Volume 8 Issue 4

Regis University

Honorable News Volume 8, Issue 4

April Showers —Dr. Howe, Associate Director of the Honors Porgram

4-26-13

“And yet, when the time came, though it wasn’t easy, they found that they were actually quite prepared to do it and are better off for it.”

Inside this issue: Discussion Board—Fretz’s Response

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Ghedotti’s Response

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Genesis and Dr. 3 Gaensbauer Senior Thesis Excerpts

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Alumni Corner

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Although it is certainly true that April is capable of many cruelties and mixed messages, in Honors at Regis it is a time full of promises and fulfillments.

It is the month when the seniors are presenting and completing the final touches of their thesis projects. It is always an impressive time of year, and with the current group of seniors we’ve seen some remarkable work.

With each of them we find an invitation to think through a host of complex issues. Whether it is the challenge of the ethical need to dissolve the “humananimal distinction,” the provocative claim that we should rethink the ways in which language is used to describe issues of mental health, or the creative ways we envision our cosmogonic myths, these projects make good on the idea that the subjects we study, though housed in different departments, are not isolated from one another.

When talking to seniors during their “exit inter-

views,” quite a few admit that as freshman they feared that completing such a daunting project was beyond their abilities. And yet, when the time came, though it wasn’t easy, they found that they were actually quite prepared to do it and are better off for it. In fact, many of the ideas for these projects were planted early on, be it a reading and discussion in Literature Matters or Philosophical Explorations that continued, in various ways, beyond

the boundaries of the classroom.

While the seniors are preparing to move up and out of Regis, first-year students, along with the sophomores and juniors, find April to be a month of bringing to a close their seminar work in Tradition and Innovation, Chaos and Order, and Justice for All. In Chaos and Order we conclude the term by thinking about the difficult work we face as climate change becomes an undeniable reality and the ways in which any adequate response requires an integrative approach, bringing together insights from the worlds of science, philosophy, economics, and religion. Juniors, in Justice for All, are applying work done earlier in the term on philosophical concepts of justice to issues such as genetic engineering, torture, mental illness, and particular issues facing Haiti and India.

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We Say, They Say: Is Climate Change the Moral Issue of Our Time?

Asking the Sage: Dr. Fretz’s Response Thanks, everyone, for your erudite and spirited responses to the question. I read it as high-brow graffiti—a fun and provocative genre. After I read through your comments, my first thought was, “If we could just get rid of ‘Glee,’ then climate change would be taken care of.”

But, alas, that will never be; that is, ‘Glee’ will pass and, well, we don’t know about human kind as of yet. But if it does come to that (our self-annihilation), it will most probably be a result of our inability to cure our addiction to fossil fuels.

We don’t know how much more fossil fuels are available for removal, but even if we run out in the next 20 or 30 years, most scientists agree that the carbon that we’ve already released into the atmosphere will remain and continue to produce deleterious effects on our environment.

The reason I framed this question the way I did was because the science of climate change is settled: the earth is heating up as we release more and more carbon into the atmosphere, we are losing record numbers of plant and animal species and, well, everyone knows what’s happening to the glaciers and the polar bears.

So, it’s not a scientific issue or question any more. It’s a moral issue and it’s moral in the sense of our responsibility to the earth and to future generations. Call me a tree hugger . . . I dare you! But, what will it mean for me, for us, to simply do nothing, that is, to continue to allow the fossil fuel companies to burn (that Orwellian phrase!) ‘clean coal,’ and for companies like TransAtlantic to build pipelines across continents that cause further environmental degradation? What kind of a world am I leaving my children

and their children? Is it fair, ethical, just to simply ignore this issue knowing that I’ll (probably) be long dead when the really bad effects of climate change start kicking in. This is, after all, a human-made problem with human solutions.

And, finally, the issue of climate change simply cannot be solved on an individual level. That is, even if half of the 7 billion of us decided to ‘bike to work,’ take shorter showers and buy a Prius, it really wouldn’t swing the pendulum away from the negative effects of climate change. These are problems that can only be addresses and solved through large-scale policy changes and regulations. Now you can call me a socialist, too!

Questions or comments? Email Connie at cgates@regis.edu, or James Persichetti at jpersichetti@regis.edu.

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Honorable News

A Biologist’s View: Dr. Ghedotti’s Response I’d probably say that climate change, by itself, isn’t the moral issue of our time. I’d suggest that the moral issue of our time is much larger in scope than global climate change, rather climate change is one of the many embodiments of the moral issue of our time.

Climate change and many other environmental and societal issues require an acknowledgement of collective responsibility for justice and the common good that needs to be followed by a commitment

to personal and then collective action. It is this larger recognition of collective responsibility for environmental and society ills that has become imperative.

Acknowledging collective responsibility is so difficult to achieve because we don’t experience the consequences as immediate and direct outcomes of our actions. The great Pacific Ocean (plastic) garbage patch wasn’t caused in its totality by you alone and isn’t directly visible to us here in Colorado. Yet there is a

reasonable likelihood that something you threw away is floating there now.

The car we drive, the things we buy, the food we eat, and the way we go about our daily lives are all tied to global problems that cause and likely will cause human suffering.

Understanding these things and responding to them in an effective way individually and collectively is, in my opinion, the great moral issue of our time.

“It is this larger recognition of collective responsibility for environmental and society ills that has become imperative.”

“I was always amazed and moved by the generosity of

Where Have We Come From?: The Genesis of the Honors Program with Dr. Gaensbauer

academics.”

—James Persichetti, Editor in Chief of Honorable News, Class of 2015 The Socratic question “Where are you going, and where have you come from?” is a foundation on which we walk through the honors program at Regis. After 40 years of the program’s continual success and flourishing at Regis, we ask ourselves as a community, “Where have we come from?”

It was called the Regis Scholar’s Program and began in 1970 by Dr. Gaensbauer and Dr. Chapman. Like today, it was an alternate route through the Regis core, covering the Scholars students’ History and English requirements. The seminars were broken up by time period instead of the thematic seminars we have today, beginning with the Classic and Medieval periods, moving to the Renaissance, and then 17th, 18th, and 19th century classes.

While we read Plato and Pirsig

Volume 8, Issue 4

and John Henry Newman, they read literature like Dante’s Inferno, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and of course, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While Dr. Bowie treats his freshmen to lunchat his house, Scholars students enjoyed lunches at Dr. Gaensbauer’s house. Dr. Gaensbauer said that the program “gave them—just as you have now—a group of friends that you could identify with.”

An interesting difference between the older program and ours today was the length of class. If an hour feels long to discuss the difficult balance between empirical scientific data and faith, imagine sitting in class for three hours.

Though Dr. Gaensbauer said that she loved the long periods of time for discussion, she and Dr. Martin ended up changing the class times in 1980, saying in a winter break

letter to their students, “We realize that these three-hour sessions left many of you writhing and hungry and significantly diminished of your capacity to discuss or concentrate.”

In their first several years of the program, they reached out into the community receiving guest speakers from other universities, such as Colorado School of Mines for science lectures.

Despite the movements in the 70s for equality and against elitism in society, the Scholars Program at Regis did not face any difficulties with trying to create a program of gifted and dedicated students.

“My memory of it is that it was a warm time,” says Dr. Gaensbauer, “it was a good time.” The community at Regis accepted the formation of the Scholars program without any notion of elitism or

stratification within the university.

Funds from the program actually began the Tutor’s Program in the early 70s, and many of the original tutors were Scholar’s students—just another way that Dr. Gaensbauer encouraged community building with the programs and the university.

“I was always amazed and moved by the generosity of academics,” she said.

“What I really loved was hearing all of the different voices, whether it was from the guest lectures or students from many disciplines.”

When I asked her how she felt about the Honors Program now, Dr. Gaensbauer replied with a smile, “What we’re doing now is absolutely in the spirit of what we were trying to launch way back when.”

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Senior Thesis Jessica Baca

Justine Buffmack

Ben Closson

Egypt: From 328,513 Likes to 1 Million Protesters

Understanding the Value of a Study Abroad Experience and Closing the Gender Gap

The Beach: A Narrative Thesis

Throughout the Egyptian Revolution, social media impacted how activists were networking and allowed the demands of the people to be heard--for the resignation of Egyptian President Mubarak. So in a time of rising technology, I ask if social media was the essential component for social movements or if the empowering component lies within our physical interactions.

It is because studying abroad has a significant positive effect on not only academics of students, but also on their personal lives, that studying abroad is a necessary component in any undergraduate education. Due to these positive correlations, I examine why study abroad should be accessible to all students.

The "happening truth" of research-based theses failed to be a useful format to present the "narrative truth" that Ben was trying to illustrate, so he opted for the Creative Portfolio thesis option. At his defense, audience members will hear a reading of a selection of his creative writing work, which illustrates climatically the continued presence of sexism in our world.

Jon Denzler

Tidi Haile-Selassie

Jeff Hassebrock

Marx, McGee, and the Masking of Social Oppression: An Ideographical Analysis of the Political Myth of the War on Poverty

Critical Pedagogy: The Fight for Freedom through Education in a Prisoner of War Camp

Mixed Agency: A Historical & Ethical Examination of the Health Professional’s Role in the Military System

Drawing upon the work of prominent Marxist thinkers, this thesis traces the myth of the State as a viable option for the alleviation of poverty through the past 60 years of American history. I argue that we must break from the myth as an economic issue, and see the issue as one of the oppression of a communal politic.

This thesis explores themes of freedom and change in a prisoner of war camp, where Ethiopian prisoners were held captive after the Ethiopian-Somali War of 1977/78. Tidi has a personal connection to this story because her father was a captive in this POW camp, and he played an integral role in establishing a school there, which operated in the spirit of critical pedagogy.

My thesis seeks to examine the dual roles a military care provider must fulfill through the historical development of the U.S. military medical system and the patient physician ethic. I try to dissolve the seemingly indestructible dichotomy, and find myself asking, “What should military medicine look like?”

Michelle Hastings

Rachel Haun

Kelsey Leinweber

The Gender of Mathematics: Math is Not Born Male

The Rescue of Jones: the False Human /Animal Distinction, and Worth in the Animal Kingdom

A Glance at Acquired Cell Resistance in Cancer Cells and Biases in Cancer Research Funding

It has been realized that overall men and women probably have different cognitive strengths as the result of a complex interplay between nature and nurture. The gap of women in mathematical careers is not a problem of differences in ability, but a problem in differences of achievement influenced by society.

Generally, we humans believe human life is superior to all other animal life. Still, there is worth to be seen in the animal kingdom, worth based not in simplistic species-based distinctions, but in a spectrum of animal ability – and humans, as highly intelligent, capable, and feeling animals, are indeed obligated to some non-human animals, as Ripley was obligated to Jones.

A two part thesis, encompassing scientific research done at Anschutz Medical Campus on acquired cell resistance including secondline treatment for non-small cell lung cancer and logistics behind cancer research funding.

This project delves deep into both governmental and nongovernmental sources of funding, while concentrating on breast, lung, and ovarian cancers.

Megan Linders

Alex Lynch

Ted Lynch

Virtue, Value, and Vocation: Finding Meaning in Medicine

Abortion, Sterilization, and Physician Assisted Suicide: Moral Medical Decision Making via the Discernment Theory

Responding to Gang Violence in El Salvador: What Homeboy Industries can teach us about Reinsertion and Prevention

To what extent should moral law guide medical decision making—if an issue can be framed solely in a medical, as opposed to moral, context, can medical exceptions be made to moral law? Thorough discernment theory application is especially important in considering abortion, sterilization, and physician-assisted suicide.

My thesis looks at the social organizations and businesses within El Salvador that are currently working towards reducing gang violence as well as the Salvadoran's government history of dealing with this. I discuss how Homeboy Industries has played in gang member reformation in Los Angeles.

In understanding one’s true purpose in life and how the Christian virtues and Jesuit values specifically help one in this understanding, the practice of medicine is transformed from a profession to a vocation.

There is grander meaning and purpose as they realize this is a call to serve the world with their unique talents in a holistic, humanist manner.

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Honorable News

Class of 2013 Amy Lytle

Ashley Marranzino

Lo Martinez

Defense Against the Dark Arts: Harry Potter and the Allegory for Evil

Conservation and the Deep Sea: Fish Diversity and Distribution in the Gulf of Mexico

The Role Of Exorcism in the Modern World: A Vision And Practice Of Human Wholeness.

My thesis is studying Rowling's Harry Potter series as it relates to history, as an allegory for the Holocaust, Freudian psychology, and the Campbellian hero. I look at why Rowling's work, though children's literature, is still important and how every individual has the potential for both good and evil within themselves.

I will explain how both physically and biologically the ocean is a complex of habitats and biological communities. I will focus on sharks and their relatives in the Gulf of Mexico and the major threats posed to them, particularly those created by oil and gas drilling in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

I argue that we need to recover the place of the Rite of Exorcism and reevaluate its ancient and still wide-spread spiritual practice for modern Catholics. Restoring trust in the practice of Exorcism is a powerful antidote to the reductionist (materialist) visions of human beings in the cosmos, and it provides an enhanced context for imagining wholeness and healing for human beings.

Grant Mather

Brian Nakayama

Morgan Nitta

Reminiscence: Bushido and Modern Japan

Universal Computation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Affect Empathy: Exploring Prosocial Behavior in Neuroscience

The author presents an examination of the philosophy of bushido as understood through the Hagakure. This philosophy is related to a number of individuals in modern Japan, and how their life has been a reflective example of the aforesaid philosophy.

Regarding the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (IPDG), with a method for creating deterministic rules by mapping each possible interaction to a binary number, an analysis of the number of interactions leads to the discovery of interesting properties when allowing only enough iterations for a strategy to use its ”transient” instructions. The implications of universal computation are also discussed.

As the neuroscientific world continues to examine empathy, my thesis explores cognitive and affective empathy within the context of neural processing pathways and as a motivation for prosocial helping behaviors. Is one better than the other? I explore affective empathy within a rat model.

Alexis Ortega

Dan Ott

Morgan Potter

Visualizing the Written Word: An Artistic Approach to Creation Myths

Falling a House of Cards: Rediscovering a Humanist Language in an Age of Neuro-Reductionism

Barriers to Accessing Healthcare as Experienced by the Participants of Project Homeless Connect 2012

Studying paintings based on creation myths from .Japan, Egypt, Greece, the Maidu tribe, and the Ngurunderi tribe, I seek to transform the verbal text into a visual journey that represented the narrative described within each myth. By using the key figures and elements of each story, I hoped to draw the viewer into the creative process for a more interactive experience.

I argue that the language-games specific to both neuroscience research and psychological treatment have becoming nonsensically intertwined, leading to commodification of treatment and patient abuse. Ultimately, my thesis stands as an argument against the translational use of reductionism from research paradigms to treatment protocols.

This study explores the barriers that homeless population experience, as well as drug usage and rates of mental illness among more vulnerable subgroups. This study is part of a vast body of work regarding these issues and contributes to both future research and possible policy changes on the subject.

Sonny Stoen

Kathryn Sullivan

Molly Sullivan

Terminal and Life-Threatening Conditions: Finding Meaning through Mortality

Two in One: Archetypal Harmony in Beauty & the Beast Description

United States Agricultural Policy: Subsidy Structures and Unintended Consequences

When faced with the reality of mortality, man often expedites and prioritizes his journey for meaning. While universally complex, the process of meaning-making in individuals with a terminal or life-threatening illness in particular is a pilgrimage that is unique and significant because of the wealth of differing ways through which individuals strive to attain meaning.

A critical look at Beauty and the Beast which breaks down the title characters' archetypes and examines how their disparate natures come together into unity. An examination of approaches to modern interpretations of the story, particularly in Angela Carter's work, help to construct the modern reflections of the characters' archetypes and how that affects the ultimate union of these elements.

The problem of food goes all the way back to 1933, with the Agricultural Adjustment Act of the Great Depression, and has only gotten worse as time marched on. This thesis aims to explore government's role and responsibility in a variety of controversial topics revolving around food production including biofuels, genetically modified foods, and corporate welfare.

Volume 8, Issue 4

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Alumni Corner

Newsletter requests, ideas,

Congratulations to Ryan Malphurs, Ph.D, a 2003 Regis Honors Program grad who recently published Rhetoric and Discourse in Supreme Court Oral Arguments: Sensemaking in Judicial Decisions, in which “Malphurs examines the rhetoric, discourse, and subsequent decision-making within the oral arguments for significant Supreme Court cases, visiting their potential power and danger and revealing the rich dynamic nature of the justices’ interactions among themselves and the advocates.”

Reflecting on his undergraduate years, Ryan says, “Regis’ impact played an important role in this book because I adopted a similar analysis used in my Senior Thesis for my analysis of Supreme Court Oral Arguments. The book is related to my dissertation that I completed at Texas A&M. It is the first book length study of oral arguments within the field of Communication. It’s striking to me what a profound impact the English and Philosophy departments had on my greater graduate education.”

submissions? Contact James Persichetti at jpersichetti@regis.edu for further information.

Regis University Honors Program Address: Carroll Hall 121 3333 Regis Blvd H-16 Denver Colorado 80221 PHONE: 303-458-4360 E-MAIL: honors@regis.edu WEBSITE: www.regis.edu/honors

April Showers (Continued from Front) —Dr. Howe, Associate Director of the Honors Porgram April is also the time students are happily looking forward to what is to come and entertaining all sorts of possibilities. Study-abroad plans are being made, opportunities for prestigious summer internship are opening up, and new, never-before-seen, thesis proposals are being formulated. Some of you will be acquiring experience in medical research, be it at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or a clinic at the University of Nebraska. Others will find rewarding work at a camp for children with chronic illnesses. A quick survey of your summer plans reveals a student body busy with the work of promoting the

common good. And in less than a year from now, we will be treated to theses on topics ranging from the “pre-med” curriculum, the contributions of animals to our mental health, the role of philosophy in child education, the healing powers of memoir, and, among many others, the power of art to bring about the good.

It is also the month we have the privilege of reading applications from students who will come to Regis as the class of 2017 and want to be part of the Honors community. It is a pleasurable task, mostly because we know that the promises they make, and the earnest eagerness with which they make them,

come to be fulfilled (often in ways neither they nor we expect) as they make their way through four years of conversations with colleagues, great texts, and profound questions. Soon, before they know it, these new students will find themselves immersed in the world of this community.

True as it is that April confuses us with its awkward mix of sun, rain, snow and countless other missteps, it is also the month when we see old promises coming to fulfillment and new ones being made. April, as busy as it is, is a great month for Honors at Regis.

The Honors Mural A work in progress, I know, but the Honors Study room is growing warmer and brighter with Grace Corrigan’s new mural of Main Hall. Imagine if you can the Honors crest in the big blank circle, Dr. Bowie riding across the mountains of the High Country of the Mind on a little motorcycle, and Dr. Howe up in the clouds. If you can’t imagine such epicness, be sure to come by the Honors study room next semester to see this beautiful painting completed. Here’s to Grace and her wonderful artistic commitment our community.