Featured Contents Looking Back and Looking Forward P

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Congratulations to the UWT class of 2013, and especially to the newest members of the Global Honors alumni community (pictured below)! Two years of challenging study and incredible commitment culminated with the completion of impressive capstone theses (coming soon to the UWT Digital Commons, http://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/global_honors/). These addressed themes ranging from artistic portray-als of common cultural trends, differ-ences in international healthcare, financial crises and reflections on study abroad. They were presented to wide acclaim at the Global Honors Spring Colloquium in June, our hugely successful gathering of UWT students, faculty, staff and commu-nity friends. Learn more about our students’ achievements at the Collo-quium and Commencement on page four, and read about our graduates’ individual experiences inside.

Director Divya McMillin welcomed special guests Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs J.W. Harrington Jr. and keynote speaker Pradeep Nara-yan, COO of Global Technology and Operations at Russell Investments.

McMillin especially recognized Holly Bamford, Director of the Bamford Foundation, which has made a gen-erous three-year contribution to the Program to support excellence in undergraduate global research. McMillin noted that Global Honors is an exciting program to be in, with such invaluable community support and strong encouragement from campus leadership for new path-ways, including a Minor in Global Engagement.

Commencement is of course a fitting celebration and conclusion, but our students’ activities and achievements weren’t limited to the end of spring quarter. In April we sprung into action and partnered with Citizens for a Healthy Bay and EarthCorps to help celebrate Earth Month with the Global Honors Day of Service. Students, faculty and staff volunteered to cut and grub invasive plant species along the Yowkwala Restoration site near Dash Point. It was tough work, but the crew was rewarded with a hearty meal at Professor McMillin’s house afterwards. Thank you to all our vol-unteers, we look forward to holding

similar service events throughout the coming year. Current GH’er Colin McCann explains why by discussing the importance of active citizenship and local non-profit organizations on page two.

Back in the classroom, our junior (soon to be senior!) cohort spent spring quarter expanding their artis-tic horizons by considering cross-cultural relationships as portrayed in film with Professor Claudia Gorbman’s Global Imaginations class. Just as Elaine Gibbons’ Global Inter-actions in Winter saw our students emerge as budding social entrepre-neurs, we’re now confident we have several future documentarians in the mix too! With Professor Orlando Baiocchi of the Institute of Technol-ogy lined up to teach Global Chal-lenges, the interdisciplinary journey will take on a new twist when things resume in Autumn.

At that point, we’ll also be wel-coming the newest members of the Global Honors Community. We are still accepting applications for 2013-15—find out about Program benefits and how to apply on page four!

Learn how Global Honors’ commitment to commu-nity engagement extends beyond the classroom. Check out the reflections of two newly graduated students, and see what awaits those who gradu-ate with Global Honors!

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Global Honors Colloquium presenters, from left to right: Program Administrator Paul Carrington, Sonor Luvsandorj, Maria Kimmerle, Margaret Lundberg, Amy Hudgins, Latif Bey Davis, Percy Strowhorn III, Monica Melton, Nicholas Witters, and Program Director Dr. Divya McMillin. Photograph by Brian Anderson

Meet more students, in-cluding two of the new GH Student Leadership Council’s representatives. Find out about their plans for summer quarter along with the recent achieve-ments of GH Student Assistant Amy Hudgins.

The experiences of each GH cohort culminates in our Annual Spring Collo-quium. Read about this and our subsequent cele-brations on page four, then check out how to apply to GH for 2013-15! What are you waiting for?

Graduation / Summer 2013

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As an academic honors program, Global Honors pushes us to consider the meaning of responsible citizen-ship. But this isn’t limited to in-class discussion, as illustrated by our Day of Service at the beginning of Spring quarter. On this particular cold and rainy Saturday morning, a dozen of our faculty, staff, students and their partners (pictured with other volun-teers, right) collaborated with Citi-zens for a Healthy Bay (CHB, www.healthybay.org/) and Earth-Corps (www.earthcorps.org/) to re-

move non-native, invasive plant species from Yowkwala

Beach on Commencement Bay. This event gave us a chance to celebrate Earth Month and proved an excellent learning experience.

CHB is an environmental nonprofit based in Tacoma that works to rep-resent and engage citizens in the cleanup, restoration, and protection of Commencement Bay. Founded in 1990, CHB provides excellent envi-ronmental leadership to the South Sound community.

EarthCorps, who assisted in orga-nizing and staffing the event, is an-other nonprofit based in Seattle. Their mission is to build a global community of leaders through local environmental service. Founded in 1993, EarthCorps provides intensive programs for young adults from the United States and 80 other countries to learn best practices in community-based environmental restoration.

They supervise more than 10,000 volunteers each year.

Thanks to these locally based non-profit organizations, the Global Hon-ors community learned a great deal about the importance of environ-mental advocacy and involvement. Spending a cold April morning dig-ging out invasive plant species may

not sound like a fun scenario, but looking at the smiles on everyone’s faces during the day certainly sug-gested otherwise. Environmental advocacy is not a part-time job for CHB and EarthCorps, and their pas-sion for their work is apparent. The Global Honors community has been fortunate to have the opportunity to work with and learn from these won-derful organizations.

Colin McCann, Politics Philosophy & Economics

Before considering life after UWT, I cannot help but reflect on the time I’ve spent here. During the snowy winter of 2011, I stepped onto UWT’s familiar campus (I had been a School of the Arts student years before) and felt energized with promise and pos-sibility. These feelings soon faded as I settled into classes on subjects I knew next to nothing about. It was then that I began to question what I knew and what I was good at. I had already partially figured this out, but I fleshed it out by studying abroad in Brazil, majoring in Communications,

and effectively taking on a double-minor with Hispanic studies and Global Honors. My hands were cer-tainly full. But the Program comple-mented the globally minded skill set I already possessed, and the bache-lor’s degree would surely help me achieve my future goals.

This brings me to the present, preparing for life after UWT. For me this consists of pursuing a master’s degree in poetry writing from Co-lumbia University or New York Uni-versity, as both have selected me to be on the waiting list for admissions. Just as I felt two years ago starting at UWT, I feel poised and prepared for the promise and possibility that comes next. Global Honors undoubt-edly helped!

Here I spent the formative years of my undergrad education by seeing different parts of the world, learning through new lenses in Global Hon-ors, and publishing my poetry in Tahoma West. In addition to the quality of my poetry, I highly suspect the Global Honors distinction helped my prospective grad schools notice me. The Program really is what made my undergraduate experience all that much better for the commu-nity and excellence it offers. Monica Melton, Communications, Class of 2013

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GH Day of Service, Spring 2013

Senior Reflections

Graduation is a time to reflect on the achievements of the past and the opportunities of the future. Here, Latif Bey Davis and Monica Melton, two of the newly graduated Global Honors Class of 2013, discuss their time at UWT and their excite-ment for what comes next ...

I never thought I would be at this point—I have been accepted to graduate school for Social Work at Temple University in Philadelphia and I’m really looking forward to the opportunity. My hometown is Philly so I get to be with family again. I intend to start graduate school in January of 2014 and I’m already mak-ing plans to make the move back home. So it’s a very exciting time!

I’ve been pursuing a bachelors for five years, so before continuing with a master’s program I want to take time to travel and enjoy myself. The movers are scheduled to pick up my stuff in late July, but before then I plan on making one more trip to Mexico. I also plan to drive from Washington through Oregon, Cali-fornia, Nevada and Arizona before catching a flight back to Philly.

Once I get there I intend to find an apartment close to Temple campus and get settled in. I have military benefits that will pay for school but

in order to get them I have to reapply once I get in town. It’s been 15 years that I’ve lived away from home so the move has been a long time com-ing. But I’ve really benefited from my time at UWT. I’m glad that I not only get to go back but will take and de-velop skills that will make me more valuable to my community. I had great experiences with Global Hon-ors and UWT that will definitely help enrich my years ahead in the field of Social Work. Latif Bey Davis, Ethnic Gender & La-bor Studies, Class of 2013

Latif Bey Davis,

Global Honors 2012-2013

Monica Melton,

Global Honors 2011-2013

Colin McCann,

Global Honors 2012-2014

Student Leadership Council 2013-14

This is a question everyone asks sometimes. In a challenging new environment, it’s easy to think others are better qualified, especially when surrounded by outspoken honors students! The simple option might be turning down the challenge, but stepping up does pay off. You’re probably a lot better prepared than you realize. This is true for opportuni-ties throughout UWT, including Global Honors. So check out the website and consider applying at: http://www.tacoma.uw.edu/global-honors! We welcome all inquiries at ghonors@uw.edu.

Can I Do This?!

Internships and Study Abroad are not compulsory for Global Honors, but we strongly encourage our students to consider both. They often inform our seniors’ capstone theses, and can certainly enhance professional and cultural competencies. Here, Megan Nation discusses the amazing experi-ential opportunities she’s lined up for the coming months.

This summer will be unlike any other. I have been awarded the amazing opportunity to do an internship in Washington, D.C. for two months and then study abroad in Brazil for a month. The undergrad experience is of course rooted here on campus, but it really helps to make the most of experiential learning beyond UWT as well.

The trip to Washington, D.C. is with the Fund for American Studies DC Internships Program in partner-ship with George Mason University.

While there I will be interning for 30 hours a week at the International Child Art Foundation and going to school several days a week at George Mason. I will be free on the week-ends to explore all the amazing things D.C. has to offer. I also plan to visit some graduate schools to look for somewhere to earn my master’s degree in International Relations after graduating from UWT.

After returning from D.C., I will be home for three weeks and plan to get involved with service and social activities with my Global Honors classmates (see below). But I’ll then leave for São Paulo and Rio de Ja-neiro for a month. In Brazil, I will be researching business along with so-cial and environmental responsibil-ity. The group I will travel with is entirely comprised of UW students and professors. We will also have 30 hours of Portuguese instruction along with five credits for independ-ent research. Brazil is at an interest-ing point economically and environ-mentally so it will be intriguing to see how the government, businesses and people are handling the changes accompanied by growth.

These opportunities would not be on my schedule if it were not for the Global Honors and PP&E Interdisci-plinary Programs. I hope to apply the knowledge and experience I gain to the discussions and research I will undergo next year. Thank you to everyone who has helped me get to where I am and where I am going!

Megan Nation, Politics Philosophy & Economics

Megan Nation,

Global Honors 2013-2014

Accolades, Achievements and Adventures

As soon as Megan’s adventures in D.C. and Bra-zil (above) are finished, we’ll be pleased to wel-come her back to UWT as the 2013-14 Global Honors Student Leadership Council (SLC) Chair. Joining her will be 2013-14 Student Activities Coordinator, Alexa Brockamp (Sustainable Ur-ban Development, pictured right). Congratula-tions and thank you to Megan, Alexa and all our council members for keeping the Global Honors community on its toes—our in-class objectives are key, but the Program is also defined by our students’ co-curricular interests, initiatives and activities. These can include professional devel-opment workshops, service events (see opposite page), and reading room potlucks. The SLC is also essential when welcoming new students to our community–we look forward to a year of engaging activities and socials.

Spring Quarter has been full of exciting opportunities and events, and one of the high-lights was the 16th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at UW Seattle. I was fortunate enough to be selected to present my Global Honors thesis at the Sympo-sium, along with fellow Global Honors senior Marga-ret Lundberg, and our friend Kylie from the Teaching and Learning Center. The Sympo-sium was by far one of the best experiences of the year, second only to the Global Honors Collo-quium and graduation of course (see page four)!

The days leading up to the Sympo-sium were jam-packed, and I was a bundle of nerves. It was held the day immediately following the Collo-quium, but each event had different time limits for presentations. This meant I had written two separate presentations for the same thesis, and hadn’t had as much time to prac-tice. By the time the three of us parked the car under Red Square on the Seattle campus, my nerves were getting the best of me, and I began to think that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Mary Gates Hall was a sea of stu-dents, all dressed in business attire, and the programs given to us at check-in featured students from honors programs throughout Puget Sound, as well as McNair scholars and winners of impressive research grants. I felt out of my league. I tried everything I knew to keep my nerves in check, from tips I learned in classes to things I learned in yoga about deep breaths and positive interior dialogue. I can do this. I can do this? Can I do this? It was working more or less, until I saw another pre-senter break down in tears from the mounting stress.

As I found my assigned presenta-tion room and took my seat, I seren-dipitously remembered something Professor McMillin said to me during my first ever Global Honors class: “You are here because you belong here. The fact that you are here means that someone already knew you could do this.” She was right the first day of class, and she was right two years later as I prepared to pre-sent my thesis, a representation of

the culmination of two years of hard work, thousands of pages of re-search, writing workshops over cof-fee, all-nighters to get it just right, office hours, brain-twisting theory, and a million other small victories.

By the end of my allotted ten min-utes, I knew I had won my audience. Nods of approval and engaging ques-tions wrapped up my thesis presen-tation, and by the end of the day, a professor from the audience ap-proached me to ask about my topic and compliment my work. The Sym-posium was challenging and it made me put myself out in the open in a way that I hadn’t really experienced before—I almost backed out. But I am so glad I didn’t. I now know more about myself and my abilities, and it gave me the chance to see how the skills I have learned in Global Honors and at UWT will serve me outside of our campus community. Most of all, I can’t keep from thinking to myself, I did it!

Amy Hudgins, Arts, Media & Culture / American Studies

Amy Hudgins,

Global Honors 2011-2013

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UW Tacoma Arts & Lectures UW Tacoma International Programs

UW Tacoma Student Affairs

How to Apply

Faculty Advisors

The run-up to our Annual Colloquium is a formative time for Program sen-iors. Our two-year curriculum equips them with a broad overview of global themes, as understood from differ-ent academic and cultural perspec-tives. They also receive substantial research and writing guidance, espe-cially from their Faculty Advisors (see below). While this support keeps students on track, these scholarly explorations also involve intense individual effort .

All that hard work paid off at the Global Honors Spring Colloquium in May. With guests from programs across campus in attendance, Mar-garet Lundberg was the first to pre-sent her research, an account of the evolution of the Cinderella story from a Chinese folk tale to a Mexican telenovela. Transnational literary expressions were also addressed in Amy Hudgin’s study of the poetry of Sarah Piatt, and Nicholas Witters followed with a fascinating philoso-phical reflection of his deployment in Iraq. The morning session finished with Maria Kimmerle’s discussion of how field work in Italy had informed her study of different cultural atti-tudes towards elderly care-giving.

Having delivered their presenta-tions, students were then tested by our respondent panel, a new feature that helped foster even deeper scholarly discourse (pictured right). Chaired by Global Interactions Lec-turer Elaine Gibbons, this panel in-cluded Global Honors Alumnus Christopher Thomas (class of 2010) and two of our juniors, Megan Na-tion and Noelle Gichohi. These pan-elists brought their own perspectives to bear in a way that enabled our presenters to expound on their the-ses with enthusiastic authority.

After tasty Thai and Vietnamese refreshments, the Colloquium re-sumed for afternoon presentations. Monica Melton analyzed representa-tions of the African Diaspora in film, and Latif Bey Davis shared the bene-fits of study abroad by discussing his travels in Kenya. Percy Strowhorn III explored the cultural nuances of romantic interactions in Japan and the United States, and Sonor Lu-vsandorj concluded with his interpre-tation of the Chinese housing bubble crisis. After our presenters were put to the test once more by the panel’s Q&A, the event closed with a recep-tion in which cheerful conversation

focused on a shared sense of suc-cessful completion.

It’s hard to think of a better exam-ple of interdisciplinary inquiry than the fascinating range of topics pre-sented at the 2013 Colloquium. Just as importantly, it was a fitting con-firmation of all our students’ incredi-ble work. It only remained to for-mally commend them at the Global Honors Graduation Reception and UWT Commencement in June (pictured below). But even prior to their graduation with the Global Honors distinction, it had long been clear that the class of 2013 was made up of outstanding individuals.

Global Honors Program

University of Washington Tacoma Box 358457, 1900 Commerce St

Tacoma, WA 98402 http://www.tacoma.uw.edu/

global-honors ghonors@uw.edu 253-692-4770 4

Thank You...

Seventh Annual Global Honors Spring Colloquium

….to the generous support of our UW Tacoma friends and partners, especially those (right) whose finan-cial support made such a difference to our Spring Colloquium and Graduation Reception.

We are also indebted to our com-munity sponsors for their in-kind donations and delicious refresh-ments. Check them out on Pacific Avenue!

Thank you to Global Honors Student Assistant Amy Hudgins for helping arrange our spring quarter events and for contributing to the composition and compilation of this newsletter.

Left to right: Program Administrator Paul Carrington, Margaret Lundberg, Amy Hudgins, Percy Strowhorn III, Monica Melton, Latif Bey Davis and Monte Martin. Not pictured, Maria Kimmerle and Nicholas Witters.

Special thanks from the class of 2013 to our Faculty Advisors:

Edward Chamberlain, Cynthia Duncan, Anthony Fal it-Baiamonte, Michael Forman, Emily Ignacio, William McGuire, Divya McMillin, Janet Primomo, Charles Rowling, Sara Smilko and Tanya Velasquez.

We are now accepting applications for the 2013-15 cohort. We welcome submissions from students …

… of any major with a GPA of 3.5, … about to begin their junior year (or sophomore year if they rock!) , … with a demonstrated interest in global themes, … and with the potential to make a significant contribution.

Benefits include:

Global Scholar Award for all participants, up to $1500

Flexible pathways that can com-plement and enhance all majors

Engaging seminar-style courses

Development of academic and professional competencies

Social and service activities

Honors distinction at graduation

Questions? Please contact us at: ghonors@uw.edu

Information and Applications: http://www.tacoma.uw.edu/

global-honors