AROUND THE CORNER
Need a place to study? Come by the Townhouse for extended study hours in the Club Room! We’ll have assorted snacks and coffee (aka “the essentials”) and an overall studying environment that can’t be beat!
Check out the full schedule below:
Thursday, May 3, 9AM-10PMFriday, May 4* 9AM-10PM (Townhouse closed for Student Faculty Dinner 4:45-7:15)
Saturday, May 5 12PM-10PM
Sunday, May 6 12PM-10PMMonday, May 7 9AM-10PM
Tuesday, May 8* 9AM-10PM
Wednesday, May 9 9AM-10PM
Thursday, May 10 9AM-10PM
Friday, May 11* 9AM-10PM
Saturday, May 12 12PM-5PM
Sunday, May 13 12PM-5PM
Monday, May 14 9AM-10PM
Tuesday, May 15 9AM-10PM
*The Club Room may be unavailable during certain times on these days, but the basement will be open.
Spring 2018 Student-Faculty Dinner!
The end of the semester is rapidly approaching- papers, exams, presentations- yikes! Fortunately, for us UHPers, semester’s end also marks the arrival of the always-anticipated Student Faculty Dinner. Join us on Friday, May 4th from 5pm to 7pm at Chalin’s Chinese to gorge on Crab Rangoons and other delectable treats.
Tickets are on sale now at the UHP Townhouse and are only $5. You must purchase your tickets by Thursday, May 3rd at noon. That’s cheaper than Chipotle, even without the guac. For less than the cost of a subpar “burrito,” you can enjoy mountains of Chinese food and stimulating conversation with your favorite students, faculty and staff of the UHP. It’s really a win-win situation. We’ll see you there!
Honors Cords, Grad Reception, and the Senior Survey
If you’re graduating, have we got the survey for you! When you complete it, you can pick up your gold honor cord to wear at graduation. You can also pick up your 5 tickets for the UHP Graduating Seniors reception between 5/7 and 5/16. I’m not saying we’re holding your cords and tickets hostage, but I’m also not not saying it.
Here’s what you need to know:
First, complete the senior survey. You can do this online starting today. The survey is anonymous so that you can feel free to be honest, but we need to confirm that you’ve completed the survey. To do this, we will collect your childhood street name and high school mascot (think like a security question), which will be used to verify that you completed the survey.
Next, come pick up your golden cord and graduating senior reception tickets at the Foggy Bottom office staring Monday, May 7th. You can continue to pick up your materials any time during regular business hours (9AM-5PM) after that up until the Wednesday before graduation. We’ll check to make sure you’ve already completed the Senior Survey by asking your to confirm your childhood street name and high school mascot.
Finally, attend the UHP Graduating seniors reception. We’ll be in the City View Room at 1957 E Street from 5-7pm on Saturday, May 19th, 2018. Please note the reception will feature a cash bar and you will be able to pick up one drink ticket per guest when you check in at the reception. Graduates can also take part in the annual UHP tradition of signing our senior poster.
Note: CCAS students attending the Undergraduate Degree Programs Celebration #2 at 3:30 will have plenty of time to celebrate at both events!
We look forward to seeing you and your guests at the reception!
Spring 2018 Research Showcase
Honors Research Showcase
You are invited to celebrate the research of your UHP peers at the University Honors Program Research Showcase!
Enjoy brief presentations and ask questions Friday, April 27th from 1pm-3pm in the Club Room of the Honors Townhouse. Let your fellow UHPers know how proud we are of their dedication and willingness to take intellectual omnivorous risks!
Please let Ben know ASAP if you’d like to present! (benfaulkner@gwu.edu.)
