traditional sight-seeing spots of our na-tion’s capital, we walked to the Eastern Market. I have no idea how this place had eluded me. The farmer’s market’s history bustles busily along at the tiptop of Capitol Hill, unnoticed from below. The red-bricked architecture of the building looked like an old factory someone had tried to dress up for the holidays. Local farmers and vendors lay out fresh cuts of meat, fish, flowers, and pull bakery goods out of ovens to cool. The businesses there have man-aged to successfully compete against the grocery chains popping up all around the area without closing the Market’s doors for even one day in 137 years. It’s not such a bad thing to be a tourist in your own home city. The trip allowed me to see D.C. with new eyes.

Sanctuary Sanctuary, a literary mag-azine edited by the Uni-versity of Alabama Bir-mingham and sponsored by the Southern Regional Honors Council accepted the creative works of five honors students. Their works are listed below.

Danielle Bibb’s short story, “Featherweight.”

Rachel Kiliany’s photo, “From a Child’s Perspec-tive.”

Miklos Mattyasovszky’s essay, “On Looking Into the Shenandoah Valley.”

Laura Newberry’s short story, “The Story of an Egg.”

Christine Stark’s poem “Side Tracked” and short fiction piece, “Claimed.”

IN THIS ISSUEpg. 2 Honors Students Teach For America

pg. 3 NCHC in Kansas City

pg. 4 Freshman Spotlight

pg. 5 Senior Spotlight

pg. 6 Inside Honors Alumni News

pg. 7 Fall Graduates

PERIPLUSA circumnavigation; a voyage or journey round a coastline;

an epic journey, an odyssey

HONORSSCHOLARSPROGRAM

Volume 4, Issue II,Fall 2010

Hometown TouristEmma Powers gives her unique perspective on the Honors Fall Lyceum trip to Washington, D.C.

Emma Powers at the Eastern Market

By Emma Powers ’13 The problem with living so close to any well-known landscape is that you never actually visit it yourself. I’m a D.C. person who’s never been near the White House or Capitol, never gone to lunch in Dupont Circle. My Washington was actually pretty limited. The Monuments by Moonlight Tour revealed places that were all new to me. When the honors group got to the Lin-coln Memorial, its front steps and lawn were still roped off from where speakers had gathered at the ‘One Nation March’ earlier in the day. On each block, trodden down papers looked up from the ground, imploring us to “create green jobs” as they settled further into the pebbled grooves of the concrete. Here at least is a part of D.C. I can claim to have known before now—the incredibly unifying nature of political fervor. The constant surge of marches and rallies, protests and parades, injects a certain tireless vigor into the city that I find unique. Even when I was small, I loved the pure energy of the endless crowd. It can turn a hundred thousand into a community. After my delayed introduction to the

Teach For America corps members commit to teach for two years in low-income communities, then go on as alumni to lead efforts to change the face of public education. The program recruits recent college graduates from all backgrounds and career interests to join their organization. They provide the training and ongoing support necessary to ensure their teach-ers’ success. Three honors graduates from UNCW have become involved with this program. Monica Lorenzo taught high school Biology in the Bronx and now continues her work for Teach for America in NYC, aiding the development and support programs for new teachers. Brian DesRoches is currently teaching second grade at a Baltimore city public school. William Henley offers his take on the Teach for America experience below.

Teaching is HARD WORK. I should have taken a victory lap at UNCW and stayed for a fifth year. Free time has become a thing of the past. I teach 9th grade English at Greenville-Weston High School in the heart of the Delta: Greenville, Mississippi. I have three different blocks, each consisting of over 35 students. Every class is a new adventure. The kids are what make it all worthwhile. Overall, my kiddos are truly bright and very capable. Watch-ing a concept finally click for them is the most re-warding experience I have ever had. I do have some children who like to make class-room management a little difficult. I lovingly refer to them as my “children of the corn.” Out of my 110 kids, there are probably about 20-25 of them that haven’t realized the importance of English. I’m diligently working on that though. We have a goal to improve by 3 points on the read-ing and English ACT this year. I’m constantly push-ing my children to aim for a 21 or better on the ACT, a score that is considered college-ready. In Mississip-pi, the average ACT score is 18. In the Delta, it is a 16. Down here, the need is great and the time is short. Far and beyond, this is the most challenging task I have ever taken on. I have never been so humbled in

“It has been an incredible experience to work closely with a professor on my honors thesis” Garrison Libby ’11Pg. 2

Honors Students Teach For AmericaThe Adventures of Mr. Henley

Mr. Henley’s class focuses on a test.

my life. There are days when I come home and feel like an utter failure because I know my kiddos didn’t learn anything. Other days I come home knowing my students truly learned a new concept. It’s a roller coaster. The roughest day so far happened Tuesday when a student brought a gun to school and we discovered it

in my room. It was infuriating (and still is) that my children don’t even have a safe place to live, yet alone go to school. It was a pretty stress-ful day, so my principals made me take a day off. I needed it. One of my kids came up to me the next morning and said, “I’m

glad you’re back, Mr. Henley. Our sub didn’t teach us anything.” I almost cried.

Check out my blog! http://learningontheriver.teachforus.org/

Students interested in joining Teach for America can find more information on the UNCW Career Cen-ter website: www.uncw.edu/stuaff/career/jobsearch as well as the Teach for America website: www.teachforamerica.org/

“Watching a concept finally click for them

is the most rewarding experience I have ever had.”

Honors Scholars Program. Brittney Knotts and Christopher Anstine gave a presentation about their honors mentor experience. Matt Okoneski and Colin Nolan pre-sented posters about their honors projects, involving climate change and virus cloning respectively. I was there to gather information about print media. None of us ex-pected to be so enthralled by the city and the way in which it was ex-pertly woven into the conference. Upon my arrival at the hotel, the conference pushed me di-rectly back into the city. Students received maps and assigned dis-tricts to explore with students from schools around the country. It was an amazing way to be introduced to new people and a new place si-multaneously. Kansas City has a long-standing history with jazz, and themes of improvisation were incorporated into several sessions

during the conference. These sessions culminated in a

night of blues and comedy at the Historic Midland Theatre. When Samantha Fish, blues diva, took the

stage, her voice was so al-luring that I never want-ed to leave Kansas City.

“The small class sizes are my favorite part about the honors program” Tate Devin ’14Pg. 3

NCHC: Kansas City ConferenceStudents and professors present at the National Collegiate Honors CouncilBy Christine Stark ’13

Dr. Kate Bruce was chosen by the NCHC Board of Directors as part of the inaugural class of National Collegiate Honors Council Fellows.

Matt Okoneski, Christine Stark, Brittney Knotts, and Chris Anstine on the last day of the conference. They had just attended the closing session where filmogra-pher Seth Kramer presented his latest documentary The New Recruits.

Peruvian Connection, The Ca-shew, Christopher Elbow, and The Flying Saucer were only a few of the names that called to me from signs adorning shop windows in Kansas City. I explored them all on an adventure called “City as Text” during the National Col-legiate Honors Council confer-ence in Kansas City, Missouri. Seven UNCW representatives at-tended the conference. Dr. Atwill and Dr. Bruce led the trip and made several presentations about the

The conference also offered me the chance to interact with students and faculty from other schools who shared my same interests. I was able to meet people from Massa-chusetts, California, Pennsylvania, Texas and many other states in the span of four days. I met many of them in formal session settings and our conversations spilled over into dinner in the city. Our group of UNCW students even teamed up with a group of students from L.A. to explore the best-rated haunted house in the country. I recommend that students sub-mit paper or presentation ideas to both the regional and national councils for consideration. Con-ferences present a unique oppor-tunity to learn and share within a larger honors community, an op-portunity that I won’t soon forget.

Coming and GoingMeet two honors freshmen who are just beginning their journey at UNCW,

and a graduating senior with excitement on the horizon.

“My favorite honors class is Dr. Boren’s Rise of the Gothic, it is so engaging” Eric Van Gorder ’14Pg. 4

By Sarah Bentil-Owusu ’14

I was born in Ghana, West Africa, in the small town of Dunkwa. However, I was actually raised in two different towns, Takoradi and Accra, where my fam-ily was living when we decided to move to America. Growing up, I became fluent in Fante, the language my family spoke. There were four other main languag-es throughout the country. Twi was the language of my elementary school, but since both languages were simi-lar, it wasn’t too hard to pick up both of them. I also learned to speak French for a brief period at school. Some of the foods that I enjoyed from Ghana are fufu, which is a boiled cassava, yams and plantains mix that is mashed and then eaten with soup; kenke, which is a complicated corn mix; and various types of soups eaten with rice, rice balls or any kind of starch. Some

Sara Bentil-Owusu starts her first year from a unique background.

Laura Keaton and her magma-roasted marshmallow atop a volcano inGuatemala.

Colors of a Day of the Dead celebration in Guatemala. Photo by Laura Keaton.

A Freshman from AfarFrom West Africa to Wilmington, one student presents a global perspective

By Laura Keaton ’14

After graduating from high school, I took a year off to participate in a bridge year program called Global Citizen Year. I travelled to Guatemala and lived with a host family while I volunteered in schools, teaching English to children ages 3 to 16. I plan to major in Spanish and have been tak-ing advantage of opportunities within the UNCW and Wilmington communities to expand my skills. Currently, I work as an interpreter for the Interfaith Refugee Ministry here in Wilmington, translat-ing for Spanish-speaking refugees at appointments as they settle into life in the U.S. I am also about to be-gin work as a research assistant to Dr. Graciela Espinosa. She is studying romantic experiences, sexual atti-tudes and psychological adjustment among middle school and high school students living in Puebla, Mexico. My other passions include writing, editing, and fashion—my guilty pleasure! I intern with Boutiika, an online search engine for NYC boutiques, helping maintain the social networking sites, updat-ing Twitter and Facebook with new sales and in-store events, as well as write the weekly newsletter.

of the soups were peanut butter, goat, and palm nut. One of my favorite activities was visiting the market with my mother. The biggest markets were the busiest places in the city. They were very open, with vendors occupying every space imaginable and screaming to buy from their various prod-ucts, many of which came from different countries. I was 10 when I first moved to the U.S. and it was quite an experience eating fast food and seeing snow for the first time. Experiencing two different cultures helped me keep an open-minded view when I started at UNCW. My goal is to enter the pre-med track and become a physician so I can go back to give medi-cal aid in my country and other countries in Africa.

Bridging the GapThis student found her passion through a bridge year

Coming and GoingMeet two honors freshmen who are just beginning their journey at UNCW,

and a graduating senior with excitement on the horizon.

“The atmosphere of the honors office provides a great place to study for exams” Lauren Phillips ’13Pg. 5

Colors of a Day of the Dead celebration in Guatemala. Photo by Laura Keaton. Leah Pursel and her son at Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor’s society induction.

Pursel celebrates with a fellow of-ficer after being elected as direc-tor of Breakthrough to Nursing.

Nursing Student Inspires ManyThis student uses her leadership role to better the community

By Leah K. Pursel ’10

The University of North Carolina Wilming-ton has granted me invaluable opportunities to im-prove myself and serve the community. I will al-ways remember the day I received my acceptance letter into the School of Nursing and that first day meeting my instructors. Those moments helped mold me into a more disciplined and eager student. Last fall was my first term as the president of ANS. I proposed that we adopt a local family that had fall-en on hard times. My fellow officers agreed and found a single parent whose daughter has leukemia. This twelve-year-old girl has been receiv-ing bone marrow treatments at Duke Uni-versity and has been confined to a hospital bed for months. ANS raised money to assist this family. The Association of Nursing Students has never before adopted a family. The inspiration for this en-deavor came from working with burdened families in the hospital—I always wanted to be able to do more to help. With the support of ANS officers and members, we were able to bring immense joy to a family troubled by disease and uncertainty. This has become my most meaningful accomplishment and will forever hold a special place in my heart. ANS has also been involved in several community walks to raise money for organizations that educate and impact those afflicted by disease. These walks include Juvenile Diabetes, Walk for Those Who Can’t, Breast Cancer, The Heart Walk, and the Walk for Babies.

As president, I also lead the gift drive for Operation Christmas Child, a yearly event sponsored by Samari-tan’s Purse. This year we collected over one hundred shoeboxes filled with Christmas joy for needy children. Last spring I convinced the ANS leadership to hold a health fair in hopes of educating the student popula-tion about available resources. After months of plan-

ning and a lot of hard work, this event was a success. The Red Cross was able to join us for the health fair, and they collected over 65 units of blood.

I was recently elected to the North Carolina Association of Nursing Students as the Break-through to Nursing director. As di-rector, I will travel to local schools

and educate students about what it means to be a nurse. I will also reach out to those that have the dream to be at the bedside, but may not have the means. I entered nursing school with the hopes of becom-ing a great leader and learning how to initiate positive change. In light of this desire to lead, I will return to school to earn my MSN and eventually my Doctorate. I am currently interested in maternal-child care; I feel that I can positively influence the course of a brand new life and make the transition into motherhood slightly easier. My first job as a new nurse will be on the labor and delivery unit and I could not be more excited.

“I entered nursing school with the hopes of becoming a great leader

and learning how to initiate positive change.”

“I’ve really enjoyed living in the Honors House.... it’s a great group of people” Andrew Schofield ’14Pg. 6

Alumni NewsOnce an honors scholar, always an honors scholar

Patricia Brown (B.A. film studies, creative writing ’10) is currently living in the Baltimore/DC area and working in the financial planning and wealth manage-ment industry.

Sarah Fann (B.S. marine biology, statistics ’10) is currently completing a Fulbright fellowship in Towns-ville, Queensland, Australia where she works as a statistics consultant for three laboratories at James Cook University. She also spends time scuba div-ing, volunteering for other laboratories, and exploring Australian cities and culture. Upon her return to the U.S. she hopes to begin a Ph.D. program at Stanford or the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Edye Strickland Kornegay (B.S. biology ’07) com-pleted a bird banding internship at Point Reyes Bird Observatory Palomarin Field Station in Bolinas, CA; started a master’s program in Zoology at NC State University in Fall 2008; and got married in August 2009. She is currently working on her master’s thesis, which involves the study of species-habitat relationships for birds in Guanica State Forest, Puerto Rico.

Amy Metheny (B.A. film studies, B.S. biology ’10) is attending the American Institute of Massage in Richmond, VA, where she will continue her education to become a certified massage therapist.

Inside HonorsA look at Program Manager Bo Dean

By Miklos Mattyasovszky ’13 Bo Dean, Honors Scholars Program Manager, had an unorthodox way of applying for his position with the UNCW Honors Scholars Program. “I put my application on Kate’s desk and said, ‘I want to work for you,’” said Dean. He had heard about Dr. Bruce’s reputation for creating a student-centered environment. The four-year Honors Program was under seven years old when Dr. Kate Bruce, the Program Direc-tor, granted him an interview. Dean was hired, and has since evolved into what many consider the face of the Honors Program. He remains in constant contact with students via e-mail, imploring them to fill out surveys, sign up for volunteer opportunities, and come to professor-student teas. These e-mails are a constant reminder that the higher-ups—at least those on the second floor of the library in the southeastern corner—are looking out for them and their success. “It’s so y’all always feel like somebody’s trying to get to you, trying to send you information,” said Dean. Dean himself attended a two-year college after high school where a professor took special interest in him and encouraged him to transfer to University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. At UNC he made his first con-

tact with an honors program, as well as his first experi-ence with “cutting-edge research.” After studying secondary education, Dean moved to Wilmington where he found a position in the Hon-ors Scholars Program. “This is what I wanted, to be involved with high ability students who are engaged in their learning,” said Dean. Dean says the most important part of his job is helping with recruitment. His mission is to bring the best and brightest high school applicants to UNCW. “You belong in Honors,” he tells students, “because you have achieved and shown that you’re mature enough.” Dean says that the Honors Program is student cen-tered. “When you graduate, you should say, ‘it was all about me, about my success, and they did everything that they did in order to help me be successful.’”

Bo Dean and his honors collegues: Dr. Kate Bruce, Dr. Bill Atwill, and Carole Reynolds

Congratulations Fall 2010 Graduates!“The Honors Program is very engaging and helped my transition into college” Sophia Aravidis ’14Pg. 7

University Honors with Honors in... Accountancy: Mark Schiavone Biology: Amanda Korzep, Michelle Pavlick, Caroline Toney, Casey Turner Elementary Education: Anna Strole English: Laura Challender Environmental Studies: Maria Duffer, Alicia Farrow Film Studies: Sarah Bryan Marketing: Heather Hurley, Paul Rasp Marine Biology: Christina Davis Political Science: Emily Stewart

Honors in... Biology: Elizabeth Freeman, Brittany Pace Chemistry: Jonathan Rindner Mathematics: Adrian Coles Nursing: Merri Gray Jones, Leah Pursel Physics: Zachary Williams Psychology: Vala Burton, Margie Hernandez Meija, Justin Raines, Katherine Rios

1. Laura Challender with her advisor Dr. Ashe 2. Bo Dean and Sarah Bryan3. Sarah Bentil-Owusu, Sophia Aravidis, Elyse Head, and Whitney Polk4. Emma Bogdan and Emily Vallery with Chancellor DePaolo

Give the Gift of Honors to Future Honors Students!Name__________________________________________________________________________________Home Address___________________________________________________________________________ City__________________________________________ State____________ Zip______________________Home Phone: (______)______________________ Work Phone: (_______)_________________________ E-Mail_________________________________________________________________________________ _______ I would like my gift to go to the Levy-Bruce Honors Scholars Endowed Scholarship (scholarship for new Honors students) _______ I would like my gift to go to the Honors Scholars Trust Fund (programming) _______ I would like my gift to go to _______________________________________________________

Please make checks payable to UNCW and mail to: Advancement Services, UNC Wilmington, 601 S. College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403-5905

I would like to pledge $_________ to be paid in installments of $__________ to be billed: _____ Annually _____ Semi-Annually _____ Quarterly _____ Monthly _____ My first payment is enclosed. _____ Visa _____MC _____AmEx Card # ___________________________ 3 Dig.Sec. Code________ Exp. Date ___________ Signature: _______________________________________________

If you, or your spouse, work for a matching gift company, you could double or triple your gift. Please obtain a matching gift form from your employer and mail with this form to UNCW.

If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Advancement Services: (910) 962-3593 or toll free (866) 468-6291

MAKE YOUR GIFT ONLINE: www.uncw.edu/giveonline

Periplus Staff Christine Stark - EditorTiffany Strickland - EditorBill Atwill - Advisor

Photos by honors students

The Honors Scholars Program

UNCW

601 South College RoadWilmington NC, 28403

www.uncw.edu/honors910-962-4181

Note from the Editors: This semester, the Honors Program launched a new Media Board. We are proud to have been a part of this proj-ect from its creation and are excited to embrace the increased staff size as well as the endeavors to come. A new honors publication, the Second Story Journal, is set to release twice a year. The journal will include photos, poetry, short stories, creative nonfiction, scholarly essays and research papers. Submissions are to be sent to Dr. Atwill at atwillw@uncw.edu. We urge interested students to submit or to be a part of the selection process. Tiffany Strickland ’11 tls2184@uncw.edu Christine Stark ’13 cms8657@uncw.edu

In Your Corner: Kate BruceIt’s my 12th year in Honors and it has given me: 12 Classes of unique first year scholars; 11 Spring Honors Medallioning ceremo-nies (12 for Fall!) ; 10 Days in the Amazon and Galapagos with remarkable honors student travelers; 9 Exceptional Faculty Honors Council members each year; 8 Fall Lyceum trips; 7 Years of CSURF; 6 Creative and dedicated Honors Mentors;5 Incredible colleagues (Bill, Bo, Carole, John and Martha); 4 Teaching in honors publications; 3 “Double Honors” graduates (two honors projects); 2 Engaged honors student organizations; And the best job of all at UNCW!