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!

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.

Check out the new issue of Ampersand, our alumni and friends magazine!

Mark Shotwell, the first BOV President

Mark Shotwell talks with Philip Zecher

Randy Grossman makes a presentation

The board breaks for lunch

The board discusses its meeting and elections schedule

Randy Grossman happily takes notes

Dean Peg Cohn chats with BOV members

Dean Peg Cohn talks with BOV member

 New Board of Visitors elections will happen soon, and the board will next meet during the 2012 HTC reunion April 13-14. You can read more about the current board here.

The Honors Tutorial College’s official motto is Aenigma Colatur, which means “Respect the Conundrum.” This phrase reminds us that being a scholar or an artist is not just about finding the right solution to a problem or completing an assignment or creative work. Often, we have to step back and think about the nature of the problem itself before we can even begin to come to terms with it. Furthermore, the best scholars and artists understand that the process of unraveling a conundrum is just as valuable as getting the “right answer.” Respecting the conundrum also reminds us that the process of understanding yourself as a participant in the realm of ideas is not simply a matter of amassing knowledge; it requires an ability to grapple with ideas and pursuits that require mental curiosity, energy, creativity and openness. A mature mind always asks questions and is open to the unconventional; it is also able to accept ambiguity, contingency, and paradox.

This seminar, a word that refers to a meeting in which participants exchange information and discuss ideas, requires you to begin modeling the scholarly process of exchanging information, pursuing knowledge, and exercising your intellectual curiosity, energy, creativity, and openness in a variety of ways—through Tuesday night conversations, on our Blackboard discussion board, in your Friday discussion sections, and in various papers. Our goal is to give you practice in using the kinds of discourse intellectuals and scholars use to think about, discuss, analyze, and potentially solve various kinds of conundrums.

We began the class by having our students read Betty Hollow’s Ohio University 1804-2004: The Spirit of a Unique Place over the summer. New HTCers then wrote a paper (due on the first day of class) about their expectations for being at Ohio University and in Athens based on this reading and watching several videos on the Soul of Athens website.

After spending three weeks on Athens and Ohio University, we watched The Examined Life, a film that shows a series of interviews with major philosophers. Each philosopher talks about a major issue, such as Justice, Equality, or Truth. We also read the longer transcripts of each interview, which are available in book format. Here are some samples from the film:

Cornel West:

Kwame Anthony Appiah:

Slavoj Zizek:

Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor:

After watching the film and reading the book, students had to create a dialog among three of the philosophers about an issue raised in The Examined Life while setting their conversation in Athens. Our students were really nervous about the assignment before they did it, but the papers turned out great! Jan and I were really pleased with how well they did.

I think adding this unit to the class has been a really good thing. It allows us to model academic discourse and talk about big issues. The paper assignment also allowed students to be a little more creative. I’m looking forward to trying it out again next year!

Robin Blaetz, '79 HTC Alumna

Robin talked about the history of experimental film in the U.S. with a particular eye on women filmmakers. She also discussed the difficulties of preserving these films, which are in danger of being lost forever unless concerted efforts are made to digitize and/or preserve the original film.

One of the highlights of her talk was her use of Marie Menken‘s “Glimpse of the Garden” (1957) as an example of this genre:

I think audience members enjoyed Robin’s analysis of the film — I certainly appreciated her guidance on how to watch this kind of movie, which is not a genre with which I was previously familiar.

As part of her discussion of the history of experimental film, Robin also mentioned another film, “Rose Hobart” (1936), by Joseph Cornell. Her description of the film — Cornell took all of the scenes that featured actress Rose Hobart from a Hollywood film, East of Borneo, and re-edited them into a 19-minute experimental film — was so fascinating that I rushed to my office after the lecture so that I could watch it on YouTube. It just sounded so creepy to me! It’s definitely an interesting film:

It was a great visit, and the students, staff, and faculty that had the chance to meet Robin learned a lot about women’s experimental cinema, Athens in the 1970′s, and the early days of the Honors Tutorial College.

You can also hear Robin’s interview with WOUB Executive Director Tom Hodson here.

This will be our first reunion in ten years. On the plus side, I hope this means that our alumni are ready to return to Athens and catch up with one another and the college. On the slightly less positive side, this means that it feels like we’re starting from scratch in planning this event.

So to get us started in filling the details I’ve been reading through files and sorting through pictures of previous HTC reunions. Today I found and scanned the program for the 2002 30th Anniversary Reunion dinner:

We’re planning a similar awards dinner for the evening of Saturday, April 14. I also found this picture of some of our alumni enjoying conversation during the 2002 awards dinner:

Mich Hein, Phil Zecher, Marion Kee, Mark Shotwell, Laralyn Sasaki, and others at the HTC 2002 Reunion Banquet.

And finally, here’s the group photo of the 2002 reunion attendees:

1st Row: Erin Jones, Dr. Berman, Dr. Cohn, Prof. Golos; 2nd Row: Laura Miller, Andrew Russ, Marion Kee, Howard Moss, Joe Engeln, Laralyn Sasaki, Victor Roehm; 3rd Row: Jeff Baran, Jenn Porter Wiswell, Diana Tucker, Mich Hein, Mark Shotwell, Lora McInturf, Maranie Alonso Warren, Chip Grimshaw; 4th Row: Jason Puskar, Paul Benedict, Phil Zecher, Carrie Shoemaker; 5th Row: Eric LaVanchy, Jill Eckert, Laurence Bartlett, Andrew Rawnsley, Dave Volz, Randy Grossman, Jim Drees, Casey Cassioli

I feel that this last picture has really taken the pressure off of our own planning for the 2012 reunion: all we have to do is attract more than 30 people to the reunion and we’ll have exceeded the 2002 numbers!

I thought that I had the proposal in a box of materials in my office, but I couldn’t lay my hands on it while everyone was still here. So, I spent some time today digging through the box to find it. While excavating the proposal, I also came across a series of pictures from the early to mid-1990s. I thought that I would post a few here.

Dean Peg Cohn with the first four BOV presidents: Elizabeth Abele, Mark Shotwell, Bruce Umbaugh, and John Susany in August 1993.

Dean Peg Cohn flanked by Assistant Dean Ann Brown and Mark Shotwell at a BOV meeting in 1995.

Dean Peg Cohn and Elizabeth Abele in 1995 unveiling a plaque at the tree planted in Dean Cohn's honor the year before.

BOV members at the plaque unveiling: Joan Wigal, Andrew Rawnsley, Phil Zecher, Amy Noble, Kit Sultz, Jeff Bilas, John Susany, and David Volz.

Phil Zecher and Kitty Suhovechy writing program reviews in 1995.

As we find (and scan) additional materials from the college’s history, I’ll include them in future posts.

Phil’s talk, entitled “Research University, Inc.”was about how university budget cuts have affected the way in which university’s fund research. In particular, Phil talked about the dangers and pitfalls of prioritizing research than can generate revenue through licensing fees and patents. As the description of his talk on our flier reads,

The recent financial crisis has only worsened the long erosion of state support for higher education across the country. Faced with diminishing support from governments and legislatures often hostile to their historical mission, research universities are looking for new ways to raise revenue to ensure their long-term survival. The intellectual property generated in their laboratories, which had long been considered a common good to be shared freely as part of their core mission, is increasingly viewed as an asset to be exploited for commercial opportunities. This is driving a major cultural shift in both how society uses research establishments and, most importantly, how science itself is performed.

The talk was excellent. Phil’s extemporaneous delivery style was particularly effective in conveying his points while adapting to the wide range of knowledge levels in his audience: everything from first-year students in a variety of majors to retirement-aged Physics professors.

This was the first Golos Lecture that we held in the new common room. Due to the large number of our freshmen students who attended, the room was packed! If we continue to have larger and larger numbers as the series matures, we’ll soon have to move outside of 35 Park Place again. But for the time being, we’re going to continue to house them here.

As part of his visit, Phil participated in an interview with WOUB, which can be heard here. The next Golos Lecture, which will be delivered by Robin Blaetz, will take place on Thursday, October 20.

The theme was “Let the Games Begin!” and did they ever! We had board games, Wii, cornholing, Non-Beer Pong, and card games — the only thing we forgot was duck-duck-goose! In keeping with the theme, everyone was asked to dress as their favorite game-related character or item. The HTC staff came dressed as the characters from Clue:

Kathy as Mrs. White, Cary as Mr. Green, Jan as Mrs. Peacock, Me as Prof. Plum, Beth as Miss Scarlet, and Margie as Col. Mustard

Jan and I learned how to play the two most quintessential OHIO college games: cornholing and beer pong (without the beer, of course)! The only down side was not quite having enough food for this big of a turn out. Next year, we’ll have to order chicken, pizza, and something else to go along with all of the side dishes and desserts the students bring.

It was a great kick-off to the school year!