Fall 2020 Honors Seminar Series

Virtually join us during the Fall 2020 term to learn about research, obstacles and career paths of UM faculty and Honors Alumni.




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Julie Boland

Conversation usually seems effortless, but the rapid transitions between speakers entail multi-tasking that challenges our understanding of attention and working memory. In my lab, we've been conducting experiments to better understand this puzzle and I will describe some of our recent results.

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Sara Fitzgerald

In 1970, as Michigan prepared to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the admission of women, women faculty at U.S. colleges were exempted from the protections of the major civil rights laws and the U-M admissions office was enforcing a 55:45 quota on male-female admissions to ensure that there would not be an “overbalance” of women in the freshman class. But a small group of Ann Arbor women developed a strategy to unleash the power of the federal government to demand change at U-M by threatening to withhold millions of dollars in federal contracts. The settlement provided the model for resolving similar complaints at dozens of other universities in the years immediately before the passage of Title IX. Sara Fitzgerald, then an Honors history major, covered the controversy for The Michigan Daily, and a half-century later, reflects on how that time on campus shaped her own career aspirations and writing interests.

Author of "Conquering Heroines", and Honors alumna,  Sara Fitzgerald is a former editor and new-media developer for the Washington Post and was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the Michigan Daily. She is the author of Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates (University of Michigan Press, 2012) and The Poet’s Girl (Thought Catalog Books, 2020). www.sarafitzgerald.com

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Dr. John Burkhardt

Let curiosity lead the way! Dr. John Burkhardt will join us to discuss the impact of curiosity as a driving force behind positive change, career decisions, and life choices. No stranger to an unexpected path in life, Dr. Burkhardt will be discussing his passion for education and helping others along with the balancing act of life in the emergency department and academic responsibilities in teaching and research.

His own journey began in the Honors Program with a History major at U-M. Dr. Burkhardt then moved on to Medical School at Case Western and chose to return to Michigan for his residency in emergency medicine. It was during residency that his unexpected career path commenced as he decided to make medical education (an MA and Ph.D. at Michigan) a large focus of his career in addition to work as a practitioner.

Please join us to learn more about Dr. John Burkhardt’s path and why he is passionate about the work he does in medical education toward increased accountability and equity.

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Dr. Reshma Jagsi

Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., is the Newman Family Professor and Deputy Chair in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan. An internationally recognized clinical trialist and health services researcher in the field of breast cancer, Dr. Jagsi has coauthored over 300 publications. She has also devoted a substantial portion of her scholarly effort to investigations regarding bioethics and gender equity in academic medicine. Her investigations of women’s under-representation in senior positions in academic medicine and the mechanisms that must be targeted to promote equity have been funded by multiple large grants from the National Institutes of Health and philanthropic foundations. Frequently invited as a keynote speaker, she has delivered invited talks at over 50 institutions and professional societies, including the AAMC, the NIH, and the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences. Active in organized medicine, she has served on the Steering Committee of the AAMC's Group on Women in Medicine in Science, which recently awarded her its Leadership Award. Her work is frequently featured in the popular media, including coverage by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and national network nightly news. A fellow of ASCO, ASTRO, and the Hastings Center, her contributions have also been recognized with her election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. In this interactive lunchtime session, hear her describe her unconventional career, the challenges she has encountered, and advice in an interview with Henry Dyson, followed by the opportunity for open discussion.

Please submit questions in advance here

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Ethan Kross

On October 8, 2013 Malala Yousafzai appeared on the Daily Show to talk about her harrowing experience surviving the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate her. At one point during the interview she described how she reacted when she discovered that the Taliban were planning to kill her. “I used to think that the Tali[ban] would come and he would just kill me,” she told to Stewart. “But then I said, if he comes, what would you do Malala? Then I would reply to myself, Malala just take a shoe and hit him…”

Malala’s interview provides a window into the at times curious ways that we reflect on our lives. Although we all have an inner monologue that we engage in from time to time, an inner voice that guides our moment-to-moment reflections, people often report referring to themselves in strikingly different ways when they introspect. Whereas people typically use 1st person singular pronouns (e.g., I, me, my) to refer to themselves during introspection, they at times also use their own name and other non-1st-person pronouns to refer to themselves as well.

In this talk, Professor Ethan Kross will review findings from a growing body of psychological and neuroscience research, which suggests that far from representing a simple quirk of speech, engaging in such distanced self-talk enhances people’s ability to control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior under stress.

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Fall 2020 Honors Seminar Series
You May Choose As Many Sessions As You Want