Honors Seminars

In this seminar, students from all majors will become entrepreneurs in a steampunk universe-designing gadgets, crafting stories, and pitching bold ideas, depending on your specific interests. Through interactive workshops, team-based challenges, and a final pitch competition, students will explore innovation, ethics, and the power of narrative.

Taught by: Lynn Herrmann, Ph.D., School of Preventive and Applied Health

Discover how genetics and evolution shape human identity-from physical traits to culture, behavior, and even medical treatment. This seminar explores our biological roots, the diversity that makes each person unique, and our deep connection to all life on Earth, emphasizing the responsibility we share in preserving it.

Taught by: Clare Kron, Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences

This Honors seminar introduces students to Liberating Structures (LS), a collection of simple, powerful facilitation methods designed to improve collaboration, creativity, and inclusive participation. Through hands-on practice, reflection, and application, students learn how to use LS to address complex challenges in academic, professional, and community contexts.

Taught by Federico Bassetti, Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships

Using documentary film as primary texts, this seminar will explore how people around the world confront systems and experiences that confine them. The course begins with short readings on the documentary genre, how documentaries construct truth, and how people imagine escape and liberation. Then it will dive into stories of escape and freedom-from race and law and queer ballroom culture to AI bias and corporate corruption, among other topics. This course is for students ready to think critically, engage deeply, act creatively, and explore escape, freedom, and the human condition in all its forms.

Taught by: Joseph Flynn, Ph.D. and Michael Manderino, Ph.D., Department of Curriculum and Instruction

This seminar will critically examine how children’s and young adult literature offers pathways into imagined worlds, alternative realities, and transformative experiences. It will explore literature that spans genres and cultures, including whimsical fantasies, time-bending adventures, survival narratives, and contemporary stories rooted in diverse identities and perspectives. Through these titles, it’ll consider how literature reflects and challenges social, cultural, and historical contexts. Expect lively discussions, creative projects, and choose-your-own-adventure assignments that let you chart your own path through the great escapes of literature while interrogating what those escapes mean in a complex, diverse world.

Taught by: Melanie Koss, Ph.D., Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) is a traditional Chinese exercise based in martial arts practice. It can be practiced for health, relaxation, and self-defense. Through the physical practice of TCC, students can also learn principles of Chinese philosophy and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Such principles and concepts will be introduced through readings, discussion, and guest lectures. Students will also learn traditional TCC exercises and movement sequences that can be practiced as a form of moving meditation. Experiential and reflective aspects of the class will help students find relevance to their own lives regardless of their field of study.

Taught by Paul Wright, Ph.D., Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education