Newsletter honors fall 2016

HONORS COLLEGE UAH.EDU/HONORS

ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

2 From the Dean

5 Mentor Retreat

3 Honors Convocation and Week of Welcome

6 Fall 2016 Graduates Robot Ethics

4 Science Fiction and Honors: The Perfect Match

7 Study Abroad

FROM THE DEAN ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

What is an Honors Student? There are many obvious answers. Honors Students are high achieving, bright, motivated, and hard working almost to a fault. But I think almost all students strive to be the best. If something sets Honors Students apart, it must be something else.

Working with Honors Students, what I have learned is that their motivation sets them apart.

The “Honorable” motivation is a belief in the value of making oneself a better person. Honors Students don’t just want higher grades; they also believe that they are better people for knowing better. They don’t just enjoy participating in a community of their intellectual peers.

They also feel that their commitment to this community has made them care more and better for their fellow students. They don’t have to do service. But they will voluntarily track their own service hours because their commitment to being better extends beyond the classroom and their immediate community.

The motive to always better oneself is indeed honorable in every respect. We don’t simply speak of Honors to name a higher level of academic achievement. Ideally, we speak of Honors to recognize a better quality of motivation and commitment. High academic achievement is simply the result of this higher calling. As an Honors College, we try to answer this calling in all that we do.

Dr. William Wilkerson Dean, UAH Honors College

Fall 2016 UAH Honors College students 2

ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

2ND ANNUAL HONORS CONVOCATION AND 2016 WEEK OF WELCOME

By Darren Patrick O’Donnell, Honors Student Event Coordinator This year’s Honors Week of Welcome focused on making each and every Honors student feel like they belong.

Our first big event was “Dinner with the Dean.” Dr. Wilkerson prepared a spaghetti dinner for all of the Honors students, inviting them to join our family over a home-cooked meal.

All of the members of the Honors College, new and old, were invited to eat, talk and make new friends.

The second day demonstrated the importance of service to the Honors College. The Honors Service Corps led students in decorating flowerpots for a local nursing home. Students had a great time drawing, painting, and working together – we ran out of pots we had so much fun.

In keeping with our longest standing tradition, our third day was devoted to students meeting their mentors. We had over 70 mentors stationed all around the quad between Franz and North Halls. Their mentees flocked to them and spent time talking and getting to know each other. Immediately following, students joined the “Honors Amazing Race.” The Mentor groups were placed in teams and given tasks to complete all across campus. The winning teams enjoyed gift cards and a pizza party, as well as having their pictures featured in the Honors lounge.

Desalyn Johnson Jake Morrison

We closed the week with the 2nd Annual Honors Convocation. Almost 300 people attended.

Dean Wilkerson and a couple of Honors students, Desalyn Johnson and Jake Morrison, addressed the new freshman class on what “Honors” means.

As classes began, the Honors Students hosted the “Freshman Franzy.” This giant event consisted of a cookout, outdoor and indoor games, and lots of meaningful conversation among students about their first two days of college. Honors hosted students from all over campus.

The Honors Week of Welcome was a definite success. All students came out to have a good time, meet new people and make friends. Week of Welcome activities help integrate new students into the Honors College culture and strengthen the Honors College as a community.

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ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

SCIENCE FICTION AND HONORS: The Perfect Match

By William Wilkerson, Dean The enormous range of interests and skills that Honors Students bring to the table always amazes me. We have engineers that write short stories, artists that program computers, and mathematicians who also major in music. With this blending of arts and sciences, it seems only natural that the most popular genre of literature among our students is the literature of the technological age: science fiction. We have happily embraced this fact about ourselves.

In the last two years, both common texts for the Honors English Seminar have been sci-fi classics: Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

We brought world-renown scholars of science fiction to talk about each of these texts (Istvan Csicsery-Ronay and Sherryl Vint). This year, encouraged by Dean of Science Emeritus, Dr. Jack Fix, we also created a special Honors course, Introduction to Science Fiction. Guest lecturers for this course have included Dr. Fix, myself, Dr. Eric Smith, Dr. Nicholaos Jones, and Dr. Laurel Bollinger, who has done double duty by grading and monitoring the class.

The core of the class has been a series of video lectures by Dr. Gary Wolfe, a science fiction scholar and commentator who has twice been nominated for the Hugo award. We were fortunate to bring him here to give two lectures in person, and I can say that he was truly impressed with the extent of our students’ science fiction scholarship. As he quipped to me, he’s not used to speaking to people who have actually read all of Asimov’s massive Foundation Trilogy, and he wasn’t even talking about audiences of young students – he was talking about scholars!

Students in the class have also been able to express their creativity. Their final projects ranged form essays, to short stories and films, to scale models of famous sci-fi space habitats.

There are many ways for young people to express their love for science fiction today: fan fiction, online communities, conventions, cosplay. In Honors, we are happy to add one more way to show this love: scholarship.

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2016 HONORS MENTOR RETREAT

By Emma Donnelly-Bullington On September 24, a group of Honors Mentors left UAH for Ocoee, Tennessee. Three vans full of Honors students travelled 150 miles to Ocoee Retreat Center. When we arrived, we hastily changed and put on sunscreen – white water rafting was first on the schedule. Some of us were scared, some unfazed, all excited. After an orientation, we were on the bus to the Ocoee River. Around thirty of us got into rafts and our guides got us started. Before we knew it, we were down the river. It was over as quickly as it began.

We went back to our cabin and then out to eat dinner.

We ate, pet the resident dogs, played volleyball, played

card games, hammocked, and felt the stress disappear.

When it was dark enough, a group worked on getting a campfire blazing. Dr. Wilkerson declared the fire lit, so we started on s’mores. Some stayed at the campfire, others moved to a field to look at the stars and the Milky Way, others played card games, and still others napped after an eventful day. Eventually, the fire was put out and everyone went to bed. Thirty Honors Mentors, along with Dr. Wilkerson, Beth Wilson, and Dave Cook, woke up bright and early for breakfast and to head back to campus. The weekend was over, but the memories – and the photos – will last a lifetime.

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FALL 2016 GRADUATES DIPLOMAS:

Moore, Jesse

Anders, Megan

Thesis Title: “Retrospective Case Study and Potential Solutions in Regard to the Object Oriented Design of Charger through Various Modeling and Analysis Techniques”

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: Japanese-American Internment Camps: The Concentration Camps of the United States

College of Science

Advisor: Dr. Harry Delugach

Advisor: Dr. John F. Kvach

Mumpower, Evan Boudreau, Jeffrey College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Educational Impact of a Water Systems STEM Tool Upon K-12 Students”

College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Design and Development of a Wind Tunnel for STEM Education” Advisor: Dr. Christina Carmen

Advisor: Dr. Christina Carmen

Peusch, Allison Eastin, Devon College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Insturmentation Development for Spectrometer on Gas Chromatagraph” Advisor: Dr. Rhonda Gaede

College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “The Witch Next Door: A Webcomic” Advisor: Ms. Jill Johnson

Pohly, Jeremy College of Engineering

Harris, Lindsey College of Science

Thesis Title: “Computational Modeling of Intelligent Behavior” Advisor: Dr. Dan Rochowiak

Thesis Title: “Wing Flutter Analysis Using Computational Fluid Dynamics.”

Advisor: Dr. Gang Wang

CERTIFICATE: Butgereit, Robert College of Business

Thesis Title: “Alternative Financial Services” Advisor: Dr. Wafa Orman

McAllister, Heather College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “What are the Facilitators and Barriers Related to Collaboration Between Transplant RNs and Other Healthcare Disciplines” Advisor: Dr. Ann Bianchi

McDonnell, Aoife College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: “Growing Up” Advisor: Ms. Roxie Veasey

Slovak, Suzanne College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “Factos Influencing Trust in Nurse-Patient Relationships During Transplant Events” Advisor: Dr. Ann Bianchi

Smith, Chelsie College of Science

Thesis Title: Reproductive Biology of Scarlet Shiners Advisor: Dr. Bruce Stallsmith

ROBOT ETHICS

By Patrick Monroe

The 21st century brings advancements to the field of robotics with each passing day. Amazon uses drones to deliver packages from its warehouses; bomb disposal squads use robots to prevent casualties; robotic caretakers may even be the future of the assisted living industry. As science marches inevitably onward more and more questions present themselves: what should a robot be allowed to do? By what standards should a robot comport itself? How do we ensure that robots operate

alongside humans safely and effectively? As integral as scientists and engineers are to the creation of robots, answering these questions requires a set of skills outside the STEM fields.

They require an understanding of the ethics of robotics.

During the Fall 2016 semester the Honors College offered Robot Ethics, a 1-hour, discussion-based course geared at considering the aforementioned questions. Under the inspired leadership of Dr. Jones of the philosophy department, students from a myriad of educational backgrounds including computer science, business, philosophy, engineering and others read and discussed works by eminent

roboticists. Working together, they gained a better understanding of the field of robotics as well as how to solve some of the problems presented by our increasingly technological world.

The offering of Robot Ethics displays the Honors College’s commitment to equipping its students to be a part of the ever-changing world. Beautifully blending the STEM fields with the skills inherent in the arts and humanities, Robot Ethics is yet another example of the creative thinking employed by the Honors College’s exemplary students. One would be hard-pressed to find a course that better captured the essence of what it means to be a UAH Honors College student.

ISSUE 3 // NEWSLETTER

HONORS STUDY ABROAD GRANT FOR AIRFARE This fall, the Honors College was proud to roll out a brand new program for Honors students called the Study Abroad Grant for Airfare (SAGA). The purpose of SAGA is to provide opportunities for Honors students to study abroad, offer a unique way to earn Honors credit, and enhance international awareness and students’ knowledge of other cultures, languages, and lands. SAGA will pay a student’s airfare for approved study abroad programs of any length.

Students who receive the SAGA grant will be asked to generate a weekly “share” of their study abroad experience. This can take the form of a blog, a photo-journal, video, and so forth. For more information on the Honors Study Abroad Grant for Airfare, you can visit uah.edu/honors/study-abroad.

Molly Stalons - Paris Nathanial Long - Germany

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