Monthly Archives: October 2017

LEI Student Leadership Team Recruitment

The Leadership and Ethics Institute in the Office of the Dean of Students is recruiting for our Student Leadership Team.

This is a sponsored student organization, committed to providing leadership education and development to students on the Forty Acres. Members of the Student Leadership Team serve as the facilitators and primary student representatives for all programming in the Leadership and Ethics Institute. As a member of the Student Leadership Team, students have the opportunity to enhance facilitation, collaboration, and communication skills.

The application for our Student Leadership Teams is available on HornsLink. Applications are open through Friday, November 3, 2017.

If you have any questions about The Leadership and Ethics Institute and/or the application process, please connect with us at utlei@austin.utexas.edu or (512) 232-5163.

Submit to the Texas Undergraduate Research Journal

The University of Texas at Austin Undergraduate Research Journal (Texas URJ) is now accepting submissions for the 2018 volume. We accept original works of any discipline from undergraduate students of the University of Texas. Former students may also submit papers that were fully written during their undergraduate studies, and their work may be considered for publication up until a year after the student graduated.

Every article selected for final publication will appear in the next annual volume of the Undergraduate Research Journal, and each author will receive a printed version of the full journal. Examples of work in past URJ volumes can be found in the Archives.

The deadline for manuscript submission is December 23rd, 2017 at 11:59 pm. The submission form is available online at texasurj.com/submit. Articles will be reviewed on a rolling basis by editors and University faculty of matching research areas.

Please reach out to Shadhi Mansoori at editor.in.chief@texasurj.com with any questions. The Texas URJ Facebook page also posts updates about deadlines and upcoming opportunities.

LAH 350: Philanthropy/Non-Profit Orgs Registration

Charitable giving in the United States topped 370 billion dollars in 2016, and over 70% of those dollars came from individual giving. Is this money well spent? Unfortunately, only some charities are effective. This course will cover the scope and diversity of the nonprofit sector, as well as individual patterns of giving and volunteering.  A significant portion of the course will focus on providing students with the tools and skills to evaluate charitable programs for effectiveness using social scientific techniques.

Based on their own evaluations, students will have the opportunity to distribute significant funds, at least $25,000 (provided through The Philanthropy Lab and individual donors), to charitable organizations. Students will be placed into groups that will do extensive research on a category of nonprofits, ultimately deciding which charities will receive funds through discussion and debate.

If you would like to take this new LAH 350 course, please email Dr. Pam Paxton ppaxton@prc.utexas.edu to express your interest.

Apply to the Humanities Honors Program

Humanities Honors: Design Your Path

In the Humanities Program, motivated and curious students develop their own major around their specific interests.  Students blend a range of courses and disciplines connected by a single theme, going beyond the traditional disciplines associated with the Humanities.  Each unique major culminates in a senior-year honors thesis—the student designs a project, conducts in-depth research, and works closely with a faculty supervisor.

To learn more about the Humanities Program and the application process, please come to one of our upcoming information sessions: Tuesday, November 14th at 3:30 pm or Wednesday, November 15th at 11 am in CLA 2.606 (the Normandy Scholars room).   Please RSVP to:  https://goo.gl/forms/qBOGqROMiqwEIVQT2

Spring 2018 LAH Lower Division Courses

Our lower-division honors class list. For access to registration, sign up in the book at the front desk.

ANT 301 30530 Physical Anthropology- Honors Kirk, E

 ANT 307 30725 Culture & Communication-Honors Slotta,J

C C 303 32452 Intro to Classical Mythology-Honors 

E 314L 34325 4-Texts and Contexts-Hon Hines, Z

ECO 304L 33575 Introduction to Macroeconomics-Honors (LAH seats reserved) Mostashari, S

GOV 312L XXXXX Issues and Policies in American Govt Roberts To be ADDED Unique number coming soon!

GRG 304E 36825 Enviro Sci Changing World- Honors Meyer, T

HIS 314K 38820 History of Mexican Americans in the US-reserved LAH seats Zamora,E 

HIS 317L 38900 17-Read US History Between Lines-reserved LAH seats Restad

RHE 309S 43665 Crit Reading & Persuasive Writing-W-Honors Harrision, Hannah

SPN 610D 45760 Intermediate Spanish II-Honors Whitehead

Conference on Democratic Reform in Europe

This conference will bring to Austin the leading figures of the new movement for Democratic Reform in Europe, including the former finance minister of Greece and author of the global bestseller, Adults in the Room, Yanis Varoufakis, the recent French presidential candidate, Benoit Hamon, the rising Labour MP from Yorkshire, Chi Onwurah, the former Vice Prime Minister of Poland, Grzegorz Kolodko. These leaders will join distinguished academic experts including Kunibert Raffer (University of Vienna), Giuseppe Sacco (LUISS University of Rome), Brendan O’Leary (University of Pennsylvania), Jorge Uxo (University of Madrid) and Henning Meyer of Social Europe, among others.

This is the fourth in a biennial series of Texas conferences on European issues, which have in past years explored the crisis of the Eurozone, the Greek crisis and the relationship of the South American Summer to European problems. It will engage senior American experts as well, including Michael Lind, Jeremi Suri and James Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin, Damon Silvers, Policy Director of the AFL-CIO, and Pavlina Tcherneva of Bard College, a leading advocate of Modern Monetary Theory.

An additional  focus of this conference is the emergence of young leaders in addressing the European crisis. These will include Philip Pilkington of Ireland, Clara Mattei of Italy and the New School, Daniel Munevar (a Colombian resident in Sweden and former adviser to the Greek finance ministry), and Tuomas Malinen of the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Keynotes will be given by Benoit Hamon and Chi Onwurah, and a special panel will be devoted to the Democracy in Europe Movement, led by Yanis Varoufakis — who is, in addition, a former member of the faculty of the LBJ School.

***Please be advised that LBJ School of Public Affairs events may be photographed and/or filmed. Your attendance constitutes your authorization for the School to use your photograph, voice, or other likeness for purposes related to the mission of the LBJ School including but not limited to marketing and promotion in both print and electronic forms.***

Register here!

New Joynes Reading Room Events (and free books!)

First, this Wednesday, October 18, the Joynes Reading Room will host visiting poet Sam Sax at 7 p.m. Pulitzer-Prize winner Terrance Hayes selected Sax’s first book, Madness, as winner of the National Poetry Series. Madness was published this month by Penguin, and I have some free copies of the book to give away to UT honors students who inquire in person at the front desk of the Joynes Reading Room in Carothers. The reading Wednesday night is free and open to the public.
Also, the Joynes Reading Room will host a luncheon with visiting novelist Valeria Luiselli on Thursday, October 26th at 11 a.m. in CRD 007A. Luiselli is the author of several award-winning novels, including The Story of My Teeth. She also recently published a nonfiction book, Tell Me How it Ends, about the immigration crisis of 2014, when unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America arrived in the US seeking asylum. Luiselli worked as a translator, interviewing the children and trying to decipher their confusing accounts of violence and displacement. UT Honors students may sign up for the luncheon and receive a free book by visiting the front desk of the Joynes Reading Room in person. (Students will not be expected to have completed reading the book before the luncheon, but are encouraged to read a portion of it.)