UNIV 3784-Z81: Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar

[UConn Stamford]

Instructor: Richard Watnick

Honors students are able to enroll without a permission number. Non-Honors students will need to request a permission number by emailing Professor Watnick with the name of a faculty member who would recommend your participation. 

This seminar has multiple faculty session leaders from different departments. There will be a guest session leader for approximately 10 of the weekly meetings, and the other meetings are for open discussion. The topic of the course for Fall 2021 will be Ideas and Actions. Professor Watnick organizes the course and attends all meetings. Each session leader, still to be identified for fall 2021, assigns reading material ahead of time and then presents before opening up discussion.

Fall 2020 Sample sessions (Topic: Resilience): 

  • Jerome Sehulster, Professor of Psychology, The concept of Resilience in the field of psychology
  • Susan Herbst, President Emeritus and Professor of Political Science, American Political Institutions:  How Resilient Are They in 2020?
  • Shanelle Jones, Honors Student, University Scholar, Day of Pride Scholar, POLS & Human Rights, Untold Stories of the African Diaspora: The Lived Experiences of Black Caribbean Immigrants in the U.S
  • Mark Boyer, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Geography, Adapting to Climate Change 
  • Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, Resilience in litigation and negotiation
  • Jeff Schlosser, National Supply Chain Lead Partner, Strategy and Transactions, Ernst & Young LLP and Kelly Stals, Senior Manager, Operating Model Effectiveness, in Ernst & Young’s International Tax and Transaction Services Group “Supply Chain Resilience – Responses to Disrupted Supply Chains in the COVID-19 Era”
  • Joel Blatt, Professor of History, Fred Roden, Professor of English and special guest Roland Tec, On the work of Nechama Tec, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, The Resilience of Polish partisans during the Holocaust
  • Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Professor of History, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity 
  • Vicki Knoblauch, Professor of Economics, Analyzing responses to the pandemic through game theory
  • Gregory Pierrot, Associate Professor of English, The Haitian Revolution: a global, artistic, and cultural legacy 
  • Fred Roden, Professor of English, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning 

50% of your grade is based on the open discussion in class and on HuskyCT as well as the additional discussion of the topic on your final exam. The other 50% of your grade consists of a term paper or project on a topic in your major under the supervision of a faculty member in your major. You and your faculty supervisor will decide upon the topic and nature of your project so that you can progress in your area of interest. Your faculty supervisor will determine this portion of your grade. Professor Watnick and Kaitlin Heenehan will help you connect with a faculty member if needed.