�Honors�Featured�in�Newsweek�Article“25�New�Ivies”

John Speth in his lab at Hebrew University

Fall 2006 Vol. 11

Continued on Page 6

Honors�FellowsThis year saw vigorous activity by our Honors Fellows. Honors Fellows are faculty and advanced graduate students actively engaged with Honors students and the admissions/invitations process for the program. The ten 2005-2006 Honors Fellows represented all three major divisions in the college; humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The Fellows conducted mini-seminars, organized panel presentations, accompanied students to performances, led site visits, encouraged students to visit their labs, and even taught Honors students and staff to dance!They also became an important element in the Honors Program holistic review of student applications: the Fellows read and made final decisions on nearly a quarter of the admissions applications and essays processed by the Honors Program. Professors Kelly Askew (Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies), Fred Amrine (German), Dick Canary (Mathematics), and Silke-Maria Weineck (German and Comparative Literature) also helped with Honors admissions.

Meet the 2005-2006 honors Fellows:

Faculty Fellows

JohN Speth (Anthropology)John D. Speth is Professor of Anthropology and Curator of North American Archaeology in the Museum of

Anthropology. He studies hunter-gatherers, past and present, New World and Old World. He has taken many undergraduate and graduate students to southeastern New Mexico to excavate late prehistoric mixed bison-hunting/farming communities along the western margins of the Southern High Plains with Michigan’s Archeology Field Training Program. This past year, Prof Speth invited Honors students to a hands-

on session with archeological artifacts in the anthropology museum. Matt LeDuc, who wrote his Honors thesis with Prof. Speth, presented his research at a Lunch with Honors session.

LSA HonorS

Directorstephen Darwall

Associate Directorliina M. wallin

Assistant DirectorDonna wessel walker

Scholarship Coordinatorelleanor H. crown

Program CoordinatorJohn c. cantú

Graduation AuditorJohn B. Morgan

office ManagerVicki Davinich

receptionistJessi Grieser

Admissions AssistantJeewon lee

Faculty Advisorssamuel BrennerMaria Gonzalezsanthadevi JeyabalanVadim JigoulovMargaret lourieDeborah MahoneyRobert Pachella

Contact Informationlsa Honors Program1330 Mason Hall419 s. state st.ann arbor, MI 48109-1027Phone: 734-764-6274Fax: 734-763-6553email: honors.alums@umich.eduhttp://www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/

Regents of the universityDavid a. Brandon, ann arborlaurence B. Deitch, Bingham Farmsolivia P. Maynard, GoodrichRebecca McGowan, ann arborandrea Fischer Newman, ann arborandrew c. Richner, Grosse Point Parks. Martin taylor, Grosse Point FarmsKatherine e. white, ann arborMary sue coleman, President, ex officio

the university of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all appli-cable federal and state laws regarding non-discrimi-nation and affirmative action, including title IX of the education amendments of 1972 and section 504 of the Rehabilitation act of 1973. the university of Michigan is committed to a policy of non-discrimina-tion and equal opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, dis-ability, or Vietnam-era veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the university’s Director of affirmative action and title IX/section 504 coordinator, 4005 wolverine tower, ann arbor, Michigan 48109-1281, (734) 763-0235; tty (734) 647-1388. For other university of Michigan informa-tion call: (734) 764-1817.

honors PrograM awardsthanks to the generosity of Honors alumni and friends, we are able to support and reward our outstanding students for their accomplishments.

Special awards to Honors seniors are part of our graduation ceremony each year. In April 2003 we initiated a group of awards made possible by the Goldstein family, Ellen, Joseph, Laura Bassichis and Paul, all of whom attended that year’s ceremony and assisted in the presentation. Named for distinguished UM alumni and associates, the Goldstein Prizes reward excellence in humanities, arts, natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, public service, humanitarianism and teaching. Students are nominated by their departments for these awards and chosen by the Honors Faculty Advisory Board.

Sang Woo Kim, an historian with a passion for the cultural life of early modern Florence was awarded the Robert Hayden Humanities Award. His thesis on artistic production and public spectacles in Florence during the reign of Duke Cosimo I was described by faculty readers as rich, learned, sophisticated and displaying an interpretive ambition characteristic of graduate-level work.

The Arthur Miller Arts Award went to C. Jacqueline Wood, a Screen Arts and Culture major. Her Honors project combined a brilliant scholarly thesis exploring the avant-garde expanded cinema movement with a gallery exhibit and a series of installations involving projection work in the Angell Hall planetarium, on the exterior of the Frieze Building and in other campus locations.

Michael Kagan is an Honors physics and mathematics major. His Honors research in experimental particle physics was described by faculty as reaching the level of achievement of an advanced PhD candidate. Michael was awarded the Jerome and Isabella Karle Award for Natural Sciences and Mathematics. He will continue his study of high energy particle physics at Harvard.

There were two winners of the Marshall Sahlins Social Science Award this year. Alexandra Sloan’s history thesis was a highly original and meticulously researched study of a French bacteriologist in French Indochina. Alex is proficient in four languages and is described by faculty as a genuine intellectual in a way that American students are seldom permitted to be these days. Audrey Vesota completed a sociology thesis on the effects of the new urbanism on community dynamics in Chicago. Based on survey and field research, her project, which involved both quantitative and qualitative analysis, was described by readers as empirically ambitious and theoretically informed.

The Gerald Ford Public Service Award winner, political science major Lyric Chen, has a distinguished record both of scholarship and of public service in her home state of Wisconsin and in Michigan. Her research work in China, described as brilliant and highly original by readers, investigates the impact of legal aid on the litigation experiences of Chinese workers and illustrates her concern for human rights worldwide. She will continue her research in China as a Fulbright Scholar.

The Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award was presented to Jane Winfield, whose political science thesis involved extensive fieldwork in the South African township of Khayelitsha and examined the way in which women’s collective struggles to obtain life-saving antiretroviral treatments affect their lives, their communities and their sense of political agency. Her project grew out of her commitment to social change and her semester abroad in Cape Town where she worked with the HIV/AIDS treatment activism movement.

Sidney Fine Teaching Award is given to students who show exceptional promise as future educators. Charles Crissman, triple major in mathematics, linguistics and Italian, was nominated for this award by the math and linguistics faculty as their outstanding graduating senior. He earned Highest Honors in both departments. His linguistics thesis developed a new model for understanding “sequence of tense,” the phenomenon whereby a single sentence exhibits distinct tense interpretations leading to temporal ambiguity. Charley will be a graduate student in math at Cambridge next year.

Honors Alumni Prizes for outstanding achievement and service to the Honors Program and the university were presented to Melissa Benton, Keith Fudge and Kate Hutchens. All three have been invaluable student employees and outstanding representatives of the Honors Program for several years. Melissa is an English concentrator with an impressive record of service to the

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Kudosby Elleanor H. Crown

Michigan Daily as a writer and editor. Keith Fudge is also an English major (you will read about his Honors thesis experience on page 5). He taught one of the most successful “Ideas in Honors” mini-courses we have ever offered; it was called “Walking 101.” Kate Hutchens, an English and Theatre and Drama major, has worked for Honors in a number of capacities including Head Peer Advisor for summer orientation.

Virginia Voss Memorial Scholarships are awarded each year to senior Honors women for excellence in writing. They pay tribute to the memory of the late Virginia Voss who graduated from Michigan in the 1950s and became College Editor of Mademoiselle Magazine. After her untimely death, the Voss family provided funds for the awards. This year, Voss Scholarships for academic writing were awarded to Alexandra Sloan (History), Catherine Morris (History of Art), Allison Gorsuch (American Culture), Amanda Bullock (History/English), Daphna Atias (English/Political Science), Emily Squires (Independent Concentration in Community Empowerment and Social Change Through the Arts, and Art and Design), Nayana Dhavan (Linguistics/Biology) and Jennifer Knoester (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology/Spanish). Becky Adams (Creative Writing) was awarded a scholarship for imaginative prose and Megan Kolodgy (Psychology/English) received a journalism prize.

The Honors Program makes annual grants to outstanding Honors juniors. These include the Otto Graf Scholarships and Prizes and the Jack Meiland Prize. Otto Graf, German scholar and humanist, was Director of Honors for eighteen years. The awards given in his honor are made to students distinguished by their academic excellence and commitment. The work of Jack Meiland, Philosophy professor and Honors Director, was noted for its interdisciplinarity. The Meiland Award is made annually to the student whose studies best reflect his

ideals of quality and breadth. This year, Keary Engle (Chemistry/Economics) won the Jack Meiland Award. Otto Graf Scholarships went to Matthew Becker (Mathematics/ Physics) and Ethan Street (Mathematics/Physics). Graf Prizes were awarded to Thomas Babinec (Mathematics/Physics), Adam Rigoni (Philosophy/Political Science), and Nathan Stiennon (Mathematics/Physics).

The Honors Program Global Learning Travel Fellowships are designed to provide financial assistance of up to $3000 to support the international learning experiences of currently enrolled Honors students. Eligible programs include intensive language study, semester- or year-long study abroad programs, short- or long-term internships, volunteer opportunities, or individual/collaborative research projects. This year’s grants were awarded to Maia Dedrick for an archaeological field school in Pompeii, Adrianne Miller for study abroad and an internship in sustainable development in São Paulo, Andrew Stephan for an archaeological field school in Mugello region outside Florence, and Andrew Wollner for an internship with a summer music festival in northeastern Germany. The Global Health Research and Training Initiative grant underwritten by UM was awarded to Eunice Yu for an internship designed to strengthen infrastructure within HIV voluntary counseling and testing facilities in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Honors Book Scholarships were awarded to freshmen Joel Berger, Daniel Echlin, Alexander Gribov and Moustafa Moustafa for their outstanding admissions essays.

Many of our students received funds from the Honors Program to help with the costs of their thesis research, to enable them to attend and present results at conferences, to assist with the cost of special study abroad programs or to subsidize the cost of unpaid internships. We congratulate all of them for their excellent work.

National�Awardsthis has been another excellent year for the Honors Program and the university of Michigan in national scholarship competitions. our first good news came when we learned that charles crissman had been awarded a winston Churchill scholarship for a year of graduate work in mathematics at churchill college, cambridge. this was particularly exciting because last year christopher Hayward was successful in that competition and has just completed his year of study at cambridge (see Honors Forum, Fall 2005, http://www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/news/newsletter.htm). During his

four years at Michigan, charley, who hails from Midland, MI, completed three concentrations, spent a full year at the university of Padua, studied five foreign languages, and wrote an Honors thesis in linguistics. to read more about charley, chris and the churchill competition, look for the Feb. 8, 2006 issue of the Michigan Daily in their online archives (http://www.michigandaily.com/home/archives/)

another repeat winner this year was Zachary Foster, who followed Madison Moore’s success last year in the Beinecke Brothers Memorial scholarship competition. the Beinecke provides support for graduate study in humanities, social science or the arts. Zach, whose home is in west Bloomfield, MI, is an Honors sociology concentrator whose interest centers on the sociology of religion and Jewish culture. we wish Zach all

the best as he completes his Honors thesis and looks for the perfect graduate program to fit his interests as we also wish Madison well in his graduate studies at yale.

Barry M. goldwater scholarships are presented to sophomores and juniors for excellence in math, natural science and engineering. Four-year schools are allowed to nominate up to four students for this competition. this year, Matthew Becker, an Honors physics and math concentrator from Indianapolis, IN, and Kathryn MacKool, an Honors biochemistry major from Brighton, MI, were awarded Goldwater scholarships. Keary engle, an Honors chemistry and economics concentrator from Holland, MI, and elizabeth otto, an Honors physics major from Kalamazoo, MI, were awarded Honorable Mention.

honors PrograM awards continued from page 2

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Charles Crissman Zachary Foster

Like many Honors freshmen, I arrived at the University of Michigan with a general field of interest but vague ideas for specific topics for study. I knew early on that I wanted to major in political science, but any elaboration took on general and uncertain terms—“Maybe China?” “Something related to social movements?” Still, I had grand hopes for finding a niche and cultivating skills, and for both intellectual and personal growth in my undergraduate years. A wonderful thing about the University of Michigan, I soon found out, is that it has a dazzling variety of opportunities and resources for students to take their interests in different directions. The Honors Program provided the support I needed to combine my fascination with political science and China with my language skills in Mandarin to seek out research opportunities.

I volunteered to be a research assistant for Professor Mary Gallagher, who examines labor disputes and legal development in China. Unfazed by my total ignorance of the topic, she took me on, and became a supervisor, a teacher, and a mentor. Under her guidance, I delved into the work, gathering and analyzing statistics and examining laws and dispute cases. While I quickly became intimately familiar with Chinese labor law and the institutions of dispute resolution and even felt motivated to spend many a night in the library flipping through statistical yearbooks to gather figures, there was a connection to my research that was missing – a personal understanding of the country I was examining. Therefore, when the opportunity arose for me to join Professor Gallagher in China for fieldwork, I could not pass up the chance.

It was my first trip to China, and those two months in Beijing at once shattered my preconceptions and confirmed my previous understanding of the society. Abstract notions in my research took on concrete, even lively forms, as I visited construction sites and talked to laborers to understand their issues first-hand. In addition to research, I had a variety of interesting experiences. I set out to climb a section of the Great Wall, but, unbeknownst to me and my party of adventurous hikers, we inadvertently approached the wall from the north side, which is said to be impenetrable and proved too much of a challenge for us. I

had long and probing conversations with Beijing locals about social change in China and the United States. During those conversations, we not only lost track of time, but also forgot about the differences in beliefs and outlook that might prevent a Chinese and an American from finding common ground. My trip to China was more than academically rewarding; it was

an immersion that yielded personal insight into a society and its institutions that I could not get

elsewhere.

After the trip, I found my interest in Chinese politics deepened. The

people I met and places I saw brought a sense of reality and significance to my work. The trip also taught me how little I knew about China and motivated me to learn more. I became an Honors concentrator in political science, and dedicated the next two years to crafting a thesis that included both information

gathered through fieldwork that summer and new knowledge from

my continued research. Just as the Honors coursework in freshman

and sophomore year had challenged my abilities and increased my intellectual

curiosity, the thesis project led to further growth both academically and personally. By the end of it I was not only a better writer, but more disciplined and self-motivated.

Thoroughly enjoying the research and writing of my thesis, and ever inquisitive about labor disputes and legal development in China, I applied for and was granted a Fulbright Scholarship. It will enable me to return to China for further research. As I prepare to depart this fall, I am eager to continue my studies of this complex and fascinating country and its politics. I hope for more enlightening conversations and immersion in Chinese society, and the chance to climb that stretch of the Great Wall I missed out on before. In some ways, I am still the wide-eyed, hopeful student I was when I arrived at the University of Michigan; but through engaging in research and taking advantage of the opportunities of mentorship and travel, I have gained the maturity and insight to start on a path to become a scholar.

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Half-way�’Round�the�Worldby Lyric Chen

Lyric Chen in Shanghai

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Friday�Morning,�5amby Keith FudgeFrom a speech delivered at the Honors Graduation Celebration

My four years in the Honors Program and then the English Honors Concentration have probably been the most rewarding and challenging of my life—there are a dozen things I would love to write about, from the teachers who have shaped me to the friendships I’ve established to the Honors seminar I taught last fall on the social and cultural history of walking. But I think that what I would most like to do is tell a story, because if any one series of events can crystallize the senses of intensity, of accomplishment, and of community that I’ve felt over my time here in the Honors Program at the University of Michigan, it was this:

At 2:30 pm on March 16th, the day before the Honors English thesis was due, I met several of my classmates at our regular table in the Graduate Library. Our small group had spent much of the previous week in that very spot, writing frantically and, on occasion, panicking. On this Thursday, with the deadline looming, we worked into the night. Nobody was willing to take the time to break for dinner, so we grew hungrier and hungrier. By 11 o’clock, I couldn’t decide whether I felt more doomed or famished. Just as I was about to leave the library in search of food, I came to the glorious realization that, a week before, I had left a small jar of peanut butter in the front pouch of my backpack. None of us had any utensils, so I attacked it with my forefinger—after that, for some reason, nobody else wanted any. Around midnight, another friend and classmate joined us, and we continued until the Grad closed at 2 am, when we moved across the connector into the Undergraduate Library. At 4 am, with my to-do list still numbering in the double digits, I despaired briefly (and loudly).

An hour later, the UGLi closed, so we picked up our mounds of books and decided to move to the Fishbowl, the only place on campus that would still be open at that hour. And this, I think, is the moment that sums everything up for me. At exactly

5am, we walked out of the front doors of the UGLi, very tired but with minds racing. And what did we see? Nothing other than groups of shouting college students decked out in green.

Yes, while we were dragging our sorry selves across the Diag, a good number of our fellow college

students had voluntarily gotten up before five so that they could get an early start on

their St. Patrick’s Day drinking. There is probably some sort of metaphor

in that experience, but all I know is that that walk was easily the most surreal moment of my college life. We arrived at the computer lab and met up with some other thesis writers. I can barely remember what happened after that, honestly, but I do distinctly recall that at 10:30 in the morning my thesis, somehow, was completed and

ready to be bound. All told, our small group had sustained

and reinforced each other for over twenty hours. More than anything

else, that feeling of dedication and mutual concern is what I will take away

from this long, challenging, and extremely gratifying experience.

Keith Fudge

Keith is currently living in New York City,

working as an editorial assistant at Newmarket

Press. Due to his acute case of post-graduation

wanderlust, he will likely leave his job and New

York by the end of November in search of new

adventures before attending UM’s Ford School

of Public Policy in the fall of 2007.

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honors In BeIJIngFirst Italy, now china! three years ago, we began a very successful collaboration with the university of wisconsin, Honors in Florence, a month-long program for honors students from Michigan and wisconsin at the Villa corsi salviati. this coming January will see the beginning of our second major study abroad initiative: Honors in Beijing! spearheaded by last year’s Interim Director, David Porter, Honors in Beijing is also a collaboration, this time with other honors programs in the cIc (a conference of the Big ten universities plus the university of chicago). this will be a wonderful opportunity for our students.Perhaps no part of the world is so opaque to most americans, yet so important to their future, as china. a country with an incredibly rich history and culture, china is undergoing explosive economic and social change. these internal changes already have global effects that are only likely to increase, with profound consequences for our students’ lives over the next fifty years. For today’s students, Horace Greeley’s famous nineteenth-century remark, “Go west, young man,” might be amended: “and don’t stop when you reach california.”

Beginning in January 2007, approximately five lsa Honors students will join honors students from other cIc schools in a semester-long course of study in Beijing. Honors in Beijing will be administered by the Institute for the International education of students (Ies) and centered at Beijing waiguoyu Daxue (Beijing Foreign studies university). Popularly known as Bei wai, Beijing waiguoyu Daxue is especially well-known for its strong language programs. Ies has administered programs there since 1990 that have drawn students from many of our country’s most distinguished universities. through the initiative of our own David Porter, the cIc honors programs worked with Ies to develop a specially tailored semester-long program which will offer courses in classical and modern chinese language, chinese history, chinese international relations, and current issues such as chinese economic development and its environmental impact. students will have many opportunities to visit cultural sites, to experience china, and to meet the chinese people during this incredibly interesting time in history.

we are very grateful to David Porter whose initiative and vision has made possible such an exciting program for our students. as an added benefit, David will be on research leave in Beijing this year in a position to help oversee the program and to serve as a resource for our students.

Honors�Fellows continued from page 1

DaviD GerDeS�(Physics)Prof Gerdes is an experimental high-energy physicist. He was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the world’s heaviest known elementary particle, and is now carrying out precision studies of its properties. Professor Gerdes took a group of students to the Fermi Lab in suburban Chicago where they were able to learn a bit about elementary particles, tour the accelerators and detectors, and learn how an understanding of the smallest things in nature sheds light on the very largest things.

erik MueGGler (Anthropology)Professor Mueggler’s work covers a variety of topics in social and cultural theory, focusing in particular on the politics of ritual, religion, science, and nature in the border regions of China. His more recent work examines the history of British botanical exploration in China’s southwest borderlands. Eric Mueggler is a MacArthur Fellow.

ruth ScoDel�(Classical�Studies)The D.R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin,

GRaDuate stuDeNt HoNoRs Fellows 2005-2006:Amit Ahuja (Political Science) Mini-seminar “The Politics of the Poor”

Vadim Jigoulov (Near Eastern Studies) Mini-seminar “The Archeology of the Bible” Christopher Love (Comparative Literature) Mini-seminar “Political Discourse.”

Christa McDermott (Psychology and Women’s Studies) Site visit to the Ann Arbor Recycling CenterKirsten Olds (History of Art) Field trip to the Detroit Institute of Art.

Ruth Scodel’s research is mostly on Greek literature, primarily Homer and Greek tragedy. She has lectured in Classical Civilization 101 and taught Honors seminars and was Director of the Honors Program from 1991 to 1996. She is devoted to country dance and is a member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, The Country Dance and Song Society, a very active member of the Ann Arbor Council for Traditional Music and Dance and taught an extremely well-received session on English Country Dance for the Honors Program. In addition, Professor Scodel attended a performance of Seamus Heaney’s “Burial at Thebes” with Honors students and then led a discussion about the performance.

vivaSvaN SoNi�(English)Prof. Soni’s main areas of scholarly interest are eighteenth century literature and culture and literary and cultural theory. He led a highly successful mini-seminar where students explored the meaning of happiness and its value in a series of three snapshots: Solon’s proverb (“Call no one happy before his death.”), the Declaration of Independence, and contemporary psychology. The seminar asked whether there have been different conceptions of happiness throughout history, and whether happiness can have any use as a political concept. Prof. Soni is teaching an Honors Sophomore Seminar on the nature of happiness fall term 2006.

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New�Admissions�Procedure�BegunFor the entering class of Fall 2006, we instituted a new process for invitations to the Honors Program: we asked all potential candidates for the Honors Program to write an essay for us to supplement the written work they had submitted in their original uM applications. For some years now, we have conducted holistic reviews of students admitted to lsa to determine whom to invite to Honors, but we wanted also to find a way to identify genuine intellectual interest and motivation for our Program among the students qualified for Honors. the essays students wrote for us did indeed provide further insight into how they think and what their interests are.

we hoped that the questions would be engaging, but we had no way of knowing whether students would be willing to write yet one more college essay. we asked for 750-1000 words on one of four topics. we were intrigued and amused by the answers some students gave. students who chose to write about a time in history they would like to visit imagined spending time at the constitutional convention or in Periclean athens; but the notion that the 1960s constitute an “historical time” took some us aback somewhat. other students described their “eureka moment” which can happen in a wide range of settings: the first cut in the dissection lab in biology, a research opportunity in a hospital, but also golden moments of conversation in class or out, or the moment when a student realized she’d had a dream in the foreign language she was studying. students writing on the difference between honor and morality considered current political controversies, and also ethical issues in school and among friends. our fourth question asked students to discuss a current question or problem and explain why it is important, and how they decided where they stand on it: again the range of issues was impressive, as was the quality of thought in weighing those issues. these essays demonstrate that, at least among top-achieving students, the much-reported apathy and self-centeredness are myths: these students are interested and engaged in academic and intellectual questions as well as in political and social issues of our time.

we are very pleased with the responses to our request for an additional essay, and with the quality of thinking and writing that those essays demonstrate. we intend to continue the experiment this coming year, with some new topics. while our questions will never be as quirky as the university of chicago’s famously idiosyncratic posers, we’ll continue to ask for students’ most interesting ideas.

This year, as in past years, we have used a book as a bonding experience for incoming students: we start every year literally on the same page. This year, the book was Baghdad Bulletin by David Enders. David is a recent UM grad who, while an undergraduate, was on the editorial board for the Michigan Daily; he spent the Winter semester of 2003 doing a semester of study abroad at the American University in Beirut. In May, two months after the invasion of Iraq, David went from Beirut to Baghdad to start an English-language news weekly. On a shoestring budget and with an incredibly young staff, the Baghdad Bulletin published through the summer until the dangers became too great and the funding ran out. David’s book is a record of his experiences during that adventure. Quick-paced, opinionated, and immediate, the book resonated with our students.

David Enders also resonated with them when he came to speak at the Honors Kick-Off on the first of September, the Friday before classes started. During our formal assembly in the morning we were privileged to have two faculty respondents to the book, Paul Courant of Economics (and former Provost), and Liz Anderson of Women’s Studies and Philosophy. Both addressed issues raised by the book and by the circumstances it describes. Then David talked a bit, read from his book, and took questions. The lectures were followed by small group discussions led by Honors faculty, grad students, staff, and students, and the discussions were fast and lively.

David will be our featured speaker for Parents’ Weekend on Friday, October 20th. He will provide reflections on the book, sign copies, and attend a reception in our Perlman Honors Commons. If you’re on campus that weekend, please join us.

Have an idea for next year’s freshman book? Email Donna Wessel Walker: dlww@umich.edu. We choose the book in the early spring, and are glad to have suggestions.

Freshman Bookfor 2006:Baghdad Bulletin

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Thank�You,David�PorterIt is with real gratitude that I write this short article on David Porter’s achievements during last year as Interim Director. I knew when I suggested David as a candidate to direct the Honors Program while I was away on research leave that he would do a great job. What I didn’t know was how great a job he would do. This year, David is taking a richly deserved research leave in China, while I struggle to meet the standard he has set.

Here are only a few of the things that David accomplished last year. Most impressive is Honors in Beijing, a semester-long foreign study collaboration with other Big Ten honors programs, which I hope you will read about on page 6. Another “internationalizing” initiative is the Honors Global Learning Travel Fellowship, established last year to encourage Honors students to think creatively about possibilities for expanding their educations through study, research, or work abroad. Four fellowships were awarded last year. In addition, Honors partnered with the Global Health Research and Training Initiative to offer two additional fellowships specifically in the area of global public health.

A second major set of initiatives concerned student recruitment and admission, which carried forward and developed changes that began several years ago when we moved to a less quantitative and more holistic evaluation to identify and recruit students who would provide the best fit with the Program. Last year, prospective students were encouraged to submit an additional essay, which played a significant role in the admissions process. A substantial majority of the students who were invited to the Program chose to write the essay. Perhaps more impressive, an even higher percentage of those who accepted our invitation wrote the essay. It now seems clear that making this personal investment improves the chances that students will choose to come to LSA Honors. Also for the first time last year, we wrote a letter to especially talented high school seniors describing the Program and encouraging them to apply to Michigan.

In order to reward exceptional essay writers, David instituted the Honors Book Scholarship which pays for up to $1000 worth of books for incoming freshmen with the most outstanding admissions essays.

David carried existing programs such as the Honor Fellows initiative forward, represented the Honors Program to the college administration with distinction, participated in a host of Honors programs and events, and took care of all the nitty-gritty details that fall into the lap of a Director.

Have a great year in Beijing, David!

From�the�DirectorStephen�Darwall,�LS&A�Honors�Director

Dear Friends:

Nothing is more invigorating, after a year away from Honors, than the daily luncheon meetings we have with entering students each summer as part of their orientation to the university of Michigan. the students come with such wide and varied interests, and the conversation always goes in fascinating directions that are utterly impossible to anticipate. often it will be some quirky

thing that develops from a student interest, for example a student’s whimsical remark about an interest in pirates, which sparked a discussion of early nineteenth-century piracy off the Barbary coast, the “shores of tripoli,” Roman and christian conceptions of barbarians, saracens, and Islam, and, finally, Roberto clemente (the great Pittsburgh Pirate). or sometimes it will be something that emerges from a philosophical riff that I do on aristotle’s claim that however valuable honor may be, it pales in comparison with, because it derives from, the value of what is worthy of honor. (Bottom line: it’s not about the honor; it’s about the experience.)

I think of what goes on in these conversations as a microcosm of what we are after in the Honors Program generally: helping students to discover and deepen their true interests through participating in a community of like-minded others. By “like-minded,” I don’t mean people who already share our interests and outlook. to the contrary, like John stuart Mill in On Liberty, I believe that we only discover what truly engages us through exchange with those who have different ideas and interests. By “like-minded,” I mean a community of students and faculty that value this process of discovery.

Michigan is one of the world’s truly great universities. as a recent Newsweek article put it: “From engineering to the humanities to medicine, Michigan is at the top of just about every list of academic leaders.” what the Honors Program is all about is providing a supportive and stimulating community that can kindle a desire to explore these intellectual riches widely so that students can discover what they can be deeply interested in and then pursue it at a depth that would otherwise be impossible. I can’t imagine anything more exciting.

all best,

steve

P.s. one thing you will notice in this issue is that references to china abound. this is perhaps a reflection of just how important that nation is becoming and what a major role it is likely to play in the lives and careers of our students. Next year, uM plans a theme semester devoted to china and her role in the world.

Stephen Darwall

David Porter

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We�want�to�hear�from�you!We have tabulated responses to our last survey and will be in contact with some of you soon. If you have not responded yet, or if you have updates, please return this sheet or send the information by email to honors.alums@umich.edu

title (Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr.) ________________________________________________________________________

Name _______________________________________________________________________________________

Former Name ________________________________________________________________________________

Mailing address ______________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone _________________________________________ email address _______________________________

year of Graduation ____________________________ Honors Degree ______________________________

other Degrees _______________________________________________________________________________

career Information/News/comments

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

����Check�this�box�if�we�may�post�your�news�on�our�website.

I am willing to serve as a volunteer for the lsa Honors Program and will

______ talk with prospective students in my area.

______ Mentor Honors students on campus or in my community.

______ Provide an internship for an Honors student in my workplace.

(specify __________________________________________________).

______ serve as a resource for Honors students interested in my field.

(specify __________________________________________________).

�����Check�this�box�if�you�would�like�to�receive�emails�about�Honors��lectures�and�other�events.

Please return this form by mail or fax it to Honors at 734.763.6553.You may also email the information to honors.alums@umich.edu

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lsa Honorsthe university of Michigan1330 Mason Hall419 s. state streetann arbor, MI 48109-1027

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Honors�Updates

Ideas in honors

“Ideas in Honors,” the mini-courses for first-year students taught by Honors seniors continue to attract and to inspire our beginning students. There were ten sections taught in Fall Term 2005 and five in Winter 2006 for a combined enrollment of 168 freshmen. The list of Fall 2005 classes was in our last newsletter. Below is a list of Winter 2006 and Fall 2006 classes. We remain grateful for donations that have made this program possible and offered this unique experience to our beginning students as well as to the seniors who teach the classes. If you missed the article in the last newsletter about these mini-courses, see www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/2004forum.pdf. If you would like to read the full descriptions of these classes, check them out at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/cg/. Just look under “Honors” for any given semester and you will find a compete list.

Honors�135�topics,�Winter�Term�2006:comedy for a Digital world

How Justinian Killed a trillion People: the Roman empire according to Procopius

How to conquer the world: literature of strategy

women in Politics: From susan B. anthony to sen. Hillary clinton

Poverty and Democracy in an era of Globalization

Honors�135�topics,�Fall�Term�2006:wits, words, and wardrobe: Restoration and 18th century British literature

Nanotechnology - there’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom

welcome to Bollywood

Human Rights army: lessons from the International Brigades

From Numbers to stories: Perspectives on Data Graphics

steganography: the art of Hidden Messages

things every Doctor should Know: controversial Issues Facing today’s Medical world

the History of the university of Michigan

honors events and activitiesthis has been another lively year in Honors programming. lunches with Honors have included visits from Gregory Rodriguez, associate Production Manager for the Doritos division of Frito-lay corp. who discussed issues involved in product branding; srdjan Dizdarevic, President, Helsinki committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Deborah stone, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting scholar and health care policy analyst; Jonathan weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch; thomas Bombelles, Merck & co., Inc. who discussed the ethical issues involved in the distribution of life-saving drugs in underdeveloped countries; steven Matz, Honors alum and avid mountain climbing enthusiast who discussed his experiences on many climbs including Mt. everest; and Juan cole, uM Professor of History, who presented an analysis of the Iraqi elections and the future of america. there was a visit from the Dc-based group “congress to campus” which provides a bipartisan team to discuss their congressional experiences with college students. our visit included Rep. David e. skaggs (D-colorado) and Rep. orval Hansen (R-Idaho).

“Fresh Ideas,” a forum for discussion hosted by the Honors acting Director David Porter, invited prominent faculty guests to explore topics such as religious fundamentalism in america, an interpretation of economic growth, poverty in america, the influence of media violence on youth, internet controversy, the right of the accused to confront witnesses, slavery in cuba, the impact of the developmental paradigm on family life, and the nature of happiness.

Staff�Changes

John B. Morgan has been promoted to Honors Senior Auditor and Jessi Grieser has replaced him at the front desk. Jeanne Getty has taken a position in the School of Education and our new Admissions Assistant is Jeewon Lee. We welcome two new advisors, Samuel L. Brenner, who is completing his Ph.D. in history at Brown and attending UM Law School, and Vadim S. Jigoulov, who recently finished his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at UM. We are happy that all of our new staff members have Honors connections. Jessi, Jeewon and Sam are graduates of Honors and Vadim is a long-time Great Books Instructor and an Honors Faculty Fellow.

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P a I DaNN aRBoR, MIPeRMIt No. 144

Honors ProgramThe University of Michigan1330 Mason HallAnn Arbor, MI 48109-1027

Snapshots�from�Honors

David Enders Discusses Baghdad Bulletinat the Honors Kickoff

Great Books Professor H.D. Cameron Speaks at Fresh Ideas

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