Spring 2027 Honors First Year Seminars & Launches

TR, 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm . Instructor(s): Seth Kotch. Enrollment = 24.
Crime and punishment are all around us: a parent scolding a naughty child, some poor soul being handcuffed in the McDonald’s parking lot, scofflaws sniffing cocaine off keys in the bathroom at La Rez, 57,000 inmates living in North Carolina’s jails and prisons. But how much crime and punishment do we even notice? This course aims to use discussion, small group work, low stakes assessments, and journaling to help you notice punishment by introducing you to its history, by making you knowledgeable about its structures and intentions, by engaging you in a discussion of its past, present, and future.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

TR, 11:00 am – 12 15 pm. Instructor(s): Lily Panoussi. Enrollment = 24.
The popularity of book series such Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Hunger Games is due in no small measure to the way in which they reimagine and recreate stories, themes, and characters belonging to Greek and Roman myth. In this course, we will explore the ways in which modern authors have chosen to adopt, alter, or adapt ancient stories to suit the tastes, anxieties, and interests of a contemporary audience. We will read ancient and modern literature with an aim at identifying commonalities and differences among the various narratives; understanding the universality of anxieties surrounding the coming of age; and exploring these works as products of their particular historical and socio-political context.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY

MWF, 12:20 pm – 1:10 pm; Recitation: M, 11:15 am – 12:05 pm OR M, 2:30 pm – 3:20 pm. Instructor(s): Greg Gangi. Enrollment = 35.
This course will explore changing human-environmental relations from a variety of social, geographical, and historical settings. While some lectures do include material from the natural sciences this is a social science class. The class cuts across many disciplines in a manner that is integrative rather than segregating lessons from different academic disciplines into separate lectures. The focus of this course is in the first half of the class to give students familiarity with how humans and human organizations deal with issues of sustainability. The second half of the semester will explore some critical issues like population, food security, climate change, urban planning and transitioning to a low carbon economy. This part of the course will not only give student information important background information about the problems but also highlight possible solutions.

The most important reason to take this class is that it will be closely linked to the UNC Cleantech Summit: https://web.cvent.com/event/fb9661fc-7cb6-4bb5-8c6d-5fbc2c15057d/summary
. Clean energy, sustainable mobility, circularity and bioeconomy/green chemistry are the consistent themes of the Summit.  This past March we had over 250 speakers and a lot of high-level keynotes that included government leaders, CEOs of large and small companies and the CEO of a large bank. Speakers come from all over the world and representatives of foreign governments often contribute as speakers. It is an amazing networking opportunity and students have connected with internships and job at the Summit.

In addition, to weekly class lectures, students will attend a one-hour recitation session to enjoy small-group discussion and to explore related topics of personal interest.  Your class involvement will be enhanced by a class listserv, that is set up to facilitate the exchange of references and other course related information.  Major Objectives:  1)  To introduce the social context of environmental issues.  2)  To provide an exposure to diverse aspects of human-environmental relationships so that students who are pursuing a major or minor in environmental studies can better design their future plan of studies.  3)  To allow all students to better understand the link between environmental problems, cultural behaviors, public policies, corporate decision-making, and citizen and consumer behavior.

Course requirements: Students are required to attend class, to compete reading assignment, to participate in class discussion and recitation exercises, to complete a group project, and to perform successfully on written examinations.  There will be a midterm (10% of the grade), a Cleantech Summit assignment (10% of grade) and a final examination (35% of the grade).  Another 20 percent of the grade will be based upon a group project and written paper assignment on one case study related to one of the topics covered at the UNC Cleantech Summit.  The recitation grade will account for the remaining 25 percent of the grade.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Greg Gangi has broad interests in sustainable development. He is interested in nurturing experiential learning opportunities for students and has developed a number of innovative field based program in different parts of the world.

TR, 9:30 am – 10: 45 am. Instructor(s): Erika Wise. Enrollment = 24.
Climate change has been called both the “greatest hoax” ever perpetuated and the “most urgent threat” facing the world. While scientists produce volume after volume of consensus documents and peer-reviewed papers on climate change, most people get their information from other sources, including newspapers, comedy, social media, movies, and fiction. In this class, we will explore how the established science of climate change is presented, distorted, and debated in these media sources by alarmists, denialists, and everyone in between. Through readings, viewings, discussions, and presentations, students will encounter different points of view, explore a variety of media sources, and conduct research on one of the defining issues of our time. Beyond climate change, the topics discussed in this class will be relevant to other current events that require students to evaluate sources of information and communicate with people who may have different perspectives.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Professor Erika Wise leads the Climate & Tree Ring Environmental Science (C-TRĒS) research group, based in UNC’s Department of Geography and Environment. She is a climatologist who specializes in using dendrochronology (tree-ring science) to study climate over the last several centuries, especially the long-term record of past droughts, floods, and other climate extremes. This research is important for establishing a baseline for recent climate change and for understanding how climate change might impact our water resources in the future. Before moving to North Carolina, Dr. Wise lived in Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Iowa; she has collected tree samples in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and South Dakota. She likes to go to new places and learn new things!

TR, 8:00 am – 9:15 am. Instructor(s): Ivan Cherednik. Enrollment = 24.
A leading expert in Modern Combinatorics wants to share his vision of the subject with the students. The seminar is a perfect background for future specialists in mathematics, physics, computer science, biology, economics, for those who are curious what statistical physics is about, what is cryptography, and how stock market works, and for everyone who likes mathematics.
The course will be organized around the following topics:

Puzzles: dimer covering, magic squares, 36 officers
Combinations: from coin tossing to dice and poker
Fibonacci numbers: rabbits, population growth, etc.
Arithmetic: designs, cyphers, intro to finite fields
Catalan numbers: from playing roulette to stock market
The students will learn about the history of Combinatorics, its connections with the theory of numbers, its fundamental role in the natural sciences and various applications.

It is an advanced research course; all students are expected to participate in projects under the supervision of I.Ch. and the Graduate Research Consultant (the GRC Program). This seminar is partially supported by Honors Carolina.

The grades will be based on the exam, bi-weekly home assignments and the participation in the projects. The course requires focus and effort, but, generally, the students are quite satisfied with the progress they make (and their grades too).

From the Course Evaluation: “A difficult but wholly worthwhile course: I feel more competent for having taken it”, “I would recommend this FYS to others ONLY if they have a VERY strong affinity for and ability in Algebra (I thought I did, but I was wrong)”.

Professor Cherednik is Austin H. Carr Distinguished Professor of
Mathematics. Trained at the Steklov Mathematics Institute of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences and at Moscow State University, his
areas of specialization are Representation Theory, Combinatorics,
Number Theory, Harmonic Analysis, and Mathematical Physics.
Cherednik’s particular affection for Combinatorics is well known:
he proved the celebrated Constant term conjecture in Combinatorics.
His recent papers were in financial mathematics, on modeling
epidemic spread, and on some aspects of AI.

MWF, 12:20 pm – 1:10 pm; Recitation: W, 3:35 pm – 4:25 pm. Instructor(s): Elizabeth McLaughlin. Enrollment = 35.
This is the Honors section of Math 232. It offers a more demanding and deeper treatment than the regular sections as well as more involved applications. There will be more emphasis on understanding theory than in other sections. In addition, this section will cover extra topics, such as surface area, elementary differential equations, and calculus using polar coordinates as well as the standard topics of applications of integration, techniques of integration, improper integrals, sequences and series, and Taylor series.

PREREQUISITES: SCORE OF 5 ON THE AP CALCULUS AB TEST OR AS THE AB SUBSCORE ON THE AP CALCULUS BC TEST OR A GRADE OF AT LEAST B+ IN MATH 231/231H.

Elizabeth McLaughlin received a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona and has been teaching math at UNC since 1998. Her primary focus is the development of large lecture calculus courses.

W, 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm. Instructor(s): Terry Holt. Enrollment = 20.
A workshop in autobiographical and creative short story, focusing on the complex connections between story-telling, interpretive skill, and the practice of medicine. Students will write and present autobiographical and fictional short stories about illness and medical care; the seminar will meet weekly to discuss these stories, attempting to identify and articulate the key issues each story expresses about what it means to be sick, what it might mean to take care of others in their illness. The writing and (especially) interpretive skills acquired in this workshop are directly valuable to anyone contemplating a career in medicine, but are equally valuable to anyone who might at some point encounter (in themselves or in someone they care for) the trauma of illness. In addition to the weekly workshop, participants will have one-on-one conferences with the instructor (himself an MD with an international reputation as a writer). A semester-long journal, focusing on the reverberations of the pandemic on the writer’s remembered experience as well as present-day attitudes toward illness and caregiving, will form the basis for a final project.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY

FULFILLS FC-CREATE requirement.

 

Terrence Holt taught literature and writing at Rutgers University and Swarthmore College for a decade before attending medical school at UNC. Hailed as “a work of genius” by the New York Times, his 2009 collection of short fiction, In the Valley of the Kings, was one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year. Internal Medicine, his New York Times bestselling memoir of medical training, was named best book of 2014 by three industry journals. Of his most recent book, a novel titled Soldiers & Sailors (Liveright 2026), Kirkus Reviews calls “a note-perfect narrative … full of surprises, with no shortage of empathy and wisdom … worthy of shelving alongside Henry James and Stephen King.” Holt teaches medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

TR, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm. Instructor(s): James Pryor. Enrollment = 24.
Is our belief in freedom of action compatible with the modern picture of ourselves as being controlled by our genes, our inborn traits of character, and by our environments? If that freedom is compromised, then are we as responsible morally and legally for our actions as we, and society, tend to think? We will attempt to clarify these questions through group discussions and analysis of compelling writings on the mind-body problem and the controversy over whether “free will” is an illusion. We will also develop some skills in formal logic to use as tools in analyzing classical and contemporary arguments about free will. Throughout the semester students will develop and defend their own considered views on the subject. A seminar format will encourage active participation in informal discussions and in brief presentations that provide each student with an opportunity to express his or her reactions to these issues. Course requirements include at-home quizzes paired with in-class writing, and a final exam.

1. First year students only.

Jim Pryor joined the Philosophy department in 2020. Before that, he spent time at NYU, Harvard, and Princeton. His research and teaching spans epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.

MWF, 8:00 am – 8:50 am; Recitation: MW, 10:10 am – 12:00 pm. 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.

Wei Zhang is an associate professor and William R. Kenan Jr. Scholar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UNC CH.

TR, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm. Instructor(s): Timothy Ryan. Enrollment = 24.
Americans overwhelmingly endorse free expression in the abstract—but do they extend it evenhandedly when the speech in question is one they dislike? And how do the rules and norms governing public conversation shape which ideas get heard at all? This course provides a rigorous, data-driven examination of the state of free expression in America today. After grounding ourselves in the historical and legal landscape, we will turn our attention to recent and in-progress political behavior research that assesses what free expression values Americans endorse, how they apply those values, and how the norms surrounding free expression influence which ideas receive voice, debate, and action.

Timothy Ryan is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at UNC, Chapel Hill. He has a number of research interests related to public opinion and political psychology.

MWF, 11:15 am – 12:05 pm. Instructor(s): Amanuel Gebremichael. Enrollment = 30.
This course is an introduction to American political institutions, political behavior, and the policy process. In this course we will discuss the origins of the current governmental system in America, the structure of the U.S. government, and how theories of American government apply to current events and problems the government and citizens face today.  At the end of the course students should have a greater understanding of government, political differences, and how to be an engaged citizen in our democracy.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Amanuel T. Gebremichael is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests are in African-American politics, economic inequality in the U.S., and Pan-Africanism. Dr. Gebremichael earned his Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University prior to joining UNC.

TR, 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm. Instructor(s): Jennifer Arnold. Enrollment = 24.
As adults we constantly make judgments about other people’s beliefs, desires, goals, knowledge, and intentions from evidence like eye gaze and inferences from their words and actions.  These judgments together can be called mindreading, or theory of mind (where “theory” refers to the theory someone might hold about another’s mental state, not a scientific theory).  This information is known to guide some aspects of language use — for example, you wouldn’t ask someone to hand you “that book” if they don’t know it exists.  But sometimes you might ignore what someone else does or does not know – for instance asking someone for “the red book” when that person is sitting in front of two red books.  This course examines how people infer the mental states of others, and how they use it to guide decisions during speaking and understanding.  In a project-based learning format, this class also teaches techniques in experimentation, quantitative reasoning and analysis from evidence. Students design and carry out a novel experimental study, discuss primary research articles, and present their findings in spoken and written formats.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

Dr. Jennifer Arnold is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. She studies the ways that our minds handle the jobs of speaking and understanding. How do speakers choose words and produce them? How do listeners pick out the speaker’s meaning? Her research is guided by questions about how people represent the thoughts, intentions, and mental activities of other people, and how this information influences specific linguistic processes.

TR, 9:30 am – 10: 45 am. Instructor(s): David Cook-Martin. Enrollment = 24.
Is the law the same in Charlotte or Chennai—in 1826 or 2026? This first-year seminar challenges the assumption of law as an unchanging and neutral set of rules. Instead, we propose that law reflects the societies in which it is produced, and in turn shapes those societies in profound ways.

Through case studies spanning immigration and citizenship, gender and sexuality, policing and AI surveillance, environmental justice, and criminal justice across different countries and historical periods, we explore how legal systems produce—and are produced by—social equality and inequities. Students will conduct original research to understand law not as abstract rules but as lived experience that affects people’s daily lives. By the end of the semester, you will have connected personally with a faculty mentor, worked intensively in a small learning community, and produced an original research project of your own design.

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY.

David Cook-Martín brings a global perspective to the study of migration rooted in his experiences of living in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, the United States, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. As William Burwell Harrison Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UNC Chapel Hill, he researches migration, citizenship, race, and ethnicity—the very themes students will explore in this course.
His award-winning books include Culling the Masses (with David FitzGerald), which examines how states construct racial barriers to immigration, and The Scramble for Citizens, which explores citizenship policies across countries. His forthcoming book, Workers without Rights: The Making of Temporary Labor Migration since Abolition (Oxford University Press), directly connects to the course’s focus on labor migration systems worldwide.
David’s teaching approach emphasizes collaborative exploration of complex social questions. He creates classroom environments where students can connect theoretical frameworks to real-world migration patterns and policies. Having previously taught at institutions including NYU and the Spanish National Research Council, he brings diverse pedagogical experiences to guide students through their own research journeys in understanding the factors shaping human movement across borders.

TR, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm. Instructor(s): Regina Baker. Enrollment = 24.
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 and consequences for individuals and society. We will examine different institutions that shape and reproduce poverty and inequality (e.g., housing, education, the labor market, health system, etc.). Throughout the course, we will discuss the significance of historical and place contexts. 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, as well as individual and group projects and presentations.

Dr. Regina S. Baker is an Associate Professor of Sociology. 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 and historical mechanisms in shaping individual outcomes and broader patterns of poverty and inequality. As a Southerner, some of Dr. Baker’s work focuses attention on the U.S. South and regional disparities. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University.