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honorificabilitudinitatibusWesson Honors Program neWslettermarch 2008 Vol. 4 no. 5
1Colby-sawyer College4 Colby-sawyer College
features
Betwixt and Between Sophomore Megan Ruggiero speaks about her Pathway experience. pages 1, 2 Travel Log Junior Aubrey Thomas writes from Australia about her semester abroad. page 4 The Honors Contract Juniors Noah Richard and Elisabeth Ryan outline their Honors Contracts illustrating interdisciplinary study across science and the arts. pages 2,3
neWsletter
contributorsediting and layout Design
Writers
Elisabeth RyanMegan Ruggiero
Noah RichardAubrey ThomasKimberly WallestonProf. Ann Page Stecker
uPDates
We would like to welcome Megan
Ruggiero as assistant editor during
Aubrey Thomas’s absence. Megan
has contributed many articles over
the past year and brings her strong
literary skills to the team.
a Passion, a triCkster, anD tHe art of inVention
betwixt and betweenIt is now the second
semester of my
sophomore year at
Colby-Sawyer College. I can hardly believe
that time has passed so fast. I still don’t
know what I plan to do with my degree.
I’m still lost in an abyss of life-altering
decisions and plans for the future. Has
anything really changed? One Pathway
seminar out of the way and three stepping
stones later, I feel as if I have just leapt
over the threshold onto the Colby-Sawyer
campus. In reality, a year and a half has
flown by. I am still anxious. I am Atlas with
the entire weight of the cosmos upon my
shoulders. I have been bombarded with
opinions, beliefs, and various ways of
seeing the world. Yet, I am still waiting.
I am waiting to find my place, and most
importantly, I am waiting to find myself.
The first section of Betwixt and Between:
The Honors Pathway was a crucial step in
my assimilation process of becoming a
college student. I quickly learned that one is
expected to contribute to class discussion,
ten books is really a small number
when it comes to assigned reading, and
“liminality” is a word, though Microsoft
Office seems to disagree. Now, I find
myself in the second session of Betwixt
and Between, expecting to find what I
am looking for. The syllabus is atypical,
containing graphics, quotations, and
reading that is somewhat self-paced. It is
encouraging to see a reading list of literary
pieces that all seem relevant to the course
and our central focus. The Penelopiad by
Margaret Atwood, A Heartbreaking Work
of Staggering Genius by David Eggers, and
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, are just a
few of the texts that guarantee to excite
the imagination. But, one must ask, how
is Megan going to find herself when she
is spending what seems like forty hours a
week with her head bent over a book?
Not only is it refreshing to unite with the
same students who shared my enlightening
experience with me freshman year, I
(continued on page 2)
CoorDinator’s
nanosecond
In New England, the Romantic poet’s
passionate conviction that “if winter
comes can spring be far behind?” seems
ludicrous – especially this winter. We’ve
seen over 120” of snow! But I try to have
“a mind of winter,” the perspective poet
Wallace Stevens suggests in his poem
“The Snow Man.” Stevens would have us
behold the “nothing that is.” I’ve learned
to admire the architecture of trees that
summer foliage obscures, the undulating
shadows those trees and the moon cast
on the snow drifts, and the flocks of
bandit-eyed cedar waxwings, who come
to fumble the fermented cherries of last
summer’s blossoms. Besides, what if there
were no weather?
What would we talk about?
Professor Ann Page Stecker
australia: a journey to tHe lanD DoWn-unDer
travel logan insatiable love for Vegemite. When
I put together a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, most seem to turn their faces
in disgust. The young men in my flat all
sit around and watch cricket every Sunday,
which can easily drag on for ten hours or
more. They also enjoy rugby and Aussie
Rules Football. Most of my Australian
friends are extremely laid back, and they
seem to never brag about anything.
They may say they “did all right” on an
assignment, and have a nearly perfect
score. These are just a few of the many
things that I have come to love about my
Australian friends.
What I have concluded is that although
Australians may be having a hard time at
the moment accurately defining who they
are as a separate nation from the rest of
the world, I can see that their seemingly
wonderful lifestyle will continue on
throughout the country. Even with the
similarities to the U.S., they are certainly
not the same as Americans, and seem to
have a better understanding of the world
around them and how to make the best
of life. Hopefully I will leave this country
with a more open perspective on different
values and worldviews. I think that we
as Americans could learn a lot from this
misinterpreted country.
Before I came to
Australia, I had a
vague idea of what
to expect on the other side of the world.
The American view of Down Under is a
land full of kangaroos, wide brimmed
hats, boomerangs, and men who tackle
crocodiles on a daily basis. What I have
learned in a little over a month is that this
view is extremely distorted by the media,
and that Australians themselves are finding
it hard to define who they are to this day.
The past month has
given a new challenge for
Australians as their Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd made
an apologetic speech toward
the Aboriginal people. One
issue is that some Australians
wonder if they should even call themselves
Australians when the Aboriginals have
resided here for an estimated 60,000 years,
and everyone else has only lived here since
the end of the eighteenth century.
Australia has changed a lot from its
first convict settlements. Today it has a
population of 20 million, and is highly
urbanized because most people live along
the coast in the big cities. Therefore,
Australians are mostly city people who
probably wouldn’t have a chance surviving
in the “bush.” Most of my Australian
friends are from smaller towns in Western
Australia, but they seem to like Perth (the
city) more than anywhere else in the state.
They don’t wear wide-brimmed hats,
and certainly don’t identify themselves as
“bush” people.
I have found certain characteristics that
in fact do separate me from my Australian
comrades. For one thing, there is definitely
“Hopefully i will leave this country with a more open perspective on different values and worldviews. i think that we as americans could learn a lot from this misinterpreted country.”
from tHe
editorsCall for suBmissions
The Honors Newsletter is a forum for all
honors students to discuss and read about
events in the Honors program. We encourage
students to submit articles for publication
in the newsletter. We are hoping to run a
column in every issue that will discuss Honors
Contracts. The “Travel Log” column is a new
idea we are experimenting with. Anyone
who has traveled abroad as part of their
academic experiance is welcome to sumbit
an article. Students who are going on the
Wesson Weekend are highly encouraged to
contribute to the next issue of the newsletter.
Photos, quotes, stories, anything at all about
your fascinating trip! The last issue this year
will be dedicated to the seniors. We are
looking for articles about capstones as well
as your experience at CSC and in the Honors
program. It’s your issue, so you determine
its content!
Megan RuggieroAssistant EditorClass of 2010
Aubrey Thomas editor in absentiaclass of 2009
Kangaroos on Australia’s east coast
3Colby-sawyer College2 Colby-sawyer College
have also found that I am thrilled to be
writing a thirty-page paper, which will be
collected in its final form at the end of the
semester. The project has been dubbed
“The Magnum Opus” and it is composed
of both a written and presentational
component. Though this seems like a
daunting task, it really is not that difficult
to write about oneself for thirty pages.
Professor Ann Page Stecker has invited us
to invent something that is truly unique
to each of us. Her only guidelines are to
use an autobiographical event or series
of events that have placed each of us in
a liminal, or transformative, state. We
must also choose a trickster, whose story
can be woven throughout the pages of
our own. Tying in the literature we have
been and will be covering in class is the
third and final stipulation. Beyond these
three simple rules, our minds are free to
wander, experiment, and discover pieces
of ourselves that we never knew existed.
I have high hopes for my second go
at Betwixt and Between, and I expect
every one of us to compose an Opus
that is thought-provoking, powerful, and
pleasing to the ears, full of voice and
magnitude. I look forward to finding
myself with the people that I met when
I first arrived on campus, the people that
will be so difficult to let go of in less than
two and a half years!
artWork neeDeDcall outArt majors, minors, causal class-takers, doodlers, everyone! We are looking for artwork to display in the honors suite. Do you have work you have always wanted to display? Send photos to Professor Stecker for review! We are hoping for a wide range of styles and mediums so send those pictures in!
(continued from page 1)
“the Honors Contract allows me to combine english and Biology...i have high hopes of completing a good quality book for children that somehow brings in science.”
the honors contractAs I looked for classes
for this semester, some
of my friends and I were asked to enroll
in ENG 218 Perspectives in Children’s
Literature. Since the class didn’t count
one way or the other towards my Biology
Major, I decided that this would be a good
chance to create an Honors Contract.
David Elliott teaches the class and
does a fantastic job of covering many
of the different aspects of children’s
literature. As a writer, taking a course on
a genre of books that are not my typical
As a Graphic Design
major, I find the
impersonal concepts
of science difficult to understand. In
order to put science into terms that
were familiar to me, I created an Honors
Contract that linked art history with
the concepts studied in CES 201 – Water
Resources. This survey of master artwork
focused on trends that have developed
around the relationship of human society
to water as a natural resource. Through
these trends, it is possible to trace a
dramatic shift in public consciousness as
well as the development of ecological
issues. Each time and each culture is
reflected in the art it produces. Artists
have a way of capturing their society
and culture in their work, which is then
passed on to subsequent generations. It is
therefore possible to use works of art to
determine trends throughout history.
For example, in the works of the
Hudson River School painters, development
and human expansion are key themes.
Thomas Cole addressed development and
expansion directly, while Albert Bierstadt’s
work reflected ideas of manifest destiny
through a spiritual representation of
the western territories. When American
settlers moved west, they brought with
them eastern lifestyles that have ultimately
proved incompatible with the landscape.
This is an important idea when addressing
the agricultural practices of the Great
Plains. In Cole’s Oxbow, we see typical
New England agricultural land, developed
along a river flood plain in a relatively humid
environment that supported the crops
and techniques used. Settlers to the dry,
arid lands of the Plains later applied these
same practices. When precipitation failed
to meet the crops’ water needs, farmers
drew on groundwater sources extensively.
Continuation of these practices, combined
with extreme drought and groundwater
depletion resulted in the Dust Bowl of
the 1930s. Dorothea Lange captured the
suffering and devastation of the Dust Bowl
in her photography. It is important to note
that Lange worked in a society that was
quickly becoming aware of its inherent
ecological impacts and issues, whereas
the society of the Hudson River painters
was not necessarily. Ideals of westward
expansion and Manifest Destiny also drew
prospectors for silver, gold, other ores,
and oil. The failed ambitions of these
individuals inspired Robert Smithson’s
work on entropy in his ‘Earthworks.’
Each relationship reflects developments
within and between the societies
represented. The forces that drive these
developments are part of the society
and are reflected in the theory of each
artist. Industrialization, urbanization,
mechanization and all the accompanying
shifts in economic and agricultural
patterns had profound effects on society
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Increased human population
placed unprecedented demands on
natural resources, particularly water. As
time progressed, humanity has developed
a greater ability to impact the environment
englisH, Biology, anD CHilDren’s literature
genre has been amazing. For my Honors
Contract, we agreed that I would write
a children’s easy reader book, somehow
based around science.
An easy reader is simply a book slight-
ly more advanced than a picture book.
A great example of an easy reader
would be many of Dr. Seuss’s
books, such as The Lorax. The Honors
Contract allows me to combine English
and Biology, which will be an interesting
combination as I sit down and devise a
topic for it.
Much of my contract
has not yet been
determined. I will
read a wide array
of easy readers in
order to learn about their vocabulary
and structure. Then I will be coming
up with a topic and beginning to
structure my own easy reader. I have
high hopes of completing a good quality
book for children that somehow brings in
science. It will be interesting to see what
the next few weeks will bring.
the honors contracttraCing soCial, eCologiCal, anD artistiC trenDs
on a very large scale. All of these issues
have led to a shift in public awareness,
social conscience, the development of
ecology as a science, and the development
of government legislation. The variation of
styles in this survey are the result of shifts
that have occurred as artists developed
increased independence from their patrons
(traditionally the government) and were
able to address the public at large.
By reviewing trends throughout art
history, it is possible to trace the evolution
of an idea, and how that idea reflects
upon society. When the evolution of
water as resource is traced,
a pattern develops: water as
an element within a spiritual
landscape, water as a mode
of transportation and for
economic means, a passive
element in the landscape to be studied,
a force of destruction and rebirth, a
force to be conquered, and a force that
conquers. These constant shifts and
fluctuations reflect upon the society that
created them.
“By reviewing trends throughout art history, it is possible to trace the eval-uation of an idea, and how that idea reflects upon society.”
Thomas Cole The Oxbow1836, Oil on Canvas.Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
room to breathefeBruary oPen House in tHe Honors suite
The new Wesson
Honors space on
the 4th floor of Colgate officially opened
its doors to the college community at the
Open House on Friday, February 29. The
acquisition and preparation of the space
was the Wesson Honors Program’s latest
achievement. Throughout first semester,
students, faculty and staff volunteered
their time toward painting and decorating
the three study and lounge areas. At the
Open House, the fruits of our labor were
finally revealed. An impressive number
of students and faculty turned out to
show their support for the Program and
offer their congratulations on this great
achievement. President Galligan dropped
in to admire the transformation the space
had undergone. The space will now be
open 24 hours to Honor students, and
Thursday nights from 9-11 to all students.
It will function as a quiet study area, group-
meeting location, or relaxing spot to read
or enjoy a cup of complimentary coffee.
Faculty are also welcomed and encouraged
to take advantage of the space’s conference
areas to hold classes and meetings.
Noah Richardclass of 2009
Elisabeth Ryanlayout editorclass of 2009
Kimberly Wallestonclass of 2009