Hutton Honors College

Thesis Awardees Come from Many Disciplines

Psychology major and Wells Scholar Emily Brown's thesis examines how "attitudes, ambivalence, and perceived self-control vary with hunger level in individuals who are at high or low risk for developing eating disorders. The results," she says, "could give us insight into the cognitive processes that make individuals prone to developing eating disorders and/or help us further understand the bulimia nervosa cycle."
Chancellor's Professor of Psychology Steven J. Sherman, Brown's faculty sponsor, says that Brown's project is "truly first-rate." When done her "work will allow an integration of important social psychology principles and theories with a better clinical understanding of the bases and functions of eating disordered behavior."
Brown, from Connorsville, Indiana, plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology after graduation.

Biochemistry major Travis Greathouse wants to become a doctor and medical researcher. For his thesis project, he is trying "to engineer molecular machines called hammerhead ribozymes to cleave very specific RNA target sequences within a genome." The genome under investigation, he says, "is a very specific region of the HIV genome which if cleaved would prevent viral replication and ultimately stop further infection."
"In the process of carrying out this work," Greathouse's faculty mentor, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Donald H. Burke, says Greathouse "has been exposed to methodologies and issues of experimental design that will greatly benefit his aspirations to carry out biomedically relevant research."
Greathouse, of Tell City, Indiana, will attend the Indiana University School of Medicine after graduation.
*(Ribosomes are small cellular components composed of specialized ribosomal RNA and protein; they are the site of protein synthesis. RNA, ribonucleic acid, is a chemical found in the nucleus and cytoplasm of cells; it plays an important role in protein synthesis and other chemical activities of the cell. A genome contains all the genetic material in the chromosomes of a particular organism.)

Paducah, Kentucky native Lucille Jackson began her Honors College career as an intended English major so it's no surprise she's ending her undergraduate days writing an honors thesis about Toni Morrison's novel Sula. Jackson's work examines Sula in the context of various homecoming narratives from Homer to the present. She wants to discover "what it tells us about home, friendship, and identity." Her thesis mentor, Jeremy Wells, a visiting assistant professor of English, has taught Jackson in three courses. She has been "impressive in every instance," he says, and working on this project will help her "become an even stronger writer and researcher."
Jackson will attend the IU School of Law next fall.

Rachel Robinson wants to find out if "children's minds are set up in the same way as those of adults. When a child is searching for a word to produce," she asks, "does he use the same methods as an adult would?" Robinson, a speech & hearing sciences major hopes to determine "if children have any advantages or disadvantages in word retrieval." She thinks her study will help "reveal some of the inner workings of a child's mind," and help us "understand both how children with normal language develop, as well as how to better assist those children with language disorders."
Robinson's thesis director, Associate Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences Lisa Gershkoff-Stowe, also expects the thesis to "yield important information about lexical retrieval processes in the beginning word learner" and to "be of interest to developmental psychologists as well as to speech-language pathologists."
Robinson, from Indianapolis, plans to study speech pathology in graduate school.

Political science and French major Va Cun is studying the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and prostitution on women in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. "Do sex workers have a choice?" she asks. Do "they reject physical health for economic survival?" "Why do the governments of these three countries support, indirectly and directly, the sex industry?" "Why is the sex industry in Vietnam not as prominent as in the two other countries?" By addressing these and other questons she hopes to understand the impact religion, culture, politics, and disease have on women's choices.
Her advisor, Jean Robinson, a professor of political science, says she is "impressed with the curiosity and intelligence Va Cun brings to her research and with the eagerness for knowledge and insight she always emotes."
After graduation, Va Cun, who was born in Vietnam and grew up in Evansville, Indiana, plans to spend a few years in Southeast Asia as a volunteer social worker dealing with women's issues.

In his thesis, sociology and African American and African diaspora studies major Aaron Hankins says he wants to "determine the factors that affect college and occupational aspirations anong working class males." He also wants to "discuss any differences between Black working class males and White working class males" to see if going to college has affected their aspirations.
Professor of Sociology Donna Eder, his thesis advisor, says that Hankins, from Columbus, Indiana, has "an outstanding record of leadership in student activities and service to the university and community." His project, she thinks, "has considerable potential for being a fine piece of scholarship."
Hankins will study sociology or education in graduate school.

Despite the difference in their interests, Brown, Greathouse, Jackson, Robinson, Cun, and Hankins, in addition to being IU seniors pursuing honors degrees, have one other major fact in common. They, along with 37 other students have just received Honors College Thesis Awards.

Since Spring Semester 2000, the Honors College has sponsored a competition for awards to support students in the senior year, who are engaged in the writing of an Honors Thesis. Through this initiative, the Honors College hopes to encourage students to complete their honors degrees. This spring the 43 students who received awards represent fifteen different disciplines. Many have multiple majors. Psychology (7), English (5), biochemistry (4), political science (4), speech & hearing sciences (4), and business (4) lead the discipline array. Other students come from anthropology, art history, biology, biochemistry, communications & culture, comparative literature, history, philosophy, sociology, and the Individualized Major Program.

"The range of academic work represented by these award winners is remarkable, and the depth of their research is enormously impressive," says Dean of the Honors College Karen Hanson. "These students are an inspiration--intellectually ambitious and wonderfully accomplished. Their faculty mentors are justifiably proud of them, and so are we. The Honors College salutes these students, and we wish them well as they complete their senior projects."

(See complete List of Awardees.)

*Definitions from Human Genome Project Glossary.