Faculty Create Vitality in Life of Honors Community

The Honors program takes proud pause to recognize the endless vitality and energy of its faculty. The spring semester was packed with an abundance of faculty achievements and adventures involving Patricia Burak, George Theoharis, Jim Watts, Margaret Thompson, and Gareth Fisher.

Patricia Burak, part-time instructor of Russian literature in the College of Arts and Sciences and faculty/staff advisor to the Ukrainian Student Association, received the Chancellor’s Forever Orange Award, which is conferred on individual students, faculty or staff who–by virtue of extraordinary hard work, good values and commitment to excellence–embody the best of Syracuse University.

Honors Core Faculty George Theoharis is co-editor with Rebecca Lowenhaupt of the recently published book, Parenting in the Pandemic: The collision of school, work, and life at home, published by Information Age Press, Scottsdale, AZ. The edited volume consists of first-person essays written by education professors from around the country as they navigated parenting school aged children when school was taking place largely at home. The collection includes contributions by six Syracuse University education faculty and two Syracuse University alums. More information about the book is available here.

Professor Jim Watts and students in the Honors class Writing, Scripture Law visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York City in early April. Students have been studying the invention of ancient writing systems and the use of normative written texts in the history of economic administration, religion, and law. In New York, they investigated the interaction between writing and art in the museum’s collections from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome.  

Honors students in Prof. Margaret Thompson’s spring HNR 360 White Nationalism/Right Populism in Modern America class read the book, Rising out of Hatred by Eli Saslow and had a chance to speak with the author. Saslow, Syracuse University Class of 2004, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post. His book, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist (Doubleday, 2018), is being made into a mini-series by HBO. His most recent book is Voices From the Pandemic: Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage, and Resiliance (Doubleday, 2021). He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and three children. Liste in on the class’s spirited exchange with Saslow here.