volume 8 issue 4
DESCRIPTION
Regis College Honors Program NewsletterTRANSCRIPT
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 “human-
animal distinction,” the pro-
vocative 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 cosmogon-
ic myths, these projects
make good on the idea that
the subjects we study,
though housed in different
departments, are not isolat-
ed 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 pre-
pared 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 Philosophi-
cal Explorations that contin-
ued, in various ways, beyond
the boundaries of the
classroom.
While the seniors are
preparing to move up and
out of Regis, first-year stu-
dents, 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 con-
clude the term by thinking
about the difficult work
we face as climate change
becomes an undeniable
reality and the ways in
which any adequate re-
sponse requires an integra-
tive approach, bringing
together insights from the
worlds of science, philoso-
phy, economics, and reli-
gion. Juniors, in Justice for
All, are applying work
done earlier in the term on
philosophical concepts of
justice to issues such as
genetic engineering, tor-
ture, mental illness, and
particular issues facing
Haiti and India.
CONTINED on page 6
April Showers Volume 8, Issue 4
Honorable News
“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.”
Discussion
Board—Fretz’s
Response
2
Ghedotti’s
Response
3
Genesis and Dr.
Gaensbauer
3
Senior Thesis
Excerpts
4
Alumni Corner
6
Inside this issue:
Regis University
4-26-13
—Dr. Howe, Associate Director of the Honors Porgram
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 cli-
mate 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 fos-
sil fuels are available for removal, but
even if we run out in the next 20 or 30
years, most scientists agree that the car-
bon that we’ve already released into the
atmosphere will remain and continue to
produce deleterious effects on our envi-
ronment.
We Say, They Say:
Is Climate Change the Moral Issue of Our Time?
Page 2 Honorable News
The reason I framed this question the
way I did was because the science of cli-
mate 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 ques-
tion 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 know-
ing 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 hu-
man 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 pen-
dulum 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 [email protected], or James Persichetti at [email protected].
Asking the Sage: Dr. Fretz’s Response
and John Henry Newman,
they read literature like Dan-
te’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. Gaens-
bauer’s house. Dr. Gaensbau-
er 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 peri-
ods of time for discussion, she
and Dr. Martin ended up
changing the class times in
1980, saying in a winter break
The Socratic question
“Where are you going, and
where have you come from?”
is a foundation on which we
walk through the honors pro-
gram 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, cover-
ing the Scholars students’
History and English require-
ments. The seminars were
broken up by time period
instead of the thematic semi-
nars we have today, beginning
with the Classic and Medieval
periods, moving to the Re-
naissance, and then 17th, 18th,
and 19th century classes.
While we read Plato and Pirsig
letter to their students, “We
realize that these three-hour
sessions left many of you
writhing and hungry and sig-
nificantly diminished of your
capacity to discuss or concen-
trate.”
In their first several years
of the program, they reached
out into the community re-
ceiving 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 with-
out any notion of elitism or
A Biologist’s View: Dr. Ghedotti’s Response
Where Have We Come From?:
The Genesis of the Honors Program with Dr. Gaensbauer
“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
academics.”
Page 3 Volume 8, Issue 4
—James Persichetti, Editor in Chief of Honorable News, Class of 2015
stratification within the uni-
versity.
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. Gaens-
bauer 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 hear-
ing 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. Gaensbau-
er replied with a smile, “What
we’re doing now is absolutely
in the spirit of what we were
trying to launch way back
when.”
to personal and then collec-
tive action. It is this larger
recognition of collective re-
sponsibility for environmental
and society ills that has be-
come imperative.
Acknowledging collective
responsibility is so difficult to
achieve because we don’t ex-
perience the consequences as
immediate and direct out-
comes 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
I’d probably say that cli-
mate change, by itself, isn’t
the moral issue of our
time. I’d suggest that the mor-
al 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 soci-
etal issues require an acknowl-
edgement of collective re-
sponsibility for justice and the
common good that needs to
be followed by a commitment
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.
Senior Thesis
Ben Closson The Beach: A Narrative Thesis
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 Portfo-
lio 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.
Ted Lynch Responding to Gang Violence in El Salvador: What
Homeboy Industries can teach us about Reinsertion
and Prevention
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 govern-
ment history of dealing with this. I discuss
how Homeboy Industries has played in gang
member reformation in Los Angeles.
Kelsey Leinweber A Glance at Acquired Cell Resistance in Cancer
Cells and Biases in Cancer Research Funding
A two part thesis, encompassing scientific
research done at Anschutz Medical Campus
on acquired cell resistance including second-
line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer
and logistics behind cancer research funding.
This project delves deep into both govern-
mental and nongovernmental sources of fund-
ing, while concentrating on breast, lung, and
ovarian cancers.
Jeff Hassebrock Mixed Agency: A Historical & Ethical Examina-
tion of the Health Professional’s Role in the Military
System
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 inde-
structible dichotomy, and find myself asking,
“What should military medicine look like?”
Jessica Baca Egypt: From 328,513 Likes to 1
Million Protesters
Throughout the Egyptian Revolution, social
media impacted how activists were network-
ing 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.
Megan Linders Virtue, Value, and Vocation: Finding Meaning in
Medicine
In understanding one’s true purpose in life
and how the Christian virtues and Jesuit
values specifically help one in this under-
standing, the practice of medicine is trans-
formed 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, hu-
manist manner.
Michelle Hastings The Gender of Mathematics: Math is Not Born
Male
It has been realized that overall men and
women probably have different cognitive
strengths as the result of a complex inter-
play between nature and nurture. The gap of
women in mathematical careers is not a
problem of differences in ability, but a prob-
lem in differences of achievement influ-
enced by society.
Jon Denzler Marx, McGee, and the Masking of So-
cial Oppression: An Ideographical Analysis of the
Political Myth of the War on Poverty
Drawing upon the work of promi-
nent 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.
Justine Buffmack Understanding the Value of a Study Abroad Experi-
ence and Closing the Gender Gap
It is because studying abroad has a significant
positive effect on not only academics of stu-
dents, 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.
Alex Lynch Abortion, Sterilization, and Physician Assisted
Suicide: Moral Medical Decision Making via the
Discernment Theory
To what extent should moral law guide medi-
cal 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 physi-
cian-assisted suicide.
Rachel Haun The Rescue of Jones: the False Human /Animal
Distinction, and Worth in the Animal Kingdom
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 abil-
ity – and humans, as highly intelligent, capa-
ble, and feeling animals, are indeed obligated
to some non-human animals, as Ripley was
obligated to Jones.
Tidi Haile-Selassie Critical Pedagogy: The Fight for Freedom through
Education in a Prisoner of War Camp
This thesis explores themes of freedom and
change in a prisoner of war camp, where Ethi-
opian 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.
Page 4 Honorable News
Class of 2013
Lo Martinez The Role Of Exorcism in the Modern World: A
Vision And Practice Of Human Wholeness.
I argue that we need to recover the place of
the Rite of Exorcism and reevaluate its an-
cient 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.
Molly Sullivan United States Agricultural Policy: Subsidy Struc-
tures and Unintended Consequences
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 responsibil-
ity in a variety of controversial topics revolv-
ing around food production including biofu-
els, genetically modified foods, and corporate
welfare.
Morgan Potter Barriers to Accessing Healthcare as Experienced by
the Participants of Project Homeless Connect 2012
This study explores the barriers that homeless
population experience, as well as drug usage
and rates of mental illness among more vul-
nerable subgroups. This study is part of a vast
body of work regarding these issues and con-
tributes to both future research and possible
policy changes on the subject.
Morgan Nitta Affect Empathy: Exploring Prosocial Behavior in
Neuroscience
As the neuroscientific world continues to
examine empathy, my thesis explores cogni-
tive and affective empathy within the context
of neural processing pathways and as a moti-
vation for prosocial helping behaviors. Is
one better than the other? I explore affective
empathy within a rat model.
Amy Lytle Defense Against the Dark Arts: Harry Potter and
the Allegory for Evil
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 Rowl-
ing's work, though children's literature, is
still important and how every individual has
the potential for both good and evil within
themselves.
Sonny Stoen Terminal and Life-Threatening Conditions: Finding
Meaning through Mortality
When faced with the reality of mortality,
man often expedites and prioritizes his jour-
ney for meaning. While universally complex,
the process of meaning-making in individu-
als 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.
Alexis Ortega Visualizing the Written Word: An Artistic Ap-
proach to Creation Myths
Studying paintings based on creation myths
from .Japan, Egypt, Greece, the Maidu tribe,
and the Ngurunderi tribe, I seek to trans-
form 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.
Grant Mather Reminiscence: Bushido and Modern Japan
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 reflec-
tive example of the aforesaid philosophy.
Ashley Marranzino Conservation and the Deep Sea: Fish Diversity and
Distribution in the Gulf of Mexico
I will explain how both physically and biologi-
cally 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.
Kathryn Sullivan Two in One: Archetypal Harmony in Beauty & the
Beast Description
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 af-
fects the ultimate union of these elements.
Dan Ott Falling a House of Cards: Rediscovering a Humanist
Language in an Age of Neuro-Reductionism
I argue that the language-games specific to
both neuroscience research and psychological
treatment have becoming nonsensically inter-
twined, leading to commodification of treat-
ment and patient abuse. Ultimately, my thesis
stands as an argument against the translational
use of reductionism from research paradigms
to treatment protocols.
Brian Nakayama Universal Computation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Game
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 dis-
covery of interesting properties when allowing
only enough iterations for a strategy to use its
”transient” instructions. The implications of
universal computation are also discussed.
Page 5 Volume 8, Issue 4
Newsletter requests, ideas,
submissions? Contact
James Persichetti at
further information.
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 reveal-
ing 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.”
Alumni Corner
Regis University
Honors Program
Address: Carroll Hall 121 3333 Regis Blvd H-16 Denver Colorado 80221
PHONE: 303-458-4360 E-MAIL: [email protected]
WEBSITE: www.regis.edu/honors
April is also the time students are
happily looking forward to what is to
come and entertaining all sorts of possi-
bilities. 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 re-
search, be it at the Mayo Clinic in Min-
nesota or a clinic at the University of
Nebraska. Others will find rewarding
work at a camp for children with chron-
ic 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” cur-
riculum, 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 ea-
gerness with which they make them,
April Showers (Continued from Front)
come to be fulfilled (often in ways nei-
ther they nor we expect) as they make
their way through four years of conversa-
tions 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 be-
ing made. April, as busy as it is, is a great
month for Honors at Regis.
—Dr. Howe, Associate Director of the Honors Porgram
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 won-
derful artistic commitment our community.
The Honors Mural