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is has been a banner year for the University of Michigan, the College of LSA, and the Honors Program in prestigious scholarship competitions. Honors students include a Mar- shall Scholar, two Truman Scholars, two Goldwater Scholars and an Honorable Mention, an Astronaut Scholar, two Gates-Cambridge Scholars, and a number of Fulbright winners. You may recognize some of the names and faces from previous years as we describe them. Alexander Carney is a Mathematics graduate from Midland, MI. He is a 2011 Goldwater and Astronaut Scholar, and now is the recipient of the coveted Marshall Scholarship for two years of graduate study in Great Britain. In continuing gratitude for the postwar Mar- shall Plan, the British government funds this program to enable intellectually distinguished young Americans to study in the UK. As well as providing a top-notch graduate education in some of the most prestigious schools in the world, this mutually beneficial effort instills an understanding of contemporary Britain in future American leaders and strengthens ties between the two countries. Up to forty Marshall Scholars are chosen each year. Alex Carney has shown extraordinary promise as a mathematician and he will spend the first of his two years in Great Britain in Part ree of the Mathematics Tripos at the University of Cambridge, a master’s program that provides an exceptionally strong founda- tion for advanced graduate study in pure or applied mathemat- ics. While there, Alex will decide how to spend his second year, perhaps investigating the philosophy of math and science at Cam- bridge or Oxford. In addition to his academic success, Alex is a skilled violinist and a distance runner. In 2010, he placed seventh in the Detroit Marathon. It has been seven years since our last successful Truman Scholarship can- didate and twelve years since we could claim two Truman winners. We cel- ebrate the achievement of Noël Gor- don and Tyler Jones, chosen as two of only fifty-four Truman Scholars na- tionwide this year. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN FALL 2012 Vol. 17 Tyler Jones in Morocco. Continued on next page Noël Gordon Alex Carney teaches violin in Nazaré Orphanage in Poconé, Brazil. See Pantanal Update on page 14. Honors Students Excel in Nationally Competitive Scholarship Competitions by Elleanor H. Crown

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Page 1: LSA Honors Forum 2012

This has been a banner year for the University of Michigan, the College of LSA, and the Honors Program in prestigious scholarship competitions. Honors students include a Mar-shall Scholar, two Truman Scholars, two Goldwater Scholars and an Honorable Mention, an Astronaut Scholar, two Gates-Cambridge Scholars, and a number of Fulbright winners. You may recognize some of the names and faces from previous years as we describe them.

Alexander Carney is a Mathematics graduate from Midland, MI. He is a 2011 Goldwater and Astronaut Scholar, and now is the recipient of the coveted Marshall Scholarship for two years of graduate study in Great Britain. In continuing gratitude for the postwar Mar-shall Plan, the British government funds this program to enable intellectually distinguished young Americans to study in the UK. As well as providing a top-notch graduate education in some of the most prestigious schools in the world, this mutually beneficial effort instills an understanding of contemporary Britain in future American leaders and strengthens ties between the two countries. Up to forty Marshall Scholars are chosen each year. Alex Carney has shown extraordinary promise as a mathematician and he will spend the first of his two years in Great Britain in Part

Three of the Mathematics Tripos at the University of Cambridge, a master’s program that provides an exceptionally strong founda-tion for advanced graduate study in pure or applied mathemat-ics. While there, Alex will decide how to spend his second year, perhaps investigating the philosophy of math and science at Cam-bridge or Oxford. In addition to his academic success, Alex is a skilled violinist and a distance runner. In 2010, he placed seventh

in the Detroit Marathon.

It has been seven years since our last successful Truman Scholarship can-didate and twelve years since we could claim two Truman winners. We cel-ebrate the achievement of Noël Gor-don and Tyler Jones, chosen as two of only fifty-four Truman Scholars na-tionwide this year.

U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N Fall 2012 Vol. 17

Honors Forum

Tyler Jones in Morocco.

Continued on next page

Noël Gordon

Alex Carney teaches violin in Nazaré Orphanage in Poconé, Brazil. See Pantanal Update on page 14.

Honors Students Excel in Nationally Competitive Scholarship Competitionsby Elleanor H. Crown

Page 2: LSA Honors Forum 2012

LSA HonorSDirectorTimothy A. McKay

Associate DirectorDonna Wessel Walker

Assistant DirectorGayle D. Green

Scholarship CoordinatorElleanor H. Crown

Senior AdvisorHenry Dyson

Academic AdvisorJohn C. Cantú

office ManagerVicki Davinich

Academic AuditorJacquelyn M. Turkovich

Communications AssistantJeri Preston

Program AssistantKaren Wagner

Faculty AdvisorMargaret Lourie

Honors PreceptorsHelen DixonMary Shelly MageskiJamie SmallAdam J. SypniewskiElizabeth Young

Contact InformationLSA Honors Program1330 Mason Hall419 S. State St.Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1027Phone: 734-764-6274Fax: 734-763-6553Email: [email protected]://www.lsa.umich.edu/honors/

regents of the UniversityJulia Donovan Darlow, Ann ArborLaurence B. Deitch, Bloomfield HillsDenise Ilitch, Bingham FarmsOlivia P. Maynard, GoodrichAndrea Fischer Newman, Ann ArborAndrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe ParkS. Martin Taylor, Grosse Pointe FarmsKatherine E. White, Ann ArborMary Sue Coleman, President (ex officio)

The University of Michigan, as an equal oppor-tunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws re-garding nondiscrimination and affirmative ac-tion. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. In-quiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office of Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

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Noël and his mother lived in New York until 9/11 when she had to make her way home from Manhattan on foot over the Brooklyn Bridge. That was when she decided to relocate to a less intense environment; eventually she and Noël settled in Las Vegas. Noël’s awareness of public service careers began when he was one of two Nevada representatives to the U.S. Senate Youth Program. It was a heady experience, meeting the new president early in his first term, talking with senators, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices. Some students might have just reveled in the glitz of political celebrity, but Noël began to realize that these people actually made tremendous accomplishments in the areas that he felt needed reform and that they made a living doing it. After just one week he was hooked on public service and he has not looked back since.

Noël is a Political Science major whose interests include moral and political phi-losophy and gender and sexuality studies. His goal is to provide a voice for groups of people who find it difficult to express themselves to the establishment. He is not only amazingly articulate; he thinks nimbly on his feet and backs up his points with knowledge, substance, and very good judgment.

Very few students at the University of Michigan can claim the combination of strengths that Tyler Jones brings to the table. An outstanding student from Northville, Michigan, Tyler not only excelled in a consistently rigorous curricu-lum but also has designed his own concentration in Asymmetric Conflict. He is dedicated to his mission and has begun the necessary work to become truly culturally competent with the Middle East. He has tackled and succeeded in Standard Modern Arabic, started on the variations of the language by learning Egyptian Arabic, and is currently embarking upon literary studies. Tyler is dedi-cated to his ideals and takes 100% seriously any responsibility he assumes. He sees his role in “public diplomacy,” serving to interpret the US to people in other nations. We cannot think of a better representative for his generation.

In order to ensure a continuing supply of highly qualified scientists, mathema-ticians and engineers, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program awards approximately 300 scholarships a year to rising juniors and seniors. The University of Michigan has a long history of success in the competition: in the last 21 years, there have been 57 winners and 4 recipients of Honorable Mention recognition. This year that rich history continues as Da-vid Sherman and Charles Stibitz were named Goldwater Scholars and Rebecca Gleit was awarded Honorable Mention.

David Sherman is a current senior Math-ematics and Physics major from Bloom-field Hills, Michigan. He envisions a research career in complex analysis and harmonic analysis and their applications to other fields like number theory. One of his recommenders has described Da-vid’s talent this way. “Freeman Dyson has categorized the best mathematicians as birds or frogs. Frogs are the easiest to identify as brilliant since they quickly

Honors Students Excel in Nationally Competitive Scholarship CompetitionsContinued from page 1

David Sherman

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3 Continued on page 4

pulverize one knotty mathematical problem after another; birds, who have a profound overview and unify disparate ideas into a program, can be sleepers. David Sherman is a bird.” A talented musician, David has played the violin since he was four.

Charles Stibitz, from Midland, Michigan, is also a Mathemat-ics and Physics ma-jor. With interests in algebra and ge-ometry, he plans a research and teach-ing career. He has participated in re-search in computa-tional cosmology, differential geom-etry, and hyperbolic geometry. When

Charles was in high school, he spent a lot of time learning mathematics on his own and he credits the fact that he came to UM already thinking like a mathematician to those hours he spent learning to appreciate the language and rigor of mathematical proofs.

Rebecca Gleit, whose home is in Troy, Mich-igan, is a Mathematics major whose interests are in computational biology. She has been working to develop a mathematical model of the neuronal con-trol of human sleep-wake regulation. Her interest in quality of life issues has also led her to several proj-ects investigating the

long-term medical and psychosocial outcomes among pe-diatric liver transplant recipients. Rebecca co-founded the Women in Mathematics club and she has played the bas-soon for eleven years.

Chemist, pianist, and Goldwater Scholar (2011), Sean Col-lins is one of two recipients of the Gates Cambridge Schol-arship this year. Established in 2000 through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, these awards provide full funding to 40 Americans annually to pursue any gradu-ate degree at the University of Cambridge. As a Gates Cam-bridge Scholar, Sean will pursue his Ph.D. at Cambridge

in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. Sean is currently a resident of Bethes-da, Maryland, but spent much of his childhood in Ger-many. Sean’s inter-ests lie in investi-gating materials at the smallest scales, examining atomic and nanoscaled

structures to overcome limitations in energy conversion and storage to allow us to begin to build a sustainable environ-mental future.

In her own words, our second Gates Cambridge recipi-ent Madeline Hu-berth describes her eclectic academic and musical inter-ests. “A native New Yorker, I recently graduated from the University of Michi-gan with degrees in cello performance and interdisciplin-ary physics. I have

played with orchestras and with rock bands, spent time in acoustics research, and, this past summer, worked as a web app developer. I’ve taken my medley of interests to Cam-bridge, England, for a master’s degree in music, where, in addition to continuing my research on musical timbre, I will endeavour to adopt fancy British spelling of things.”

You can check out her presentation on her research into musicians’ timbre ad-justments here: http://w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=fOBXEC1YDkA.

Goldwater Scholar (2011) Nicholas Triantafillou has been named Astronaut Scholar, a distinction that comes with a $10,000 award provided by a group of more than 80 astronauts to help the United States retain its

Charles Stibitz

Rebecca Gleit (l.) shows off “Women in Mathematics” T-shirt.

Sean Collins

Madeline Huberth

Sara

h F

letc

her

Ph

oto

gra

Phy

Nicholas Triantafillou

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Mr. Gordon Goes to Number One Observatory Circle

“You are liberating the soul of this nation.” Those words didn’t come from one of my fellow LGBT rights activists. No; they came directly from the Vice President of the United States. In September, I had the honor and the privilege of dining with Vice President Biden and his wife at their home in Washington D.C. In fact, one-hundred LGBT ac-tivists from across the country were invited to join the Second Family for a dinner honoring the “next generation of LGBT leaders.” Now, I have to admit, going into the event I had hoped to see Vice President Biden grilling up hamburgers and hot dogs while wearing a “Kiss the Chef” apron. That didn’t happen. Instead, the Vice President gave an incredibly moving speech in which he praised each and every one of us for what he called our “physical and emotional courage.” He re-minded us that the arc of justice is in our favor, and to never give up, even when all hope seems lost. Standing just mere feet away from the Vice President was an unreal experience. But it is one that I will never forget.

Noël Gordon

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/21/celebrating-next-genera-tion-lgbt-leaders

Vice President Biden welcomes future LGBT leaders to his residence.

world leadership in science and technology. Nicholas is also a UM nominee for the Marshall Scholarship.

Although the Fulbright Foundation has not completed its announcements of 2012 grants, we are pleased to know that four former Honors Resident Advisors and a number of our other students will be abroad this year as Fulbright Scholars or English Teaching Assistants.

I would like to end this report with a personal note. At the end of October, I will retire from my regular posi-tion at the university, although I will continue to provide some support through the scholarship season this year. It has been a joy to work with students like these who have made the very best use of their undergraduate years. I will miss the students and my colleagues greatly, but it is time to discover new things. Dr. Henry Dyson will be stepping into this position and I am confident that he will offer wise guidance to our scholarship candidates and that he will find great satisfaction and pleasure in this important work.

Honors Students Excel in Nationally Competitive Scholarship CompetitionsContinued from page 3

Honors students take credit for crucial Detroit Tigers’ win on September 26.

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Greetings from Honors!

The University of Michigan is approaching a big anniversary - just five years from now, we will begin our

third century. The impending celebration has me thinking about the future as well as the past, learning

more about where we’ve come from and wondering where we might be headed.

Founded in Detroit in 1817 as the Catholepistemiad, the University of

Michigan has had broad study in the liberal arts at its core from the

beginning. Chief Justice Augustus Woodward (think Woodward Avenue in

Detroit) planned an “epistemic system” of thirteen professorships covering

all the ways of knowing. Reborn in Ann Arbor, the University welcomed its

first class of seven students and two professors in 1841. Henry Tappan, our

first President, set a course for the future, adopting the German model of a

research university, combining teaching with research and including the new

sciences along with classical subjects in every student’s course of study.

During this time, students studied a fixed curriculum, including ‘mechanics’

(what we would call physics) in their junior year. It was not a popular

subject. As UM History Professor Howard Peckham notes in his History of the

University of Michigan:

Certain difficult courses were personified as enemies and at the end of

the semester had to be disposed of. So there came to be the “burning of Mechanics” and

the “hanging of Physics”. Beginning in 1860 and probably earlier, the custom continued with

lapses and variations until 1900. The ceremony involved a procession of several classes, the

“corpse” with perhaps a skull borrowed from the medical laboratory borne on a bier to a place

of judgment. There the victim was tried before a Pontifex Maximus, with an Advocatus Pro and

an Advocatus Con. Then came the execution amid cheering around a bonfire. Sometimes the

festivities ran far into the night….

The fact that physics is no longer a graduation requirement for all students may help to explain why

none of my introductory physics students (I have taught perhaps 5000) has ever publically burned my

course in effigy.

Many familiar features of the modern student experience only emerged later. Two important

changes happened in 1912. The modern structure of an LSA degree, combining a core of distribution

requirements with a concentration in a particular field, was adopted, ending a brief period of

extraordinary freedom when the only graduation requirement was a course in rhetoric. Before 1912,

the only grades awarded were passed, conditioned, or not passed. In an era of efficiency experts, this

seemed inadequate, and the faculty decided to adopt the familiar letter grades associated with honor

points. Big changes indeed, establishing practices which have served us well for a century.

Higher education in its current form is under pressure from several directions. Many of these threats

are in fact signs of the importance and inevitability of changes to come. A century ago, responding to the

effects of an industrial age, LSA remade itself, adopting concentrations, distribution requirements, credit hours,

and awarding letter grades for the first time. I hope that in coming years we will respond with comparable

courage to the arrival of a new information age. What should a great liberal arts education look like in

2030? How deeply can we integrate research and education? What will we ask our students to do and how

will we represent what they accomplish?

The LSA Honors Program is a great place to explore these questions, sitting as it does at the heart of the

nation’s greatest public liberal arts college. During the coming years we will explore new models for core

courses, new approaches to recognize extracurricular work like research and service, and new ways to

officially connect students with communities across the globe. It’s an exciting time in higher education,

and UM’s approaching anniversary provides an excellent opportunity for both reflection on the past and

planning for the future.

Wishing you all the best for the coming year,

Tim McKay

Tim McKay at Honors

Summer Fellows weekly

meeting.

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6 Continued on next page

Kudos by Elleanor H. Crown

Honors Program awardsThanks to the generosity of Honors alumni and friends, we are able to support and reward some of our outstanding students for their accomplishments.

Every year, on the evening before our graduation event, we hold a ceremony to present prizes to a group of exceptional graduates whose performance has exceeded all expectations. The Honors Program is fortunate to have alumni and friends who contribute so generously to reward our most successful graduates and to help outstanding students pursue programs of study that might not be possible otherwise. These awards include the Goldstein Prizes, Virginia Voss Memorial Scholar-ships, Patricia Kennedy Memorial Awards, and Ginsberg Cen-ter service cords.

Named for distinguished UM alumni and associates and made possible by Ellen, Joseph, Laura, and Paul Goldstein, the Goldstein Prizes reward excellence in humanities, arts, physi-cal sciences, life sciences, mathematical sciences, social scienc-es, public service, humanitarianism, and teaching. Students are nominated by their departments for these awards. Listed below are the 2012 Goldstein recipients.

The Robert Hayden Humanities Award was presented to Douglas Rottmann, an extraordinary young scholar who has mastered Classical Greek, Latin, Japanese, and mathematics, presented a top-notch thesis analyzing pre-Euclidean math-ematics and logic, and completed the requirements for admis-sion to medical school. To put the icing on the cake, he did a reading of Galen in the Greek!

Perry Janes was the winner of this year’s Arthur Miller Arts Award. Perry is an accomplished writer of both fiction and poetry, Hopwood Award winner, Kenneth Buckfire Fifth-year Honors Scholar, and emerging cinematographer. One of his goals is to break through the many myths and urban legends surrounding Detroit and portray the city on film as it really is. You can listen here to a WDET radio interview with Craig Fahle about his short film Zug: http://wdet.org/shows/craig-fahle-show/episode/writer-director-perry-janes-zug/.

The Jerome and Isabella Karle Award for Physical Sciences was given to Sean Collins, Chemistry and Piano Performance graduate who has excelled in both pursuits. You can read more about Sean in the cover story of this edition of the Forum.

Eileen Brandes was presented with the new Marshall Niren-berg Life Sciences Award. Eileen is a Biology graduate whose research has been hailed as “nothing short of exceptional” by her thesis mentor, who goes on to say that “her work will make a major contribution to the field after it is published.” She was the only undergraduate invited to accompany her men-

tor to present at a professional conference and to be a guest lecturer in his Microbiology class. In addition, Eileen was co-captain of the women’s field hockey team, ranked in the top ten nationally all during her final season. She earned the team’s Player’s Player award, which is given to the single player who best represents what it means to be a UM field hockey player.

Another prize new this year is the Stephen Smale Mathemati-cal Sciences Award. It was no surprise that the recipient was mathematician Alexander Carney, Goldwater Scholar, Astro-naut Scholar, and now Marshall Scholar. You can find more information about Alex in the cover story of the Forum.

Given the level of achievement of so many of our students, it is not surprising that we sometimes cannot pick a clear win-ner. The Marshall Sahlins Social Science Award this year was given to two outstanding young scholars, anthropologist Mary Birkett and political scientist Seth Soderborg. Mary carried off with distinction the unlikely study of kawaii, (cute-ness) in Japanese culture from ethnographic, social, political and pragmatic perspectives. What she discovered is that “cute” town mascots are part of a movement to rejuvenate depopu-lated rural towns by giving them personalities. According to his thesis advisor, Seth Soderborg brought his considerable tal-ents, and his command of Portuguese, to his study of the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil. Seth’s project got to the question at the heart of political science and political economy: “what shapes the incentives of governments to provide needed public goods?” Seth independently formulated his research design, which included fieldwork in Brazil interviewing party leaders, voters, journalists and academics. This fall, Seth begins a one-year assignment teaching English in Indonesia on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Robin Czerwinski, Program in the Environment major, took home the Gerald Ford Public Service Award. Robin not only researched and wrote a rigorous thesis in glaciology on ice sheet rift propagation that her mentors refer to as a “dissertation,” she also participated in a wide range of activities that serve the public good and have policy implications. Robin’s accomplish-ments include health education work in South Africa, the de-velopment of new field teaching instruments for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and other national parks, and a Udall Scholarship awarded to students who have demonstrated a commitment to careers related to the environment. Robin’s next step is a two-year assignment as an Environmental Educa-tion Peace Corps Volunteer in Latin America after which she plans graduate work in Public Policy and Environmental Sci-ence.

The previous two issues of the Forum have featured the Pan-tanal Project, an effort by UM students to build a school and research station in the remote Pantanal region of Brazil. Ju-lie Bateman, who with fellow Honors student Ethan Shirley spearheaded this project, received the Raoul Wallenberg Hu-manitarian Award. Julie and Ethan have been working on the project for three years and have not only invested sweat equity but also have assembled a team of faculty, staff, and students across the university to take on this challenge. They have raised

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funds to support their work. You will find a project update in this issue. Julie graduated with a joint degree in LSA with an Individualized Concentration in International Natural Re-source Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.

Anniejae Fischburg, a Mathematics major who is dedicated to a career in math education, was the recipient of the Sidney Fine Teaching Award. Most students who are successful in the most rigorous math courses at UM do not choose careers in secondary education; however, that is the path Anniejae has set for herself. She has already demonstrated her mathemati-cal knowledge and her ability to teach by serving as course as-sistant for several math classes and teaching for the Michigan Math Circle, which invites high school and middle school students to campus for lectures and discussion about math-ematics. One of her recommenders has said, “Anniejae is very good at mathematics. She is also very good at teaching. More importantly, she is deeply passionate about both.”

The Patricia Kennedy Memorial Award for a student who has demonstrated outstanding scholarship in women’s issues or English literature was endowed by Honors alumnus John P. Kennedy to honor his mother. History student Belle Cheves was this year’s winner. Belle’s thesis, “Breaking Chains of Op-pression: The Voice of Ashraf Dehghani in 1970s Iran” is a splendid analysis of the life and writings of one of the major radical figures in the Iranian opposition to the Pahlavi regime. Her thesis addresses the issue that Dehghani has failed to re-ceive the recognition she deserves in previous scholarship, as well as providing a new reading for Dehghani’s work that at-tends to the way she used her own brutalization as a symbol for the violations of the Pahlavi regime. Finding that it is impos-sible to study in Iran, Belle has accepted a fellowship to learn Persian in Tajikistan this year.

Honors Resident Advisors provide guidance, mentoring, and a wide range of program options for the residents of Honors Housing. They bear a large amount of responsibility for the success and satisfaction that our students experience in their first and second years at UM. Recognizing their contributions, the Ginsberg Center awards service cords to the graduating se-nior RAs. This year, the group consisted of Alexander Brown, Kevin Carney, Margaret Cease, Rachna Goswami, Chelsea Hunersen, James Leonard, Paul Rink, Sharvil Shah, and Elizabeth Shea.

Virginia Voss graduated from Michigan in the 1950s and was appointed College Editor of Mademoiselle magazine. In 1967, she died suddenly from a heart condition while walking on the beach at Fire Island. Her memory and her love of writing are preserved by the Virginia Voss Memorial Scholarships, endowed by her parents to reward senior Honors women for excellence in writing. Her twin sisters, June Everett and Jo Van Boven, and Jo’s husband Sam, graced us again with their presence at the awards ceremony. In addition, they generously invited the Voss Scholarship winners and their families for a lovely dinner at Victors Restaurant.

It is always a great pleasure to see the quality of scholarship exhibited by our students even though it means many hours of reading just before the end of the semester. We assemble a team of faculty, graduate students, and academic staff, who rel-ish the opportunity to select the very best representatives from the large number of theses presented to us each year.

This year, there were five Voss awards for academic writing, one for creative writing, and one for creative non-fiction this year. A few of them have been deposited in the Deep Blue electronic archive of the UM Library (http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/). We expect the remainder to be available there by early 2013. Feel free to browse the archive and read any that interest you.

The Voss winners for 2012 are:

Katherine Bies, Communication Studies. Katherine’s thesis, Negotiating Online Privacy Boundaries: Self-Revelation in the Facebook Generation, explores the evolution of privacy rights in the American judicial system. She discovered some fascinating differences in the way younger and older Americans approach the issue of privacy online.

Jo Van Boven and June Everett congratuate Emma Lawton on her Voss award.

Virginia Voss Passport Photo 1957.

Continued on page 8

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Emma Lawton, History. “No Nature so Wild” The Ursuline Nuns and Fe-male Community in Native Conversion to Christianity, 1639-1655 weaves an intriguing story of the interconnections between the Ursuline school for native women in the colony of New France and the collapse of the Huron Confederacy. Emma has brought to light the lost voices of Native American and religious women.

Erika Mayer, Political Science. In her thesis, The Exception: An Alterna-tive Explanation of the American Outlier Effect in Treaty Ratification, Erika makes an eloquent and convincing argument that America’s failure to ratify treaties supported by many of our allies should not be explained merely in terms of American arrogance but can be viewed through the lens of American exceptionalism.

Victoria Moses, Anthropology. In Status and Meat Consumption in Pom-peii: Diet and its Social Implications through Ancient Primary Sources and Zooarchaeological Analysis, Vicki compared information on faunal remains from a working-class restaurant district of Pompeii with a variety of other sources of data about meat preferences of upper and lower classes.

Addie Shrodes, English. Addie received raves from her department about her thesis, The ‘Race Riot’ Within and Without ‘The Grrrl One’: Ethnoracial Grrrl Zines’ Tactical Construction of Space. In her research, she combined meticulous archival research with sophisticated critical theory to explore and address racial binaries and stereotypes in the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s.

Beth Jakubowski, Anthropology. We decided to call Beth’s award “Cre-ative Non-fiction” because she has employed techniques from open-ended interviews to biographical anthropology to storytelling to explore the pro-found philosophical question, “What is a life, and what keeps people go-ing when things become difficult?” Like Beth, her informants are older adults returning to college, each with a unique and poignant narrative to offer.

Sarah Kunjummen, English, Creative Writing. Sarah’s award-winning thesis, Traces, is a collection of poems organized around the story of cre-ation. You will find her charming “the third day” on this page.

Alums and friends of Honors, many of whom knew Otto Graf and Jack Meiland themselves, have provided the funds for the scholarships that honor these two intellectual giants. Otto Graf, German scholar and hu-manist, was Director of Honors for eighteen years. The awards given in his honor are made to Honors juniors distinguished by their academic excel-lence and commitment. Jack Meiland, Philosophy professor and Honors Director, was a champion of interdisciplinary studies and the scholarship that bears his name goes to an Honors junior or senior whose work reflects that ideal. We conduct challenging interviews to ensure that the recipi-ents of the awards can articulate their intellectual experience.

This year, the Otto Graf Scholarship was awarded to Nicholas Trianta-fillou. Otto Graf Prizes were won by Rebecca Gleit and Tyler Jones. The Jack Meiland Prize was presented to Connie Shi. Nicholas is a Mathematics and Computer Science major from Saginaw, Michigan. He is a Goldwater Scholar, Astronaut Scholar, and a UM nominee for the Marshall Scholarship. Rebecca Gleit, from Troy, Michigan, is a Math-

Continued on page 13

the third dayWhen God brought in his preliminary

drawings for vegetation,

The office felt it was time to speak to him

reasonably,

Baffled by the relentless push that forced

the sap upward, by the fragility

Of the young shoots, pale-green fretted

lace. They worried about the tomato vine,

Too thin, they thought to bear the fruit’s

pulpy weight, they compared the beech

Unfavorably to the fir. It loses its leaves

each year, they murmured, think of the

expense.

Never one to balk at resistance, God took

their incredulity as a challenge.

He dashed off sketch after sketch, each

more outlandish than the last.

After the pomegranate, though, and the

coconut, even he admitted that

His projects were getting a little

inaccessible, a little high-brow.

The committee huddled under the ribbed

vaults of God’s birch avenues,

Cowed by the hot-house lamps and the

extensive labeling on each specimen.

When they asked him the length of their

flowering seasons,

Pens upraised over their notebooks, God

rattled off the figures:

Two weeks for the crab-apple trees, the

daylilies, May to September,

Two days for each flower on the gladiola

stem, nine for the stalk,

The chrysanthemums until frost.

The cactus flower for a single night.

– Sarah Kunjummen

Kudos Continued from page 7

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Lunch with Honors 2011-12by Donna Wessel Walker

“Lunch with Honors” continues to be a success, both with student audiences and guest speakers. We hosted fifteen events last year, with topics ranging from literature to cli-mate change and spanning the entire political spectrum.

The author of our first-year book, law professor Don Her-zog, held a conversation about his book Cunning both at Lunch with Honors and at an afternoon talk for Parents’ Weekend in September. Books and writing were features of several other Lunches through the year: alumna Sara Fitzgerald came to present her biography of Elly Peterson, a leader in the Michigan GOP in the mid-20th century; Sara Paretsky, the creator of the V. I. Warshawski detec-tive novels, discussed “Crime, Women, and Wrong”; and James Fenton, poet, journalist and public intellectual came in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Com-pany’s creative residency in March to talk about the writ-ing life. We had two Lunch with Honors events while the RSC were here: producer Jeremy Adams described the Company’s outreach efforts and other behind-the-scenes work; we are delighted to be able to host members of the RSC every time they come to campus.

Scientific endeavors were the focus of five Lunches: Perry Samson, a professor here in Earth science, gave an over-view of current research on climate change, including some riveting video footage from last summer of himself and his graduate students pursuing a tornado that was bearing down upon them. Nilton Renno from the Col-lege of Engineering described his excitement in finding the first evidence of liquid water on Mars; John Broome, this year’s Tanner lecturer in Philosophy asked questions about the human perspective in facing the various chal-lenges of climate change. Albert Ammerman, an Hon-ors alumnus who has been called “the Renaissance man of classical archaeology,” discussed his ground-breaking methodologies in research into the lives of ancient Medi-terranean fishing communities. Howard Markel, UM professor of medicine and the history of medicine, de-scribed the work that led to his most recent book on the drug addiction of William Halsted and Sigmund Freud.

Three speakers addressed political questions from widely disparate perspectives. Bob King, president of the UAW,

gave a ringing “yes” to the question, “Are Unions Neces-sary for Social Justice and Democracy?” The Honorable David McKeague, a federal judge on the United States Court Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, described the im-plications of potential and actual government surveil-lance and data mining in response to the question, “Is Big Brother Watching You?” History Professor Juan Cole addressed a question that remains unanswered: “Can Obama Avoid War in Iran?”

We look forward to hosting a similar array of speakers and topics this coming year. Already we have plans for visits from writers, activists, scientists and entrepreneurs, as well as an Inauguration-watching party in January.

UAW President Bob King talks with Honors students.

Judge David McKeague answers questions following his presentation.

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HonorS HoUSInG rePort

by John C. Cantú

2011-12 was another active year in Honors Housing in South Quad. Led by a team of 14 Honors Resi-dent Advisors, students did proj-ects in the residence hall and with Honors Peer Mentors, attended events on campus and explored opportunities off-campus.

Among HRA South Quad-based projects last year were our now-an-nual “Bush House Welcome” and “Honors Tee-Shirt Design Night,” which produced this year’s “Fun with Words” design. Other activi-ties included a “Great Books Mid-Term Jeopardy!” contest, ses- sions on “How to Suc-ceed Academically,” and “How to Pick a Concentration,” an “Honors Quiz Bowl,” and an “Iron Chef” contest. Other proj-ects specifically struc-tured for second-year students included up-perclass student panels in which second-year students were given the opportunity to discuss top-ics such as choosing a major and preparing for a career after gradu-ation.

HRAs led students around U-M’s campus: a September visit to the campus residence of U-M Presi-dent Mary Sue Coleman; rock climbing at the U-M Intramural Athletics Building; ice skating at Yost Arena; and our now annual climb up Burton Tower to watch the carilloneur play the bells. On

MLK Day, HRAs led an intra-campus dialogue at the Michigan League called “Your Role in So-cial Change.” This event featured guided discussions in small groups consisting of students, administra-tors and faculty, townspeople and high school students.

Residents explored Ann Arbor by going to a concert at The Ark, Ann Arbor’s nonprofit home for acoustic music, by award-winning musician and Honors DeRoy vis-iting professor Dick Siegel; canoe-

ing on the Huron River; watching film screenings at the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival; and visit-ing the Ann Arbor Farmers Mar-ket. They expanded their cultural horizons through attendance at University Musical Society perfor-mances of John Adams’ “Einstein on the Beach,” a performance by the Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Denis Matsuev.

The HRAs took students further afield in several trips to Detroit: groups of students attended a De-troit Tigers baseball game and a Detroit Red Wings hockey game, and in the spring participated in the “Detroit Project,” a univer-sity-wide service day. Honors Housing 2011-2012 was a year of popular social, cultural, academic, and athletic activities planned by Honors students for Honors stu-dents throughout the entire aca-demic year. The Honors RAs have

partnered with various University programs to find support for these efforts: SQ Hall Coun-cil, Arts at Michigan, and UMS. Most of the support for these community-building programs comes from gifts from generous alumni/ae and friends. We could not do every-thing we do without your help. Thank you.

We are looking ahead to next year when

Honors Housing will temporarily move to West Quad while South Quad is being renovated. Honors students and staff have participat-ed in architectural focus sessions to help plan SQ’s renovation. We are collaborating with the Residential College, which is in West Quad this year, both to help enhance their experience and to learn from them what works in that space.

“Iron Chef” competition in South Quad.

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“[Radioactive] is a deeply unusual and forceful thing to have in your hands,” so said the New York Times, speaking of Lau-ren Redniss’ book, this year’s Honors Summer Read. We were mesmerized, during the frosh book selection process this spring, with Redniss’ beautiful, almost lyrical, work de-tailing the relationship of Marie and Pierre Curie. Radioac-tive is not just a story, however, it is a visually stunning book, filled with drawings and illustrations depicting not only the story of the Curies, but also the story of the rise of the Nu-clear Age. Redniss juxtaposes the Curies’ story with a story illustrating both the promise and danger of scientific discov-ery. We were fortunate to bring in two faculty speakers to discuss this book for our Honors Kick-Off event, Eileen Pol-

lack, Professor of English Language and Literature, and Joel Howell, Professor of the History of Medi-cine, who brought won-derfully diverse insights into our reading of this lu-minous text. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the book, not only for the themes and ideas it brought forth, but also for the pure artistic value of such a beautifully illustrated text.

For more information and pictures from Hon-ors Kick Off, see the back cover of the Forum.

“Public University Honors” (http://publicuniversi-tyhonors.com/2012/03/23/top-honors-programs/) is a website devoted to the evaluation and dis-cussion of public university Honors Programs and Honors Colleges. In March 2012, the site ranked the UM Honors Program at the top of their “Over-all Excellence” category that takes into account both program features and university-wide fac-

tors such as success in prestigious scholarship com-petitions. In the ranking that includes only “Hon-ors Factors,” our program was rated second only to the University of South Carolina. We are happy to see that our efforts to provide an across-the-board quality experience for our students have been recognized in this way.

Michigan Honors Ranked Number One!

Inspired by Radioactive, students try their hand at the creation of graphic non-fiction in a Kick Off discussion group.

Students discuss Radioactive by Ingalls Mall fountain.

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Professor Eileen Pollack shares her views of Radio- active with an enthusiastic group of first-year students.

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RADIOACTIVERadioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout is the Honors Summer Read for 2012

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It would be a repeat of last year’s report to say that Honors Graduation contin-ues to grow, but it is a fact. This year for the first time we had to issue tickets to ensure that all our graduates could bring at least some of their family members to the event. The ceremony was held on Friday morning, April 27th, the day before graduation in the Big House on Saturday, April 28th. Not only did the crowd pack the Michigan Union Rogel Ballroom but the Pendleton Room also held an overflow crowd watching a live video feed. The audience was treated to a musical prelude by Honors graduates Kevin Carney, Alexander Carney, and Emily Graber. Our speakers were Stephen W. Ragsdale, Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Medical School who teaches an Honors seminar on creativity in the sciences and arts, and Honors graduates Sherry Shen, Seth Soderborg, and Belle Cheves. Each of the speakers brought an interesting view of the significance of an Honors education for their lives.

After the talks, the names of all the students were called and each was presented with a certificate and Honors cords. This year, the reception occupied the entire University Club and spilled out onto the patio where guests enjoyed refreshments and sunshine.

Honors Graduation

Seth Soderborg addresses his fellow graduates.

StAFF CHAnGeS In HonorS!by Donna Wessel Walker

2012 has brought an unprecedented amount of change to the Honors team. In the spring, our Communications Assistant, Daniel Kim, left to travel before beginning UM’s medical school this fall; luckily for us, he was again able to bring his band, the Blueberry Incident, to en-tertain at Kick Off. In June, we welcomed Jeri Preston as our new Communications Assistant; Jeri is new to UM, having been at Bank of Ann Arbor: welcome, Jeri! In August, Mary Shelly Mageski crossed campus to begin at UM Law School. Mary has a long history with Honors, as an undergraduate student, peer advisor, and office temp; in 2008 she came to work full time as our Program Assistant, providing support for our admissions, donor relations, and event planning efforts; we are very pleased that she will continue her involvement with Honors as a Preceptor while she is in Law School. Karen Wagner, who most recently worked at the Ross School of Business, has joined our staff as our

new Program Assistant. At the end of October, Elleanor Crown will retire after a distinguished career of service, mostly in the Honors Program: we will miss her, and her wisdom, wit, and ex-pertise! Henry Dyson, an academic advisor in the Newnan Center and Lecturer in Philosophy and Classics, became our new Senior Advisor at the beginning of October; we are grateful for the overlap that will allow a smooth transition in this important position.

Two Honors babies joined our family this year, too. On May 29th Assistant Director Gayle Green and her husband Dave Crumrine wel-comed Adam Christopher to the clan: he joins brothers Ethan and Andrew. On August 6th Jacquelyn and Bob Turkovich rejoiced at the ar-rival of Zachary Robert, their first. We are all celebrating with these two newest Honors kids, and looking forward to the day when they’ll be in the in-coming class!

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Report on the HonorsSummer Fellows Program for 2012 by Timothy McKay

Writing an honors senior thesis is the capstone experience for many of Michigan’s top young academics. To complete it, a student must select a topic beyond the boundaries of what’s known; asking questions which no one has answered. They must learn what others have already learned in their area, and then apply the skills they have de-veloped at Michigan to provide truly new insights, the first answers to the questions they raise. The Honors Summer Fellows program supports a small interdisciplin-ary cohort of committed students who benefit greatly from their in-teractions with each other and, in their contacts with younger stu-dents, serve as examples that illus-trate the importance of thesis work. This year’s HSF program included twenty-five students, each receiving financial support to work full-time on their thesis project through the summer of 2012. Thesis topics for this group are extremely diverse, in-cluding a history of the pink ribbon campaign, green golf course design, the human gut microbiome, an exploration of the lunar trav-el narrative, and the network structure of galaxy clusters. All summer, HSF students met weekly with Honors Director Tim McKay, along with an impressive list of faculty guests includ-ing Sociology Chair Alford Young, Chemist and MacArthur Fellow Melanie Sanford, Physicist Henriette Elvang, Compar-

ative Literature Chair Yopie Prins, Complex Systems Director Scott Page, and Linguist Anne Curzan.

HSF students act as advocates for the senior thesis process, speaking to every group of incoming Honors students during

orientation and providing personal testimonials at a series of recruit-ing events we run each fall. For the Fellows themselves, participa-tion is a unique opportunity. One writes “People always talk about interdisciplinarity but never really act on it. HSF is an excellent mod-el of how to do it right. The con-nections were never really forced but by sheer nature of bringing these people with diverse interests together, I found echoes of my re-search in history, in psychology, in science.”

The HSF program, with an annual cost of about $100,000, is entirely funded by donors. We are eager to establish the Fellows as a perma-nent part of the Honors Program.

Generous support from our Honors Advisory Council and other long-term friends has begun to build an endowment for this, but we have a long way to go. If you can help in any way, please contact Honors Director Tim McKay.

Prof. Alford Young talks with Summer Fellow Lyndsey Twining.

Kudos Continued from page 8

ematics major interested in computational biology. She re-ceived a Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention. Tyler Jones, from Northville, Michigan, is a Truman Scholar who has created his own major in Asymmetric Conflict. Connie Shi, from Okemos, Michigan, is a Cellular and Molecular Bi-ology major who is interested in medicine. You may have seen her on the 2012 “Jeopardy!” College Championship (http://www.jeopardy.com/minisites/collegechamps-s28/).

The late Bruce Wasserstein, investment banker and Honors alum and scholarship donor, has graciously supported Hon-ors students who share his love of the Michigan Daily and the Honors Program since 1992. The funds he established for this purpose honor the memory of his parents. The 2012-2013 Morris and Lola Wasserstein Scholars are Jacob Axelrad, Leah Burgin, Daniel Chardell, Austen Hufford, Jeffrey Wa-raniak, Kaitlin Williams, Taylor Wizner, and Jennifer Xu.

This year we have two students studying at the London School of Economics supported by the Peter Benedek Scholarship for Study in London. Mr. Benedek, co-founder and CEO of United Talent Agency, found his own study abroad at LSE so rewarding that he wanted to share that experience with current Honors students. Our Benedek Scholars are Rebecca Bon-ner of Federal Way, Washington, and Katherine Sommer of Oakland, California. We are sure that they are having a very productive and enjoyable time in London.

Many of our students received funds from the Honors Pro-gram to help with the costs of their thesis research, to enable them to attend and present results at conferences, or to assist with the cost of special study abroad programs. We congratu-late all of them for their excellent work.

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Pantanal Updateby Ethan Shirley

Three years ago, Honors alumni Ethan Shirley and Julie Bateman founded Pan-tanal Partnership, a student organiza-tion dedicated to building a school and research station in the remote Brazilian Pantanal. The facility was finished in July 2011, complete with chalkboards, a solar power system, and a slow-sand water filter designed and built by U-M students. The Pantanal Partnership has initiated negotiations with the local government, which is to open the space as a public school. Teams of U-M stu-dents have led research and sustainabil-ity projects, including a biodigester that harvests cooking gas from cow manure. Additionally, the Pantanal Partnership has widened its scope to include public health and healthcare, and is working to utilize Brazil’s telemedicine network to extend health coverage into the Panta-nal. In May and June 2012, a team of students and volunteers constructed a water tower with a solar-powered pump-ing and filtration system. Meanwhile, at an orphanage in the region, another group of students and volunteers taught slow-sand water filter technology, CPR, and violin. Honors alumni Alex Carney and Alistair Hayden taught the inau-gural violin class, and “Hail to the Vic-tors” rang in the halls after just a week of practice! The wheels are set in motion for the Pantanal Orchestra to perform to raise funds for both the orphanage and for future sustainable development and education projects in the area.

You can read more about these efforts at http://www.pantanalcer.org/

Portrait of Incoming Honors Studentsby Gayle D. Green

It is the time of year when we are again welcoming a new class of 499 exceptional students into the Honors Program and we are eager to share the class profile with you. There are more women (54.7%) than men in this year’s class and 53% of these first-year students are residents of the state of Michigan, which is similar to last year’s 55% in-state percentage. Among out-of-state students, the top sending states are Illinois and New York (with 32 students each); Ohio (20 students); New Jersey (18 students), Maryland (17 students); and tied for fifth place are Massachusetts and California (with 12 students each). This year’s freshman class has 27 states rep-resented and five foreign countries. The class median ACT range is 32-34 and for the SAT, the median range is 1400-1490, which is an increase over last year’s SAT median range of 1380-1490.

As we all know, however, test scores and grades are only part of what goes into our admissions decision-making. That’s why we require all students who apply to the Program to write an essay as part of their application to Honors. The Honors essay is a criti-cal part of our holistic evaluation methodology. It’s a time- and

labor-intensive process, but each year, we are fortunate enough to welcome an extraordinary group of young people who bring their considerable talents to the University of Michigan community.

As always, it was a pleasure to meet with each of our new students as they attended orientation throughout the summer in small groups of about sixteen. The Honors component of the program consisted of a lunch with advisors and staff, a discussion of “Big Ideas” with Tim McKay, an information fair, individual sessions with Honors Academic Advisors to discuss their overall educational goals and their first semester courses, and evening meetings with peer advisors to discuss individual classes and learn to navigate the online scheduling and registration systems. The following morn-ing, they met a second time with their advisors, finalized their schedules and registered for fall classes.

Incoming freshmen discuss “Big Ideas” with Tim McKay (r.).

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So many of the progams and activities you have read about in the Forum depend on the generosity of our alums and friends. The Honors experience would be seriously limited were it not for each of you. We send our sincere thanks to those who have donated to the Honors effort this year.

Michael Adelman, Keith and Deborah Agism, Julie Allen and Stephan Doll, Justin and Kara Amash, Mr. and Mrs. Albert J. Ammerman, James Angell, Kurt Frederick Anschuetz, Jill Antonides, Ellen Aprill, Laura Athens, Jessica C. Baker, Sud-hir B. Baliga, Dorothy E. Bambach, Shoko Tsuji Barnes and Terry Barnes, Miriam E. Bar-on, Charles and Janis Barquist, John and Barbara Barron, Bob Bartels, Nancy Bartlett, Richard K. Bauman, Suresh and Akla Bazaj, Julie H. Becker, Michael Beckman, John and Maryanne Bednarski, Sanford Bell, Benedek Family Foundation, Guy Martin Benian, Susan G. Berkowitz, Daniel W. Berland, Marc and Danya Ber-man, Eric Berman, Robert Berry, Douglas R. Bertz, Nikhil M. Bhatt, Russell Bikoff, Jodi Bilinkoff, David L. Birch, Elizabeth S. Bishop, Scott Bjerke, Joseph G. Block, Barry Bluestone and Mary Ellen Colten, The Fred and Cynthia Bodker Charitable Fund of the Jewish Community Founda-tion of Greater Kansas City, Patricia and Louis Bodnar, Willard L. Boyd III, Samara H. Braunstein, Thomas and Mary Brink, Thomas Brocher and Anne Okubo, Willa Bruckner, James and Kathleen Bruinsma, Bruce Brumberg and Karen Axelrod, Timothy and Teri Buchowski, Mr. and Mrs. Ethan Budin, Peter Burian, P. D. Burst-ein, David and Linda Calzone, Richard L. Carter, Christopher Case, Diana Derby Chapin, Paul and Constance Chardoul, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart M. Chemtob, Nancy H. Chen, Shawn J. Chen, The Ciullo Family Endowment, Deborah L. Clarke, Thomas Cody, Patricia L. Cohen, Alfred and Roma Connable, Kent Cprek, Marion Crum-plar, Barbara L. Cullen, Dan L. Curtis, Foster Dale and Janet Silverberg, Sandra H. Davis, Nikki and Albert Descoteaux, Frank Detterbeck and Judit Farkas, Michael J. Diamond, Lisa and Steven Diamond, Robert and Cynthia Domine, Ronald and Patricia Dubowy, Alan and Janet Dunker, Eve Eden, Stephen and Alice Edwards, Rebecca Epstein, Richard Feferman, John and Elizabeth Feighan, Mark I. Feng, Jonathan and Kathryn Fer-rando, Lawrence J. Field, Robert S. Fink, Courtney Finlayson, Sara Fitzgerald and Walter Wurfel, Mary Foster, Bryant and Mary Frank, Dorothy Fraquelli, C. Kent and Linda Frederick, Marty Friedman, Richard J. Gagnon, Jr., Thomas and De-nise Gallagher, Betsy Gard, David A. Gass, Andrew Gaudin, David and Tanner Gay, Betsy Geise, Peter Gerber and Julia Miller, Grant P. Gilezan, Brian Gill and Jennifer

Lerner, Jack K. Gillard, Michael and Robin Glenn, Albert and Mimi Golbert, Larry Goldin and Ruthellen Weaver, Mark and Annie Goldsmith, Marcia E. Goodman, Bonnie Gottlieb, Shoshanna Gottlieb and Ronen Marmorstein, Steven Graines, Ann and Donald Gralnek, Patricia and Stanley Grayson, David Greenblatt, Dr. and Mrs. James W. Greene, Lisa and Steve Gretch-ko, Andrew Grove, N. Guenther Discenza and J. Discenza, Aaron Hamburger, Joshua Hammond, Steven P. Handler, Christopher and Tara Hayward, Caryn L. Hebets, Ron Heller, Joan Hellmann, Karen Herman, Stephen Heyman and Susan Steinman, Robert Hill, David Andrew Hindin, Steven M. Horwitz, Robert and Mary Hutchens, Dr. Linda Imboden, Mori and Angela Insinger, Mr. and Mrs. Wil-liam A. Irwin, Laurence and Diane Istvan, Christopher J. Jaksa, Jennifer Jaruzelski, Nicholas Kabcenell and Orsolya Gu-dor, Emily B. Kalanithi, Frank R. Kane, Kathleen Keeler, John P. Kennedy, Dona Kercher, Judith G. Kleinberg, Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Kopcke, Sanford and Ellen Kossek, Jon Henry Kouba, Alisa M. Koval, Mr. and Mrs. Mark L. Kowalsky, Kenneth Kraemer, Barbara and Kevan Kreitman, Claudia and William Kretzschmar, Ronald and Ann Krone, Jonathan Kuhn, Richard and Marie Kussman, Ted and Elizabeth Lambert, David Lane, Gordon and Debra Lang, Warren C. Laski, Gail Lauzzana, Charles and Barbara Lawrence, John K. Lawrence, Jerold Lax, Edward LeBaron and Nancy Moncrieff, Steven Leber, Sander Lehrer, Daniel M. Lenardon, Arthur Lerner and Linda Dreeben, Lynne Levenbach, David Levine, David Levinson, Gloria Liatsos, John A. Libbe, Gail H. Lift, Miriam Light, Jennifer Linde, James M. Lindsay, Richard Longnecker, Avram H. Mack, Evan Makela, Roslyn Malmaud, Susan Mann, Patricia Maran, Deborah Markiewicz, Gregory A. Marks, Marjorie and David Mastie, BeLinda Mathie and Brian Haag, Jeffrey R. May, Amy Mazur, Derek McCalmont, Susan McCarthy, Donna and Thomas McClish, Klint McKay, Laura Ariane Miller, Kate Miller, Simon A. Miller, Ross Miller, Martha Minow, Bert and Kathy Moberg, Leslie Molder, Brenda L. Moskovitz, Richard Moulton, Patricia J. Murphy, Ann Nachbar, Mitri and Carmine Najjar, June Namias, Daniel O. Nathan, Deborah Nemesi, Sharon F. Nemser, Christian C. and Nedra Noord-hoorn, Mary Beth Norton, Carol and Seamus O’Cleireacain, Richard N. Ostling,

Gary Pacernick, B.A. Page, Sondra Panico and Stuart Levin, Ben Peng, Cary R. Perl-man, John and Terry Pfefferle, Judith R. Phillips, Sue N. Pick, Lisa Plantefaber, Michael and Penelope Pollard, Lawrence and Ann L. Price, Barbara L. Quint, Linda L. Randell, Sangita K. Rao, Maxwell O. Reade, Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Rebar, Lawrence Reinish, Paul A. Renard, James T. Renfrow, Mark J. Riedy, Michael Ries and Elaine Leboff-Ries, Kenneth and Julie Riff, Lawrence P. Riff, Deric Righter, Liana Rinzler, Kenneth H. Rosen, Rochelle and Richard Rosenberg, Carolyn Rosenberg, Patricia H. Rosenberger, Jeffrey S. Ross, Thomas M. Rosseel, Stephen and Ellen Roth, Randall S. Rothschild, Patrick N. Rothwell, Prof. and Mrs. Daniel I. Ruben-stein, Rubenstein Family Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Fed. of Met. Chicago, Adam and Patricia Rubinstein, Bernard Salzman, Eric and Michelle Salzman, Etta G. Saxe, Julie and Stephen Schaffner, Sylvia Schatz, Jonathan Schmerling, Linda Schwarzberg, Thomas and Maryellen Scott, Suzanne Koprince Sebert, Kris-tina M. Seher, Cynthia Selin Russo and Louis Russo, Raffie Shahrigian, Ann and Stephen Shapiro, Mary B. Shapiro, Dan Share, William L. Sharfman, John Sharp, Michael and Sara Sher, Susan Shippey, Scott H. Shore, Jasvinder S. Sidhu, Mat-thew J. Sikora, Susan Silagi, Barbara and Michael Sitrin, Steven Smith, Daniel Solomon, Douglas C. Sprigg, James and Jean Spurrier, Joseph and Ellen Starr, Terry S. Stein, Mr. and Mrs. Howard S. Stein, Judith Zee Steinberg, Gabriel N. Steinberg, Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell Stengel, Susan K. Stevens, Max A. Strasburg, Lynn Streeter, Robert Suggs, Stephen and Kathleen Tatter, Craig Thornton, Michelle Tilley, Michael P. Toomey, Robert Traki-mas, Elizabeth and Mark Turner, Stephen G. Van Meter, Bruce S. Vanderporten, Andrew J. Varner, Nina Vinik, Marie and Robert Vogt, Dietmar Wagner and Mimi Chapman, Mr. and Dr. Robert Walker, Lisa Walker and Philip Sanderson, Charles A. Weibel, Jerome Weinstein, Matt Welch, Karen Wigen and Martin Lewis, Timothy E. Wilens, Carol and David Willen, Joseph H. Wimsatt, Harriet Z. Winkelman, Ken Wirt, Paul Wolber, Teri Wolf-Kostin, Charles Yang and Peggy Tong, Mr. and Mrs. Jay H. Zimbler, Jeffrey and Elizabeth Zucker, Christine Ann Zurawski

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P A I DANN ARBOR, MIPERMIT NO. 144

LSA Honors ProgramThe University of Michigan1330 Mason Hall, 419 S. State St.Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1027

Honors Kick off Bigger and Better than everHonors freshmen got off to a great start with our an-nual Kick Off this fall, under a tent at Ingalls Mall. We opened with breakfast for approximately 400 students, who then travelled into the Modern Languages Build-ing for a presentation on the Summer Reading, Ra-dioactive, followed by small group discussions. After lunch, they headed out for a Campus Quest (an Olympic-themed scavenger hunt). The event closed with ice cream, music, and prizes. Best of luck, Class of 2016!

Students gather on Ingalls Mall.

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Breakfast under the big tent.

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Campus Quest team at the UM Museum of Art.

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