Honors College Spring 2016 Newsletter

HONORS COLLEGE UAH.EDU/HONORS

ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

2 From the Dean 3 Honors Research Day

College Priority Orientation

4 Honors Service Corps

5 Honors Course Spotlight: Robot Ethics 6 Graduate Profile 7 Spring 2016 Graduates

FROM THE DEAN ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

Growth, consolidation, success. These are the words that I feel describe the current moment in Honors.

GROWTH. This year we brought in the biggest and brightest class in the history of Honors

at UAH, and we’re on track to bring in even more bright students next year. In fact, next year’s Honors Class may top 300 students. The most exciting part of this growth is the continuity it generates. This year’s freshmen are signing up in record numbers to mentor next year’s class, because they all want to recreate that powerful sense of community they felt when they arrived here last fall. Our students continue to add more groups and more ideas: the Honors Service Corps, described in this newsletter, was formed and led entirely by our motivated students, and it has already become a part of the Honors Culture.

CONSOLIDATION. The continuity between cohorts is one way we begin to strengthen the

gains we have made. As more students begin to identify with Honors, they seek to share this identity and pass it on to the next class of Honors Students. We have also reinforced our gains in the classroom. This year’s greatly expanded Honors Curriculum is next year’s baseline.

Honors calculus (A, B, and C!), Honors sections in history, political science, biology, and our Honors courses in the engineering core are all standard fare now. As mentioned in the Course Spotlight, we plan to offer new kinds of interdisciplinary seminars, and we hope to add more classes that serve our many engineers.

SUCCESS. Over 35% of our incoming freshmen earned a 4.0 in their first semester at UAH.

This is an astonishing accomplishment, given that these students’ schedules included calculus, chemistry, Honors composition, and other demanding courses. Overall GPA among Honors Students has risen as well. Our students have been profiled in the President’s Annual Report, tutored local high school students, attended prestigious research conferences, and become leaders in student and Greek life. Everywhere, there is buzz about UAH Honors.

It is my great pleasure to continue to work with these fine young people. I had the privilege to teach a section of both the Honors FYE and the Honors English Seminar last fall, and as we wound down the term, I felt that deep connection to the freshmen cohort that can only come from working closely with them in the classroom. I watch now with pride as they grow into mature scholars.

Dr. William Wilkerson Dean, UAH Honors College

2

ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

HONORS COLLEGE PRIORITY ORIENTATION

Honors students mingling with their peers at the College’s first priority orientation.

On April 1 and 2, the Honors College held its first Honors College Priority Orientation.

This orientation session was much like a regular orientation session, but dedicated to Honors Students only. It provided a great opportunity for the Fall 2016 Honors freshmen to learn more about the Honors College and UAH, receive advisement, and register for fall courses before anyone else. Students also got an early introduction to the Honors Community, and had the opportunity to participate in Honors Student events and to stay overnight with an Honors Student host.

HONORS RESEARCH DAY

by Alexandria Clemons, Honors Ambassador The UAH Honors College is proud to host the 15th Annual University of Alabama System Honors Research Day on Tuesday, April 19, 2016. Honors students from UAH, UAB, and UA are invited to present their research/ project, have judges critique their research, and compete for cash prizes. Students can present either a poster or a 10-minute oral presentation of their research/project. We will also have a very special guest speaker, Dr. Jan Davis. Dr. Davis is a former NASA astronaut and a UAH alumna.

Dr. Davis did her graduate research work in mechanical engineering at UAH, where she received a master’s degree and a Ph.D. The National Space Club has generously agreed to sponsor the prizes for best research in each category.

3

HONORS SERVICE CORPS ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

Painting the Red Cross offices

by Kaley Doster, Honors Student

AP tutoring sessions

The Honors Service Corps (HSC) is the student-led community service arm of the Honors College. Four Honors Students – Kaley Doster, Shaylee Green, Benjamin Shea, and Alex Christley – started the organization with the goal of service, self-improvement, and networking in mind. Consisting of almost 50 members, the HSC has already begun to make a positive impact on the community. In Nov. 2015, the HSC held a coffee fundraiser across campus. In just four hours, the HSC raised enough money to provide clothes, shoes, necessities, and Christmas gifts for three children in need.

This semester, the HSC has been incredibly busy. In early January, the HSC volunteered for the task of painting the Red Cross of Huntsville. Consisting of around 30 rooms, this task was a large one, and the project is ongoing. In February 2016, the HSC held an event to tutor high school students in AP programs at local high schools. The HSC is now preparing to hold a blue-jean drive. With all the jeans collected, the members will be able to create patterns for shoes (similar to Toms) for those in need.

Though the HSC is relatively young, it has big plans for the future. Over the next few years, we hope to be active and well known, both on campus and throughout the community.

4

HONORS COURSE SPOTLIGHT Robot Ethics ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

UAH has a long history of offering specialized interdisciplinary seminars for Honors Students.

From the earliest days, these courses have covered topics that could be found nowhere else on campus; Machine Intelligence in Movies and Television, the Art of Writing Science, Introduction to Astrobiology, and Poverty in the United States are just a few. Honors College dean Dr. William Wilkerson even team-taught a course on the Biology and Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality many years ago.

Lately, however, these courses have fallen upon hard times. Increased time demands on both the faculty and students have made these courses difficult to schedule. Frequently, Honors Students have expressed that they would love to take one of these courses, but an additional three-hour elective doesn’t work with the demanding curriculum required by majors such as Nursing, Engineering, and Education. The faculty echo this refrain: they would love a chance to stretch out and teach a topic both academically rigorous and innovative, but find it difficult to teach a full course on top of their teaching loads.

The Honors College hopes to remedy this problem by following the lead of other top honors colleges and offering one-credit hour interdisciplinary seminars. These smaller seminars are easier for both students and professors to fit into their schedules. They also allow for more flexibility in scheduling and instructional design. The Honors College is happy to offer the first such seminar in the fall of 2016. The inimitable Dr. Nicholaos Jones, associate professor of philosophy, will teach Robot Ethics to 15 excited Honors Students. The class nearly filled within one hour of registration opening. Equally exciting, it will be the first course held in the new Honors Seminar Room in Frank Franz Hall.

The course is described by Dr. Jones as follows: Social robots are increasingly part of our lives. Tico helps teachers in schools. SaviOne delivers items to hotel guests. Pepper is an emotional companion. Buddy monitors home appliances and interacts with children.

Jibo is a personal assistant. Developing these robots requires more than engineering know-how. It also requires developing ethical norms for their behavior. This course explores what these norms might be, how we might make them amenable to computer coding, and how we might resolve disagreements about their content. We’ll discuss top-down approaches, which derive robot ethics from moral theory; bottom-up approaches, which use machine-learning techniques to have robots construct norms using feedback from interactions; and middle-out approaches, which combine theory with social scientific experimentation.

5

GRADUATE PROFILE ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

Wesley Spears Class of 2016 Economics College of Business Administration

Wesley Spears will be honored as the Honors College Graduate of the Year for the spring semester at the Honors Convocation ceremony on April 12, 2016. Wesley is an economics major from Henagar, AL. “I chose to major in economics because I like the overall purpose, that is, studying people’s choices and interactions,” says Spears. “More specifically, I enjoy the applications that economics can have in nearly any field of study or work, as well as the limitations that it has. This combination intrigues me.”

Wesley was an active member and served as vice president of the Honors Program Student Assembly. His favorite aspects of the Honors College are the smaller classes and the high expectations.

Wesley is currently working on his Honors Thesis, entitled “Economic Activity and the Global Ocean,” with Dr. Al Wilhite, economics professor and department chair.

“I gathered extensive data on the health of the ocean and various independent economic indicators such as GDP,” he says. “Then, we analyzed significant relationships between the two over a cross-section of time. The results give insight into what areas of policy and human activity benefit or hurt various aspects of oceanic health along coastlines.”

6

MAY 2016 GRADUATES The Honors College is proud to announce that the following 16 students will graduate with the Honors College Certificate or Diploma in May 2016. Each graduate will be honored and receive their Honors College medallion at the Honors Convocation ceremony on April 12, 2016.

Honors Certificate Megan Breland Senior Division Nursing College of Nursing Thesis Title: “First-Time Parents’ Knowledge of Newborn Suctioning” Advisor: Ellise Adams Lina Garrard Senior Division Nursing College of Nursing Thesis Title: “Identification, Assessment, and Referrals for Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence: An Educational Session for Maternity Nurses” Advisor: Ann Bianchi

Honors Diploma Timothy Anderson Mathematics College of Science Thesis Title: “Automating Admissions Decisions in Banner INB” Advisor: Kristi Motter Dylan Barker Foreign Languages College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Thesis Title: “A Family History of the Dominican Republic” Advisor: Linda Maier Minh Dang Mechanical Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “Combination of Force Sensors for a Wider Measurable Thrust Range in a Micro-Thruster Test Stand” Advisor: Gabriel Xu

John Gould Computer Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “Predictive Text Application for Adaptive Human Interface Devices” Advisor: B. Earl Wells

Ashton Koenig Biology College of Science Thesis Title: “Social Behavior in Mice with Tyrosinemia Type I” Advisor: Gordon MacGregor

Mike Gvodas Aerospace Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “Design and Evaluation of a Static Thrust Stand for Measuring and Analyzing Small Rotor-Motor Performance” Advisor: Brian Landrum

Lee Seeman Computer Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “A Historical Overview of Secret Communication and an Introduction to Modern Encryption Methods.”

Advisor: Tommy Morris

Kiley Heflin Physics College of Science Thesis Title: “Inflationary Gravitational Waves and B-Mode Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background” Advisor: Richard Lieu

Kaleb Smart Computer Science College of Science Thesis Title: “Software Development Using Test-Driven Development and Automated Build Systems” Advisor: Harry Delugach

Abrahim Imam Chemical Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “PolyVinyl Acetate Production” Advisor: Ramon Gerro

Wesley Spears Economics College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Thesis Title: “Economic Activity and the Global Ocean” Advisor: Al Wilhite

Bryant Johnson Computer Engineering College of Engineering Thesis Title: “Predicative Text Application for Adaptive Human Interface Devices” Advisor: B. Earl. Wells Graham Kirchner Biology College of Science Thesis Title: “Effect of Low Nitrogen and Inoculants on the Growth of P. Tremuloides” Advisor: Leland Cseke

Garrett Wilson Biology College of Science Thesis Title: “The Microbiome of the Built Environment: A Large-Scale Citizen Science Genomics Project.”

Advisor: Shawn Levy

7

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Birmingham, AL Permit No. 820

HONORS COLLEGE 301 Sparkman Drive Frank Franz Hall, Room 104 Huntsville, Alabama 35899

An Equal Opportunity University

YOUR DOLLARS AT WORK

THANKS TO ALL OF OUR GENEROUS ALUMNI AND PARENTS! We have more than doubled the money in our foundation account. These gifts have gone to work providing all kinds of good things for our students. This year they purchased a DVD series on chaos theory that our former Dean of Science used to lead a brownbag series. Donations purchased lockers for our off-campus students, so that they can use Frank Franz Hall as a “home base” for relaxing and studying between classes. Mostly, the money you sent has been spent on enrichments for Honors classes. We bought a series of DVDs for the Honors Earth Systems Science course, so Honors Students could do an

$25 GIFT =

independent project on environmental themes in popular film. We also bought lab supplies for the Honors section of Circuit Analysis. Finally, this coming fall, all incoming freshmen will be required to read Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Your funds will allow all the freshmen attending Honors Priority Orientation to receive a free copy of their text.

Please consider giving to our Foundation account. You may do this in many ways: visit uah.edu/honors/support to find out how. The unrestricted money you give us goes directly to benefiting current and future Honors Students.

PER HONORS

Just $25.00 would purchase two copies of the novel students will be reading next year.