HONORS 135: Ideas in Honors is a one-credit seminar course intended to introduce first-year Honors students to topic-driven scholarship at the advanced undergraduate level. Senior Honors students create their own topics and develop their courses with the support of an Honors Program advisor, and with the supervision of the program director. This year, we have eight sections taught by a group of extraordinary seniors. We would like to introduce each of them and share a bit about their courses, which will run this coming Fall 2023 semester. Visit the LSA Course Guide if you are interested in learning more about each course or to register! Honors 135 is open to all first year Honors students with the exception of section 002 taught by Luisa Sanchez being open to both first and second year students.

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Leah Driehorst is a senior from Temperance, MI. She’s majoring in Honors History with a minor in French. Her class, The Paradox of Progress: Critically Examining Native American Boarding Schools focuses on the motivations behind the assimilatory project of indigenous boarding schools. Mirroring her honors thesis, the class also aims to contextualize boarding schools in the broader context of race relations in 19th century America.

Leah has found her passion in history, research, and education through her major at UM, and so she hopes for the chance to share that passion with others while offering a low-stakes opportunity for freshmen to explore history and research. Regardless of your academic interests or discipline, Leah is a firm believer in the importance of history in daily life. This class, along with engaging students with the history of boarding schools, will improve their critical thinking and analytical skills, which can be broadly applied to future classes at UM. Leah is excited to connect with first-years and get them excited about learning at UM!

Besides teaching HONORS 135, Leah works at the Law Library, is a research assistant to Dr. Lorena Chambers in the History Department (since Fall 2022), just completed her internship with the Institute for the Humanities, and is excited to be an Honors Summer Fellow this summer 2024.

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Nayseth Fernandez is a Senior from Grand Rapids, Michigan pursuing a Political Science and Philosophy degree on the pre-law track! After undergraduate school, she hopes to attend law school to become an immigration attorney and advocate for immigrants coming to the United States in search of a better life from all over the world. After practicing law for a couple of years, she would like to run for public office in the Congressional setting to truly attempt to make her vision of a more secure future for immigrant families come to life. She has interned for several law firms and worked with optiMize, a social innovation organization on campus, as well as served as President for the organization she co-founded, the Latinx Undergraduate Legal Association. This summer, she has been given the great privilege of working on her honors thesis focusing on Mexican Migration to Southwest Detroit as part of the Honors Summer Fellowship.

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Ellie Omori-Sampson is a senior from Honolulu, Hawaiʻi studying Political Science and American Culture (Ethnic Studies) with a minor in Environment. Her course, Racialized Beauty in Hollywood and Broadway will focus on the history of racialized beauty, and how that plays a role in American entertainment today. After taking this class, you will be able to analyze beauty and entertainment through a contextual lens that will make you rethink your own perspectives about race and the entertainment industry.

Ellie just completed her honors thesis on political apathy among women in Japan in the Political Science Department, earning the distinction of High Honors. As a dual citizen of Japan and the US, she is very passionate about comparative politics and how different cultural upbringings can impact political behavior. Ellie is also involved in the performing arts and has dedicated most of her free time in college performing in MUSKET productions, theatrical projects, and a cappella! After graduating, she plans to continue her education either in a Political Science PhD program, or MBA program and work in the Broadway industry in NYC.

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Stephanie Smith, from Ann Arbor, MI is majoring in Environment with a minor in Community Action and Social Change. Her course, What’s Up with the Water? Comparing Local and Global Water Concerns explores water’s interconnectedness with topics such as public health, technology, and policy at varied stakeholder levels. Stephanie’s inspiration for the course draws from her upbringing around local conservation efforts as well as experiences during her year studying abroad in six different countries. She hopes that students will come away from the course with a deeper understanding of their own relationships to water and the issues surrounding it. Further, she encourages those who haven’t previously been interested in water conservation to give the class a try: the frameworks used in class to explore this subject matter will be useful tools as students work to identify and interrogate other equity and justice issues during their time in Honors.

Stephanie has experience as an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Soo Eun Chang, Ph.D. She will begin a Master’s of Science degree during her final year of undergraduate studies through the UM SEAS Accelerated Master’s Degree program. In her free time, Stephanie enjoys skiing and working as a backpacking guide.

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Elizabeth Tolrud is a senior from Owosso, MI studying “Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology”, “Ecology, Evolution, and Biodiversity”, and “Environment”. Her course, Pipetting to Policy: Social Applications of Environmental Research, explores the intersection of policy, toxicology, ecology, and environmental justice. By using glyphosate as a case study, we will investigate the perspectives and approaches of a different field of study each week. These field-specific weeks will culminate in students studying a problem of their choice that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. By analyzing the importance of research and policy, Elizabeth hopes to explore how we can better use our studies to protect human and environmental health.

Elizabeth works as an undergraduate researcher in the Colacino Laboratory and serves as the Co-President of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. In 2023, she was selected as an Udall Scholar. Elizabeth is also proud to be a Bruce and Jackie Cook Scholar, an Otto Graf Scholar, and a 2024 Honors Summer Fellow. After graduating, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology.

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Angela Voit is a senior from Okemos, MI studying Data Science. Her course, From Sappho to Swift: Observing Art through Human and Artificial Intelligence, is an introduction to AI topics through their contrast with our individual experience of art. With the growing popularity of generative AI and the For You feed, she hopes the class will appeal to more than just the math and computer science audience but instead result in an exchange across traditional academic boundaries.

Angela is a strong believer in a broad education. In her linear algebra course, she learned the math behind the recommendation system. In her freshman year writing course, she fell for Sappho and all her missing words. Outside of the classroom, she was the Managing Online Editor of the Michigan Daily newspaper and is working with the Texas Tribune as an AI/ML Engineering Intern this summer. In this class, she would like to put journalism aside for a moment and ask a bigger question: how does data impact the way we imagine love?

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