DEADLINES APPROACHING:

University Scholar Letter of Intent due - September 15, 2009

Honors Conversion forms due - September 18, 2009

Updates from Enrichment:

Welcome back!

The new Pre-Law advising website is up and ready for students. The website now features:

Students please make appointments with Professor Flanagan through AdVapp instead of emailing directly; the link for appointments through AdVapp is at the bottom of the opening page.

http://www.prelaw.uconn.edu/

Rebecca Flanagan, J.D.
Pre-Law Planning and Programming
368 Fairfield Way, Unit 2147
Storrs, CT 06269-2147
rebecca.flanagan@uconn.edu
Direct line: (860) 486-3174

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Exciting New Opportunity with Congressional Internship in Washington D.C.!!

The Honors Congressional Internship in Washington, D.C. is excited to offer a new internship opportunity in the White House! Interested students should apply directly to the White House internship as well as applying to the UConn Program through the Study Abroad website. The application for the White House opportunity is due soon, so you should begin the application process as soon as possible!

The following is the description of the White House internship:
We are pleased to announce that the application for the 2010 Spring Internship is now available at whitehouse.gov/about/internships. Applications are due September 20, 2009. The application includes two essays, three letters of recommendation and a resume. Each applicant will be evaluated on three basic qualities: a commitment to public service, demonstration of leadership in the community and dedication to the mission of this Administration. The applicant’s communication, writing and office skills will also be reviewed and considered.  An applicant’s GPA is not figured into the final score, and each application is reviewed on a semi-blind basis.  

We will have an information session for the Honors Congressional Internship in Washington D.C. on Monday, September 14 at 7 p.m. in the Class of 1947 Room in the Library. Come to the session to learn about this exciting program and the additional White House internship opportunity. Please contact Lucy Sweetman at lucy.sweetman@uconn.edu with questions about the program!

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Reflections on the First Year Experience:

Over the summer, some of our Honors students offered to write to prospective students about living in the Honors First Year Community.  The following is from Sarah Harris’ letter to a prospective student.  To our new students, we hope you’ll get excited about what you can look forward to and to our returning students, perhaps this jaunt down memory lane will remind you once again why the Honors experience is so unique.  Thank, Sarah!

When I began my freshman year in August 2008, I had very little idea of what to expect from my new living situation.  Within a few hours, however, I had begun to make friends.  Because I lived in a community designed specifically for first year students, everyone was looking to meet to new people.  As I wandered up and down the hallways of the dormitory, nearly every door was propped open and handwritten messages on whiteboards invited guests into the rooms.  The first weekend at school, I made a group of friends.  Although the group changed throughout the year, I am still close to many of the people I met that weekend and will even be living with some of them this coming semester!

The UConn Honors program affords students the opportunity to live in, learn through and become a part of a strong and vibrant community made up of students who share academic and social interests.  This community extends beyond the classroom and beyond the residence halls.  On Wednesday evenings, a parade of students from the First Year Honors Community can usually be seen walking together to Honors Council meetings.  At these meetings, students have the opportunity to get to know and work with Honors students of all different ages and to organize campus-wide events.
 In the dorm, the Community Assistants are older Honors students, and they help to create a warm and welcoming environment.  This past year, they organized a variety of activities for us, including social events, such as a Halloween costume dance and a trip to Six Flags New England, academic events, such as Giant Scrabble and Calculus II review sessions and even just plain fun events, such as late night peanut butter and jelly, cooking lessons and finger painting.

The Honors Community makes sure that a residence hall is not just a room with a desk and a bed.  Instead, it provides students with an incredibly social atmosphere.  Students have the opportunity to live in a very unique environment with many other students who were academically successful in
high school and who exhibit a passion for leadership.   During final exams
this year, the first year Honors Community provided a strong support system for every student.  The study lounges became makeshift classrooms in which students who fully understood material helped their classmates to more clearly understand difficult concepts.  Living and learning with students who share similar interests is an experience like no other.  Even so, the Honors Community also provides students with a great deal of diversity.  Every student is different, and this living environment allows students with different academic interests, different backgrounds and different strengths to live and learn together.

Living in Shippee Hall, last year’s Freshman Honors Community, was a lot fun!  On rainy days, my friends and I would lounge around studying in each other’s rooms.  We sat in the hallways for hours talking and laughing.  We celebrated birthdays with homemade cakes and floor-wide celebrations and hung out together outside of the dorm, sometimes meeting at the Student Union for lunch or dinner.  We attended UConn athletic events together and went to support the UConn Marching Band at one of their exhibition performances.

This past semester, I led several Husky For a Day tours for incoming freshman.  During these tours, some students expressed concerns that the Honors Living Community would be “all work and no fun”.  After spending a year living in this special community, I can promise you that that is absolutely not the case!  Living in this incredibly open and friendly environment made for one of the most exciting and enjoyable years of my life thus far.  At the end of the year, I was sad to leave the Freshman Honors Community.  After spending such a wonderful year in Shippee Hall, I applied for and will be living in an upperclassman Honors Community next semester!

As an incoming Freshman Honors student, you have a very exciting year ahead of you!  I hope that I have provided you with some insight into life in the UConn First Year Honors Community, and I look forward to meeting you in the Fall!  Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions about the UConn Honors Program, living communities or campus life in general.

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Course Opportunities:

Undergraduate Courses

PLSC3280(PLSC246) link to course flyer
Biotechnology, Science, Application, Impact Perception: This course is now a prerequisite for the AG Biotechnology minor and would be highly attractive to many of the Honors students. The course has no prerequisites and is useful even to students majoring in English, Philosophy, Business, and Education. Everyone will be impacted by this technology, and anyone can benefit from knowledge about this topic regardless of student background or career objectives.

Graduate Courses

POLS 5010 Assessing Human Security (3 credits)
M 1:30-4:00 Rh 201
The Gladstein visiting professor of human rights, Dr. David Richards, has agreed to open up his fall grad class “Assessing Human Security” to junior and senior honors students in the social sciences.  The syllabus is attached.  
 
Interested students should contact Prof. Richards (drich1@memphis.edu) to obtain a permission number to enroll in the class. If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Richards at the email above or Rachel Jackson (rachel.jackson@uconn.edu) at the Human Rights Institute.

PVS 5401:  IMMUNOBIOLOGY  (3 credits)
T &Th 3:30 – 4:50 PM, room 302 Beach Hall.
Principles of basic and clinical immunobiology; phylogeny and ontogeny of the immune response, characteristics of the immune response, cellular and humoral immunity; central and peripheral lymphoid tissues; mechanisms of immunologic injury and immunologic diseases; comparative and veterinary immunology; transplantation and tumor immunology.  Active discussion of techniques, experimental systems, and recent research developments based on critical analysis of primary literature.

TARGETED AUDIENCE:  This is a comprehensive immunology course that also explores recent advances in immunology.  It is intended primarily for graduate students, but it may be taken by upper-level Honors students and senior undergraduate students.  An understanding of the basic principles of immunology is recommended, but not required.

REGISTRATION:  Please contact Paulo Verardi (paulo.verardi@uconn.edu) for additional information or to obtain a permission number.  First class meets Tuesday, September 1st.

 

 

CAMPUS ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES