Hutton Honors College

Julia Bondanella

"She's been the heart and soul of the honors program since she first started," says Professor Emeritus of Political Science Warner Chapman, founder and director of the Honors Division (now College) from 1966 to 1983. "She was the person that won over students and helped bring the honors program to where it is now."

"I cannot imagine my years at IU without my experiences in honors, which have enriched my life and my mind, through my constant contact with exceptional colleagues, especially the honors staff, and with my wonderful students." -Julia Bondanella

Charlene Brown "Julia has been a key figure in honors education at Indiana University for so many years that I don't think we have yet fully realized all the ways and all the reasons we will miss her," says Charlene Brown, the HC's director of extracurricular activities and associate director of the Wells Scholars Program. "She was a vigorous and articulate ally of all students and an advocate of high standards and saw those two roles not only as wholly compatible but also as inextricably entwined. She wanted students to be challenged—because they deserved to be—and she wanted them to graduate from Indiana University as truly educated people."

"We will all miss her energy and enthusiasm and devotion to the Honors College---the only upside in her leaving is that the NEH will be the beneficiary of that same energy and enthusiasm and devotion to duty," says Chancellor's Professor of Economics Roy Gardner.

William Mech, the dean of the honors college at Florida Atlantic University, agrees. "NEH's gain will be IU's loss," he says.

How and why did this happen? How come a person so important to honors at IU has left her post in Bloomington and journeyed to Washington?

In fact, Bondanella's career at IU has quite naturally and appropriately led to her new job in Washington. Looking back over Bondanella's career at IU as an honors teacher and administrator and as a translator and scholar, as well as at her contributions to honors education nationally, it becomes clear that her assumption of new duties in the nation's capital is hewn from the same piece of jeweled cloth that has adorned her years at IU.

Bruce Cole "I have known Julia for twenty-five years," says Bruce Cole, newly appointed chair of the NEH and an IU distinguished professor of fine arts. "We have frequently co-taught a course on Renaissance Florence and we co-edited Ridolfi's Life of Titian, along with Peter Bondanella and Jody Shiffman. Julia brings a wealth of experience to her new position at the NEH. She is a fine teacher, a well-published scholar, and an experienced administrator. She is also a conscientious colleague who works well with everyone. Julia has played a prominent role in the national honors scene, both with her indispensable work at the IU Honors College and in the important positions she has held in national honors organizations. She is respected and admired by her students and colleagues who value her dedication, sage advice, and friendship."

Julia Bondanella came to IU in 1973 from a position at Wayne State University in Detroit. She came to IU for three reasons, she says: to join her husband Peter, already a member of the faculty; to take advantage of the quality and holdings of the IU library, especially in her areas of European literature and poetry; and to savor Bloomington's "incredible cultural environment." When she joined the Honors Division (the Honors Division became the Honors College in 2000) its offices were located in the as-yet unrenovated Student Building. Bondanella began teaching in the fledgling honors program and also became the coordinator for the two great books seminars offered by the program (now H211 and H212). "She undertook all of the organizational as well as many of the teaching functions," then director Warner Chapman recalls.

"I never imagined this kind of career for myself," Bondanella says. "I had a more traditional career in mind. But fortunately for me I became part of the honors program. And now I cannot imagine my years at IU without my experiences in honors, which have enriched my life and my mind, through my constant contact with exceptional colleagues, especially the honors staff, and with my wonderful students."

Warner Chapman and Julia Bondanella in 1973.

"Warner Chapman and Jimmy Ross (Emeritus Director of the Office of Student Financial Assistance) were responsible for setting up the grants program—which originally made

Edward Hutton

Cooperation between honors and the Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) also helped develop the Honors College merit scholarship program. "I worked with Jimmy Ross and Susan Pugh (current director of OSFA), and with Bob Magee in admissions to put together a scholarship program," Bondanella says. "They were cooperative, supportive and eager to help. Susan Pugh continued to help in endless ways over the last almost two decades. Her help was absolutely essential and we've never had anything but positive relations with her office."

Bondanella believes the scholarship program helped increase honors program visibility. "It creates a higher profile," she says. "If there's money involved, people take notice." She also believes that faculty need to be part of the process. "Faculty ought to be involved in selecting merit scholarship recipients," she says. "We've always had a faculty committee, which I've chaired for many years, and it's worked extremely well."

Faculty members who have served on the scholarship committee readily agree and praise Bondanella's leadership.

Austin Caswell

Abhijit Basu

Roy Gardner

Other Honors College innovations that Bondanella helped conceive and implement include the development of an honors core faculty, an increase in honors extracurricular activities, the growth of Honors College technology, the inception of an honors community service program, the honors notation, and the organization of both an honors alumni board and an honors student advisory board.

"Jim Ackerman selected the first group of core faculty (in 1983), people with fine reputations as teachers," Bondanella remembers. "I worked with them the first year to get things set up. They made a dramatic difference. They are the foundation of the program. Only with their participation does the rest of the honors project gain real meaning. Honors courses are at the center of honors education, and the core faculty do so much more than go to class. They nurture and encourage students; they share their wisdom and their humor; they provide examples of how to solve problems; they impart a sense of excitement about the whole process of learning at every stage of life. One of the HC's greatest challenges is to interest bright and committed faculty in developing and teaching honors courses."

"Julia Bondanella made sure we got whatever we needed, whether it be a better server or encouragement in the face of indifference," recalls Chris Dent (then an undergraduate English major), who (along with another honors staff member) created and mounted the HC's first Web site in the summer of 1994, when only a handful of IU units had a Web presence. "She recognized the growing importance to higher education of the Internet and of computer technology in general," Dent says.

"Working with her on various projects, it was evident that Julia not only did her job well, she loved doing it. She never failed to support our efforts," says junior Katie Epperson, a member of the Honors Student Advisory Board (HAB). Other HAB members praise Bondanella for her work both inside and outside the classroom. "She is a wonderful instructor, administrator, mentor and friend," says junior business major James Motter. "The different perspectives and viewpoints she can give on any given subject are practically limitless," he concludes. History and religious studies major Stephen Aquila has known Bondanella since he first arrived on campus. "Julia Bondanella is an excellent teacher, one with whom I have worked since my first semester at IU and will miss in this semester, my last," he says. "She is a dynamic classroom presence with an infectious interest in learning. Outside of the classroom, she works hard to ensure that IU is a good place to be. Her work with the Honors Advisory Board has helped both the Honors College student body and the community of Bloomington as a whole. She is a valuable part of the university community, and her students will miss her."

Bondanella's involvement with the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) helped stimulate her thinking about some of the new developments in honors she helped foster.

Bondanella first began attending meetings of the NCHC in the mid-eighties. She says she learned a lot about students both inside and outside the classroom. She was a member of the publications committee, was involved in an NCHC history project, and became co-editor of the NCHC newsletter during her early years in the organization. In 1992 she was elected vice president of NCHC, and became president for the years 1993-94. "One of the things I learned from my involvement with NCHC was the importance of a higher level of student involvement both inside our program and in the community at large," she says. "Some of the ideas for our community service program and our honors notation came out of sessions I attended at NCHC," she remembers, "and the information other NCHC members shared about student advisory groups helped provide direction for our own honors advisory board."

The NCHC conference Bondanella organized in St. Louis in 1993 had as its title Privilege, Responsibility, and Community. "In some ways that title explains my concept of what honors education ought to do for students.," she says. "Not only should it enrich their academic experience through special courses, research, and internship experiences, but it should also enrich them by encouraging action in the community."

Many members of NCHC laud Bondanella's contributions there.

"Julia has played a key role in the maturing of the NCHC in several ways," said Florida Atlantic University Dean Mech. "She chaired the work that established the endowment and investment policy to assure that we would never again be faced with the near demise that faced us at the onset of her presidency."
"Julia's scholarship in her own field and her broad knowledge generally have served as a model not only for students, but also for honors colleagues across the country."

"She [Bondanella] is what we in honors education should all be—sophisticated, positive, highly intelligent, lively, fun, a great conversationalist, ethical in her decisions, a builder and sustainer—a leader." -Audrey DeVore

Audrey DeVore Audrey DeVore, associate director of the campuswide honors program at the University of California, Irvine, also thinks both the NCHC and IU have greatly benefited from Bondanella's work. "Julia has provided a wonderful role model," she says, "by speaking up concerning policy issues, by continuing to serve on committees, and by continuing to develop interesting workshops.... I appreciate her ability and dedication to helping people to connect with each other. She is what we in honors education should all be—sophisticated, positive, highly intelligent, lively, fun, a great conversationalist, ethical in her decisions, a builder and sustainer—a leader."

Dean Cheryl Achterberg of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College said that Bondanella has helped make her own program grow and thrive. "The most important thing that Julia has done for me is to mentor me through NCHC.... Julia was warm, welcoming, and a good instructor. She set me on a path that has served Penn State well and showed us how to become engaged and involved, and how to contribute to both NCHC and honors education more generally.... She is strong, honest, inspirational, wise, and an excellent leader. Neither NCHC nor the Schreyer Honors College would be exactly where it is today without her."

In addition to her administrative work with both the IU honors program and with NCHC, Bondanella has also pursued a career as a teacher and scholar. Her initial literary interest was Renaissance love poetry. "But," she says, "my career in honors tended to take me away from that focus and certainly forced me to broaden my perspectives." Indeed, Bondanella attributes much of her work as a translator to her experience in honors seminars here at IU. Over the years, she has translated some of the works of Petrarch, Rousseau, Vassari, and Machiavelli. She has team taught several times (with Bruce Cole) a course on Renaissance Florence. "We try to put the literature and art of the Renaissance in a broader cultural perspective," she says. The absence of a suitable anthology to help pursue that goal led her to edit the Italian Renaissance Reader with another colleague (Professor Mark Musa of French and Italian). "Much of this work has grown out of my teaching," Bondanella says. "Honors students tend to be outspoken about what's helpful to students. They made me aware of some of the defects of other translations. In fact, their complaints about translations of Rousseau moved me in a natural direction. I had long been interested in the preparation of editions and translations of medieval and Renaissance literature, and in translation theory. I discovered that it was a scholarly activity that I found engaging, despite the necessity of slow and painstaking work."

Taken together, Bondanella's scholarship, her work as a teacher and administrator at IU, and her contributions to honors programs nationally provide both motive and bulwark to her coming work at the NEH. Her attitude toward the Honors College great books seminars (H211-H212) informs her thoughts and intentions about her role at the NEH.

"I think that the books in these courses are the books that are central to the way we think and the way we live. We need to keep reminding ourselves of the importance of democratic values." She cites the relationship between George Washington and Cinncinatus—both were generals, both were called to war, both were called to lead, yet both refused to become monarchs—as an example of what can be learned from Roman history about the context of our own democracy. She also suggests that reading great books "shows how contentious the Western intellectual tradition really is...you are not only reading received opinion, you are reading a series of arguments about what's good and bad, about what's right and wrong, about the nature of human nature. These writers are arguing with their predecessors," she asserts, "and ultimately with us." Reading great books, she suggests, "provides an example of how good thinking, how critical thinking ought to go on. Such teaching and learning, such thinking," she concludes, "has to be part and parcel of a democracy. Such activities teach human values. And they also teach people how to critique the ways of their own societies and to try and look at them in new ways."

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