Student and Faculty Comments Favorite Honors Courses

EACH YEAR THE Judy Genshaft Honors College offers a wide array of exciting and unique courses that bring together students from every academic major on all three USF campuses. Rather than being harder versions of courses taught within the major, our Honors courses take an interdisciplinary approach to topics that align with faculty interest and research areas. These courses, which can change each semester, encourage students to consider topics from a variety of perspectives and cultivate interests beyond their own discipline.

We asked Honors students and faculty members to describe their favorite honors course, and here is what they said:

Haley Mariner

Biomedical Engineering, Tampa campus Lutz, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 4200 Women in the Middle East

Instructor: Dr. Nazek Jawad, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies; Global Citizens Project

“In this course, we learned about influential women from different Middle Eastern backgrounds throughout history. At a time in the world where people might view Middle Eastern women narrowly, I learned of women writers, Olympic athletes, musicians, architects, poets, judges, entrepreneurs, and literal princesses! This class demonstrates the importance of garnering a global perspective, teaching us to treat everyone with dignity and respect and to seek first to understand, that we may learn to live harmoniously in this great big world and develop fulfilling relationships along the way.”

Dr. Andrea Vianello

Anthropology Department Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 4200 Health and History

“We explore a series of examples from past civilizations and cultures across the world to foster debates about public health and health care in today’s America. True to its multidisciplinary origins, it focuses on scientific evidence to present the co-evolution of pathogens and humans, as well as the impact that epidemics have had on societies. The course offers insight into cutting edge research on evolutionary genomics and bioarchaeology, which allows students to understand the present by learning from the past. Students have been able to talk about the COVID-19 pandemic as an historical event that will shape the future, and they have discovered that they are not alone: it all happened before. The level of engagement from students has been exceptional, with students presenting at the USF undergraduate research conference, and publishing in the USF undergraduate journal, Thrive.”

Priya Singh-Collins

Psychology, Tampa campus Riverview, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3400 Masculinities

Instructor: Dr. Holly Donahue Singh, Judy Genshaft Honors College

“Dr. Singh gave us the incredible opportunity to not only read, listen to, and watch diverse content throughout the semester, but to interact with content chosen by ourselves and our peers to implement our knowledge into scenarios more akin to our own experiences and generation. We were always encouraged to discuss the material with each other and question everything, as well as given the freedom to begin our own discussions about masculinities using a medium our generation is familiar with — a podcast. This connection between masculinities in history and within our own present-day interactions gave us a unique point of view as we explored at a depth which many people may overlook and considered every corner of the concept.”

Dr. Karim Hanna

Morsani College of Medicine Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 2930 Bystander Interventions

“This course started because one of our Morsani medical students (who is helping administer the course) found herself at the scene of a car accident late at night, and realized that despite her medical training, she did not know how to handle it. We sought to use this experience for learning by encouraging medical students to teach lessons on how to handle overdoses, car wrecks, strokes, drownings, and more, all with deep dives into the ethics of getting involved. The classes always end with ethical discussions, and often involves handson training. The students wrap up the semester with an opportunity to teach

their peers about a bystander intervention to overcome the inertia of bystander effect and to become involved members of society. Their action potential has been my most rewarding part of interacting with Honors students.”

Christian Coris

Electrical Engineering, Tampa campus Tampa, Florida Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3100 Rocking the Dead Sea Scrolls Instructor: Dr. Jeffrey Donley, Adjunct Instructor

“Dr. Donley made this course into a fantastic learning experience. He clearly cares about all of his students and goes above and beyond to help everyone learn in unique ways. This class taught me more about history, literature, archaeology, and linguistics than I ever thought I’d learn in a single course.”

Dr. Jeffrey Donley

Adjunct Instructor Favorite Course to Teach: IDH 3100 Rocking the Dead Sea Scrolls

“In this course, I bring to my student-scholars first-hand experience with the Scrolls along with cutting-edge technology and scholarship— making the material come to life and making every day in class exciting, intriguing, challenging, and fun. I utilize what I call a Metadisciplinary approach to learning, whereby fragmented and isolated siloes of academic disciplines are integrated into a holistic, unified, systemic, and coherent whole that empowers a global and diverse perspective—a seamless worldview. The foundation of this course is the isagogics of the Scrolls: papyrology, linguistics, and textual criticism. My students acquire practical hermeneutical skills on how to learn, interpret, to think critically and creatively for themselves, experience collaborative inquiry, and engage in debate. I even teach my students some Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Latin.”

- Dr. Cayla Lanier

Naziza Naeer Bhuiyan

Cell and Molecular Biology, Tampa Campus, Dhaka, Bangladesh Favorite Course to Take: IDH 3100 Home

Instructor: Professor Atsuko Sakai, Judy Genshaft Honors College

“I loved all the creative aspects of this course. We went through some of the processes architects go through when designing homes and spaces. We picked out a site, created a floor plan, and actually produced a model of our dream house. It was honestly one of my favorite classes at USF. Sensei was the best instructor I could have wished for!”