Interview Days 2012

Over the past two Saturdays, we have interviewed some 150 prospective HTC students. It’s an exhausting process for the HTC staff and our Directors of Studies, but it’s also one that is absolutely crucial to our success.

While there are many highly intelligent students who apply to HTC, the uniqueness of what we do necessitates that we have face-to-face interviews to make sure that we are the right fit for our top applicants. Additionally, we provide a lot of information about HTC and Ohio University over the course of these days. Our current students provide tours of the Scholars Housing, The Post, and various labs and other facilities on campus. We also have some of our current students eat lunch with our applicants and their families so that they can answer any questions applicants might have.

Although the number of applicants to HTC grew this year, we interviewed fewer than usual. As we transition to semesters we are being a little more cautious about the size of our freshman class, but we are also being more selective this year. The quality of our applicants was higher this year, which gave us the confidence to increase our standards even further.

By the end of the month, offers letters will go in the mail. This is an exciting time of year: all of here in the HTC office look forward to seeing who will be joining us as the HTC Class of 2016!

Soulcraft and Social Justice by Elliot Ratzman

On Monday we hosted 1992 HTC Philosophy alum Elliot A. Ratzman, who delivered the latest HTC Ellery Golos Lecture, which he titled “Soulcraft and Social Justice, Or How to be Better while Doing Good: Lessons from Philosophy, Religion, and Politics.”

Elliot’s talk focused on how varying religious and philosophical traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, cultivate virtues like humility, equanimity, and temperance. These traditions teach their practitioners to serve others and do good, but modern life often seems to get in the way of such efforts. His lecture talked about how these traditions can still teach us to balance these sometimes contradictory impulses even if we choose not to live as “believers” in any one particular tradition.

Elliot’s talk was well attended and fit nicely with many of the ideals we teach in HTC. The audience was so excited by his ideas that students wanted to stick around and talk about them afterward. I definitely think the next step in organizing this series will be to find ways to follow-up on the ideas our speakers present. Perhaps we could organize a book club or watch a movie recommended in a lecturer’s talk. Another way to follow-up might be to ask our lecturers to serve as guest tutors, allowing students to have a one-off tutorial with our experts.

I’m extremely pleased with how this series is going. Adam Hochberg will be visiting us in April. And I’m starting to plan next school’s lectures, which I hope will feature a range of scientists, business people, and academics.

You can listen to WOUB Executive Director Tom Hodson’s interview with Elliot here.