Fall 2025 Honors First Year Seminars & Launches

TR, 9:30 am – 10:45 am . Instructor(s): Tatiana String. Enrollment = 20.
What did it mean to be a man or to be a woman in the Renaissance? This seminar will explore the ways in which constructions of gender are critical to understandings of the visual arts in the early modern period (c. 1400-1650). We will discuss and analyze a focused group of representations of men and women: portraits, mythological and biblical paintings and sculptures, and even turn our attention to the buildings these men and women inhabited. We will study the work of artists such as Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Holbein, and Rubens, amongst others, to find ways of understanding how masculinity and femininity were central concerns in early modern society and in the art produced in this period.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Tania String specializes in the art and culture of Early Modern Europe. Her research and teaching focus on portraiture, gender, and communication in the sixteenth century. Major publications include a study of Henry VIII’s England entitled Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII (2008) and an interdisciplinary volume (co-edited with Marcus Bull) Tudorism: Historical Imagination and the Appropriation of the Sixteenth Century (2011)

Before coming to UNC, Dr. String taught at the University of Bristol in the UK. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and was the Kress Doctoral Fellow at the Warburg Institute. She has been a historical consultant for the BBC and for Historic Royal Palaces. While in England she worked closely with the National Portrait Gallery to curate two exhibitions of English portraits: “On the Nature of Women”: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women, 1535-1620 and Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, 1520-1640.

Since coming to UNC in 2010, Dr. String has collaborated with the North Carolina Museum of Art on research into a collection of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English portraits that resulted in the exhibition History and Mystery: Discoveries in the NCMA’s British Collection (2016) and an international conference Interrogating the English Portrait: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits in the North Carolina Museum of Art (2016).

Dr. String’s current research project is a study of masculinity and the male body in Renaissance art.

TR, 9:30 am – 10:45 am. Instructor(s): Mark Peifer. Enrollment = 24.
In this course we will examine the biology of infectious disease and challenges of treating it in the developing world, and also explore the root causes of global health care inequity.

Mark Peifer is the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Biology at UNC, where he and his lab study how the animal body is assembled during embryonic development, using genetic and cell biological tools.  He was raised in Minnesota and is a first generation college student.  His interest in global public health was stimulated by a desire to help students take a closer look at the world around them, and by the experiences he has had with the people of Haiti.  He and his spouse live in the woods west of town, and his two daughters are both UNC grads, one a social worker and one a teacher in second grade.  He believes diversity, equity and inclusion are core American values.

MW, 1:25 pm – 2:40 pm. Instructor(s): Todd Austell. Enrollment = 25.
This course will investigate the diverse topics and applications of nuclear chemistry on a level requiring at least one prior semester of college general chemistry (Chem 101).  After providing an exploration of introductory atomic theory and radioactive decay, course topics including nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine and other modern applications of nuclear chemistry and physics will be investigated. Some emphasis will be placed on student research and in-class presentation of material. Several stimulating field trips and guest speakers will support the material presented in the course.

Todd Austell is a Teaching Professor and currently serves as the Associate Director of U’grad Studies for the Department of Chemistry. He serves as an academic advisor for STEM and pre-health science majors in UNC Academic Advising.  Prof. Austell received his BS in Chemistry in 1987 and his PhD in Chemistry in 1996, both at UNC. He spent one year working in the pharmaceutical industry prior to graduate school and another year as an Assistant Professor at the United States Air Force Academy prior to returning to his current position in 1998. As an undergraduate, he participated in the Department of Energy and American Chemistry Society’s Summer School in Nuclear Chemistry. Topical studies in nuclear chemistry have been a hobby of his since that time. His graduate research involved separation science, and he is currently involved in both curriculum development within the chemistry department and in a long-term study of how middle school and secondary math education/preparation affects student performances in college general chemistry. His hobbies include hiking, camping, disc golf and gardening as well as following all UNC athletics.  He has two young daughters whom he says are “his greatest accomplishment” and a wife who works as a physical therapist.

TR, 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm. Instructor(s): Prasun Dewan. Enrollment = 24.
In 1987, Nobel laureate Robert Solow famously observed the information technology paradox: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” When applied to education, this paradox raises even more questions about technology’s true impact on learning. A particularly relevant question is reflected in the title of a recent 2023 study: “From ‘Ban It Till We Understand It’ to ‘Resistance is Futile’: How University Programming Instructors Plan to Adapt as More Students Use AI Code Generation and Explanation Tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot.”
This freshman seminar invites students to explore the evolving role of technology in education through a series of hands-on experiments. Students will take on dual roles:
· As learners, they will use technological scaffolding to engage with new material.
· As instructors, they will leverage technology to enhance the efficiency and quality of teaching.
Through these structured experiments, students will engage with cutting-edge AI and non-AI technologies while receiving a carefully balanced mix of peer and instructor feedback. This feedback serves as a key measure of the effectiveness of the technology itself.
Beyond the experiments, students will gain a preview of foundational concepts in data and computer science, offering insight into potential future coursework. No prior experience in these fields is required, ensuring an inclusive and level starting point for all participants.
Rather than being graded on content mastery, students will be evaluated on their reflections on the technologies they used. Their final term paper will critically assess both the benefits and limitations of the technologies they encountered in the learning and teaching process, providing a thoughtful analysis of technology’s evolving role in education.

 

TR, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm. Instructor(s): Greg Kable. Enrollment = 24.
This seminar examines our national drama from its colonial origins to the present. Participants read plays and criticism, screen videos, engage in critical writing, and consider performance as related means of exploring the visions and revisions constituting American dramatic history. We will approach American drama as both a literary and commercial art form, and look to its history to provide a context for current American theater practice. Readings are chosen for their intrinsic merit and historical importance, but also for their treatment of key issues and events in American life. Our focus throughout will be on the forces that shaped the American drama as well as, in turn, that drama’s ability to shed light on the national experience.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Gregory Kable is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Dramatic Art, where he teaches dramatic literature, theatre history, and performance courses and serves as an Associate Dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company. He also teaches seminars on Modern British Drama and American Musicals for the Honors program. He has directed dozens of productions at UNC and throughout the local community, and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

TR, 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm. Instructor(s): Robert McDonough. Enrollment = 35.
Introduction to Economics (Economics 101H) is the Honors section of the introductory course in Economics. The Honors section covers the same material as the large enrollment version but does so in more depth through discussion of real-life questions and the use of economic models. The course is an introduction to both micro and macroeconomics. In this one-semester course students are introduced to fundamental issues in economics including competition, scarcity, opportunity cost, resource allocation, unemployment, inflation, and the determination of prices. This course is the gateway course for the major of Economics; if you wish to major in Economics, you must have at least a C in this course.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

 

Robert McDonough is a labor economist, with research interests in the economics of education and the economics of crime and policing. His most recent work focuses on understanding what researchers can learn from student grades and grade point averages, and how workers make overtime choices with respect to their chance of being injured on the job.

TR, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm. Instructor(s): Drew Coleman. Enrollment = 20.
Have you ever wanted to stand on a volcano, see a glacier, trace out an earthquake fault, or see the Earth’s oldest living things? This seminar is designed around a one-week field trip to eastern California, where students will study geologic features including active volcanoes, earthquake-producing faults, and evidence for recent glaciation and extreme climate change. Before the field trip (which will take place the week of Fall Break and be based at a research station near Bishop, California), the class will meet twice a week to learn basic geologic principles and to work on developing field research topics. During the field trip students will work on field exercises (e.g., mapping, measuring, and describing an active fault; observing and recording glacial features) and collect data for the research projects. After the field trip, students will obtain laboratory data from samples collected during the trip and test research hypotheses using field and laboratory data. Grading will be based on presentation of group research projects, and on a variety of small projects during the trip (notebook descriptions, mapping projects, etc.). Students may be required to pay some of the costs of the trip (typically, about $500.) This course will require missing three days of classes. The course is designed to teach basic geology “on the rocks”, so there are no prerequisites. Link to Yosemite Nature Notes video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RQp77uVPA

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

 

Drew Coleman’s research focuses on understanding how the Earth works by determining the rates of processes (mountain building, extinction, volcanism, etc.) that occurred in the past. To accomplish this he and his students date rocks. His teaching is inquiry based and he is most happy when he is teaching “hands on” in the field or lab.

MWF, 12:20 pm – 1:10 pm. Instructor(s): David Ross. Enrollment = 24.
Science fiction supposedly pines for gleaming gadgetry. Even at its giddiest and wonkiest, however, science fiction remembers Frankenstein. It remembers that monsters develop ideas of their own; that they wind up haunting and even hunting us; that our innovations—however seemingly benign—threaten to escape our control and comprehension and embark on whole new careers of unintended consequence. Our course traces the genealogy of this machine anxiety. Our guiding questions will be: What are machines? Are machines “natural” or “unnatural”? Are their dangers inherent? How do they change us? Is an artificially intelligent “machine” really a machine?

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

 

David A. Ross is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. He has been a member of the Department of English & Comparative Literature at UNC–Chapel Hill since 2002. He is the author of A Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats (2009) and the co-editor/co-translator of The Search for the Avant-Garde, 1946–1969 (2012), the descriptive catalogue of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. A collector and amateur scholar of traditional Chinese paintings and Japanese woodblock prints, he has served as president of Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies and as both editor and book review editor of the Southeast Review of Asian Studies.

TR, 9:30 am – 10:45 am. Instructor(s): Jason Mihalik. Enrollment = 24.
Brain Matters: The Human Computer will explore one of the greatest anatomical and physiological mysteries known to us: the brain. The brain contains over 100 billion neurons allowing the human brain to serve as the hub for everything we do, say, or feel. It is by far the most complex and sophisticated ‘computer’ in existence. Together, we will explore this vast unknown. We will discuss and explore topics ranging from anatomy, neurodevelopment, decision-making, maturation, disease, and other topics related to our cerebral computers. The seminar will draw from faculty expertise across campus and may use examples from research and mass media to complement the teaching materials in the seminar. You will have opportunities to work together, present your work, submit article critiques, and participate in class discussion on these topics. The seminar is intended for all first-year students—regardless of intended major—interested in neuroscience.

 

Dr. Jason Mihalik (he/him/his) is a professor in EXSS where he directs the Matthew Gfeller Center. In these roles, he has studied civilian and military traumatic brain injury (TBI) for the past 20 years, publishing over 170 peer-reviewed publications on these topics. His work has contributed to changing rules and policies in several major sports, concussion legislation in our state, clinical programs to help Veterans and first responders, and has secured congressional funding to support ongoing military research. He is looking forward to the opportunity to translate high level neuroscience concepts into an engaging learning experience for first year Carolina students.

MWF, 8:00 am – 8:50 am; Recitation: TR, 10:10 – 12:00. Instructor(s): Wei Zhang. Enrollment = 30.
PHYS118 is a calculus-based introduction to Classical Mechanics. The course covers motion and kinematics in one and two dimensions, forces and Newton’s laws of motion, work-energy and conservation laws, frames of reference and Einstein’s theory of special relativity, rigid-body rotations, rolling, static equilibrium, and oscillations and waves.
The honors version of this course is differentiated by requiring a final project and presentation. Early in the semester, each honors student will identify a project of interest and submit the idea to the instructor, who will evaluate and discuss changes or other details with the student to finalize the curriculum for the semester. Suitable project choices will integrate multiple topics covered in the course and will require a detailed description and a brief literature review of relevant papers. A computational aspect is highly encouraged.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

MW, 1:25 pm – 2:40 pm. Instructor(s): Daniel Gitterman. Enrollment = 24.
This seminar will define a policy entrepreneur and examine strategies used by policy entrepreneurs to achieve policy change or innovation in the policy making process. This course also aims to explore ways that public, private, and non-profit sectors collaborate to address problems that cannot be solved by one sector alone. There is growing recognition that sustainable solutions to some of the most complex challenges confronting our communities can benefit from these collaborative or “intersector” approaches.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Daniel Gitterman is Duncan MacRae ’09 and Rebecca Kyle MacRae Professor of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He also serves as Director of the Honors Seminar in Public Policy and Global Affairs (Washington, DC).

MW, 3:35 pm – 4:50 pm. Instructor(s): Benjamin Meier. Enrollment = 24.
Global health policy impacts the health and well being of individuals and peoples throughout the world. Many determinants of health operate at a global level, and many national policies, social practices, and individual health behaviors are structured by global forces. Concern for the spread of infectious diseases, increasing rates of chronic diseases and the effectiveness of health systems to provide quality care are among the daunting challenges to health policy makers.
With profound social, political and economic changes rapidly challenging global health, the aim of this course in Global Health Policy is to provide students with a variety of opportunities to understand the epidemiologic trends in world health, the institutions of global health governance, and the effects of globalization on global and national health policy.
This course provides an introduction to the relationship between international relations, global health policy and public health outcomes. The focus of this course will be on public policy approaches to global health, employing interdisciplinary methodologies to understand selected public health policies, programs, and interventions. Providing a foundation for responding to global health harms, this course will teach students how to apply policy analysis to a wide range of critical issues in global health determinants, interventions, and impacts.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Professor Meier’s interdisciplinary research—at the intersection of international law, public policy, and global health—examines the human rights norms that underlie global health policy.  In teaching UNC courses in Justice in Public Policy, Health & Human Rights, and Global Health Policy, Professor Meier has been awarded the 2011 William C. Friday Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2013 James M. Johnston Teaching Excellence Award, the 2015 Zachary Taylor Smith Distinguished Professorship in Undergraduate Teaching, and six straight annual awards for Best Teacher in Public Policy.  He received his Ph.D. in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University, his J.D. and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from Cornell Law School, and his B.A. in Biochemistry from Cornell University.

 

TR, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm. Instructor(s): Barbara Ambros. Enrollment = 24.
This seminar examines the cultural construction of animals in Japanese myth, folklore, and religion. We will discuss various kinds of animals: those that occur in the natural world, those that are found in myths and folklore, and those that have appeared in popular media such as animation. We will explore how images of various animals were culturally constructed as tricksters, gods, monsters, or anthropomorphic companions; how animals were ritualized as divine, demonic, or sentient beings in Buddhism, Shinto, and folk religion; and how animals could serve as metaphors that embodied collective ideals or anxieties. Most of our readings will focus on primary and secondary texts from the Japanese tradition (in English), but we will also read theoretical texts on human-animal relationships and historical studies on animals in the larger Asian context. We will also view and analyze Japanese films, both anime and documentaries, that deal with animals and environmental issues.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY

Field of specialization: Religions of Asia Research interests: Religions in early modern through contemporary Japan; gender studies; animal studies; place and space; and pilgrimage.
Fun fact: she holds a fourth-degree black belt in Shotokan karate and serves as the faculty advisor for the UNC Shotokan Club.

TR, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm. Instructor(s): Regina Baker. Enrollment = 22.
Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, the United States has among the highest levels of poverty and inequality among rich democracies. What does it mean to live in poverty in the “land of plenty” and experience inequality in the “land of opportunity?” Why is the “American Dream” more attainable for some people than it is others? In this First Year Seminar, we will use a sociological perspective to explore these questions and more. We will cover a wide range of topics as they relate to poverty and inequality, such as perceptions, measurement, levels and trends, causes, consequences for individuals and society.  We will also examine different domains (e.g., housing, education, the criminal legal system, etc.) and how they serve as mechanisms of poverty and inequality. Throughout the course, we will discuss the significance of history and place as well as highlight different axes of inequality (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, age, disability). Although the focus is primarily on the United States, we will touch on poverty and inequality in an international comparative perspective to better understand the U.S. context. Ultimately, this course aims to advance understanding of poverty and inequality in America, and in doing so, highlight why the American Dream is difficult (and becoming increasingly more difficult) for some individuals and families to attain. This is a discussion-driven, reading-intensive course with a mix of written and oral assignments, including reflection papers, response memos, in-class activities, and individual and group projects/presentations.

 

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Dr. Regina S. Baker is an Associate Professor of Sociology. Prior to joining UNC-CH in 2023, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research seeks to understand factors that shape socioeconomic conditions and disparities in well-being across people, places, and time. She is especially interested in the role of institutional mechanisms in shaping individual outcomes and broader patterns of poverty and social inequality. Her recent/ongoing research focuses on child poverty and poverty risks, socioeconomic racial disparities, the link between historical racism and contemporary conditions, and the politics of power (e.g., via unions, policies) in the distribution of resources and economic and health outcomes. As a Southerner, some of Dr. Baker’s work focuses attention on the U.S. South and regional disparities. She received her Ph.D. and Masters degree in Sociology from Duke University, Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Georgia, and Bachelors degree in Sociology from Mercer University.