Mosaic 2022 - Annual Magazine of the Judy Genshaft Honors College

THE ANNUAL MAGAZINE OF THE

JUDY GENSHAFT

HONORS COLLEGE

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

MOSAIC 2022

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A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

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ELCOME TO MOSAIC 2022, a review of life in the Judy Genshaft Honors College in 2021. As we all know too well, Covid-19 continued to affect our personal and work lives in 2021, and our students and staff continued to meet its many challenges. It was another difficult year for many, but to me that makes reading through this year’s Mosaic all the more inspiring. Written by various members of our college community, these stories are a testament to the individual strength of character and the collective resilience of our students and staff alike. From the beginning of the pandemic, I have been moved by the determination of our Honors community to make the best of a challenging situation and devise new and creative ways to advance our common values in the classroom and in the world.

The academic profile of our entering class, including a record number of National Merit Scholar Finalists, once again increased, with our first-year students presenting an average ACT score at the 97th percentile nationally. Our students continued to win prestigious national awards through our Office of National Scholarships, author or co-author important research papers with faculty in many fields, and pursue community activism with courage and compassion. Our faculty continued to devise and hone innovative teaching strategies, and our advisors engaged students in an ever-expanding network of internships conducted either remotely or in-person with partners both at home and abroad. We returned to global action with our first post-Covid international program, conducted with great care for the health of our students and the Dominican communities they serve, but also with a mature recognition that risk is a part of life and that important work must sometimes continue in spite of it.

And we staged a series of events both in-person and virtually that addressed our college’s “big idea” for 2021-22, Engaged Citizenship – a theme of special significance in light of current threats to the social fabric. All this and more may be found in the following pages.

I hope that after reading Mosaic 2022 you will share my deep pride at the determination of our Honors community to advance our mission to pursue excellence as we teach, learn, create knowledge, and work to make the world a better place.

Charles Adams Judy Genshaft Endowed Dean Judy Genshaft Honors College, University of South Florida

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 3

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THE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE

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T’S NATURAL TO FEEL THE PRE-COLLEGE nerves when thinking about making friends, picking classes, or even adjusting to a new environment away from home. While I experienced these emotions when planning my journey to USF, being a part of the Honors community helped alleviate these stressors and provided me a true home on campus.

Living in the Honors Living Learning Community (LLC) my freshman year helped me feel at home right away.

The Honors LLC, located in in Juniper Hall, strives to give students a close-knit community with peers who are passionate about service, global awareness, and learning.

Before coming to college, I assumed that I would only be surrounded by students who studied the same major as me. However, being an Honors student and living in the LLC has allowed me to become friends with people from all over the world with diverse interests.

By participating with Council, and now serving as President, I have had opportunities to work with a team of motivated and inspired students to host service events, promote student engagement, and offer mentorship.

The Judy Genshaft Honors College has helped me grow as both a student and an individual and I highly encourage new students to utilize all its resources and opportunities for success. The possibilities are endless!

Shalini Subramanian Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council President

In addition to where I was living, I also benefited from the diverse Honors curriculum. Honors classes are designed to have students engage in important discussions in various fields embracing diversity in backgrounds, thoughts, and ideas. They approach various interests such as art, history, film, medicine, and culture, and allow students to learn about something outside of their career and major interests. My favorite Honors Courses were “Fertility in the Future” and “Biomedical Ethics.”

Beyond your courses, college gives you the opportunity to meet all kinds of people who can challenge your ideas, help you find your purpose, and even become long-term friends. These important people can be classmates, faculty members, or advisors. The personalized advising offered through Honors is helpful whether you want to change your major, apply for scholarships, or apply for study abroad experiences; this level of support is unique to the Judy Genshaft Honors College. Throughout my pre-medical journey, my Honors advisor, Mr. Arnie Mejias, has always been willing to help me plan my academic future, answer any questions that I’ve had, and provide valuable advice.

In acknowledgement of the support I have felt in Honors, I have been grateful to give back to the College through my involvement in the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council.

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CONVOCATION ON THREE CAMPUSES

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N A FESTIVE CEREMONY HELD EACH YEAR since the founding of the Judy Genshaft Honors College, the freshman class of Honors students embarked on the first steps of their collegiate academic journey at the 2021 Honors Convocation. This celebration was especially meaningful as it was the first in-person Convocation held simultaneously on all three USF campuses.

Marching to the beat of USF’s Herd of Thunder, the USF President, Provost, and College Deans led the new Tampa campus students on a traditional Convocation walk from the Allen Building through the bougainvillea arcade to the Marshall Student Center for a formal program.

Creating their own music with handheld instruments, Honors freshmen in St. Petersburg met at the Snell House and marched across the campus to gather in their auditorium, while Sarasota-Manatee students met in the Selby Auditorium.

The formal program, broadcast live for all three campuses, included welcoming remarks from distinguished guests including USF President Rhea Law, Provost Ralph Wilcox, and President Emerita Judy Genshaft and her husband, Steven Greenbaum.

Walking to the podium to rousing applause, Genshaft told the assembled students that, “Your success is our success. We want to do everything that we can to make sure that each and every one of you has the best experience ever and follows the career of your choice, because you have it all open to you right now.”

Th event’s keynote speaker was Frederick M. Lawrence, CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the nation’s most prestigious honor society. Secretary Lawrence echoed Dr. Genshaft’s remarks on the tremendous opportunities available for the student participants and then focused his speech on the importance of engaged citizenship, which is the theme for special events and courses within the Honors College this year.

“I’m glad that they presented us with a message to motivate us as much as possible and let us know that they’re there for us,” said Angela Perez Cruz, an Honors freshman on the Sarasota-Manatee campus. “It was very comforting for us to know, especially when we have such big aspirations and dreams, that they’ll be able to guide us. I want to be able to reach my full potential and I know that the Honors College will help me to reach the highest peak that I can academically, but also in terms of community service and inspiring good citizenship.”

- Amy Harroun

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MOSAIC CONTENTS

2022

3-9

THE HONORS COLLEGE

26-27

Medical Humanities Track

3

A Message from the Dean

5

The Student Perspective

28-29

Student and Faculty Comments: Favorite Honors Courses

6

Convocation on Three Campuses

30-31

Faculty: Bringing the World to our Classrooms

8-9

Our New Home

32-33

Staff Spotlights

10-21

HONORS ACTIVITIES

34-35

The College: Statistics

10-11

Community Garden

36-45

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

12

Critical Conversation Series

36-37

Dominican Republic: Virtual Internships

13

Tapas Night

38-39

Dominican Republic: Living and Learning

14

Honors Foundations

40-41

Korea Cultural Experience

15

On the Water

16-17

The Provost’s Scholars Program

42

Genshaft-Greenbaum Global Explorer Award

18

Student Spotlight

43

Genshaft Global Presidential Scholarship

19

Experiential Learning Curriculum

44-45

Photo Competition

20

Moveable Arts Feast

46-53

HONORS SCHOLARS

21

Student Publications

46

Rhodes Scholarship Finalist

22-31

FACULTY, STAFF, STUDENTS

47

Goldwater Scholars

22-25

Meet the Honors Faculty

48-50

Millennium Fellows

51

Public Service Scholars

52-53

Research Experiences

54-55

PHILANTHROPY

José and David Beltran Give Back

56-63

ALUMNI

56

Spotlight on Nicholas Page

57

Spotlight on Nandini Agarwal

58

Alumni-led Lecture Series

59-63

Alumni Updates

THE COLLEGE

ACTIVITIES

FACULTY GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

SCHOLARS

PHILANTHROPY

ALUMNI

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 7

HONORS COLLEGE NEW HOME UNDER CONSTRUCTION

2021

brought great progress for the Judy Genshaft Honors College, both academically and physically. While our students were learning and growing even during the COVID-19 pandemic, construction on the Tampa campus brought to life our long anticipated new building.

Work began immediately after the December 1, 2020 groundbreaking. The new facility will feature interwoven spaces for classrooms, study areas, faculty and advisor offices, event areas, a computer lab, performance and creative spaces, and numerous areas for student collaboration – expanding the range of academic opportunities for students and giving them a true “home” on campus. Fittingly, it is being built along the renamed USF Genshaft Drive (formerly USF Maple Drive).

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The project began thanks to a historic College-naming gift of $20 million from USF President Emerita and Professor Judy Genshaft and her husband Steve Greenbaum.

This stellar new home for our already excellent college will help attract top talent to USF, making an indelible impact on our community for years to come. We are delighted to see this dream become a reality.”

– President Emerita Judy Genshaft

“Having one of the premier honors colleges in the nation is just one way USF will distinguish itself as one of the most elite and forward-thinking institutions in the world,” says President Emerita Genshaft. “This stellar new home for our already excellent college will help attract top talent to USF, making an indelible impact on our community for years to come. We are delighted to see this dream become a reality.”

The impressive atrium, open to the top of the building, is enclosed with a clerestory bringing in natural light and complementing the beautiful glass and wood combinations found throughout the building. One of the unique design features of the 85,000 square foot facility is the 39 cantilevered learning lofts that appear suspended in air around the second through fifth floors of the atrium. These semi-private spaces will be used by students to meet, study, relax, and collaborate.

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Additional design highlights of the building include an amphitheater stairway leading to the second level terrace and serving as an outdoor classroom, and a beautiful event space also topped with a clerestory. The event space will have moveable walls to open into the atrium and accommodate large events and gathering, including Honors Convocation and Commencement. Adjacent to the atrium will be a café featuring a local restaurant and offering fresh and nutritious selections.

On the fifth floor there will be special studios dedicated to food and culture, art, music, technology, and audio/video production. The Leona Genshaft Food and Culture studio will even feature a professional kitchen which can be used by both Honors faculty members teaching global engagement courses and celebrity guest chefs highlighting unique approaches to culinary art.

While the official open date for the building is Spring 2023, Honors students are already benefiting from it. Professor Atsuko Sakai’s class is studying the design and construction of the project and includes hard-hat tours and guest speakers from the USF Facilities Department, Fleischman Garcia (the Tampa architecture firm for the project) and The Beck Group (the principal contractor).

There is also a new viewing stand located at the northwest corner of the building site where students, faculty, and members of the community can watch the construction progress.

Those not able to travel to the site can still stay up to date thanks to a live webcam which can be accessed through the Honors website, usf.edu/honors.

“I check the building camera almost every day,” says Honors Dean Charles Adams. “It is great to watch the progress of this remarkable building, and we are so grateful to President Emerita Genshaft and Mr. Greenbaum for making it possible.” For information on naming opportunities in the new building, please contact Judy Kane at jkane@usf.edu or (813) 598-3261.

- Amy Harroun

THE COLLEGE FACILITY

Bottom Left: Students in Professor Atsuko Sakai’s class tour the building’s atrium.

Bottom Right: This rendering shows the night view of the completed building.

Top: All five floors are now visible as construction continues.

Opposite page: The outer panels of the building present an optical illusion as they change colors based on lighting and perspective. These two photos (taken from different angles at the same time) show the same panels.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 9

HONORS COLLEGE GARDEN INSPIRES COMMUNITY

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N SUMMER OF 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Honors advisor Meg Stowe realized that many of her students were feeling isolated and stressed. Looking for ways to build community in a virtual environment, Stowe approached Dean Charles Adams with the idea to start an Honors Community Garden.

With his support and the work of more than 50 student volunteers that summer, Stowe supervised the transformation of an overgrown student vegetable plot in the USF Botanical Gardens into a fully-functioning and producing garden.

Seeing the opportunity for both service and hands-on experiential learning, Stowe created a syllabus focused on food sovereignty and environmental literature for use in an inaugural JGHC Community Garden Service-Learning course. The students in the course worked together to build robust community around the Honors garden, forming partnerships with Religious Studies, the USF Agrarian Club, Delta Tau Delta, WellFed Community, and the USF Urban Food Sovereignty Group, all while earning 50 hours of community service.

The food grown in the garden is donated to the USF Feed-A-Bull Food Pantry and Feeding Tampa Bay, in addition to being used in class to practice preparing healthy meals and learning about ecology.

“During my time in the garden, I not only learned how to keep plants alive, but I also became fascinated by the amount of change gardens can motivate in the world,” says Dora Rodriguez, Honors student and Vice President of the garden’s Executive Board. “The ability of our community garden to produce healthy food for students in the community in a sustainable and ethical manner was inspiring. Going forward I plan to expand the impact of our garden and encourage other members of the community to start their own leafy journey.”

Top: Honors student and staff volunteers show their Bull pride while working in the garden.

Bottom Left: Each plot in the garden is designated for different vegetables and herbs.

Bottom Right: Honors student, Kobe Phillips, works in the garden in his bee-keeping gear.

The garden has also created leadership opportunities.

Rodriguez, for instance, co-leads the garden’s Executive Board with Honors student Kobe Phillips. Phillips explained how his experiences working, learning, and now teaching in the garden have changed him. “Metamorphosis is a concept we tend to associate with bugs, yet, in the Honors Community Garden I grew wings,” he says. “My experiences with the community garden transformed my perception of my relationship with food and brought me back to my roots. This epiphany moved me to teach other students about the impact 10 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

ACTIVITIES

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The ability of our community garden to produce healthy food for students in the community in a sustainable and ethical manner was inspiring.”

– Dora Rodriguez

community gardens can have on themselves and their communities.”

With all of its benefits – food sovereignty, sustainability education, nutrition lessons, leadership opportunities, and more – the garden continues to fulfill the mission that Stowe outlined at the start: build a community that connects the students. “The garden made me feel like I was never away from home – like a had a place where all my work and study stress was left behind,” says Krish Veera, an international Honors student. “It was just me and the greenery and this sense of togetherness with the amazing people around me. It made me feel like I wasn’t a stranger… like I was one of its own.”

A garden expansion to include new fruit trees and additional vegetable plots is planned for 2022.

- Meg Stowe

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CRITICAL CONVERSATION SERIES: AN EVENING WITH NNEDI OKORAFOR

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N 2021 THE JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE was proud to present its Critical Conversations Series with a focus on social justice. Featured events included faculty panels, student presentations, and guest speakers on important global and local issues related to the topic.

Honors students strive to be “Global Citizens,” and this series gave them the opportunity to participate in conversations about challenging topics and learn how to bring communities together through respectful discussion. Faculty, staff, and students from all three USF campuses participated in several themed events, including: • “Artivism,” a virtual session of panelists discussing art and activism highlighted by a display of students’ original works; • A “Research for Social Change Roundtable” bringing together faculty from Communication, History, Women and Gender Studies, and Interdisciplinary Global Studies; • A student organization social action fair; and • A “Women in Comics” event featuring Stephanie Phillips, writer for DC Comics.

The keynote event was “An Evening with Nnedi Okorafor,” award-winning “Naijamerican” (her preferred term for Nigerian-American) author and screenwriter. The Honors College collaborated with the USF Humanities Institute to arrange a virtual talk with Dr. Okorafor. Honors students Khushi Doshi, Chizobam Ugboaja, Osose Emuan, Sophie Roth-Knigin, and Jesutomiwa Julianah Titus Adewunmi hosted the event, welcoming Dr. Okorafor and guests from all over the world.

The students wrote and posed interview questions focused on her publications about her identity as a writer, as dual citizen, and as a woman author in the male-dominated science fiction field.

“Okorafor’s art is exceeded only by her incredibly assertive personality,” says Chizobam Ugboaja, international pre-med Honors student and event host. “She does not mince words about the necessity to distinguish and protect the genre of African jujuism.”

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Okorafor defines African jujuism as “a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative.” She is the award-winning author of numerous novels including Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Lagoon, and Remote Control.

“Her creation and constant contribution to African jujuism and African futurism are inspiring,” says Ugboaja. “It was very reassuring to see her not compromise on storytelling for a majority western audience. I am still very awestruck and grateful for the conversation. She is the kind of intelligent person I hope to be.”

- Meg Stowe

ACTIVITIES

INTERNATIONAL TAPAS NIGHT

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NTERNATIONAL TAPAS NIGHT IS the Honors Living Learning Community’s signature event each year. It’s a time for community, food, and fun. In the Fall of 2021, the College hosted the event in USF’s Botanical Gardens with food from around the world and featuring treats from the Dominican Republic, England, South Korea, Germany, Italy, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and right here in Florida. Faculty presented their upcoming study abroad trips to more than 300 student participants as they sampled platanos maduros, tteok bokki, ceviche, cannoli, and more from local restaurants and caterers.

Many Honors staff and students worked together to make this event a success. Honors advisor and LLC Program Director Meg Stowe oversaw the event and students Naziza Naeer Bhuiyan and Caitlyn Deam led Honors Council volunteers for months planning décor, set-up, games, and photo opportunities. Honors staff member Kylie Pontious managed event marketing and coordinated with local vendors from the greater Tampa Bay community. Gabby Bettaglio, the Honors LLC Graduate Assistant, helped the student leaders create a dazzling atmosphere with international flags, maps, music, and more.

“Being an international student in the US, I love learning about other cultures through attending international events

and showcasing my own,” said Bhuiyan. “When I learned I had the opportunity to contribute to Tapas Night, I was ecstatic!

What better way to learn about study abroad programs than celebrating the food from those regions? My co-coordinator Caitlyn and I tried to make it as immersive of an experience as possible by incorporating travel-themed decor, making an inclusive global playlist, and dressing up in our cultural attire while encouraging others to do the same. One of my highlights of the night was learning merengue from Dr. Davidson and dancing with Ms. Stowe! All in all, I was beyond thrilled by how well the event turned out. It will definitely be one of my best experiences at USF.” Surrounded by the beauty of the garden and twinkling lights, event participants danced the night away with a merengue tutorial by Dr. Davidson, Honors Associate Dean and leader of the Honors Dominican Republic Global Health Internship.

“Perhaps it was the energetic crowd dancing with me, or the playlist of world music, or the chance to play dominoes, or the various tasty dishes from across the world, or maybe it was all of it combined; but this Tapas Night brought about a feeling of hope in me I hadn’t experienced in a long time,” said Dr. Davidson.

“That was the moment I realized we were actually going to travel again, and by the end of the semester, I was dancing and eating and playing dominoes with students in the Dominican Republic.”

- Meg Stowe

Top: Honors students Shalini Subramanian (middle) and Meghana Nelluri (right) pose with Dean Adams (left) at Tapas Night.

Bottom: Event volunteers greeted students at the much-anticipated 2021 International Tapas Night.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 13

HONORS FOUNDATIONS

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HEN NEW HONORS STUDENTS enter USF for their first semester of classes, they receive a warm welcome in their IDH 2930 – Honors Foundations – course. The discussion-based class is designed to ease the transition from high school to college by providing a venue to process college experiences, ask questions, and find an identity as an Honors College scholar. The classes help connect students with networks, resources, and opportunities, and are taught by Peer Mentors, Honors upperclassmen.

The Peer Mentors serve as sources of support and create an engaging community for first-year Honors students while fine-tuning their own leadership and communication skills.

We asked the 2021 Peer Mentors: What was the most rewarding part of teaching Honors Foundations?

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Definitely watching my students grow throughout the semester. It has also been rewarding to watch them form friendships in my class. I know how important it is to make friends in your first semester of college and have a group of people that you can count on, and I hope that some of the friendships they made in Honors Foundations will help provide that.”

– Taylor Friedman

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Watching my students succeed academically and personally. I love when they share their progress on their personal and academic goals with me.”

– Corey Nelson

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Seeing my students really begin to thrive in college and being able to celebrate those successes with the group and as their Peer Mentor. The class became really invested in each other’s obstacles, challenges, and successes and that was very rewarding for me. I also had a session during mental health week when they all said that they really love USF and appreciate how happy people are here. I think that was the best thing I could have ever heard my class say. Hearing they were happy made me beyond ecstatic.”

– Audra Nikolajski

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Learning valuable leadership skills that I would not have been able to experience anywhere else. As a peer mentor I not only got to experience my students’ first semester of college, but I was able to help guide them from the perspective of a teacher and a mentor and that experience is one that is rewarding and will stick with me for the rest of my life.”

– Karlyn Reinhardt

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I have learned that I appreciate connections and building relationships a lot more than I previously thought I did. I particularly feel fulfilled by mentoring and advocating for others so that they can be successful.”

– Grace Maszy

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Becoming a Peer Mentor really pushed me out of my comfort zone and into the spotlight of having to teach and lead a class. It has been a very rewarding experience. I learned about a new, more confident version of myself, and I would like to continue learning and developing such leadership skills.”

– Teresa Pham - Allyson Cousino

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ACTIVITIES ON THE WATER

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HEN THEY’RE NOT IN CLASS they’re often out on the water – trimming, rolling, and balancing the helm.

Six students in the Judy Genshaft Honors College compete on USF’s nationally-ranked women’s varsity sailing team. The team’s home base is the Haney Landing Sailing Center on the St. Petersburg campus, but its sailors travel to regattas all over the country and also host national competitions on Tampa Bay. Coach Allison Jolly is an Olympic gold medalist.

Heidi Hicks, a first-year Graphics Arts major on the St. Pete campus, normally sails a two-person craft with fellow Honors student Jewel “Min Min” Kelly.

“We’re compatible in terms of size and skill and we work well together both on and off the water,” she says. “After practice, we usually meet up and do homework the rest of the night.”

For Heidi, competitive sailing and the Judy Genshaft Honors College go hand in hand. “I think that honors students are drawn to sailing because, like

me, they see the endless learning potential that racing offers. There are many variables to account for in just one race. Sailors must practice making quick calculations and maintaining self-confidence to execute a winning strategy.”

Carolina Pérez Rovira, a senior psychology major who is completing her Honors thesis in the field of sports psychology, says her experiences in Honors combined with the demands of sailing have helped her grow as a person, developing discipline, time management, and communication and leadership skills.

“It’s about prioritizing and surrounding yourself with a support system – coaches, teammates, and professors – willing to help when needed,” says Carolina.

“Believe in yourself, and you can accomplish anything you desire.”

Judy Genshaft Honors College students currently on the team’s roster include: Heidi Hicks, Carolina Pérez Rovira, Jewel “Min Min” Kelly, Janie Powell, Maggie McLauchlin, and Grace Skipper.

- Dr. Thomas Smith

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THE PROVOST’S SCHOLARS PROGRAM

2021

marked ten years since the Provost’s Scholars Program (PSP) was created to develop the next generation of young leaders within the USF community. This global engagement and professional development program offers highly motivated students the opportunity to accelerate their dreams by graduating with their bachelor’s degree in three years or less. In addition to beginning their career, graduate school, or post-baccalaureate studies ahead of their peers, Scholars participate in professional workshops, gain individualized academic and career advising, and graduate with an extensive portfolio of co-curricular experiences that prepare them for personal and professional success. To date 183 graduates have completed the program.

Over the summer the program enrolled and oriented 49 new scholars into the Fall 2021 cohort and 11 students into the PSP Living Learning Community (LLC), an on-campus residential community in Juniper-Poplar Hall designed to provide Scholars a cohort of friends of different majors and career interests, but similar co-curricular interests and high aspirations.

In August, PSP staff was thrilled to offer students in-person events for the first time since 2019. The fall semester welcomed back Scholars with an ice cream social in August, a formal Welcome Back Dinner for all Scholars in October, and a First-Year networking-themed dinner featuring PSP alumna and guest speaker, Karishma Prakash Bharwani, in November. At these formal events students are able to meet and network with University leadership, including USF’s Interim President Rhea Law, USF Provost Dr. Ralph Wilcox, and Judy Genshaft Honors College Dean Dr. Charles Adams.

Also during the fall semester PSP staff offered Scholars workshops on the undergraduate research process and careers in healthcare, and students enjoyed meetand-greets over coffee and tea with PSP advisor Audra Santerre.

The year began with PSP staff providing support services and social engagement virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Spring term culminated with a virtual celebration of 17 PSP graduates and their tremendous accomplishments in April 2021. “Our graduating scholars are nothing short of extraordinary,” says Renea Forde, PSP Director. “Despite the personal and academic challenges of the last year, our students have persevered, securing a cumulative 3.86 GPA by the end of their most recent term.”

This graduating cohort also included Golden Bull and USF Outstanding Graduate Award recipient Matthew Gallot-Baker, currently completing his JD degree at Boston University.

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LLC residents were able to connect with faculty, staff, and each other through a variety of social and academic opportunities throughout the year. These events included a welcome home pizza party, a mid-semester game night, and a leadership-themed dinner and discussion led by Dr. Benjamin Young, Honors Associate Dean. A highlight event was the Food, Nutrition, Culture and Traditions workshop hosted by Gina Granich, instructor of Nutrition and Food & Culture in USF’s College of Public Health. During the event students enjoyed a cooking demonstration, festive food samplings, and a collective sharing of favorite foods and cultural celebrations.

The year was capped with an in-person graduation luncheon on November 30 to celebrate Fall 2021 graduates, many of whom completed their degrees in 2.5 years. Provost Wilcox regaled each graduate with their PSP medallion as Forde presented their impressive accomplishments and post-graduation plans. “Our scholars have shown such excitement in their pursuits of service, research, leadership, and global engagement,” says Forde. “We are proud to help each of them define success for themselves.”

- Audra Santerre and Renea Forde

ACTIVITIES JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 17

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT It all started during idle conversation over a game of dominos.

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YAN SHARGO, A JUNIOR studying Biomedical Sciences, is currently conducting research for his Honors Thesis on water borne illnesses and culture-appropriate treatments in partnership with the Kerolle Initiative, which is led by Dr. Reginald Kerolle and located in the Dominican Republic. Ryan’s journey to this work began during his freshman year.

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Ryan was invited to participate in the Summer ACE program, which is an early summer start program for out-of-state students that links specific courses with short study abroad programs to encourage students to forge connections with USF and each other. That trip led him to participate in the Judy Genshaft Honors College Winter Break program to the Dominican Republic.

That’s where the dominos come in. While playing a game with his peers, Ryan reflected on the banana planting project they had just completed and wondered aloud about the merits of planting a garden on campus to provide fresh produce for the Feed-A-Bull food pantry. The group talked through the challenges of maintaining a garden on campus without dedicated facilities and consistent student engagement. The idea seemed to lose steam, but not for long.

Six months later, Meg Stowe, Honors Advisor and Living Learning Community (LLC) Coordinator, began talking about hosting a community garden as an LLC community-building service activity. As soon as she confirmed the location in the USF Botanical Gardens, Cayla Lanier, the Honors staff member who led the Dominican Republic trip, contacted Ryan and

put him in touch with Meg. Ryan had joined a fraternity on campus and assumed the role of Service and Philanthropy chair. Tasked with creating service opportunities for the membership, Ryan was looking for COVID-friendly locations that would allow members to meet their volunteer hour requirement and not compromise USF health protocols.

The rest, as they say, is history. Ryan rallied his fraternity brothers to repair and paint the fence of the community garden, as well as prepare several of the plots. They also volunteered at Feeding Tampa Bay to learn firsthand about the impacts of food insecurity in the local community.

But Ryan’s learning didn’t stop there. In Summer 2021, he “returned” to the Dominican Republic through a virtual internship where he learned about the impacts of water-borne illnesses in local communities of Haitian workers (‘bateyes’) and began distributing surveys to patients attending Dr. Kerolle’s pop-up medical clinics. Once the internship ended, Ryan continued researching culturally appropriate treatments and intervention options that allow patients to self-diagnose and treat symptoms using infographic materials and natural local food-based remedies.

“It all stems from that first trip to the D.R.,” Ryan says. “I learned that if I want to do something, it’s possible. My college experience has been my own. I created my own curriculum by engaging in experience-based opportunities outside of class.”

But he didn’t do it alone. By sharing his interests and ideas with peers and faculty mentors, Ryan has been introduced to people who can help make his dreams a reality by expanding his network, helping him refine his ideas, and recommending him for experiences that match his interests.

“The connections I’ve made here are a huge part of my success,” Ryan says. “My advice is to find something you like and use that interest to meet people who share your passions.”

After all, every good domino player needs a strong partner to win.

- Dr. Cayla Lanier

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ACTIVITIES

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CURRICULUM

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HE JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE affords students the opportunity to extend their learning beyond the walls of a classroom to practice skills that will help them serve as leaders in their fields and solve complex problems. During their time in Honors, students select two activities from a diverse set of categories that are academically, professionally, and personally meaningful to them and engage in critical reflection about them. “The experiential learning curriculum allows students the flexibility of selecting activities that they really care about,” says Dr. Reginald Lucien, Director of Honors Advising. “This maximizes learning and development and better prepares them for whatever their next steps may be.”

The impact experiential learning has on students is tangible.

Layla Muraisi (’22) selected Professional Development & Leadership Experience as one of her key experiential learning activities, specifically her role on the executive board of the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council. “I served as the Marketing and Public Relations co-chair and then as Vice President of the Council,” she says, “and each role led to growth in my skills in interacting with others: learning how to reflect and be mindful, improving my public speaking

skills, creating an environment people want to be part of, and learning how to be an authentic and creative leader. The various events, volunteer opportunities, and friendships that I have enjoyed through Council have shaped me to be a more confident person and gave me the opportunity to learn how to present my authentic self to others. It has also helped me gain experience in marketing and decide which career I want to pursue.”

“

- Megan Braunstein

Experiential Learning is a key component of our college. It allows students to explore a diverse set of experiences and engage in ways that help them grow both personally and professionally.”

– Honors Dean, Dr. Charles Adams JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 19

A MOVEABLE ARTS FEAST

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AKING A CLASS WITH DR. CATHERINE WILKINS is a feast for the senses. In museums reimagined as classrooms, students see curves in sculpture and texture in oil paintings, hear their voices reverberate in grand galleries, and learn how their minds and bodies can be used in service to their community.

A cultural historian, Wilkins offers immersive, experiential service-learning opportunities for the Judy Genshaft Honors College in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota.

Building on her partnership with Connections (a program at the Tampa Museum of Art that uses art to help patients suffering from cognitive disabilities), Wilkins offered the first Arts & Health course with the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota during the Spring 2021 semester. Students honed sensory skills like observation and critical listening, and learned by experience how the arts can benefit people on both sides of the healthcare equation – patients and physicians alike.

“What I liked most about the class was the flexibility of the discussions,” says Laura Kulcsar, a biology major on the Sarasota-Manatee campus. “You can appreciate a piece of art and then hear from someone else what they think. Everybody responds differently.”

visited the Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Art, James Museum, St. Petersburg Museum of History, and Florida Holocaust Museum. They then applied their knowledge and insights by crafting a strategic plan for their community partner, the James Museum.

Wilkins’ Fall 2021 course, “St. Petersburg: City of the Arts,” tapped into St. Pete’s thriving arts scene. Students explored the ways in which politics, colonialism, class, gender, and ethnicity are reflected in museum collections and exhibits. The class

“I want to challenge the idea that museums are ossified, elite spaces and instead show them to be accessible and adaptable organizations whose work connects to the health, politics, and social justice of the community,” says Wilkins. “My goal is to help students feel empowered and at home in these spaces as they develop knowledge, skills, and a voice that can contribute to the institution.”

- Dr. Thomas Smith, Dr. Catherine Wilkins and Dr. Cayla Lanier

Top: Honors Faculty member, Catherine Wilkins, prepares first-year students for a drawing activity using Leviathan Zodiac (Kehinde Wiley, 2011) at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts.

Bottom: Students from the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus learn the basics of Visual Thinking Strategies from Museum Educator Laura Steefels-Moore at the Ringling Art Museum.

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D

URING THE 2021 ACADEMIC YEAR, many Judy Genshaft Honors College students published their research findings in professional journals. A substantial number of the publications resulted from faculty-mentored on-campus research, as well as research conducted during REUs (see story on page 56) and internships. Some of these articles have been included in additional media outlets as well.

For example, Emily Carr’s research was highlighted in National Geographic Magazine and the New York Times!

Here are some examples of Honors student publications from this year:

Emily Carr ‘22: BS Marine Biology Carr, E.M., Summers, A. P., and Cohen, K.E., The moment of tooth: rate, fate and pattern of Pacific lingcod dentition revealed by pulse-chase (2021). Proceeding of the Royal Society B, 288 Carr, E. M. and Motta, P. J., Tooth length and occlusion in four species of piscivorous fishes: getting a grip on prey.

(2020), Environmental Biology of Fishes,103, 903

Jack Edwards ‘21: BS Physics Edwards Jack., Basanta David., and Marusyk Andriy, (2021) Selection-driven tumor evolution with public goods leads to patterns of clonal expansion consistent with neutral growth, iScience, 24, 101901

Adriana Ladera ‘22: BS Computer Science, Minor in Physics Zhou, M.J., Wang, B., Ladera, A., Bogula, L., Liu, H.X., Chen, L.Q., and Nan, C.W. (2021). Phase diagrams, superdomains, and super domain walls in (Kx , Na1-xNb)O3 epitaxial thin films. Acta Materialia, 215, 117038 (https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2021.117038) Wang, B., Bogula, L., Ladera, A., Wang, J.J., Schmidbauer, M., Schwarzkopf, J., and Chen, L.Q. (2021). Phase stability and three-dimensional structures of polydomains in orthorhombic ferroelectric thin films under anisotropic misfit strains. (In review.)

Lisenkov, S., Ladera, A., and Ponomareva, I. (2020). Ba(Ti1-x, Zrx)O3 relaxors: Dynamic ferroelectrics in the gigahertz frequency range. Phys. Rev. B, 102, 224109 (https:// doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.102.224109) Schmidbauer, M., Bogula, L., Wang, B., Hanke, M., von Helden, L., Ladera, A., Wang, J.J., Chen, L.Q., and Schwarzkopf, J. (2020). Temperature Dependence of Three-Dimensional Domain Wall Arrangement in Ferroelectric K0.9Na0.1NbO3 Epitaxial Thin Films. J. Appl. Phys, 128 (https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0029167) - Dr. Sayandeb Basu

Kelli Lynch ‘22: BS Physics, Minor Mathematics Lynch, K.A., Meng, T., Ponomareva l. (2021). Pyroelectricity and Phase Transitions in Ferroelectrics Away from Equilibrium: The Computational Route. (Under review at Advanced Theory and Simulations)

ACTIVITIES

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS OF HONORS COLLEGE STUDENTS

Lynch, K.A., Ponomareva, I. (2020). Negative Capacitance Regime in Ferroelectrics Demystified from Non-Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics. Phys. Rev. B 102, 134101 Kingsland, M., Lynch, K.A., Lisenkov, S. He, X. Ponomareva, I. (2020). Comparative Study of Minnesota Functionals Performance on Ferroelectrics BaTiO3 and PbTiO3. Phys. Rev. Materials 4, 073802

Alexander Mercier ‘22: BS Microbiology, BA Mathematics, Minor in Russian Language and Culture Mercier, Alexander., Scarpino, Samuel V., Moore Cristopher Effective Resistance for Pandemics: Network Sparsification for SIR Models, (2021). https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.02449 (In review at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Kramer Andrew M., Mercier Alexander, Maher Sean., Kumi-Ansu Yaw., Bowden Sarah., Drake John M, (2021).

Spatial spread of white-nose syndrome in North America, 2006-2018 (https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.28.428526)

Tiffany Peless ‘18: BS Psychology, USF St. Petersburg campus Gabbidon, K., Chenneville, T., Peless, T., & Sheared-Evans, S. (2020). Self-disclosure of HIV status among youth living with HIV: A global systematic review. AIDS and Behavior, 24(1), 114-141 Peless, T., Chenneville, T., & Gabbidon, K. (2021). Challenges to the conceptualization and measurement of resilience in HIV research. AIDS care, 1-9

Samuel Rechek ‘23: BA Political Science, BA Philosophy, minors in history and economics Neely, S., Rechek, S., Moule, R. Jr., and Burruss, G. (2020) “Fight or flight: Politically motivated selective avoidance among social media users.” Under review in American Politics Research

Kobe Robichaux ‘22: BS Microbiology Otero L, Chase M, Horne M, Robichaux K, et al. Genome Sequences of Akoni, Ashton, and Truong, (2021) Novel Podoviridae bacteriophages isolated from Microbacterium foliorum. Microbiol. Resour. Announc. PMID: 34264121 Sokolich J, Buggs J, LaVere M, Robichaux K et al., (2020) HCC Liver Transplantation Wait List Dropout Rates Before and After the Mandated 6-Month Wait Time, American Surgeon, (https://doi:10.1177/0003134820942165) JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 21

MEET THE

Honors Faculty

Michael C. Cross PhD Applied Physics, USF MS Entrepreneurship, USF BS Computer Science, University of Texas at San Antonio

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. Creativity and Innovation Q. What questions are you asking in your classes?

A. What types of problems do you want to solve? How can you best engage societal issues in your local community?

Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. To best align their activities while in college with their long-term goals.

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

A. As an entrepreneur, I’m focused on advancing the programs and priorities of USF as well as my fledgling biotechnology venture.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. In my courses, we work directly with a community partner to support their goals. These partners include organizations such as the Glazer Children’s Museum and the Tampa Innovation Partnership.

Lindy Grief Davidson PhD Communication, USF MDiv Divinity, Reformed Theological Seminary BA Communication Arts, Belmont University

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC?

A. My favorite class is always the one I’m currently teaching.

Today, it’s Global Constructions of Disability. In the fall, it will be Health and Culture in the Dominican Republic.

A. The students are amazing!

Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. I want students to learn to ask thoughtful and informed questions, think outside the disciplinary box, connect with others who have a different perspective, and continue their curiosity beyond the confines of the classroom and the semester.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A.. I enjoy building and maintaining relationships with international partners such as the Kerolle Initiative in the Dominican Republic and the Wellcome Centre at the University of Exeter, but I also enjoy relationships with our local community organizations such as the WellBuilt Community, AMRoC Fab Lab, and Soaring City. I love to connect students with these organizations for research, service, internships, and experiences that open up new possibilities for everyone involved.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. We are an engaged, insatiably curious, creative, and hopeful community of scholars. Our students infuse us with new life and new ideas every day.

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Andrew Hargrove PhD Sociology, Stony Brook University BA Psychology, Gonzaga

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. How to Save a Planet Q. What questions are you asking in your classes?

A. What is the environment? How do we leverage our power to create change in the world? How does politics, economics, society, and our environment impact the world around us and how we interact with it? How do we be engaged citizens? How do we find meaning and purpose? How can we see and challenge the norms and assumptions of our society?

Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. My goal is for my students to have fulfilled and flourishing lives that bring them purpose and value.

Ulluminair Salim PhD Sociology, University of California San Francisco MPH Public Health, Johns Hopkins BA Social Welfare, University of California Berkeley

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. I engage with organizations in the greater Tampa Bay area related to climate, the environment, policy, race and ethnicity, and LGBTQ issues. I also engage with international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, and climate leaders from several different countries.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. Honors is a real community that cares about well-being and is willing to grow and learn. There is always something amazing happening in the JGHC.

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. Home: Designing Where We Live Q. What questions are you asking in your classes?

A. What determines who you are as a person? What is unique about you?

Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. The main goal for my stu-

A. Beasts and Burdens: Survival, Imagination, and Risk in the (Global) South Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. My goal is to facilitate a process of unlearning in which students no longer depend on being told what and how to think. Further, I aspire to create opportunities for them to draw upon their own wisdom, experience, and creativity as valuable sources of knowledge in our collective sense-making process.

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

A. I aspire to develop an Inclusive Excellence Summer Program in Honors to introduce diverse learners to the honors college paradigm early in their high school tenure and perhaps extend their education beyond the classroom.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. I designed the course “Quebec: A Social Autopsy,” which examines intersections of science, art, and social justice through place-based inquiry. My colleague and I then led 20 students abroad to experience Quebec and become global citizens.

Atsuko Sakai MArch Architecture, University of New Mexico BA Environmental Design, Kyoto City University of Arts

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

dents is to follow their curiosity through design thinking and its creative process.

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. JGHC fosters a sense of community where faculty, staff, and students have the spaciousness to express and assert our uniqueness.

A. To be a great artist.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. I take students on an Honors Japan study abroad trip and to the construction site for the new Judy Genshaft Honors College building.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. I really appreciate our collaborative community.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 23

MEET THE

Honors Faculty

Holly Donahue Singh PhD and MA, Anthropology, University of Virginia BA Religious Studies, Kenyon College

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. Fertility and the Future Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. My goals for students I teach and mentor are to help them explore the worlds we all inhabit and co-create and to prepare them for finding their way to spaces where they can lead from their own zones of genius.

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

A. I am continuing to contribute to my professional field of anthropology through writing, reviewing, mentoring, and otherwise being part of scholarly conversations. My book, Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India, is due to be published by Indiana University Press in 2022. Personally, and professionally, I’m always pursuing new opportunities to learn.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A.. I reach beyond the classroom in mentoring students in their own research and professional development, especially helping them consider opportunities abroad and/or in graduate studies. I also coordinate student collaborations with community partners working in the fields of reproductive health and creative expressions of kinship.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. The best thing about the JGHC is the people – students, staff, and faculty.

Thomas W. Smith PhD Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia MA Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia BA Anthropology, College of William & Mary

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. Politics and Literature Q. What questions are you asking in your classes?

A. How can you get outside your own head and imagine political life through the eyes of others?

Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. I want students to be more worldly, more critical, more skeptical, and to channel that into positive energy!

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

A. I am trying to steer my field away from the arcane and the obscure to address real problems in the world.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. I’m on the board of the Florida Holocaust Museum and the St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs. I’m currently trying to get a Danish fishing boat that ferried Jewish refugees to neutral Sweden during World War II placed on permanent display in the St. Pete library.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. Our students’ curiosity.

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Catherine Wilkins PhD Interdisciplinary History, Tulane University MA Art History, Tulane University MA Library Science, USF BA Humanities, USF

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. How to Make History Q. What is your goal for students you teach and mentor?

A. I want students to become more curious about the world in which they live and the origins of our current values, culture, and ideals, and then feel empowered to make change in our society going forward. I think ideally an education should inspire students to care about the community that surrounds them and become responsible contributing citizens within it.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A. I teach several courses that meet off-campus, primarily at museums out in the community. Working with partner organizations like the Tampa Museum of Art or the Gulf Beaches Historical Museum enables us to put our learning to good use, to serve the community and experience in real time the applicability of the information we’re studying in class. These classes also help students connect to the cities we live in, and feel more at home here in the Tampa Bay area.

Benjamin Scott Young PhD Philosophy, USF BA Psychology and Philosophy, Eckerd College

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC?

Q. What is your favorite honors class to teach?

A. Because all the students, faculty, and staff share an intrinsic love of learning and curiosity about the world, we can accomplish a lot together.

A. Wander: Perception, Understanding, and Improvisation Q. What questions are you asking in your classes?

A. What is the good life? What is the choice-worthy path for a self-cultivating being, such as each of us are?

Q. What personal or professional goals are you pursuing?

A. I am fascinated by the question of making philosophy accessible. What sort of social and physical environments let philosophy, understood as the love of wisdom, thrive?

Understanding this and cultivating it is at the heart of my professional project.

Q. How are you reaching beyond the classroom?

A.. There is no better classroom than the world itself.

I am currently leading a semester abroad program in Exeter, England. We never know ourselves until we meet ourselves on the road. Travel reveals to us the waters we have been swimming in and lets us appreciate, often for the first time, that it is open to us to cultivate our natural, built, and social environments by cultivating ourselves.

Travel is, in this sense, nothing other than education itself--or, it is the second movement of higher education.

Q. What is the best thing about the JGHC? A. The spirit of creativity, compassion, and the love of wisdom.

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MEDICAL HUMANITIES IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT PATHWAY

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HE MEDICAL HUMANITIES in a Global Context Pathway (MHGCP) within the Judy Genshaft Honors College has blossomed since its inception two years ago. Through a collection of thematically linked courses, students can navigate the Honors curriculum using the medical humanities as a guiding topic of connection. Students who are pursuing degrees in biomedical and health sciences (nearly a third of the Judy Genshaft Honors College student body) have the opportunity through this pathway to situate their professional ambitions within a wider understanding of human well-being. Similarly, students in the humanities have found an intellectual community in which to cultivate an understanding of human well-being within the context of contemporary medical practices.

The Medical Humanities is a young and dynamic interdisciplinary field of collaboration between researchers and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplinary and professional perspectives. The gravitational draw that has energized the emergence of this field is a wide-spread recognition that human health and well-being must center on the person. As the range of disciplines devoted to understanding the way that human beings interpret their world expands, medicine needs the resources of the humanities to achieve its goal of fostering human health and well-being.

Thanks to the support of a three-year $90,000 Humanities Connections Implementation Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), Honors students can select from more than 30 sections of MHGCP classes each year. This repertoire has included courses such as: • Acquisition of Knowledge: Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Practical Wisdom, & Human Flourishing • Narrative Medicine: Reclaiming the Stories of Patients from the Institutions of Medicine • Arts and Health at the Ringling Museum of Art • Experience Japan - from Hospitals to Hospitality (Omotenashi) • How Microbes and People Get Along • Fertility and the Future • Global Health with People First • Health, Illness, and Society

• The Compassionate City: A Social Autopsy • Biomedical Ethics • Ethics in Medical Research • Physicians of the Soul: Medicine, Philosophy, and the Good Life • Beasts and Burdens: Survival, Imagination, and the Politics of Risk in the (Global) South • Health and History • Health Hermeneutics: Global Perspectives on Environments & Cultures of Well-being • Connections: Mental Healthcare, Community Engagement, and Art • Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice • Perspectives in Performing Arts Healthcare • Spatial Effects: Places for Healing and Wellbeing

In addition to these, the global focus of this pathway is amplified with a rich selection of study abroad courses including: • Spring Semester in Exeter, UK: Flourishing: Cultivating, Persons, Cultures, & Environments of Well-being (taught in collaboration with the Wellcome Center for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter) • Summer in London, UK: Physicians of the Soul: Medicine, Philosophy, and the Good Life; Benjamin Scott Young, Ph.D [IDH 3600] • Summer in Dominican Republic: Global Health Internship • Winter in Dominican Republic: DR Honors Service Trip • Summer in Florence, Italy: The Italian Healthcare System and Physician Observation

Students have also taken the initiative to form an Honors Health Humanities Circle (3HC) for Honors students interested in understanding and cultivating human well-being.

Led by founding student President Sierra Shellabarger, Vice President Aiden Jaskolka-Brown, and Communications Director Aditi Parashar, the organization will host regular public lectures, panel discussions, and student undergraduate research presentations beginning in Spring 2022. In collaboration with Dr. Benjamin Scott Young, their next project will be to develop a medical humanities undergraduate research workshop aimed at supporting student projects from inception to dissemination.

- Dr. Benjamin Young

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ACADEMICS

Honors students and faculty gather for a meeting of the Health Humanities Circle, a student-led organization inspired by the Medical Humanities in a Global Context Pathway in the Judy Genshaft Honors College.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 27

FAVORITE HONORS COURSES

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ACH YEAR THE Judy Genshaft Honors College offers a wide array of exciting and unique courses that bring together students from every academic major on all three USF campuses. Rather than being harder versions of courses taught within the major, our Honors courses take an interdisciplinary approach to topics that align with faculty interest and research areas. These courses, which can change each semester, encourage students to consider topics from a variety of perspectives and cultivate interests beyond their own discipline.

Dr. Andrea Vianello Anthropology Department Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 4200 Health and History

We asked Honors students and faculty members to describe their favorite honors course, and here is what they said:

Haley Mariner Biomedical Engineering, Tampa campus Lutz, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 4200 Women in the Middle East Instructor: Dr. Nazek Jawad, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies; Global Citizens Project

“In this course, we learned about influential women from different Middle Eastern backgrounds throughout history. At a time in the world where people might view Middle Eastern women narrowly, I learned of women writers, Olympic athletes, musicians, architects, poets, judges, entrepreneurs, and literal princesses!

This class demonstrates the importance of garnering a global perspective, teaching us to treat everyone with dignity and respect and to seek first to understand, that we may learn to live harmoniously in this great big world and develop fulfilling relationships along the way.”

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“We explore a series of examples from past civilizations and cultures across the world to foster debates about public health and health care in today’s America. True to its multidisciplinary origins, it focuses on scientific evidence to present the co-evolution of pathogens and humans, as well as the impact that epidemics have had on societies. The course offers insight into cutting edge research on evolutionary genomics and bioarchaeology, which allows students to understand the present by learning from the past. Students have been able to talk about the COVID-19 pandemic as an historical event that will shape the future, and they have discovered that they are not alone: it all happened before. The level of engagement from students has been exceptional, with students presenting at the USF undergraduate research conference, and publishing in the USF undergraduate journal, Thrive.”

Priya Singh-Collins Psychology, Tampa campus Riverview, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3400 Masculinities Instructor: Dr. Holly Donahue Singh, Judy Genshaft Honors College

“Dr. Singh gave us the incredible opportunity to not only read, listen to, and watch diverse content throughout the

semester, but to interact with content chosen by ourselves and our peers to implement our knowledge into scenarios more akin to our own experiences and generation. We were always encouraged to discuss the material with each other and question everything, as well as given the freedom to begin our own discussions about masculinities using a medium our generation is familiar with — a podcast.

This connection between masculinities in history and within our own present-day interactions gave us a unique point of view as we explored at a depth which many people may overlook and considered every corner of the concept.”

Dr. Karim Hanna Morsani College of Medicine Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 2930 Bystander Interventions

“This course started because one of our Morsani medical students (who is helping administer the course) found herself at the scene of a car accident late at night, and realized that despite her medical training, she did not know how to handle it. We sought to use this experience for learning by encouraging medical students to teach lessons on how to handle overdoses, car wrecks, strokes, drownings, and more, all with deep dives into the ethics of getting involved.

The classes always end with ethical discussions, and often involves handson training. The students wrap up the semester with an opportunity to teach

FACULTY AND STUDENTS their peers about a bystander intervention to overcome the inertia of bystander effect and to become involved members of society. Their action potential has been my most rewarding part of interacting with Honors students.”

Christian Coris Electrical Engineering, Tampa campus Tampa, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3100 Rocking the Dead Sea Scrolls Instructor: Dr. Jeffrey Donley, Adjunct Instructor

“Dr. Donley made this course into a fantastic learning experience. He clearly cares about all of his students and goes above and beyond to help everyone learn in unique ways. This class taught me more about history, literature, archaeology, and linguistics than I ever thought I’d learn in a single course.”

Dr. Jeffrey Donley Adjunct Instructor Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 3100 Rocking the Dead Sea Scrolls

“In this course, I bring to my student-scholars first-hand experience with the Scrolls along with cutting-edge technology and scholarship— making the material come to life and making every day in class exciting, intriguing, challenging, and fun. I utilize what I call a Metadisciplinary approach to learning, whereby fragmented and isolated siloes of academic disciplines are integrated into a holistic, unified, systemic, and coherent whole that empowers a global and diverse perspective—a seamless worldview. The foundation of this course is the isagogics of the Scrolls: papyrology, linguistics, and textual criticism. My students acquire practical hermeneutical skills on how to learn, interpret, to think critically and creatively for themselves, experience collaborative inquiry, and engage in debate. I even teach my students some Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Latin.”

- Dr. Cayla Lanier

Naziza Naeer Bhuiyan Cell and Molecular Biology, Tampa Campus, Dhaka, Bangladesh Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3100 Home Instructor: Professor Atsuko Sakai, Judy Genshaft Honors College

“I loved all the creative aspects of this course. We went through some of the processes architects go through when designing homes and spaces. We picked out a site, created a floor plan, and actually produced a model of our dream house. It was honestly one of my favorite classes at USF. Sensei was the best instructor I could have wished for!”

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 29

BRINGING THE WORLD INTO OUR CLASSROOMS

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HEN STUDENTS TAKE a Geographical Perspectives course, they expect to learn about interesting people across the world, but in the Judy Genshaft Honors College, those interesting people are the ones teaching the classes. With large global networks and a multicultural Tampa Bay population, Honors faculty often bring in diverse experts with a wide array of knowledge about topics such as global finance, human rights, health access, and music, to name a few. In addition to their areas of research, many faculty members have personal cultural experiences upon which they draw, adding their own unique perspectives in the seminarstyle, discussion-based Honors classes. Here are some examples of our global perspectives courses and the faculty who design and deliver them.

ARMAN MAHMOUDIAN

Course Title: A New Global Struggle: The Return of Cold War What is the link between your class and your personal cultural experience?

I was born in Iran and spent most of my life and early youth there.

After graduating from law school, I moved to Russia to earn a master’s degree in International Relations. Then, after a few years of living in Moscow, I came to the U.S. to begin my Ph.D. studies in Politics and International Affairs at USF. Since most of my work is focused on Russia, the Middle East, and International Security, my experience of living in Iran and Russia and my ethnic-religious background has helped me to establish an understanding of both Middle Eastern and Russian thinking styles and their perspective on the world, especially regarding how they see themselves.

A unique project or take-away students gain from your class: I help my students understand the role of history in decision-making by explaining that national pride of past achievements and resentment towards failure is

30 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

the source of today’s behavior.

For instance, whenever I teach a course on Russia, I ask students how they would feel if a former U.S. President starred in a fast-food commercial. Then I play the Pizza Hut ad that Mikhail Gorbachev, the former President of the Soviet Union, starred in. From there, we discuss Russia’s history and the fact that for centuries Russia was a major global power. This sets up the class to discover the chain of events leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union, instability and civil unrest, and the rapid financial crisis creating a vacuum in Russia’s proud history.

DR. LYDIA ASANA

Course Title: (Global)2 Perspectives of Health: Exploring Components of Holistic Health in the Global North and South What is the link between your class and your personal cultural experience?

I have lived, studied, and worked on three continents and I am multi-lingual, giving me a unique perspective and a heightened awareness that diverse perspectives abound. My Cameroonian heritage is a valued part of my life even though the majority of my life has been spent in the U.S. Like many diasporans, my day-to-day life is a mosaic of my two homes: Cameroonian and U.S. communications, traditions, and values, with some German influences sprinkled in. My current course provides a platform for students to gain not only valuable global health knowledge and academic skills, but also to explore diverse perspectives and grow in their awareness of multiple lenses through which global health topics can be viewed, understood, and addressed.

A unique project or take-away students gain from your class: Through the contributions of guest speakers from diverse geographical and professional experiences, students are repeatedly reminded of the value and relevance of globally

FACULTY

and professionally diverse perspectives in the study, research, and applications of holistic health both locally and internationally as well as the understanding that everyone with an awareness of the fundamentals of global health can contribute to its overarching goal of reducing inequities in access to health.

This has been illustrated through a former rotary ambassador to South America turned corporate marketing executive working globally, now leading a local nonprofit organization advocating for inclusion of people with Down Syndrome, or an environmental policy professional born on the African Continent who has advised European and Asian governments, illustrating the significance of environmental factors on local and global health, or a physicist turned global health leader pointing out local opportunities to impact global health.

DR. NAZEK JAWAD

Course Title: Contemporary Middle East What is the link between your class and your personal cultural experience?

As an Arab woman born and raised in Syria, I bring a unique international and interdisciplinary focus to my teaching, which stresses the historical ties and social interaction between the region of the Middle East and the West. During class discussions I highlight the value of cultural awareness and incorporate a global perspective that I have gained by living on different continents and earning my degrees in different countries, including Malaysia, Lebanon, and the U.S.

A unique project or take-away students gain from your class: My class includes a virtual global exchange experience, where students develop a problem-based project with international students from Universidad del Norte in Colombia. In addition to the cultural exposure, this virtual collaboration provides a

great opportunity for students to enhance their academic and professional skills and cultivate their global competencies.

I think the ultimate lesson students gain from my class is learning about the commonality of the human experience across different cultures and appreciating the diversity of these experiences.

DR. OLUBUKOLA (BUKKY) OLAYIWOLA

Course Title: Global Perspectives of Financialization What is the link between your class and your personal cultural experience?

I teach from the cumulative experiences of being raised in the Global South (Nigeria), with both the containing and constraining effects of global capitalism and neoliberalism as an integral part of everyday life. For instance, I was relatively a young boy when the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) was introduced by the Nigerian military government in the early 1990s.

Though I did not understand what it was all about then, I heard some of the arguments, which center on the imminent failure of the policy in Nigeria due to the uniqueness of the cultural environment. My course takes conversations beyond perceived assumptions that global financial-economic activities rest in the hands of “smart” experts on Wall Street.

The course explores various, often taken-for-granted financial activities in everyday lives of women and men whose survival strategies tie to the informal economy.

A unique project or take-away students gain from your class: The course final project allows each student to conduct an independent mini-study in a marketplace (either periodic market or daily market) in the course of a semester. This project allows students to observe and conduct interviews among traders, asking questions related to how they mobilize funds for/support their small business. Students ask their interviewees to share stories of how they started their businesses and how they ensure they have enough stock to sustain them.

- Dr. Lindy Davidson

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 31

Staff Spotlights THE CASCADE EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

J

UDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE Director of Advising and IT Services, Dr. Reginald Lucien, received his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction: Instructional Technology in May of 2021. In addition to being a personal achievement for him, the work he completed in his studies is now benefiting Honors students and has the potential to help students in other USF Colleges as well.

Along with his advising responsibilities, Lucien manages the College’s IT team and seven years ago expanded the scope of the team to include an IT student incubator. The Honors IT incubator employs multiple students and provides real-world experiential learning opportunities. Lucien says that technology is important in today’s society because “it provides an equal playing field to empower everyone to have the opportunity to learn. Technology allows us to be more efficient and enables us to have a more significant impact on our world.”

Lucien believes that the Judy Genshaft Honors College is an ideal location for this incubator because “Honors brings the brightest minds together to co-create meaningful solutions for both students and staff.” The current team is comprised of nine undergraduate Honors students who are learning about professional development, communication skills, and project management.

In the Fall of 2021, these students began an exciting new project thanks to a grant secured by Lucien. The USF Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) Grant will fund a new project titled “Artificial Intelligence-enabled Chatbot for Motivational Regulation (MRBot) in Online Learning: Design, Development, and Evaluation.”

When complete, this new chatbot application will be embedded into a faculty course within the College of Education to increase academic persistence and motivate students in need of encouragement.

“This project is possible thanks to the collaborative work of our talented student leaders,” says Lucien. “Team members Emily Fendrick and Ari Herrera did a phenomenal job creating the scripting for the chatbot, and Alvaro Aguilar and Nischal Nagesh were instrumental in designing the user interface.”

The application is scheduled to go live during the Spring 2022 semester and the team will present their findings to the CITL team in the fall, with publication potential. “Our College is so proud of the important work that Dr. Lucien has done with the student incubator and with this new grant,” says Honors Dean Dr. Charles Adams. “This work has the potential to help USF students in need of motivation, and I am grateful to Dr. Lucien and his team for recognizing this need and taking steps to address it.”

- Amy Harroun

Left: Dr. Reginald Lucien celebrates at his graduation with Honors Dean, Dr. Charles Adams.

Top Right: USF alums show their bull pride at Marco and Lauren’s wedding. Left to Right: Kayla Ford, Donae Graham, Amber Myer, Lauren Roberts, Marco Nardiello, Sebastian Sarria, Grace Beck, Alex Reuther, and Chris Chen.

Bottom Right: Marco and Lauren celebrate their engagement on USF’s Tampa campus.

32 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

AN HONORS WEDDING In May of 2021, two members of the Judy Genshaft Honors College staff were married in a small ceremony at Armature Works, overlooking the Tampa Riverwalk. Honors Development Specialist and Scholarship Administrator, Marco Nardiello, married Lauren Roberts, an advisor in the Office of National Scholarships. They celebrated with close family and friends, including several University of South Florida alumni.

Roberts attended graduate school at USF, and Nardiello is an Honors alum. Grace Beck, who is also an Honors alum and USF employee, officiated the ceremony. She recounted how Lauren and Marco first met in 2016 when they worked together to plan the Honors homecoming parade watch party. It was truly a USF wedding, as even their wedding photographer was a proud Bull (Joshua Wilson from JJ & the Lens).

Before the wedding, the entire Honors staff gathered virtually to congratulate the couple. “We wish them all the best as they start their married life together,” says Honors Dean Charles Adams. “Everyone loves an Honors romance.”

- Amy Harroun

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 33

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE STUDENT SNAPSHOT HONORS STUDENTS COME FROM

WA

41 U.S. states

9%

MT OR ID WY NV UT

CA

ARE FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S., REPRESENTING A TOTAL OF 48 COUNTRIES

CO

AZ NM

42% OF HONORS GRADUATES PARTICIPATED IN AN INTERNSHIP

- Tiffani Torres

34 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

HI HONORS COLLEGE STUDENTS PURSUE MAJORS IN

all 9 USF

undergraduate colleges

AK

THE COLLEGE STATISTICS

4 out of 10 HONORS GRADUATES STUDIED ABROAD

ME ND

VT

MN WI

SD

NY CT

MI PA

IA

NE

IL

OH

IN

WV KS

OK

MO

KY

NJ MD DE DC

NC SC

AR AL

MA RI

VA

TN

MS TX

NH

GA

LA FL

In 2021-22 EVERY STUDENT WHO STUDIES ABROAD WITH THE COLLEGE FOR THE FIRST TIME WILL RECEIVE AT LEAST 50% FUNDING

To apply visit usf.edu/honors or scan here JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 35

SUSTAINING GROWTH THROUGH VIRTUAL INTERNSHIPS

G

LOBAL PARTNERSHIPS PLAY A VALUABLE role in the Judy Genshaft Honors College community. Since 2016, we have partnered with the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic to support health education and mobile clinics in rural Dominican communities while providing community-engagement opportunities for honors students.

Over the past five years, more than 200 students have participated in this partnership, and although international travel ceased for a time, the collaboration continued to thrive through the initiation of a virtual internship program.

In 2021, twenty-two students worked with Dr. Reginald Kerolle, founder of the Kerolle Initiative, to shadow and scribe for physicians, talk with community members about health issues, learn about the social determinants of health in Dominican communities, and deliver health lessons to children, all through the use of laptops and phones. Virtual internship sessions ran for four weeks at a time, but some interns continued to develop projects well beyond the boundaries of their internship course.

In the spring semester, the Global Health Initiatives class collaborated with Kerolle interns and the Kosove Scholars Program to collect and ship needed items to the Kerolle Initiative. Among these items were clear facemasks for use by deaf community members and a Spanish cookbook developed for pregnant women in low-income communities. These were projects of Kerolle interns, Maha Uppal and Aditi Parashar, who continue to be engaged in the organization’s work.

Some Honors students have been planning to travel to the Dominican Republic since 2019 and received their chance in December 2021 when they finally met Dr. Kerolle and his team of community health advocates in person. (See story on next page).

“The virtual internship gave me a solid foundation of Dominican culture, history, and public health; and going to the D.R. gave me a deeper understanding of what I was doing virtually,” explained Honors student Julia Girgis. “Traveling allowed me to bump fists, hear stories, see homes and communities, play tag with children, give water to babies, labor as the people I met labored, and enjoy life as the people I met enjoyed life.”

- Dr. Lindy Davidson

Since 2016 the Judy Genshaft Honors College has partnered with the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic. In 2021, 22 students worked with Dr. Kerolle in a variety of health-care roles all via laptops and phones.

36 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

Left: Dr. Kerolle, founder of the Kerolle Initiative for Community Health in the Dominican Republic.

Right: Honors student Julia Girgis, right, works in a pharmacy in rural Dominican Republic with Dr. Kerolle (left).

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 37

LIVING AND LEARNING IN THE

Dominican Republic L

IVE MERENGUE MUSIC GREETED Honors students, in December 2021, as they stepped out of the jetway at the Puerto Plata airport in the Dominican Republic and embarked on the first honors study abroad trip since the pandemic began in the spring of 2020. This was the eighth trip by a group of Honors students to the small community of Bella Vista, and they were greeted with the same kind hospitality as always. Although there were adjustments due to COVID protocols the return to in-person collaboration with the Kerolle Initiative offered unique opportunities to understand the impact of the pandemic on another part of the world.

The 16 students selected for the trip demonstrated a special investment in the Judy Genshaft Honors College’s relationship with the Kerolle Initiative by completing a course on global health or participating in a virtual internship before travelling. Some students had been waiting to travel for over a year, and everyone had a renewed appreciation for global travel. “I wouldn’t have been able to get such hands-on experience anywhere else,” said Reena Howard, an Honors student participating in the trip. “Being able to study abroad was such a privilege, and I’m so grateful to our scholarship donors.”

38 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

In addition to supporting the mobile medical clinics where local physicians treat patients, students also conducted community health lessons, planted plantain trees in a community garden, and distributed Christmas gifts to children.

Staying in host families’ homes, they enjoyed the warm welcome traditionally shown to guests in the DR. “I’ve never met more compassionate people who are so kind and are willing to give you so much,” remarked Aubree Fillyaw.

This short-term experience often leads to a long-term impact. For example, Alfredo Ortega began his connection with the Kerolle Initiative as an Honors student in 2018 and returned this time as a co-leader and second-year student at USF’s Morsani College of Medicine. Students took note and made their own plans. “I really saw how community health is important for global health, and how they are connected,” said Prakash Vasanthakumar, a student in the Honors 7-year BS/MD program who will begin medical school in the fall. “Hopefully I will be able to pursue my career and come back and further support the Kerolle Initiative.”

- Dr. Lindy Davidson

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

“

This trip has taught me the true meaning of medicine. ... As Dr. Kerolle said, ‘you don’t stop when you’re tired, you stop when the work is done.”

– Sarah Cardona

“

After looking at what Dr. Kerolle does, it inspired me to be a better physician, and being around all those children put fire in my soul to actually become a pediatrician like I’ve always wanted to.”

– Julianna Cirulla

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 39

BRINGING KOREAN CULTURE TO THE CLASSROOM

A

S PART OF AN EFFORT to offer meaningful global experience options for students during the COVID-19 pandemic, an honors special topics program, IDH 2930 Korea Global Experience, was created by academic advisor Mr. Kevin Lee and honors staff Ms. Kylie Pontious. Through primarily online delivery, the course leveraged technology and community connections to create interactive experiences that engaged students with Korean culture, even from their own homes. Though the group was unable to travel to South Korea in Spring 2021 due to the pandemic, the initiative revealed a large population of Honors students interested in learning more about the country.

In addition to discussing topics such as Korean history, culture, and traditions, students engaged in various activities including virtual movie nights, cooking classes, Korean language sessions, and a book club. Working with instructors Spencer Bennington (USF faculty) and Adelia Douglas (USF staff), students also participated in an introductory Taekwondo class both virtually and in-person.

To deepen the students’ understanding of the course topics and establish a personal connection with the country and culture, the class partnered with the Yonsei University Mirae campus to launch a pen-pal program. The students regularly connected with their pen pals and discussed their daily lives and the topics covered in class.

Honors student Ryanne Botardo was able to travel independently to South Korea once restrictions were lifted. “My pen pal and I hit it off right away,” she says. “The connections and conversations we shared—from our love of Netflix to our experiences during the pandemic—helped immensely when I traveled to Korea. I am grateful to her, as she gave me so many recommendations on what to say, what to eat, and which cultural attractions to see when I arrived in her country. She made me feel comfortable in a foreign country and it was nice having ‘insider tips’ over the course of my trip. We even managed to meet up in Seoul for a day, to go to a museum and see the Han River!”

Ryanne was not the only IDH 2930 student who traveled to Korea. Jasmine Primus also chose to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea in the semester following the course.

The second edition of the program, led once again by Lee and Pontious, is a Spring 2022 course with even more integrated experiential learning activities where students engage with Korean culture. The next study abroad trip is set to travel in May 2023.

- Kevin Lee and Kylie Pontious

40 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT Top: Honors student Jasmine Primus studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea for the entire Fall semester following the course.

Center Right: Students in the Korea Global Experience class participated in an introductory Taekwondo course.

Bottom Left: Honors student Ryanne Botardo met her pen pal during a summer trip to Korea.

Bottom Right: Jasmine Primus enjoyed the Korean nightlife with friends during her time in Seoul.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 41

GENSHAFT-GREENBAUM GLOBAL EXPLORER AWARD

T

he Genshaft-Greenbaum Global Explorer Award is a highly prestigious and exclusive opportunity for JGHC students that kicked off in 2021. The program supports international self-directed research, internships, and other creative activities that are not served by traditional study abroad programs. Students propose projects under the guidance of USF faculty or staff members and even build itineraries and budgets independently. If their proposal is accepted, students receive funds from the College to help them complete their international project.

Sophia Pache (’21) traveled to Switzerland during the Summer of 2021 to conduct research at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on metal organic frameworks to innovate new ways to improve air and water purification processes. Sophia says that “in the lab, it was almost all international students so I got a taste of a lot of different cultures. Every two weeks we would give presentations on the progress of

our research. This gave me more exposure to public speaking and increased proficiency in working well with others, even transcending language and cultural barriers.”

Sarah Glaser (’22) spent the Fall 2021 semester in London interning for Brevia Consulting. Sarah aspires to work in politics and she says that the Global Explorer Award has helped her immensely. She says, “I am so grateful for the Genshaft-Greenbaum Global Explorer Award, as I would never have been able to afford this life-changing experience without it. I truly believe that my internship abroad has significantly improved my career prospects post-graduation and will give me a leg up when applying for graduate schools and jobs.”

Several students’ projects were approved for Winter Break 2021 and Summer 2022 across three continents. Take a look at what our Genshaft-Greenbaum Global Explorers are up to in all corners of the globe!

- Megan Braunstein

Additional 2021 Projects: Bangladesh: Naziza Naeer Bhuiyan – “Using Chemical Parameters and Microbial Populations as Indicators of Water Quality in the Buriganga River” – Winter Break 2021 Peru: Pratiksha Sharma – “Compassion & Empathy in Healthcare” – Summer 2021 (Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic) France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom: Grace Thompson & Sydney Tubbs – “Evolution of Societal Perceptions and Treatment of Disabilities and Mental Health in Europe” – Winter Break 2021

2022 Projects:

Sarah Glaser

Cambodia: Mandy Chuor – “Impact of an Oral Health Education Program on Patient Dental Knowledge and Dental Behavior” – Summer 2022 India: Neha Dantuluri – “Hyderabad Women’s Health Empowerment & Education Program” – Summer 2022 Germany: Parinitha Giridharan – “Lightweight construction in agricultural engineering through the use of wear-resistant, highstrength structural steels” – Summer 2022 Turkey: Jenna Hadi – “The Connection Between the Genetic Disease Familial Mediterranean Fever and Depression, and Public Health Knowledge of Turkey” – Summer 2022 Italy: Mae Horne, Medha Nidamarti, Indu Parameswaran, and Sricharan Pusala - “Surveillance of CoVID-19 Public Health Policies and Implementation within Hotspot Cities in Italy” – Summer 2022 The Netherlands: Hannah Thomas – Investigating the long-term effects of methylphenidate on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder patients through magnetic resonance imaging” – Summer 2022

Sophia Pache 42 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

GENSHAFT GLOBAL PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARSHIP

G

lobal engagement is at the center of the Judy Genshaft Honors College mission. One important program that supports this goal is the College’s most prestigious award, the Genshaft Global Presidential Scholarship (GGPS). This award is intended to empower some of the most capable Honors students to put global engagement at the center of their Honors experience.

GGPS students are selected on the basis of their academic accomplishments and receive an award of $10,000 to support participation in Honors study abroad experiences. They can use their funding to participate in immersive experiences, such as the Semester in Exeter, or in multiple short-term programs. Past GGPS students have studied in Italy, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

GGPS students also enroll in a special section of the Honors first-year seminar, Acquisition of Knowledge.

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

This shared experience at the very start of Honors undergraduate studies introduces them to new friends, future collaborators, and fellow world travelers, and makes for a rich mix of interdisciplinary ideas, projects, and practices. One such product of the program is the Honors Health Humanities Circle (3HC), an organization founded by GGPS students that supports the Medical Humanities in a Global Context Pathway within the Judy Genshaft Honors College. Through their focus on supporting undergraduate research, these students have made connections across the globe, including a collaboration between researchers at the Wellcome Center for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and community health leaders with the Kerolle Initiative in the Dominican Republic. They have also connected coursework on the architecture of hospitality (Omotenashi) in Japanese hospitals with efforts to understand cross-cultural constructions of human reproduction in India.

- Dr. Benjamin Young

Canada

Japan

Dominican Republic

Peru

United Kingdom

Italy

GGPS recipients visited Italy, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Australia

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 43

CAMPUS PHOTO COMPETITION

E

ach year the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council hosts a photo competition, with a usual theme of study abroad. Since international travel was limited during the 2021 year, the Council changed the theme to “Campus Scenes” and asked students to submit their favorite photos of any USF campus. Honors students were then asked to vote for their favorite photo. The winning image, “MLK Plaza” by ClaireMarie Rocke, is shown at the top of this page, and the runner up, “The Village” by Mandy Chuor, is shown at the bottom. Additional highplacing images are shown to the right.

- Amy Harroun

4 4 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

MORE TOP IMAGES Upper Left: “Simmons Park Bridge” by Teresa Pham Upper Right: “Simmons Park” by Teresa Pham Middle Left: “USF Research and Innovation Building” by Zena Omer Middle Center: “USF Botanical Gardens” by Zena Omer Middle Right: “Main Entrance of the USC” by Ochithya Fernando Bottom: “Beneath the Allen Building” by Ayah Tarabishy

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 45

HONORS STUDENT MAKES HISTORY AS USF’S FIRST

RHODES SCHOLARSHIP FINALIST

T

HE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA, which ranked in the top 50 of all public universities in the 2022 U.S. News and World Report National University Rankings, has accomplished much in its first 65 years. One accolade that was missing, however, was being home to a Rhodes Scholarship finalist. That changed when Alexander Mercier became the first USF student to earn that honor.

Established by the will of Cecil Rhodes in 1903, “the Rhodes,” as it is simply called, is considered the most prestigious scholarship program for postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford.

Only 12 students are interviewed in each of 16 districts nationwide from a pool of nearly 800 high achieving applicants, each nominated by the presidents of their universities.

Mercier’s path to the Rhodes finalist recognition began when he was six years old and his mother began to suffer from a painful illness that initially stumped her doctors. After three years, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease, a likelihood initially dismissed because it is uncommon in his home state of California and throughout the western U.S. The experience triggered in Mercier an interest in epidemiology, the study of disease, and eventually led him to focus some of his most prominent research at USF on preparing for the next pandemic.

An Honors student and double major in pure mathematics and microbiology who expects to graduate in 2022, Mercier considered both MIT and USF after completing an associate degree in mathematics through dual enrollment at St. Petersburg College. A conversation

46 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

with Sayandeb Basu, director of USF’s Office of National Scholarships, helped him choose USF. Basu was instrumental in helping Mercier connect with faculty researchers, including USF assistant professor and integrative biologist Andrew Kramer.

Their work together helped shape Alex’s interest in network sparsification, a method that employs mathematics to more quickly identify important connections in the spread of disease. The research could accelerate containment of pandemics such as COVID-19.

“Alex aspires to pioneer new approaches to modeling disease spread by integrating data science, mathematics, biology and economics,” says Basu.

“In summary, he uses mathematics for social good.” Both the Rhodes Trust and the UK Marshall Commission recognized the importance of his work, and he made USF history though his selection as a finalist in both competitions.

Mercier was also recognized earlier in the year as a 2021 Goldwater Scholar, the most prestigious award in the country for excellence in undergraduate scientific research.

“Alexander embodies the University of South Florida’s commitment to providing our students with opportunities to perform cutting-edge research during their undergraduate experience,” says Ralph C. Wilcox, USF provost and executive vice president.

In addition to his schoolwork, Mercier also has a special interest in helping America’s homeless. His portrait “Unfinished” (shown here) is that of a homeless man, and Mercier used his artistic talents to create a short 5-minute video “Drop-by-Drop” to highlight the challenges of Tampa’s homeless population as part of an Honors college class called “Compassionate Cities.”

“When you read the criteria for selection as a Rhodes finalist — outstanding intellect, character, leadership, and commitment to service — it is not surprising that Alexander was selected for this honor,” says Judy Genshaft Honors College Dean Charles Adams. “I look forward to seeing the positive impact that I know he will make in our world.”

- Dr. Sayandeb Basu

Honors Scholars GOLDWATER SCHOLARS RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE IN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

J

UDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE SENIORS, Kelli Ann Lynch and Alexander Mercier, were named 2021 Barry M. Goldwater Scholars in recognition of their cutting-edge research, chosen out of nearly 1,300 applicants nationally. The Goldwater Scholarships, instituted in 1986 in honor of former U. S. Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, is considered the nation’s most prestigious award for excellence in STEM education. Alums of the scholarship include Katie Bouman who made history recently as part of the Event Horizon Telescope which imaged the first shadow of a black hole.

Lynch is from Melbourne, Florida. She is majoring in physics and has spent three years researching with USF professor and computational physicist Inna Ponomareva. “We study the evolving properties of ferroelectrics (materials that exhibit spontaneous polarization, even without an electronic field present),” Lynch says. “When these materials are coupled with other mechanisms, such as mechanical stress or electric fields, it allows us to use them for ultrafast switching, vastly

“

I met with Dr. Sayandeb Basu, director of ONS, before I even started here as a student.

Seeing his, and his staff’s dedication to student success was the tipping point that helped me decide to enroll here.”

– Alexander Mercier, 2021 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar

speeding up the operations of a computer, for example.”

Lynch’s interest has been in bridging practical applications and theory, and her work on ferroelectrics has led to two publications and several presentations in national conferences.

Her interests took a turn toward biophysics when she was selected for a National Science Foundation research experience for undergraduates (REU) at Lehigh University. “We analyzed the mechanics of protein folding,” Lynch said.

“There are a number of diseases affected by malfunctions of protein folding and by better understanding the underlying physical processes we can combat those diseases.” She further consolidated her interests in biophysics at a second REU at the University of Notre Dame in 2021 where she studied computer models of evolutionary mechanisms that may have implications for cancer progression.

Mercier is a dual major in microbiology and pure mathematics with a minor in Russian. As a dual enrollment student, he completed an associate’s degree in mathematics at St. Petersburg College at the same time he finished high school.

At the time, he was debating between enrolling at USF or MIT, but scholarships and a discussion with USF’s Office of National Scholarships (ONS) helped him decide. “I met with Dr. Sayandeb Basu, director of ONS, before I even started here as a student,” says Mercier. “Seeing his, and his staff’s, dedication to student success was the tipping point that helped me decide to enroll here.”

Basu introduced Mercier to USF ecologist and quantitative biologist Dr. Andrew Kramer and the two studied the spread of a bacterial infection in little brown bats. Later a pivotal research experience at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico helped bolster Mercier’s mathematical and computational training in network epidemiology. He worked with Dr. Cristopher Moore of SFI, and later Dr. Samuel Scarpino of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute, on human mobility networks and disease spread. This research culminated in an article currently under review in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. He has presented this work at several national conferences, and was inducted to the national research honor society Sigma Xi. Upon graduation from USF both Lynch and Mercier will pursue graduate study in their fields.

Lynch

- Dr. Sayandeb Basu and Amy Harroun

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 47

MILLENNIUM FELLOWS

T

HE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP IS a collaboration between the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) and Millennium Campus Network (MCN), and provides support for a semester-long leadership development program that convenes, challenges, and celebrates bold student leadership to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals both on campus and in local communities.

In 2021, ten students from the University of South Florida were selected as Millennium Fellows.

This is a significant achievement, since the competition for Millennium Fellowships is intense. In 2021, over 20,000 young leaders from from 2,200 campuses in 153 nations applied for the Fellowship. Only 136 campuses in 30 nations were selected to host 2021 Millennium Fellows based on the caliber of applicants and cohorts. USF is among only 26 American universities selected to host Fellows this year.

“Having the opportunity to learn among such a diverse cohort is really a great opportunity, and has allowed me to make new and lasting connections in the process,” says Sean Schrader, one of USF’s 2021 Millennium Fellows.

The selected students each work on a project to advance one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

This year, the Millennium Fellows at USF will help establish a drug prevention coalition, increase academic equity, create an app to easily find sustainable products, increase school supply sustainability, encourage youth to become involved in humanitarian causes, and promote mental health awareness among students.

“It is our great privilege at the University of South Florida to support the work of our 10 UN Millennium Fellows and

48 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

advance sustainable development initiatives that improve our society,” said USF Provost and Executive Vice President Ralph Wilcox. “We congratulate our Fellows, whose leadership and commitment to meaningful change exemplifies the strength of USF’s commitment to social responsibility.”

- Amy Harroun

USF’S COHORT OF 2021 MILLENNIUM FELLOWS INCLUDES:

Kailani Hood Cell and Molecular Biology major Expected graduation: Spring 2023 Project title: Founding USF Drug Prevention Coalition This project will establish a drug prevention coalition at USF that will be tasked with spreading awareness of the dangers of substance misuse through educational seminars and advocating for policy reforms at both the state and national level.

SCHOLARS

Steven Long

Sean Schrader

Anthropology major

Business Management major

Expected graduation: Summer 2023

Expected graduation: Spring 2022

Project title: The Higher Opportunity Initiative

Project title: Sustainable School Supply Kits

The goal of the Higher Opportunity Initiative is to increase academic equity in the Tampa Bay area by giving at-risk high school students the opportunity to gain “simulated acceptance” into the University of South Florida for one weekend. In the Fall of 2021, more than 50 students participated virtually by making connections and outlining future goals. This process helped create a positive association with the college environment while providing resources that can help make collegiate goals a reality. After completing the project, every student participant described feeling more excited about the thought of going to college. To further support education, the initiative also donated more than 600 books to a local Tampa elementary school.

In the Fall of 2021, kit components were selected and purchased, thanks to a generous donation from Schrader Accounting and Tax Inc. The kits include pencils that can be replanted, a bamboo ruler, a cotton pouch, and a metal pencil sharpener, all contained in a biodegradable box. These kits eliminate the use of plastic in school supplies that can be repurposed after use. In 2022, the project plan is to work with the USF Student Green Energy Fund and the student centers across the university community to make the kits widely available to interested students.

Paula Souto Stefani Management and Business Analytics major Expected graduation: Spring 2022 Project title: ShopSmart ShopSmart is a sustainable application created to allow consumers to make educated decisions about a product’s sustainability and to help them identify which products best conform to their lifestyle preferences and dietary restrictions. The app saves consumers shopping time, guides them to the best products for their needs, and educates them about companies with commitments to produce sustainable goods.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 49

MILLENNIUM FELLOWS Nafisa Uddin Biomedical Sciences and International Studies major Expected graduation: 2024 Project title: Project Butterfly Effect Project Butterfly Effect is an initiative to encourage youth to get involved with humanitarian causes. Like the theory that shares its name, the project is based on the principle that simple, individual actions can lead to huge impacts. The project specifically emphasizes the plight of underprivileged children and will work to galvanize privileged youth to act against the obstacles facing underprivileged youth by highlighting specific issues and encouraging young people to use their talents, have empathy, and develop leadership skills to create and participate in events that directly address their specific issue.

Padma Vasanthakumar

Prakash Vasanthakumar

Biomedical Sciences major with an Entrepreneurship minor

Biomedical Sciences major with an Entrepreneurship minor

Expected graduation: Spring 2023

Expected graduation: Spring 2023

Project title: H-Art-Fulness for All

Project title: H-ART-fulness for All

This project provides virtual and in-person sessions to promote mental health awareness among students.

Through these sessions so far, more than 100 students and schoolchildren have been introduced to simple and effective coping strategies like Heartfulness meditation and art therapy. The goal of the project is to ensure that all students can pursue their education with good health and well-being.

50 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

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WO JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE students — Sarah Glaser, a senior pursuing dual degrees in Political Science and Public Health, and Samuel Rechek, a junior majoring in Political Science and Philosophy with minors in Economics and History — are two of just 20 students nationwide selected as Key into Public Service Scholars by The Phi Beta Kappa Society, the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society. The award recognizes students who have demonstrated interest in working in the public sector and who present a strong academic record in the arts, humanities, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences.

Chosen from more than 800 applicants attending chapter institutions across the nation, each scholar receives a $5,000 undergraduate scholarship and receives training, mentoring, and guided reflection on pathways into active citizenship.

“The Society selected these exemplary students for their intellectual curiosity; breadth and depth across liberal arts and sciences coursework; positive contributions on and off campus through academic research, internships, and community work; and demonstrated commitment to serve the common good,” Phi Beta Kappa Secretary Frederick M. Lawrence said.

“As the country tackles concurrent health, economic, and social crises, the Society applauds the 2021 Service Scholars for their pursuit of arts and sciences excellence in service of the greater good.”

A native of Sarasota, Florida, Glaser has a passion for public service. She served as a legislative intern for Florida State Representative Fentrice Driskell. She founded and chaired Florida Students for Biden, interned in the Washington office of U.S. Representative Charlie Crist, and is a member of President Biden’s National Youth Advisory Committee. In the Fall of 2021, she interned with a public advocacy organization in London, and has been admitted to the prestigious London School of Economics for Fall 2022. Her special interest is to protect and advance electoral democracy through election monitoring.

Rechek, a native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is passionate about the First Amendment’s value for democratic law and society.

He is the president and founder of a student organization dedicated to engaging students with their First Amendment protections on campus, and he recently co-authored a manu-

SCHOLARS

2021 KEY INTO PUBLIC SERVICE SCHOLARS

script exploring social media users’ tendency to avoid diverse political opinions. He credits the Key into Public Service application with helping him further define his career trajectory.

“One of the essay prompts was to tell about the PBK member you admire most,” says Rechek. “I chose Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who served on the U.S. Supreme Court in the early twentieth century. I admire him because he was open to new ideas and the reevaluation of the law during his career, moving from supporting censorship to advocating for broad freedom of speech under the First Amendment. After graduation, I plan to pursue a JD/PhD and enter the law profession with a long-term goal of becoming a judge who, like Holmes, is open to new ideas in the spirit of the First Amendment.”

Both USF recipients worked with the university’s Office of National Scholarships to apply for the award.

“We are so proud of Sarah and Sam and their commitment to public service,” says Judy Genshaft Endowed Honors Dean and President of USF’s PBK Chapter, Charles Adams. “Their impressive achievements and ambitious goals embody the mission of Phi Beta Kappa to champion learning in the liberal arts and sciences and freedom of thought. I look forward to seeing the remarkable things they’ll do next.”

- Amy Harroun

THE COMPLETE LIST OF 2021 SCHOLARS INCLUDES:

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

John Boland, University of Notre Dame Malina Brannen, Georgetown University Max Chayet, Williams College Gabrielle Crooks, Stanford University Jacob Feuerstein, Bucknell University Sarah Glaser, University of South Florida Sydney Gray, Yale University Joseph Hartung, University of Kansas Jaeger Held, Gettysburg College Michael Hernandez, University of Connecticut Raziya Hillery, Butler University Wren King, West Virginia University Kassandra Le-Huynh, University of Tulsa Isabel Lopez, Rhodes College Karishma Muthukumar, University of California-Irvine Nazm Rahat, Millsaps College Sujay Ratna, Rutgers University- New Brunswick Samuel Rechek, University of South Florida Khaylah Scott, Millsaps College Isha Yardi, University of Maryland-College Park JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 51

HONORS BULLS SHINE IN RESEARCH EXPERIENCES NATIONALLY

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N 2021, AS IN YEARS PAST, Judy Genshaft Honors College students were selected to participate in prestigious Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) across the nation. REUs are competitive opportunities for undergraduate students to take part in authentic research activities over a focused period of time, typically 10 weeks during the summer. We are proud to highlight the achievements of four of our REU awardees from 2021. All students showcased here have a long-standing record of engagement with USF’s Office of National Scholarships and worked with ONS Director, Dr. Sayan Basu, to shape their applications.

Adriana Ladera, Class of 2022 Major: Computer Science Minor: Physics Adriana Ladera attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Summer Research Program. She is interested in real-world applications of Machine Learning Algorithms and using the physics and chemistry of materials to aid in discovery of novel materials that can be used to innovate technology. Her previous research experience working with Dr. Inna Ponomareva in USF’s Department of Physics and Long QuinChen at Penn State University (on a previous REU) gave her the skills and experience needed for this highly selective REU.

Alexandria Brady-Miné, Class of 2023 Major: Mechanical Engineering

While at MIT, Ladera worked with Professor Heather Kulik on Machine Learning studies important for energy conversion and for the design of new drugs. She also presented her research at the 36th annual MIT Summer Research Program Research Forum, and is currently co-authoring a manuscript for publication with the Kulik Group. Adriana is the President of Women in Computer Science and Engineering at USF and a National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholar.

Alexandria Brady-Miné was awarded a 2021 National Institute of Standards and Technology Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (NIST-SURF) to attend NIST-Gaithersburg in Maryland. Due to COVID guidelines this 10-week REU was administered virtually. Brady-Miné is interested in 3D Bioprinting and novel biomaterials. She was drawn to this research while working on human rights issues with the Human Projects, an organization she founded at the age of 17.

Adriana Ladera 52 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

Alexandria Brady-Miné

Brady-Miné works with Dr. Nathan Gallant in USF’s College of Engineering and has published with Dr. Thomas Angelini of the University of Florida. At NIST, she was guided by Dr. Harold Hatch on a computational approach to simulate a wide variety of phenomena including phase equilibrium, self-assembly and aggregation in biological materials, colloids, and polymers. This REU nicely complemented her experimental work in the Gallant group and gave her valuable experience on the theoretical facets of biomaterial research. Brady-Miné is founding director of the Human Project and is also a Jane Goodall Institute Fund II Roots and Shoots Fellow.

SCHOLARS Caitlyn Coleman

Caitlyn Coleman, Class of 2023 Major: Microbiology Minor: Infection Control

Kelli Ann Lynch, Class of 2022 Major: Physics Minor: Mathematics

In the summer of 2021 Caitlyn Coleman joined a highly selective Leadership Alliance Summer Research Program in the Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG) group at Cornell University. Coleman works with Bioarcheologist Dr. Andrea Vianello on the genomics and proteomics of ancient pandemics, specifically the Black Death in Venice. The MBG REU was her first experience in computational biology and genomics.

It gave her valuable skills in complementing wet-lab work with “dry” lab computer work. She presented her REU research at the annual Leadership Alliance National Symposium and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science conference. An article from the REU research is under preparation with her mentors Drs. Cedric Feschotte and Jonathan Wells.

After completing her first REU at Lehigh University, 2021 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar Kelli Ann Lynch was awarded a second REU to conduct research at the University of Notre Dame. During this experience Lynch worked with Dr. Dervis Can Vu to explore how physical models of biological systems can be applied to improve our understanding of evolutionary game theory. More specifically, she researched a biophysical model of cellular aggregation to incorporate evolutionary mechanisms in populations of cells as it applies to collective behavior in cancer tumor progression. Lynch presented her work at the Notre Dame REU symposium and has published four peer reviewed articles focused on condensed matter and biophysics.

Outside of science, Caitlyn sings in the USF choir, is an avid cellist, and has interned at the Clearwater main library for the Dascaloja puppeteer troupe and their summer reading program to enhance child literacy. She is also an Honors College Peer Mentor.

Outside of research, Lynch was chair of the organizing committee for the 2020 Conference of Undergraduate Women in Physics at USF, and is the current president of the Society of Physics Students. She also serves as a math and physics tutor and works as an Honors Peer Mentor.

- Sayandeb Basu

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 53

HONORS ALUMNI GIVING BACK

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HEN BROTHERS José and David Beltran moved to Tampa from Quito, Ecuador, in 1993 they could not have imagined that the people they would meet in their new home would become lifelong friends and lead to an enduring connection to both USF and the Judy Genshaft Honors College.

“We moved here when I was 17 and David was 15,” says older brother José.

“We began attending Chamberlain High School in their Advanced Placement program while also taking classes in USF’s School of Music. I was already familiar with the school. While still living in Ecuador I performed research in the USF Library for a paper on the evolution of jazz.”

When it was time to apply for colleges, José says there was no doubt where he wanted to go. “USF was my number one choice,” he says. “And that was probably the best decision I ever made! It was the best four years of my life.”

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José says that his Honors experience was lifechanging.

“Honors opened doors for me,” he says. “It was more than just registering early and receiving a scholarship. I could take specific Honors classes and the Honors professors were fantastic. They changed the way I think and how I view life.”

David says that José’s experiences made his college choice easy. “I saw first-hand how much fun he was having in Honors and what a great experience it was,” he says. “It was not difficult for me to follow on that same path.”

It was an easy decision to give back to the Honors program that gave us such great experiences. We wanted to create opportunites for students and give them a little help when they need it.”

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Almost as soon as he began at USF José set his sight on the Honors Program. “A friend told me about it,” he says.

“I met Honors Director Dr. Stuart Silverman on the second floor of Cooper Hall and asked why I was not selected for the program. I was a 4.0 student and he said if I maintained a certain GPA by end of my first semester I would be invited to join. They mailed you your grades back then, and when I received them I drove straight to Dr. Silverman’s office.”

– David Beltran

José enjoyed sharing the Honors program with his brother.

“I remember David taking his first Honors class,” he recalls.

“We discussed the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and had lifechanging talks because of those classes.”

“I really enjoyed going through Honors,” says David. “I was a biology major so my required classes were very clear cut.

But within Honors it opened up doors to a lot of things I would not have been exposed to otherwise, such as philosophy and literature.”

Philanthropy

José says these experiences helped prepare him for his next academic journey. After graduating from USF Magna Cum Laude with his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology he went to Harvard School of Dental Medicine and received his Doctorate of Medical Dentistry. “My peers at Harvard were very much like my friends in the Honors program,” he says.

“They talked about everything. Not just dentistry or medicine.”

After graduating from dental school, José earned his Medical Degree from the University of Texas and trained as an anesthesiologist.

David also graduated Magna Cum Laude from USF and, seeing his brother’s positive postgraduate experiences, attended Harvard Dental School.

“

I was a biology major so my required classes were very clear cut. But within Honors it opened doors to a lot of things I would not have been exposed to otherwise such as philosophy and literature.”

– José Beltran

Both brothers continue a family legacy (their father and uncle are both respected dentists) and eventually ended up opening their own practices in central Florida; José in Tampa and David in Orlando. It was not long after their return that they reached out to Silverman to create a plan to give back.

“I had a fantastic education at USF basically debt-free thanks in large part to scholarships,” says José. “That was one of the best gifts I ever could have received and why I wanted to give back to the university.” He and David became the first Honors alums to create an endowment in the College and their fund provides a need-based scholarship for an Honors student each year.

“It was an easy decision to give back to the Honors program that gave us such great experiences,” says David. “We wanted to create opportunities for students and give them a little help when they need it.”

When remembering their time in Honors a common theme emerged. “It’s the people,” says José. “All places give you the same textbooks, but it’s the people who make a difference. The Honors faculty prepared us in the best possible way for our next steps and Honors students are good in school, hard-working, and loyal to their education. That’s the reason we wanted to give back — because of the people.”

- Amy Harroun

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 55

Honors Alumni SPOTLIGHT: NICHOLAS PAGE Honors alums Emily Fendrick and Nic Page in Exeter, England.

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S AN INTERNATIONAL Studies student with longstanding interests in geography, political affairs, and international development, Honors student and Provost’s Scholar Nicholas Page always dreamed of living abroad.

The path to realizing that dream began in 2019 when he participated in the Grand Challenge – a competition hosted by the University of Exeter in England – in which an interdisciplinary, international team of students collaborate in addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nic’s group, focusing on Goal 13: Climate Action, developed a board game aimed at educating children and families on reducing their carbon footprint.

After his positive experience in Exeter, Nic decided to return to the city with the Spring 2020 Honors Semester in Exeter program. Each year the Honors College sends a small cohort of students led by an Honors faculty member

56 UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA

to study at the University of Exeter for a full semester. Nic says he most enjoyed the interdisciplinary discussion-based courses at the University and the bonds he formed with fellow students while taking Honors courses abroad.

Nic graduated with Honors from USF in Fall 2020 as a Provost Scholar and Global Citizens Award Recipient and is now a graduate student studying International Relations at the University

“

of Exeter. He looks forward to exploring and learning more about the world and after graduation hopes to work in London and, eventually, in the UN office in Geneva. Looking back, Nic views his experiences in Exeter as the most enriching aspect of his time studying at USF, and as integral to his decided career path. He says “if I hadn’t taken the risk to study abroad for the first time with Grand Challenge, none of this would have happened.”

- Emily Fendrick

If I hadn’t taken the risk to study abroad for the first time with Grand Challenge, none of this would have happened.”

– Nic Page, International Studies ’20

SPOTLIGHT: NANDINI AGARWAL “If you want to be extraordinary, you have to create your own opportunities.”

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ANDINI AGARWAL, A 2020 GRADUATE of both the Judy Genshaft Honors College and the Provost’s Scholars Program (PSP), shared this sentiment as a theme and guiding principle of her time at USF. Nandini says she seized every available opportunity in her three-year academic journey as a double major in Finance and Accounting. Those opportunities included studying abroad in London, completing an Honors thesis, balancing various leadership roles and pre-professional internships, and even founding her own start-up consulting company.

She attributes much of her success to “saying yes” and creating her own opportunities; sound advice she received from one of her mentors, Dr. Sayan Basu, Director of the USF Office of National Scholarships. Nandini further explained her mindset and her recipe for success: “We need to have willingness, ability, and exposure to pursue opportunities,” she says.

“The Honors College and PSP exposed me to opportunities, and because I had the willingness and ability, I achieved what I wanted.” She emphasizes the importance of going beyond attending events to, as she says, “making connections, learning something new, and building something from it.”

Reflecting on her PSP and Honors experiences, Nandini joyfully shared that studying abroad in London, was “the best summer of my life!” She recalled feeling homesick the first few weeks and fondly remembers Honors Dean, Dr. Charles Adams, accompanying her on their return to the hostel after a group dinner. She says that their conversation helped her

adjust to—and embrace—being abroad in unfamiliar surroundings, which fostered in her a love of travel.

Although Nandini envisioned becoming a certified public accountant, her internships with Goldman Sachs, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and an India-based nonprofit made her reconsider her previous corporate goals. Surprisingly, after watching the television show Shark Tank, she grew an interest in the field of venture capitalism and utilized the networking site LinkedIn to meet and connect with professionals in this field. There, she found Florida Funders, a local venture capital firm, where she now works helping small business owners achieve their dreams by facilitating funding sources for their budding companies.

While at USF, Nandini’s extensive academic and co-curricular involvement made the value of time a consistent theme. She says that honing her time management skills in college was necessary, as these skills are paramount in the post-graduate working world, where free time is finite. Working full-time has deepened her appreciation of time as well and revealed a need to do things with intentionality for herself, outside of work. She prioritizes time with friends and family, exploring hobbies, eating well, staying fit, and planning weekend getaways each month.

She advises current Scholars and Honors students to “Soak up the moment!” She says that three years will pass quickly, especially for Provost’s Scholars, so it’s important to be present. Despite her impressive involvement, Nandini still believes she could have planned better and done even more. She encourages students to evaluate how they are spending their time, and to spend it in meaningful ways. “Ask yourself: What is worth it? What deserves your time?” she says. “Make good investments of your limited resources and energy in order to maximize your college experience. It will be worth it!”

- Audra Santerre

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 57

YOUNG ALUMNI GIVING BACK: LEADERSHIP LECTURE SERIES

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ACH YEAR THE Judy Genshaft Honors College features guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. One special speaker series during the 2021 academic year was the Leadership Lecture Series, which featured three young Honors alumni.

The series, sponsored by the College’s Student Council, included Willie McClinton ‘20, Ahmed-Zayn Mohamed ‘16, and Amber Pirson ‘20. Each Honors alum talked with current students about the opportunities they embraced while at USF, and their path to continued education and employment.

Willie McClinton

McClinton majored in Computer Science and Engineering and received both the Goldwater Scholarship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship award while at USF. He is now a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after deferring his acceptance for a year to work for GoogleAI and teach computer literacy and coding skills at a middle school in Rhode Island with Americorps. During his leadership lecture, McClinton spoke about technology’s potential to improve social wellbeing and shared his academic and leadership journey.

Mohamed received dual degrees in Biomedical Sciences and Political Science at USF and graduated in just three

Ahmed-Zayn Mohamed

years, at the age of 18, with a perfect 4.0 GPA. He then became the first-ever M.D./J.D. dual-degree candidate at the USF Morsani College of Medicine and Stetson University College of Law. He graduated first in his law school class and received the Edward D. Foreman Most Distinguished Student Award.

Mohamed now works as an attorney for Carlton Fields and is a fourth-year medical student. During his leadership lecture he discussed the application processes for medical school and law school, as well as his research experiences.

Pirson graduated with dual degrees in Anthropology and International Studies. While at USF she received the Boren Scholarship, participated in a Fulbright UK Summer Institute, and was recognized as a finalist for the Truman Scholarship.

With the support of the Boren Scholarship, she pursued intensive Thai language study at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. While there she also interned at Winrock International’s Asia Counter Trafficking in Persons Project (CTIP). Pirson is currently pursuing a J.D. at Cornell University Law School and her career plans include working in government to ensure protection of labor rights and prevent human trafficking. During the leadership lecture, Pirson discussed her experiences and the ways that service work can tackle global issues.

Amber Pirson

“We are so proud of these impressive young Honors alumni and grateful to the Student Council for providing our current students the opportunity to learn from them,” says Honors Dean Charles Adams.

- Amy Harroun

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THE DEAN’S CIRCLE OF MERIT

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PONSORED BY THE Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council, the Dean’s Circle of Merit is an award bestowed on graduating students who exemplify the four main values of the College: leadership, service, global engagement, and research. The students are nominated and selected by Honors faculty and staff, and in 2021 eight Honors students were selected to receive the award.

SPRING 2021

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ALUMNI UPDATES

The Dean’s Circle of Merit award is an opportunity for our College to recognize these exceptional individuals who embody what it means to be an Honors student.”

– Judy Genshaft Honors College Dean Charles Adams

FALL 2021

• LEADERSHIP: KRISTA CUMMINGS — Krista guided prospective students and families by serving as an Honors Ambassador. She also helped current students build connections and bolster community by serving in multiple positions on the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council and on the Student Experience Committee.

• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: PAMELA ESPINOZA — Pamela exemplified the global mission of Honors College as an international student studying and interacting across cultures on campus. She also studied abroad in Germany, conducted a virtual internship with an organization in the Dominican Republic, and produced a globally-focused Honors thesis.

• RESEARCH: BRIDGET GODSIL — Bridget’s innovative Honors Thesis focused on the well-being of siblings of children with disabilities, and resulted in two published books about facilitating open conversations regarding challenges. This work has also been incorporated into a non-profit organization’s workshop curriculum for families of children with disabilities.

• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: RHITIK JOSHI — Rhitik cultivated his global perspective through study abroad trips and international research.

He also served as President of the USF GloBull Ambassadors and guided first-year students in the Honors Foundations course while serving as an Honors Peer Mentor.

• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: MABEL PROENZA — Mabel consistently engaged in global learning and intercultural dialogue during her time at USF. She participated in multiple study abroad trips to China as well as two internships with the US Department of State, both domestically and abroad in the Philippines.

• LEADERSHIP: MARY BETH WILLIAMS — Mary Beth assisted prospective students and families as an Honors Ambassador, guided firstyear students and shaped the curriculum for the Honors Foundation course as an Honors Peer Mentor, and served as a Resident Assistant in the Honors and Provost’s Scholars Living Learning Communities.

• RESEARCH: VICTORIA MADDEX — Victoria made impressive contributions to interdisciplinary research through presentations and published abstracts at a national level. She also mentored other students as an Instructional Assistant for an Honors capstone course.

• LEADERSHIP: ALANNA RAETHER — Alanna served on the Marketing and Public Relations Committee of the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and utilized creativity and a variety of media to develop meaningful bonds among students, faculty, and staff.

- Samantha Wilkerson and Amy Harroun

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 59

ALUMNI UPDATES

David Arango, ’19 BS Public Health, is currently working on his master of public health (MPH) degree with a concentration in global health at Brown University. His research in the program will consists of evaluating social determinants and treatment for tuberculosis and HIV in global settings. Before starting graduate school, he worked for the Florida Department of Health leading the COVID-19 contact tracing team in Hillsborough County. He also served as Research Coordinator at Moffitt Cancer Center investigating tobacco cessation interventions for underserved populations.

Dr. Eric A. Elster, ’91 BA Biology, ’95 MD, is Dean of the School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. This unique program consistently ranks among the top in the nation, and is the country’s only federal medical school. In his current role, Dr. Elster leads the undergraduate medical education of more than 680 uniformed medical students and more than 340 civilian and military graduate students each year. Previously, Dr. Elster was the Chair and Norman M. Rich Professor of Surgery for the USU Department of Surgery and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Dr. Elster has published more than 200 scientific manuscripts in leading journals such as JAMA, Annals of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation, and Science Translational Medicine, and has received numerous research grants across all aspects of surgery. Dr. Elster recently retired after 26 years as a Naval Officer (Captain) with deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Jeannette Capella, ’90 BA Biology, ’93 MD (7-year BA/MD Program graduate), is Associate Director of Trauma at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa (an ACS-verified Level 1 Trauma Center). Dr. Capella trains General Surgery residents and medical students from the University of Iowa. She is interested in Disaster Response and Education, and completed post-graduate training in Acute Care Surgery in 2000. She has served on federal disaster response teams since 2001, deploying to Texas, Haiti, Puerto Rico and New Mexico.

Dr. Capella is currently on the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma, where she helps develop disaster response training modules for practicing surgeons in all specialties and updates the Advanced Trauma Life Support course.

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Houda Fakhre, ’15 BS Cellular and Molecular Biology, is a fourth-year dental student at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. She will be graduating with her doctor of medicine in dentistry (DMD) degree in May of 2022. Upon graduating, Houda plans to practice general dentistry in the Tampa Bay area, and is also interested in teaching at the university level.

Pallavi Gopee, ’18 BS Management, is currently working at Google as a Staffing Operations Supervisor. She joined Google in July 2021 as a Recruiting Coordinator after graduating from The University of Pennsylvania with a master’s degree in Organizational Dynamics. Prior to this work, she was a Solution Analyst at Deloitte. Pallavi is currently serving as a mentor for the Leadership Connect mentor program, a six-month program that pairs undergraduate students in the Muma College of Business and/or Bishop Center for Ethical Leadership with local community members.

Hunter Goldenberg, ’18 BS Business Analytics and Information Systems, is an Associate Software Engineer at JP Morgan Chase & Co. He is currently working on a high-profile, deep learning driven application which primarily centers around bridging the gaps in Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) across technology, business, and operations regulatory monitoring.

Hunter’s deep learning models have been featured internally as a part of the Project of the Month initiative to draw attention to highly innovative teams. Hunter was invited to participate in roundtable discussions at Google to steer adoption of the TensorFlow machine learning tool, and graduated from JPMC’s Software Engineering Program in fall of 2020. He also recently completed the internal Leadership & Engineering Advancement Program (LEAP) – a precursor for upper management. Hunter stays connected to USF as JPMC’s project sponsor for the USF Computer Engineering Capstone Program, where he sponsors one project each semester in which students work to solve real industry problems.

Ahmed-Zayn “Zayn” Mohamed, ’16 BS Biomedical Science, BA Political Science, is an Intellectual Property Attorney at Carlton Fields and fourth year medical student at the USF Morsani College of Medicine. He helps inventors with healthcare industry technologies and is studying to become a radiologist. Zayn aspires to lead healthcare innovation and his passion is using medicine and law to help patients both on the individual level and on a larger scale. Zayn enjoys giving back to the community and being a mentor for students interested in law or medicine.

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 61

ALUMNI UPDATES Chris McRae, ’04 BA Communication, ’07 MA Communication, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida where he teaches courses in performance studies. After leaving USF, he went on to earn a PhD from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2011. His most recent book, Listening for Learning: Performing a Pedagogy of Sound and Listening, brings together his research interests on sound, listening, and pedagogy.

Luis Monsalve, ’15 BS Biomedical Sciences, is Manager of the Clinical Trials Unit at Bay Area Retina Associates. He has been initiating and conducting clinical research studies to test new treatments for diseases such as Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and an advanced form of dry AMD called Geographic Atrophy (GA). AMD and GA are some of the leading causes of blindness in the world, and there are currently no FDA approved treatments for the latter. One of the clinical trials is on the cusp of becoming FDA approved in 2022 and would effectively become the first treatment for GA. Upon graduating from USF, Luis went on to receive his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s Public Health School. Luis recently negotiated his first $1 million+ study and has many more on the horizon, including a stem cell treatment trial set to start in 2022.

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Mekiayla “Meki” Singleton, ’14 BA Psychology and Gerontology, ’16 MSW, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Her research interests revolve around LGBTQ+ older adults’ access to, and utilization of, long-term care and support services and end of life care and decision making. She recently published an article in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal titled “Anticipated Need for Future Nursing Home Placement by Sexual Orientation: Early Findings from the Health and Retirement Study” and a current news article titled “How Much Time Do You Want for Your ‘Progress’?

Inequitable Aging for Diverse Sexual and Gender Minorites” in Generations Today, the American Society on Aging’s bimonthly digital publication. Currently, she is collecting data for and writing her dissertation that aims to explore racial differences in advance care planning among older lesbian and gay adults. Meki says that advocacy through research is the driving force behind her work, and is why she aspires to improve the care of LGBTQ+ older adults.

Avalon Jade Theisen, ’20 BA Religious Studies, is pursuing a PhD in Religious Studies at Arizona State University, which followed her post-baccalaureate study at the University of Florida. Her academic and professional life continue to follow the intersection of diverse religions and sustainability. She teaches cultural empathy courses to middle and high school students using curricula she developed, including one course created as part of her Judy Genshaft Honors College Thesis. She currently serves as the Book Reviews Coordinator for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. In continued pursuit of global sustainability, she recently obtained certification for the Climate Reality Project’s Leadership Corps and the CLEO Institute’s Climate and Food Policy course. She also continues work with the nonprofit she founded, Conserve It Forward.

AT T E N T I O N HONORS ALUMNI We want to stay connected with you.

Please email us at alumni@honors.usf.edu with your updated contact information and any news you’d like to share. We are proud of our alumni and want to promote your accomplishments.

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Nisuka Williams, ’20 BS Biology, recently completed an internship with the U.S. State Department, and has accepted a position as United Nations General Assembly Assistant with the United States Mission to the United Nations. The Mission is dedicated to conducting United States policy at the UN and covers areas such as economics, political affairs, and management and reform. In her current role, she assists with matters pertaining to the UN Fifth Committee. The Fifth Committee oversees a wide range of administrative issues spanning several UN organizations (UNICEF, WHO, Special Political Missions, etc.) Nisuka says she enjoys the opportunity to work with campaigns and brilliant delegates who advocate for diverse representation. For her future studies, she plans to explore and pursue global issues of women’s health and food security.

- Hayden Mitchell

JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE 63

Judy Genshaft Honors College The Judy Genshaft Honors College is located online at usf.edu/honors and physically on all three USF campuses.

Tampa: 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, ALN 241 Tampa, FL 33620 (813) 974-3087 St. Petersburg: 140 Seventh Avenue South, SNL 100 St. Petersburg, FL 33701 (727) 873-4583 Sarasota-Manatee: 8350 N. Tamiami Trail, C129 Sarasota, FL 34243 (941) 359-4495

Mosaic Editorial Board: Charles Adams Sayandeb Basu Megan Braunstein Lindy Davidson Renea Forde Amy Harroun Judy Kane Cayla Lanier Hayden Mitchell Audra Santerre Thomas Smith Benjamin Young Mosaic Editor: Amy Harroun Mosaic Designer: Anne Scott