FALL 2014
HNRS 190 Seminars: Instructor Biographies & Course Descriptions
Perry Alexander, Dept of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Thursday, 1:00 – 2:15 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Ashley Farris
Class # 30303
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Perry Alexander is the AT&T Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science and Director of the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center
at The University of Kansas. His research interests include system-level modeling, design
languages, heterogeneous specification, language semantics, and trusted computing. He received
the BSEE and BSCS in 1986, the MSEE in 1988, and the PhD in 1992 all from The University
of Kansas. Dr. Alexander has lead numerous projects funded by DARPA, AFRL, NSF, NASA,
NavAir, Battelle, and US Department of Defense. He currently leads the ACHILLES,
ArmoredSoftware, and Verified vTPM projects at ITTC. Dr. Alexander has published over 100
refereed research papers. He has won 22 teaching awards and was named a Kemper Teaching
Fellow and the ASEE's Midwest Region Teacher of the Year in 2003, and received the Sharp
Teaching Professorship in 2009. He is a member of Sigma Xi and a Senior Member of ACM and
IEEE.
Course description: Searching for A Just Machine
In the great pop song, I.G.Y., Donald Fagen of Steely Dan fame dreams of "a just machine to
make big decisions, programmed by fella's with compassion and vision" as a part of his perfect,
utopian future. The great mathematician David Hilbert dreamed the same dream in 1900 and
changed the world as we know it. Hilbert's dream proposed a systematic mechanism for
reasoning about languages that would systematize argument. The search for Hilbert's "just
machine" gave rise to the industrialization of knowledge and more specifically computers and
programs. This tutorial presents the emergence of computing examining the work of David
Hilbert, Kurt Goedel, and Alan Turing looking at their discoveries, their often unusual and
inconsistent lives, the limits of what can be computed, and connections to music and art. No
math or computing background required!
Brad Allen, Director of the Lawrence Public Library
(Instructor listed as Dotter, Anne)
Wednesday, 9:30 - 10:30 am
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Paul Thomas
Class # 30300
Instructor Biography:
Brad Allen is the Executive Director of the Lawrence Public Library. He is a native Kansan and
a proud KU Honors Program alum. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in American Studies and
Psychology from the University of Kansas, a Master’s Degree in Library and Information
Science from the University of Illinois, and a Master’s Degree in Afro-American Studies from
the University of Wisconsin.
Course Description: Do You Like Good Music? Discussing the Merits of Pop, Rock, & Etc.
We are taking a freewheeling approach to the art of discussing music. Students will read classic
essays about music, listen to music, probably watch some videos, and definitely talk about
music. The objective of the class is to dig a little bit deeper into why we like what we like, hate
what we hate, or remain passively indifferent. Be prepared to discuss music and what it means
(or doesn't mean) to you.
Santa Arias, Department of Latin and South American Studies
Wednesday, 11:00 – 11:50 am
Wescoe 4002
Seminar Assistant: Elizabeth Cox
Class # 30266
Instructor Biography:
Santa Arias is associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University
of Kansas. Her current teaching and research highlights the critical importance of the spatiality
of colonialism, historical textualities, religion and empire, and more recently, geographical
thinking in eighteenth-century Spanish America. Besides the publication of numerous essays in
academic journals, she has published the monograph Retórica, historia y polémica: Bartolomé de
las Casas y la tradición intelectual renacentista (2001); and four co-edited volumes: Mapping
Colonial Spanish America: Places and Commonplaces of Identity, Culture and Experience
(2002), Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas (2008), and The Spatial
Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2008); and forthcoming Coloniality, Religion, and the Law
in the Early Iberian World. She is completing the book project Transatlantic Reconfigurations
of the Americas: Geo-narratives of Empire, Nature, and Identity during the Enlightenment. Her
research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the CIES/Fulbright
Scholar Program.
Course Description: Mapping the Colonial Americas: Encounters, Chronicles, and
Difference
This course will center on the experience of contact between Europeans and Amerindian cultures
during the first two centuries of the colonial period. We will explore writings, maps, and visual
art that responded to polemics on territoriality, cultural and natural difference, religious
conversion, and the construction of new cultural identities. Students will be able to read and
interpret primary sources in order to gain knowledge on the important role of these texts for the
development of colonial policies and expansionist projects. A major emphasis will be placed on
the consequences of these historical and political processes, which caused depopulation and the
social, natural and cultural transformation of the Western hemisphere. Readings include:
Columbus, Las Casas, Hernan Cortes, and indigenous codices.
Phil Baringer, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Tuesday, 2:30 – 3:45 pm
Nunemaker 102
Seminar Assistant: Samantha Brunker
Class # 30177
Instructor Biography:
Prof. Philip Baringer is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and an Honors
Faculty Fellow. His area of research is experimental particle physics and he is currently working
on the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.
Course Description: Seeing the Invisible: Inferring Particle Physics
No one has ever seen an electron or a quark, but it is quite useful to assume they exist. In this
seminar we’ll explore the experimental foundations of subatomic physics and how theories
interact with observations. How, for example, did people come to believe in the existence of
neutrinos – invisible particles that rarely interact with matter? What makes us think that dark
matter, which has never been directly observed, makes up 90% of the matter in the universe?
Barbara Barnett, School of Journalism
Class # 30299
Tuesday, 4:30 – 5:20 pm
Stauffer-Flint 206
Seminar Assistant: Anna Wenner
Instructor Biography:
Barbara Barnett, Ph.D., is an associate professor and associate dean in the William Allen White
School of Journalism and Mass Communications. At KU, she teaches Journalism 101, Media and
Society. She also teaches courses in reporting, research methods, media and diversity, and media
and popular culture. She does research on media and gender. Prof. Barnett received her master’s
degree from Duke University and her doctoral degree from the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill. She previously worked in health communications and in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America. She also worked as a print journalist for The Charlotte News and The Charlotte
Observer in North Carolina.
Course Description: Seriously? Fake News
Satire is an important part of American media. Since Colonial times, journalists have used satire
to make points about democracy and the U.S. political system. More recently, satire has taken
the form of fake news programs, which lampoon public officials but also the news media. This
one-hour freshman seminar explores fake news programs, including SNL's Weekend Update,
The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Onion News Network, to examine what these
programs tell us about politics, popular culture, and journalism.
Frank Baron, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
Wednesday, 2:00 – 3:00 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Kat Youtsey
Class # 30234
Instructor Biography:
Frank Baron (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) has served as director of the Max Kade
Center for German-American Studies, and in that capacity conducted research on immigration.
One result was the book Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants. In the course of that
research he discovered the topic “James H. Lane and the History of the Kansas Jayhawk,” which
appeared in Kansas History. Professor Frank Baron’s research projects have often involved the
challenge of reconstructing neglected facts behind significant literary personalities or historical
events. His publications include books on the origins of the Faust legend, the Auschwitz Report,
and the Munich years of the American artist Albert Bloch.
Course Description: The Origins of the Jayhawk and the Civil War
The popular association of the mythic Jayhawk with the University of Kansas and its sports
teams only skims the surface. Few are aware that the familiar friendly image had its origins in
the violent conflicts between early immigrant groups that settled in Kansas. The hostile parties
were divided on the issue of slavery. During the first phase of this conflict, General James H.
Lane urged his fighters to attack and destroy the proslavery enemy, doing this with the violence
of the Jayhawk, an aggressive bird that was said to exist in Ireland. In 1859, a serialized novel,
The Jayhawker. A Tale of Southern Kansas, appeared in Lawrence’s Herald of Freedom. It
showed the Jayhawk from a new perspective. This forgotten text draws attention to two
diametrically opposing positions about the need for continued warfare. The challenge to the
participants of this seminar will be to identify the historical background of the fictional names,
such as Kane for Lane and Rook for John Brown, and to reconstruct the events associated with
two hostile camps of the Jayhawk controversy. The investigation of the crisis involving the socalled “apostles of the Jayhawk” and their opponents will shed light on the goals and conflicts
that led the nation to the brink of the Civil War.
Misha Barybin, Department of Chemistry
Class # 30231
Monday, 2:00 – 3:05 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Ryan Limbocker
Instructor Biography:
Born and raised in Moscow, Russia, Dr. Barybin moved to the United States in 1994, after
pursuing his undergraduate studies at Higher College of Chemistry of the Russian Academy of
Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1999.
Following a two-year postdoctoral stint at MIT, Dr. Barybin joined the faculty of KU’s
Department of Chemistry in 2001. Professor Barybin’s research interests and accomplishments
are at the interface of synthetic organometallic, physical inorganic, and materials branches of
Chemistry. In particular, his research group is involved in developing new molecular and
supramolecular platforms for charge delolalization and transport at the nanoscale that are
relevant to molecular electronics. During his career at KU, Professor Barybin has taught eleven
different courses, including Honors Fundamentals of Chemistry I & II. He is a recipient of the
2014 J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award (KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences),
the 2011 Outstanding Educator Award (KU Mortar Board Honor Society), and the 2010 Byron
Alexander Graduate Mentor Award (KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences). In addition, Dr.
Barybin serves as a Faculty Fellow with the University Honors Program.
Course Description: Chemistry in the Context of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: From
Data to Knowledge
One of the far-reaching scientific achievements of the past century was the birth of what we
today call Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology as a field involves two distinct yet synergistic
branches: nanoscale materials and molecular nanotechnology. Technology of nanoscale
materials involves preparation and applications of materials with particle sizes below 100
nanometers. Molecular Nanotechnology involves “bottom-up” design and assembly of
functional materials from individual molecules. In this Honors seminar, the students will
consider the critical role of Chemistry in the nanotechnological progress through focused
discussions of several state-of-the-art examples illustrating how scientific data evolved into
Knowledge. These discussions will be supported by carefully chosen reading assignments that
will involve a combination of primary scientific, review, and popular literature. The students
will debate and critique different predictions regarding the future of molecular nanotechnology
expressed by past and contemporary prominent scientists. In addition, they will reflect not only
on the new fundamental scientific horizons, but also on any likely societal and ethical
implications of the changes to be brought about by the emerging transformative discoveries.
Introduction of various majors relevant to chemistry careers, particularly in an interdisciplinary
environment, will be integrated in the course as well.
David Besson, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Friday, 9:00 - 10:00 am
Malott 6051
Seminar Assistant: Molly Kaup
Class # 30181
Instructor Biography:
Dave Besson has a background in particle physics, and has been at KU since 1993. He received
his advanced degree in 1986 from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Course Description: Flying in the face of reason
We like to believe that we are living in an enlightened Age of Reason. Nevertheless, there are
numerous cases, spanning many cultures, where popular sentiment on some topic clearly runs
counter to the overwhelming weight of scientific data and evidence. We will consider case
studies, as well as the propaganda machines that are often amassed to sway popular opinion.
Timothy Caboni, Department of Public Affairs
Class # 30297
Monday, 2:00-4:30 pm
NUN 218
Course dates: Aug 25, Sept 15, Sept 22, Oct 6, Oct 20, Oct 27
Seminar Assistant: Gabby Murnan
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Timothy Caboni serves as vice chancellor at the University of Kansas where he leads the
university’s public affairs strategy and oversees the communications, marketing and advocacy
efforts of the university in addition to acting as KU’s principal spokesperson. In this role, he
represents the University of Kansas to a wide range of constituencies and works to connect KU
with local, regional, national and global audiences. He also coordinates the university’s
legislative agenda at the local, state and federal levels on issues that include research funding,
higher education policy and health care.
As chief communication strategist, Caboni directs the university’s efforts to raise the visibility of
KU’s knowledge discovery, instruction and patient care efforts. In addition to leading public
affairs for KU’s four campuses, including KU Medical Center, he coordinates the efforts of the
Alumni Association, the Athletics Corporation and the Endowment Corporation with those of the
university. He also has responsibility for the operations of Kansas Public Radio and holds an
appointment as Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in the University of
Kansas School of Education.
Course Description: Higher Education Leadership and Public Policy
This seminar will explore current issues in higher education with an eye toward both institutional
leadership and public policy. Students will gain an understanding of the major postsecondary
policy challenges facing colleges and universities in the United States and the range of
institutional responses to these challenges. Broad topics to be explored will include: access,
accountability, affordability, governance (faculty and institutional), diversity, quality, funding,
and rankings. Course meeting will include visits with university leaders in addition to
discussions focused on current events in higher education, all of which will be informed by
readings and research literature.
Kyle Camarda, Associate Dean of the School of Engineering, Chemical Engineering AND
Sheyda Jahanbani, Department of History
Class # 30296
Monday, 12:00 – 12:50 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Liesel Reussner
Instructors Biography:
Kyle Camarda's research focuses mainly on the use of high-performance computers to solve
optimization problems in product design, process design and bioinformatics. In the search for
new pharmaceuticals, polymers, or fuel additives, the traditional trial-and-error approach is being
supplanted by a new technique which uses computers to suggest compounds which are
promising before any synthesis or testing is performed. Using this method, called Computational
Molecular Design, researchers in this group first aim to predict important properties of novel
molecules. Once properties can be predicted, optimization problems are formulated and solved
which result in candidate molecules which are likely to have all of the physical property values
desired for the new product. Computational molecular design is being applied to the search for
new pharmaceutical drug formulations, novel catalytic materials, polymer adhesives, and many
other molecular systems. The group is also interested in applying novel optimization techniques,
including Tabu search and genetic algorithms, to the flux analysis of metabolic networks, and in
parallel computing applied to chemical engineering optimization problems.
Sheyda F. A. Jahanbani (Ph.D., Brown University, 2009; M.A., Brown University, 2001;
B.S.F.S., The Edmund G. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 1999) is an
historian of American foreign relations specializing in the post-1945 period. She is especially
interested in the legacy of the liberal internationalist tradition in Cold War foreign policy. This
includes the history of US relations with the "Third World," the history of development,
economic globalization in the 20th century, and the emergence of distinctly "global" problems in
the post-World War II period. Professor Jahanbani is currently completing a book manuscript
that seeks to historicize the origins of a conception of global poverty in postwar social thought
and politics. The manuscript, “‘The Poverty of the World:’” Discovering the Poor at Home and
Abroad, 1935-1973,” (forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2015) shows how a
transnational conception of poor people as “underdeveloped” emerged from the nexus of
intellectuals, activists, and administrators who shaped U.S. domestic anti-poverty and
international development policies in the late-20th century.
Course Description: A Return to the Cold War
This seminar will examine recent events in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and will consider how
the current balance of power amongst major nations compares to the situation at the height of the
cold war.
Jim Carothers, Department of English AND
Cheryl Lester, Department of English and American Studies
Thursday, 1:00-2:00 pm
Spencer Research Library 326
Seminar Assistant: Kassandra Knoff
Class # 30269
Instructor Biographies:
James B. Carothers is a Professor in the Department of English, where he has taught modern
American fiction since coming to KU in 1970. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees
from the University of Missouri (Columbia) and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. His
research and teaching have centered on Faulkner and Hemingway, the Modern American novel,
and the American Short Story. He has published two books on Faulkner’s short fiction.
Cheryl Lester is an Associate Professor in the Departments of English and American Studies.
She received her bachelor’s degree in English and History from the University of Michigan, her
master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, and her
doctoral degree in English from SUNY Buffalo. Her research and teaching has focused on
American literature, modernist narrative, and representations of mobility in the fiction of
William Faulkner. She is working with James Carothers on a digital version of Faulkner’s novel
Light in August for the Digital Yoknapatawpha Project.
Course Description:
The seminar will focus on William Faulkner's challenging 1932 novel Light in August and
related Faulkner short stories, through current methods in the digital humanities for organizing
and interpreting literary texts. The instructors are currently collaborating with the University of
Virginia’s Digital Media Lab, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, and
SHANTI, to create a database and visual resources from the 15 novels and 48 stories Faulkner
set in his mythical Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha. Students can expect to learn about one
of the most significant and influential authors and novels of the 20th century and about
innovative and exciting uses of technology in the field of literary studies.
Michele Casavant, Director of Advising, School of Education
Wednesday, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Kelsey Consolver
Class # 30267
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Michele Casavant earned her Ph.D. with honors in American Studies at the University of
Kansas in 2003 and published her dissertation, Where No Other Has Gone Before: Race and
Gender in Star Trek, in 2009. Her research and interests concentrate on inequalities in the U.S.,
multicultural education, and representations of race and gender in popular culture.
She currently serves as Director of Advising at the School of Education, where she guides the
center to best serve the needs of undergraduate students. She is also Director of the Multicultural
Scholars Program for the School of Education, a program that recruits and retains diverse
students within the School of Education.
Course Description: Elves and Mr. Spock: The “other” in Science Fiction and Fantasy
This course is structured to help you become more critically aware of the society and culture in
which you live. Through analyzing popular culture, such as film, TV, and short novels, you will
gain a better understanding of certain ideologies and beliefs that are experienced and expressed
by many Americans. We will also explore different types of cultural theory, which will aid in
our analysis and our critical approach to culture. In addition, this course will help you
understand how our American identities are dependent on many interconnecting forces, such as
race, gender, class, histories, sexuality, and others. Finally, we will scrutinize science fiction and
fantasy and examine how these cultural texts reflect current ideologies and beliefs.
Keith Chauvin, School of Business
Class # 30295
Wednesday, 4:00 - 5:15pm (August 27-October 29)
Seminar Assistant: Kelly Song
Summerfield 503
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Chauvin is an associate professor in the Finance, Economics and Decisions Sciences Area of
the School of Business. His research has focused the use incentives, compensation and other
organizational practices to align the interest of owners, executives and other employees. He
teaches managerial and organizational economics at the School of Business. Dr. Chauvin has
also taught in numerous executive education programs, the Brookings Institute’s Economics for
Judges program, and currently teaches in the U.S. Army’s program in strategic leadership for
Brigade Commanders. Dr. Chauvin received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and has
taught at the University of Kansas since 1988.
Course Description: Using Economic Experiments to Understand Incentives and Markets
Effective management practices in all areas of business require managers to understand how
people respond to incentives and anticipate the effects of incentives on the behavior of
customers, employees, and others. This seminar examines the explanation provided by
economics about how people respond to incentives and we will test this explanation by running a
few economic experiments in class. The focus will be on the experimental method as a way
testing hypotheses and deriving knowledge about this aspect of human behavior.
Audrey Coleman, Senior Archivist, Dole Institute of Politics
Monday, 8:30 - 9:30 am
Dole Institute 117
Seminar Assistant: Anrenee Reasor
Class # 30261
Instructor Biography:
Audrey Coleman is head archivist at the Dole Institute of Politics, overseeing archives, special
collections, and museum programming. A fourth-generation native Kansan and graduate of the
KU Honors program, she has a diverse professional background managing and promoting
cultural heritage collections.
Course Description: American Idol: Legacy, Leadership, & Collections
Senator Bob Dole served the state of Kansas in the U.S. Congress for over 35 years, and to date
is the longest serving Republican Leader in U.S. History. We’ll discuss Dole’s legacy as it
relates to Kansas’ identity and national history and politics, related to the programs, resources,
and historical collections at the Dole Institute, as well as the 2014 KU Common Book, The
Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty, the commemorative observance of the 1974 Kansas
Senatorial campaign, and other contemporary issues.
Anne Dotter, Honors Program
Class # 30174
Monday, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Susie McClannahan
Instructor Biography:
Anne Dotter holds a Ph.D. in American Studies; she specializes in visual and media studies,
gender and cultural studies and translation. Anne has taught various courses in French, American
Studies, and the Humanities and Western Civilization. Originally a native of France, she is also
conversant in German and Spanish.
Course Description: Bride Abductions: Representing a Transnational Feminist Issue
In this Freshman Seminar, you will get to think about one very specific problem an increasing
number of women face in the region of Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan. Through this narrow topic,
we will be considering demographic, religious and transnational feminist questions. This will
also allow us to look at a variety of scholarly disciplines and what asking questions in between
all of them means. Primarily, we will be asking ourselves what kind of data needs to be
collected and what kind of knowledge constructed to bring attention to and contribute to solving
this problem.
Joe Gillespie, Associate Director of Watkins Health Center
Wednesday, 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Watkins He 2401
Seminar Assistant: Adelle Loney
Class # 30179
Instructor Biography:
Joe Gillespie has been a lecturer in the School of Health Professions at the K.U. Medical Center
since 2005 and with the K.U. Honors Program since fall of 2012. His areas of expertise include
history of the American healthcare system, management of health information systems, patient
information privacy and information system security. He has 40 years’ experience in health
information management and consulting. He has been the Associate Director of Student Health
Services at Watkins Memorial Health Center since 2004. He received a bachelor’s degree in
Medical Record Administration in 1974 from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and a
Master’s degree in Health Administration in 1987 from Wichita State University. His master’s
thesis addressed patient privacy laws and practices in Kansas and was subsequently published by
the Kansas Hospital Association as the definitive resource on these matters for all hospitals in the
state. He is a Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) and is credentialed as
Certified in Healthcare Privacy & Security (CHPS) by the American Health Information
Management Association (AHIMA).
Course Description: The American Healthcare System -- What can we learn from the
experience of other countries?
The need for healthcare services is something that all people throughout the world have in
common although the access, cost and quality of these services differs greatly from country to
country. This honors course will introduce the student to the American healthcare system and
provide an opportunity to compare and contrast our system with that followed in other countries.
The student will learn how to assess information critically so as to form opinions on Health care
systems beyond politically-motivated sound bites.
Marc Greenberg, Dean of the School of Languages
Tuesday, 8:00 – 9:15 am
Wescoe 1005
Seminar Assistant: Julia Reynolds and Katie Conard
Class #30274
Instructor Biography:
Marc L. Greenberg (PhD UCLA 1990), Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures, is a
specialist in historical linguistics and dialectology with a focus on Slavic languages. He is author
of A Historical Phonology of the Slovene Languages in the venerable Historical Phonology of
the Slavic Languages series (Universitätsverlag Carl Winter) and was a co-founding editor of
two journals, Slovenski jezik / Slovene Linguistic Studies and Slavia Centralis. He has held
fellowships from Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, the International Research
and Exchanges Board, the American Society of Learned Societies, and the American
Philosophical Society. In addition to serving as chair of the Dept. of Slavic Languages &
Literatures, he also chaired the German Dept. and served as Associate Dean for the Humanities.
Course Description: Reconstructing Prehistoric Language: Comparative Linguistics, and
Indo-European for Beginners
Archaeology allows us to know about human history and society without written records.
Language reconstruction, too, tells us about earlier stages of humanity in the absence of texts.
This course examines the best-known language family, Indo-European, and introduces the
student to the comparative method, which provides the foundation for establishing linguistic
relatedness and reconstructing unattested languages. Students will also read about and
contemplate the ideological derivatives of genetic-linguistic knowledge, i.e., ethnopolitics and
nationalism.
Blane Harding, Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs
Tuesday, 1:00 - 1:50 pm
Sabatini MRC 116
Seminar Assistant: Crystal Bradshaw
Class # 30175
Instructor Biography:
Blane Harding currently serves as the Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at the
University of Kansas. Mr. Harding is also a consultant for private companies and has worked
with over 30 institutions of higher learning across the country. In May 2012 after twenty two
years of service, he retired from Colorado State University where he served as the Director of
Advising, Recruitment, and Retention for the College of Liberal Arts. Mr. Harding has taught
courses in African American history and Ethnic Studies for the past twenty two years. Mr.
Harding has also served as a retention faculty member with the Council for Opportunity in
Education which oversees the national TRio programs. Mr. Harding has presented at national
conferences on various topics that focus on African American, Latino(a), Bi-racial, Native
American, and Asian/Pacific Island students in higher education. Mr. Harding has published
several articles on diversity, multicultural advising, and advisor training.
Denver’s Channel 7 Television station recognized Mr. Harding as an “Everyday Hero” for his
community involvement. He is the recipient of several honors and awards including: CSU
Minority Distinguished Service Award, College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award,
CSU Alumni Association “Six Best” Teacher Award, the Black Student Services Distinguished
Faculty Award, History Department Phi Alpha Theta Outstanding Professor Award, the
Provost’s Jack E. Cermak Advising Award, the Provost Oliver P. Pennock Distinguished Service
Award, and the Distinguished Administrative Professional Award from Colorado State
University.
Course Description: The Identity Wheel: Dimensions of Diversity
The demographics of society are rapidly changing and multiculturalism and social justice are
central to these changes. When we as individuals and institutions discuss these changes we tend
to emphasize the external identities of others. These identities may include race, ethnicity,
religion, sexual orientations, gender, and a wide range of other socially constructed concepts.
This Honors section will allow participants to not only look at their social identity but even more
critical is their internal concepts of their personal identity. There will be a series of exercises and
discussions that allow us to move from being culturally aware to culturally competent so we
begin to understand the role our individual identities play in building relationships with others.
Edward Healy, Honors Program
Class # 30230
Thursday, 11:15 am - 12:30 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Abigail Fields and John Handley
Instructor Biography:
Edward Healy is Coordinator for Student Development with the KU Honors Program. He
earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the University of Kansas and a Juris Doctorate
from Vermont Law School where he specialized in environmental law, public interest and
education policy.
Course Description: Eco-Fueled: energy law, social entrepreneurship and environmental
technology
In a short time, human species have transformed the earth in an unparalleled way. Through
population growth, natural resources, technology and commerce, we have affected the
ecosystems in which we reside. This course analyses the environmental changes occurring, the
human factors affecting the earth’s ecosystems, the legal framework affecting environmental
issues, existing and emerging technology, and the economic and political pressures that shape
environmental policy.
Tim Jackson, Department of Chemistry
Monday, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Malott 2007
Seminar Assistant: Nadia Hamid
Class # 30265
Instructor Biography:
Tim Jackson has been a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at KU since 2007. He
earned a B.S. degree in Chemistry from St. Cloud State University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in
Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004. Prior to his appointment at KU,
he was a National Institutes of Health Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota
Center for Metals in Biocatalysis. His areas of expertise include bioinorganic chemistry (the
study of transition metals in biological systems) and inorganic spectroscopy. In particular, his
research is aimed at uncovering the reaction pathways of environmentally beneficial manganese
complexes of relevance to biological and industrial processes. Tim received a National Science
Foundation CAREER award in 2011, the KU Chancellor’s Silver Anniversary Teaching Award
in 2012, and an Outstanding Freshman Seminar Award in 2013.
Course Description: From Data to Knowledge: From the Chemistry Laboratory to the
Textbook
Scientific knowledge is commonly presented in introductory textbooks in the form of laws (or
rules) that are removed from their historical context. While this is appropriate for most
introductory science courses, a proper appreciation for the scientific process is most effectively
achieved by understanding the historical events and figures that were integral in the development
of these laws. Often the transition from the laboratory to the textbook is a rocky one, with
contentious debates regarding the proper interpretation of data and its implications. With
discussions and assigned readings from several recent books on the history of chemistry, this
course will examine the development of key laws and rules in the fields of chemistry and
biochemistry in the late 19th and early 20th century from a historical perspective. Through this
process, students will appreciate the dynamic process by which scientific laws are developed on
the basis of data. Also discussed will be scientific knowledge currently transiting from the
laboratory to the textbook, including genomics, global climate change, and molecular
gastronomy.
Mark Johnson, School of Journalism and Mass Communications
Thursday, 9:30 – 10:30 pm
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Molly Bernard
Class #30259
Instructor Biography:
Mark Johnson has taught courses on the First Amendment and Privacy at the University of
Kansas’s William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications since 2008. He
has also taught a course on election law at KU's Law School since 2010 and seminars on free
expression and data privacy in the Freshman Honors Program. Mark serves as board chairman
of the University Daily Kansan, the daily student newspaper at KU. In that capacity he oversees
the UDK’s business and editorial operations.
Mark received his B.A. in History from Yale in 1977 and a J.D. from Harvard in 1980. As a
practicing attorney in Kansas City since 1980 and a partner in the Dentons law firm, Mark
specializes in media and telecommunications. He has been listed in the First Amendment and
Public Utility sections of Best Lawyers in America since the 1990’s. He advises news media
organizations in Kansas and Missouri, including broadcast network affiliate television stations
and general circulation newspapers. He makes court appearances on behalf of news
organizations seeking access to court proceedings and to advocate placement of cameras in the
courtroom to enhance coverage of judicial proceedings. He is also the attorney for the Collegian,
the daily student newspaper at Kansas State University, and the Journalism Education
Association, a group of several thousand high school journalism educators. He has made
numerous presentations on free speech to high school and college press organizations in Kansas.
Course Description: From the Printed Word to the Silver Screen
Everyone goes to the movies -- or at least watches the movies on Netflix. This seminar will
examine how several great movies were adapted from short stories, some well-known and others
not so well-known. The movies we will study -- along with the stories on which they are based - include Rear Window, The Shawshank Redemption, Psycho, and Breakfast at Tiffany's. We
will read the stories and watch the movies, analyzing each for what the writer and the
moviemaker were trying to accomplish, and then determining whether they were successful. We
will also consider the elements of movie-making and how they enter into the films we will study.
Mary Klayder, Department of English
Class # 30180
Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 (August 27 – December 10)
KS Union Alcove F
Seminar Assistants: Heathyr Johnson and Erin Calhoun
Instructor Biography:
Mary Klayder has a special interest in creative non-fiction, particularly memoir and travel
writing. She is also interested in British literature, especially 20th century London, comparative
British and American literature, and Post-Colonial Studies. She works extensively with the
Honors Program and regularly directs study abroad programs to the U.K. and Costa Rica. She
won the 2009 H.O.P.E. Award, the 2008 Outstanding Woman Educator Award, the J. Michael
Young Advising Award and is a 6-time recipient of the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator
Award.
Course Description: So you Want to be a Writer, huh?
For thousands of years we have depended on writers of literature to express our needs and
desires for change, whether those changes are personal or public, social or aesthetic. In the
English Department at KU we use the texts of the past and present to explore all of those areas
and encourage students to examine those possibilities in their own writing. This course is
designed to inform and develop any interest you have in writing and help you understand ways
you might develop and sustain that interest while at KU, whether you are an English major or
not.
The English major at KU is a diverse major with three intertwining tracks: Traditional Literature;
Creative Writing; and Composition and Rhetoric. This tutorial will introduce you to the major in
general with a particular focus on the possibilities in creative writing but will also inform you
of the other paths in the study of English language and literature. We will explore three genres
of creative writing: fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, particularly the essay and memoir. We will
read contemporary examples of all of these genres in preparation for writing. (During the
nonfiction discussion, we will use essays from “Notes from No Man’s Land,” the common book,
as a starting point.) In addition, we will meet the professional creative writing faculty at K.U.
and learn how creative writing serves as their academic commitment. Three members of our
creative writing faculty will conduct workshops during our class sessions. We will also meet
with writers visiting the campus, attend professional and student readings, hear from some
former students who have gone on to successful writing careers and other writers who come to
campus to supplement our own MFA program. We will spend some class time investigating
opportunities for publication on campus, online, and in print journals.
Each student will experiment with all three genres and participate in workshops. The final
project will be a small portfolio containing the edited work from the semester. At the end of the
course, we will hold our own literary reading highlighting student portfolios.
Kathryn Rhine, Department of Anthropology
Class # 30238
Friday, 12:00-1:40 (meets every other week)
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Corbin Stephens and Shawnee Wallace
Instructor Biography:
Kathryn (Katie) Rhine is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology. She has taught
at the University of Kansas since 2009, specializing in courses in cultural and medical
anthropology, as well as African studies. In addition to the Kansas African Studies Center, she
also has affiliations in Global and International Studies (GIST) and Women, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies (WGSS). With the support of a Fulbright fellowship, Katie just spent a year in
Nigeria where she began a new project titled, Cultures of Collision: Road Traffic Accidents and
the Politics of Trauma Care. This study has branched from over a decade of research among
HIV-positive women, who fear, above all else, dying in car accidents. [She also shares this fear
when driving in the city of Lagos]. Katie blogs about her recent experiences in Nigeria on the
website, Go Slow: Fieldnotes from Nigeria’s Roadscapes [http://culturesofcollision.tumblr.com].
Her findings on women and life with HIV will soon be published in a monograph titled, The
Unseen Things: HIV, Secrecy, and Wellbeing among Women in Northern Nigeria.
Course Title: Global Medicine
Description: The concept “global health” signifies the ways in which transnational flows of
people, ideas, technologies, and capital influence the presentation of disease across space and
time. In this seminar, we will question how these transnational entanglements, social and
economic inequalities, and (mis)understandings of “culture” shape the delivery of medical care
and the experiences of suffering in diverse global contexts. Specifically, we will focus on
childhood epilepsy in the United States, HIV and AIDS in Haiti, cancer in Botswana, and
psychiatric disorders in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Japan, and Tanzania, among others.
Texts: Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her
American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Watters, Ethan. Crazy Like Us: The
Globalization of the American Psyche. Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest
of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. Livingston, Julie. Improvising
Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic.
Jennifer Roberts, Department of Geology
Class # 30301
Wednesday, 1:00-1:50 pm
Nunemaker 102
Seminar Assistant: Adam Yoerg
Instructor Biography:
Jennifer A. Roberts is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of
Kansas. She is a native New Mexican, who received her B.S. degree in Geology from Trinity
University, San Antonio, TX, and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Her
research investigates the complex interplay between minerals and microorganisms in a number
of subsurface environments including; oil contaminated aquifers, arctic permafrost, tropical soils,
modern carbonate shelves and ramps, and deep saline aquifers targeted for CO2 injection and
storage. She teaches courses in introductory geology, hydrogeology, geomicrobiology, and
ethical practices in geoscience.
Course Description: Tipping Points in Earth's Climate: From Scientific Inquiry to Data
Interpretation
Scientists rely on multiple types of modern data as well as records of Earth’s climate through
geologic time to predict future climate change. In this class we will focus on the greenhouse gas
methane, its inferred role in paleoclimatic change as well as modern records of its concentration,
sources and sinks. Class members will participate in analytical measurement of methane
concentration from permafrost samples collected from the instructor’s field site in
Svalbard. Using this data we will discuss data analysis and interpretation as it applies to specific
research hypotheses as well as how data of this type fit into larger-scale predictions of climate
change.
Marlesa Roney, School of Education
Class # 30237
Thursday, 3:00 – 3:50 pm
JRP 203
Seminar Assistant: Ishani Shah and Meghan Schippers
Instructor Biography:
Professor Roney joined the faculty in KU’s School of Education Educational Leadership and
Policy Studies department in January 2012 following a 30-year career in higher education
administration. As a university administrator, she worked in student services administration,
including registrar at Purdue University, Vice President for Student Affairs at The University of
Akron, and Vice Provost for Student Success at KU. She teaches graduate courses in the
following areas: higher education administration, higher education law, student affairs
administration in higher education, and organizational change and leadership in higher
education. She enjoys reading, music, bicycling, kayaking and other outdoor activities.
Course Description: College life under scrutiny
Most students enroll in college to achieve the important goals of improving their intellectual
skills and abilities. What many students do not realize is that going to college also has a
significant impact on one’s overall development as a young adult, from increased self-awareness
and self-confidence to fresh perspectives of the broader world in which we live. This course will
explore the theories and research that explain the impact of college attendance on students and
focus on how this knowledge is created.
Bill Sampson, Lawyer at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
(Instructor listed as Dotter, Anne)
Thursday, 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Nunemaker 102
Seminar Assistant: Jake Doerr
Class # 30268
Instructor Biography:
Mr. Sampson graduated with honors from the University of Kansas with a major in history and
attended law school at KU where he was selected for Order of the Coif and other awards. He is
currently a partner at Shook Hardy and Bacon, in Kansas City, a position that led him to try more
than 80 jury cases, teach more than 100 programs on trial practice, litigation strategy and legal
writing, publish on the topic of trial practice and serve as President of the DRI, the nation’s
largest association of lawyers. Throughout his career he has been awarded numerous honors and
recognitions, including Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Kansas School of Law,
Missouri Litigation Star, and listed in The Best Lawyers in America among many others.
Course Description: Culture and Combat: The Warrior’s Character and its Place in
History
We will begin with the Greeks, exploring how war has not only threatened society over the ages
but has also rescued it. Commanders had success in proportion to their mastery of weapons,
certainly, and in proportion to their study and application of battlefield tactics. But the great
commanders, the ones whose imprint we still feel today, imposed their personality, their genius,
and their will upon their adversaries. For their nations and their time, they were the difference
between victory and vanished. From Caesar to Washington, from Nelson to Eisenhower, it is
these people, their wars, and why they made that difference that we will read about and discuss.
John Staniunas, Department of Theatre
Class # 30182
Friday, 10:00 – 11:15 pm
Murphy 209
Seminar Assistant: Paige Selman
Instructor Biography:
John Staniunas is a Professor of Directing, Acting, Movement and Musical Theatre. He served as
Chair of the Department of Theatre for six years and four years as Artistic Director for the
University Theatre. John Staniunas is a professional actor, director and choreographer with a
long list of credits from regional and university theatres. He has staged over 100 musicals and
plays from original works to classics. He is the co-author of Between Director and Actor:
Strategies for Effective Performance with Mandy Rees of CSU-Bakersfield. John was a recent
recipient of a William J. Fulbright Senior Scholar Award in 2004.
Course Description: Tap Dance: The Souls of Your Feet
Tap dance is one of the most important cultural additions to the American canon of dance forms
(jazz, modern, hip-hop, Charleston, etc.). This seminar will explore the social and political
ramifications of the tap dance form and pose cultural and racial implications of the dance style.
Students will also explore the form itself and learn all the basic steps as well as present a final
"concert" highlighting the many styles and cultural differences inherit in the dance.
Matthew Stein, Oncologist in Lawrence KS
Class # 30236
(Instructor listed as Dotter, Anne)
Thursday, 2:30-4:00 pm
Nunemaker 102
Seminar Assistant: Christine Schultz
Instructor Biography:
Your instructor for this Freshman Honors Seminar is Matthew Stein. He is a practicing physician
(Oncologist) in Lawrence, Kansas, where he has lived with his family and worked throughout his
professional life. He and his wife are parents of KU, Washburn, and Baker graduates and have a
life-long interest in the education of their own children and stimulating the intellectual lives of
those with whom they come into contact. He has taught in various capacities over the years both
on campus in Lawrence and as a clinical preceptor for aspiring health care professionals from
KUMC and other institutions.
Course Description: Health Care: Human Right, Social Responsibility or Market
Commodity?
A brief introduction and exploration of health care from divergent perspectives emphasizing
scholarship and the development of research skills, proficiency in various modes of
communication (reading, writing and discussion), and a general appreciation and knowledge of
the health care system as it exists today (history, development and current practice).
James Sterbenz, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Wednesday, 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Nunemaker 102
Seminar Assistant: Ryan Steele
Class # 30302
Instructor Biography: James P.G. Sterbenz is Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer
Science and a member of technical staff at the Information & Telecommunication Technology
Center at The University of Kansas, is a Visiting Professor of Computing in InfoLab 21 at
Lancaster University in the UK, and has been a Visiting Guest Professor in the Communication
Systems Group at ETH Zürich. He has previously held senior staff and research management
positions at BBN Technologies, GTE Laboratories, and IBM Research. His research interests
include resilient, survivable, and disruption tolerant networking, future Internet architectures,
active and programmable networks, and high-speed networking and components. He is director
of the ResiliNets Research Group, and has been PI in a number of research projects. He
received a DsC in computer science from Washington University in 1991. He is principal author
of the book High-Speed Networking: A Systematic Approach to High-Bandwidth Low-Latency
Communication.
Course Description: The Internet and Society: Its in All the Things!
(History, Science, Architecture, Engineering, Social Dynamics, Governance, Economics, and
Politics)
This seminar will serve as a broad interdisciplinary introduction to all aspects of the Internet and
its role in society, and is intended for students of all majors. Topics examined will
include: History of networks and the Internet and key people from antiquity to the the Web,
Lolcats and the IoT (Internet of Things); Science and architecture of the Internet and introduction
to its operation and protocols; Social networking and interaction paradigms of people and
organizations; Governance and regulation of the Internet; Service provider economics and net
neutrality politics (discrimination based on content provider); Privacy, censorship, and
international issues.
Celka Straughn, Spencer Museum of Art
Class # 30183
Friday, 10:00 – 11:30am
KS Union Alcove G
Seminar Assistant: Kassandra Valles
Instructor Biography:
Celka Straughn has served as the Andrew W. Mellon Director of Academic Programs at the
Spencer Museum of Art since fall 2009. She received her PhD in art history in 2007 from the
University of Chicago. Her research interests include modern European art (in particular German
and Jewish art) and artist networks, as well as exhibition and collecting histories and practices.
She is also currently exploring issues of cultural competency and museums as well as the digital,
environmental, and medical humanities.
Course Description: “I have bought some wonderful things”: Collectors and Museum
Collections
Japanese prints, American paintings, Bohemian glass, ancient Coptic textile fragments, Chinese
snuff bottles, ceramic doorknobs and 19th-century trade and valentine cards are just a few of the
objects from around the globe acquired by Kansas City philanthropist Sallie Casey Thayer.
Donated to the University of Kansas in 1917, her extensive collection forms the basis of what is
today the Spencer Museum of Art. In preparation for a centenary exhibition of her gift, this
seminar will examine Mrs. Thayer’s collecting practices (including where, how, and why she
purchased works) and motivations, in particular how her “ideas of spending money are
inextricably mixed with civic affairs, municipal culture.” We will further explore questions of
taste, consumption, gender, and patronage. Additionally, this course will study some of the
objects acquired by Mrs. Thayer and consider how objects contribute to the formation of
knowledge about the past, the present and communities and cultures from different regions of the
world.
Kala Stroup, Honors Program
Tuesday, 4:10 - 5:00 pm
Seminar Assistant: Jose Herbas
Class # 30232
Nunemaker 108
Instructor Biography:
Kala M. Stroup, a national leader in the nonprofit sector and former University President, will
teach this course. Kala M. Stroup was a KU Watkins Scholar and participated in the early days
of the KU Honors program as a student, faculty and staff adviser. She has served as a faculty
member at four universities and has been a consultant to numerous universities designing courses
and academic programs in nonprofit/philanthropic studies, civic engagement and citizen
leadership.
Course Description: “Why Volunteering Matters! Integrating Knowing and Doing!”
Your generation has clocked many volunteer hours and is actively involved in your communities
as tutors, mentors, participants in fund-raising events (5k runs), food bank volunteers, Eagle
Scouts, 4-H leaders, nursing home friends, advocates for causes, environmental awareness
speakers, and international relief supporters. While volunteering, you have been part of the
workforce of the large nonprofit/philanthropic sector with over 65 million volunteers a year, over
1.8 million organizations, and a GDP the size of Australia. This tutorial is for you to gather
data, which you will analyze by assessing the validity of the content and contextualizing it; in the
process you will acquire a deeper knowledge of the nonprofit/philanthropic sector. Volunteers,
civic leaders and advocates of social change must know about the nonprofit/philanthropic sector
and its dynamics. Integrating experiential volunteering with research and information about the
nonprofit sector will be the focus of the course. There will be a service learning component in
this course which counts toward earning service-learning certification.
Dave Tell, Department of Communication Studies
Wednesday, 10:00 – 11:00 am
Bailey 116K
Seminar Assistant: Alex Kuhn
Class # 30233
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Dave Tell is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. His
research interests include rhetorical theory, cultural studies, civil rights, architectural theory, and
postmodernity. His scholarship has won numerous awards. The National Communication
Association gave him their Marie Hochmuch Nichols Award (2013), their Golden Anniversary
Monograph Award (2013), the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award (2012), and their Gerald R.
Miller Dissertation Award (2007). KU has also recognized Dr. Tell as an outstanding teacher. In
2011 the Department of Communication Studies awarded him a Graduate Faculty Mentorship
Award. And, in 2012, the Chancellor’s Office awarded him one of KU’s highest teaching honors,
the Ned N. Fleming Trust Award.
Course Description: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Wikis: Different Ways of Organizing
Knowledge . . . and why it matters.
This course is grounded in Simon Winchester’s 2005 National Bestseller, The Professor and the
Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Winchester tells the bizarre, behind-the-scenes story of how the world’s most authoritative
dictionary was created. As his title suggests, Winchester teaches us that the dictionary was not
simply the product of smart people banded together for the tedious task of defining words.
Rather, the Oxford English Dictionary—now the world’s foremost authority on the English
language—was a product of a London murder and a psychopath with a passion for language.
We will read Winchester’s page-turning tale over the course of the semester and use it as a
platform for discussing a variety of larger issues. Why were the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries characterized by the feverous production of dictionaries? Why, when the world had got
along just fine with so few dictionaries for the previous ten-thousand years, were dozens of them
suddenly required? What can we learn about a society from the fact that it needs a dictionary (or
that it pays a psychopath to create it)? Why did Diderot’s Encyclopedie appear in France at the
same time that Johnson’s Dictionary (the first English dictionary) appeared in Britain? And why
did three Scottish Booksellers feel so threatened by the French encyclopedia that they wrote their
own encyclopedia just for Britons, The Encyclopedia Britannica. Finally, we will explore
knowledge’s newest form of arrangement: the wiki. How does a wiki differ from a dictionary,
and what can we learn about our culture from these differences?
Erik Van Vleck, Department of Mathematics
Thursday, 10:00 – 10:50 am
Snow 455
Seminar Assistant: Abby Schletzbaum
Class # 30235
Instructor Biography:
Mathematics Professor Erik Van Vleck has been a faculty member at KU for the last ten years.
His research is in computational mathematics and dynamical systems with a focus on problems
that occur in different areas of science and engineering. Of particular interest are models of
biological and physical phenomena with an underlying discrete spatial structure, time dependent
stability of solutions of differential equations, and mathematics to understand climate dynamics.
He was an undergraduate at KU, received a Master's degree from the University of Colorado at
Boulder, and the PhD in Applied Mathematics from Georgia Institute of Technology. After a
postdoctoral fellowship at Simon Fraser University, he was a faculty member at Colorado School
of Mines before moving to KU in 2002.
Course Description: Computational Mathematics and Climate Dynamics
The focus of this seminar is on advances in computational mathematics and their application to
understanding climate dynamics. The seminar will provide an introduction to the computational
mathematics package matlab, high performance computing, and tools for numerical detection of
bifurcation phenomena in which there is a major change in the state of the system. We will also
introduce simple models of ocean and atmospheric dynamics and then focus on how
computational mathematics tools can assist in the understanding of these models. Students in this
seminar will receive an introduction to web publishing software and will use this as a medium to
produce their final projects.
Mike Vitevitch, Department of Psychology
Tuesday, 9:00 – 9:50 am
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistants: Alex Kong and Abby Petrulis
Class # 30298
Instructor Biography:
Prof. Vitevitch is a faculty member in the Psychology Department, and a Faculty Fellow in the
Honors Program. He teaches an Honors section of General Psychology in the Spring, and can
often be found underground (his psychology lab is in the basement of Fraser Hall, and his
Honors Program office is in Nunemaker).
Course Description: How Science Really Works
This seminar will examine (1) how scientific knowledge really changes over time (via
evolutionary increments or revolutionary shifts), and (2) how science is really done on a smaller
time-scale (i.e., how do scientists figure out what to do next?). We’ll use the fields of Cognitive
Psychology and Psycho-linguistics as our “subjects” of study, but the skills you acquire can be
applied to any social or physical science.
Anne Wallen, Honors Program
Tuesday, 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Seminar Assistant: Chad Uhl
Class # 30176
Nunemaker 108
Instructor Biography:
A native Kansan and an alumna of the KU Honors Program, Anne Wallen is the Assistant
Director of National Scholarships and Fellowships at KU. She received an MA in German
Studies and a Ph.D. in German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Minnesota. She
has also studied abroad in Germany, Denmark, Russia and Sweden. Her interdisciplinary
research interests focus on transcultural literary interactions in Northern Europe since the 18th
century.
Course Description: Mapping Cultural Studies
Have you ever noticed how many novels contain maps? Or how often maps are used in films?
Space and location have always been important to literature, and this seminar will introduce you
to interdisciplinary cultural studies by exploring how and why maps and mapmaking are used in
narratives. Whether entirely imagined or based on “real” places, whether included whole in a text
or merely described, maps and borders provide important information for us as readers or
audience members. We will read articles about geocriticism and cartographic writing, we will
expand our knowledge of mapping, and we will learn to evaluate the use of maps in literature
and film.
Chris Wiles, Honors Program
Class # 30178
Wednesday, 8:00 – 8:50 am
Nunemaker 108
Seminar Assistant: Cody Christensen
Instructor Biography:
Dr. Wiles’ teaching and research interests include U.S. politics, political theory, international
relations, and constitutional law. His PhD is in political science, and he typically advises Honors
students who are studying POLS, GIS, and/or interested in law school.
Course Description: Social Issues, Political Problems
This class will broadly survey a selection of social and political issues through the medium of
important contemporary non-fiction works on politics, philosophy, and society. Students will be
vigorously challenged to think and write critically, and to express and defend their viewpoints.