The University of Florida Honors Program
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Honors sections are versions of regular UF courses, typically with a smaller class size and with variations in assignments and expectations.
This is the first semester of the Enriched Physics With Calculus (Honors Physics) sequence PHY 2060-2061. This enriched course is aimed at students with prior preparation in physics who wish to acquire a deeper understanding of the subject. The enriched sequence covers similar material to the Physics with Calculus sequence PHY 2048-2049, but treats basic topics at a faster pace, incorporates more advanced material, and places greater emphasis on instilling conceptual understanding and on developing the ability to solve more challenging problems. The ability to communicate and explain these concepts and their applications will also be essential. PHY 2060 covers concepts in classical mechanics, including linear and rotational kinematics and dynamics, conservation laws, oscillations, fluids and special relativity. PHY2060 is a general education course in physics, whose learning objectives fit within the umbrella of UF’s Physical Science general education courses available at the following URL: https://undergrad.aa.ufl.edu/general-education/gen-ed-program/subject-area-objectives/
The underlying theme of this class is democracy. We will discuss various conceptions of democracy, and how to assess various aspects of the political system using those concepts. We will also read and discuss possible reforms to the current structures of American politics. By the end of the course, students should be able to critically evaluate claims about the U.S. political system using empirical evidence.
In this course, students will investigate how the national government is structured and how the American constitutional republic operates. It covers the philosophical and historical foundations of American government, including but not limited to the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution (the original text and all its amendments), and the Federalist Papers. The course examines the branches of government and the government’s laws, policies, and programs. It also examines the ways in which citizens participate in their government and ways their government responds to citizens.
This course satisfies a Social and Behavioral Science (S) General Education requirement and a Florida Civic Literacy course requirement.
This course introduces students to canonical thinkers, texts, and themes in the history of Western political thought. We will encounter these thinkers in historical sequence, asking questions such as: Who should rule, and why? What is the nature of freedom, and how is it practically enacted? What is the nature of citizenship, and how is it practiced? How are politics and economics intertwined? What should citizens do under conditions of tyranny or inequality? How do these political ideas change across historical context? As an honors offering, this course will also consider contemporary scholarly responses to the canon. It will also explore the extent to which these texts and themes remain relevant to U.S. political culture today.
Resilience in Children with Chronic Health Conditions is designed to provide students with (1) an overview of common pediatric chronic illnesses; (2) an overview of resilience and how resilience-building approaches are applied to the psychological treatment of pediatric chronic illnesses; and (3) an examination of resilience theory, assessment, and promotion efforts through a review of psychological literature. A special focus will be on the interactive nature of resilience and health outcomes, with discussion on how this interactive relationship is compounded by factors such as socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, access to care, and engagement in illness management.
This course introduces students to Tolstoy's epic novel of life in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. War and Peace is a profound meditation on the causes of war, the nature of human relationships, and, perhaps most importantly, the meaning of history itself. As we read War and Peace in its entirety, we will examine the origins of the novel in Tolstoy's early writing, and we will consider the historical, political, and social contexts of the events described: the Napoleonic Wars and the turbulent period fifty years later in which Tolstoy wrote War and Peace. Taught entirely in English. No prerequisites or knowledge of Russian required.
Quest 1
East Asian martial arts classics play significant roles in the cultural heritages of nearly two billion people worldwide. Analyses and comparisons of these materials are intended to impel students to ask several important questions like “What is justice?” and “How are the uses and abuses of power connected with justice and injustice?” Selections from East Asian classics will introduce students to alternative ideas about social justice, social order, violence and the law, the imperial and (trans)national order, gender ambiguity of the woman warrior, the moral and physical economy of vengeance, and ways power might be transformed for just ends. Primary Asian sources, descriptions, and motifs will be analyzed to critically reflect, through comparison, on the processes that create power and maintain justice in our contemporary society, in the contemporary East Asian present, and in the premodern East Asian past.
Exploring diverse stories in art, philosophy, literature, and film to discover how the creation and sharing of stories is a universal experience, one that is central to both humanness and existence.
Even without awareness of the history of science, one might find that this challenge is applicable to most fields of scholarship, for it is at its core, a question of knowledge and method, of agent and effect.
What did it mean to be wise and heroic in the middle ages? How do medieval European views of wisdom and heroism compare with modern views? We will explore these questions by examining different ideals of wisdom and heroism in medieval history, literature, philosophy, art, architecture, and music.
Quest 2
Analyzes the story of the development of the French language as well as other languages spoken in Francophone states. Examines the evolution of the francien dialect into the French standard language of the modern French state.
This interdisciplinary Quest 2 course invites students to closely reflect upon and assess the concepts of group belonging, normative influence, group centrism, indoctrination, and patterns of domination and dependency.
How do governments manage their scarce resources while pursuing a broad array of ambitions? The key to addressing these issues is the concept of strategy––which is about aligning objectives with the resources at hand––and statecraft, which is the art and practice of managing the nation’s affairs.
This course will explore the history of agricultural innovations while examining their social, political, economic, and environmental consequences within the context of the global food system. Through analysis of how eating evolved, we will formulate ideas on how global food systems will change and function in the future.
Explores the data-driven decision process within the field of athletics and game play using data analytics and visualization techniques. Compares the processes used in sports with those used in business and everyday life and illustrates examples of how data can be used to understand human behavior.
UnCommon Arts
1 credit discussion-based courses centered around notable artists, artistic performances, and exhibits
How do we understand the physical world around us? How can our environment influence every other part of our lives? These are big questions without easy answers. In this course we’ll approach these big questions by exploring how environmental science has been portrayed in recent popular film. We will watch, discuss, and dissect films from widely popular and award-winning filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Bong Joon-ho, and Alexander Payne. During the course we will consider popcorn blockbusters, prestige dramas, low-brow comedies, and more to get the most robust and complete picture of how modern Hollywood portrays the environment. The course won’t have substantial readings, but we will watch an assigned film every week. Class activities will include weekly Socratic discussions about the week’s film, occasional reflection essays, and a final project compiling your thoughts and conclusions at the end of the semester.
Maybe you’ve sung “I Won’t Back Down” at the Swamp, been to Heartwood for a show, or attended Fest, but do you really know the music history of Gainesville, Florida? Through this course, students will be introduced to the artists who’ve at some point called Gainesville - or a surrounding town - their home, such as Bo Diddley, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stephen Stills, Minnie Riperton, Sister Hazel, and Driveaway. A range of genres, from blues to rock to indie pop will be explored. Students will assume the role of music journalists, reviewing one to two albums by local musicians each week, posting their reviews to a discussion board. As a class we’ll discuss themes found within the lyrics and how they relate to the social and political times in which they were produced, analyzing the complex history of Gainesville. Students will be introduced to library and archival research, exploring the collections of the George A. Smathers Libraries for artifacts and ephemera documenting the rich music history of this southern town. Students will be encouraged to explore Gainesville, visiting historical sites and venues, comparing how the city looks now to photographs taken at the time in which the musicians were performing.
As the Women's and Gender Studies Librarian, Hannah is passionate about accessibility, information literacy, and teaching students how to conduct research in the libraries and archives. When she isn't promoting access to information, she can be found listening to vinyl records with her cat, Hemingway, running around town, or reading a mystery novel. https://librarywest.uflib.ufl.edu/about
…Ready for it? In this class, students will fearlessly jump then fall into 13 gorgeous weeks of discussing Taylor Swift’s discography, with a focus on her evergreen songwriting, and draw parallels between Swift’s enchanting lyrics and fine art such as paintings, pottery, photographs, and more. Each week, students will be expected to keep their eyes open and examine closely in order to listen, discuss, reflect, argue, and write on themes such as heartbreak, coming of age, societal norms, and relationships. Students will collaborate with their peers to annotate lyrics, analyze themes, and participate in class discussions all too well. Students will participate in thematic assignments which include identifying inspirational artwork in Gainesville, creating their own artwork, and collaborating on a final class project. As we go through the course, we encourage you to think critically about the texts and the topics we encounter and to push your creativity. Achievement of the learning outcomes will be assessed through engagement in class discussions, artwork, an analytical blog post, and the final class project.
Lexi McDonnough is a freshman Marketing major in the Honors Program at the University of Florida. She is a cohort member of Florida’s Future Leadership Program by Florida Blue Key and a member of the Freshman Leadership Experience by Student Government, as well as a member of the Homecoming staff, a marketing committee member of Florida Women in Business, a photography team editor for Spoon University, and a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma Greek collegiate sorority.
This book details the impact of this disease on humanity and how it shaped the world socially, culturally, and artistically. As Green shows in the book, TB shaped the design of chairs- Adirondack chairs were designed by someone who vacationed in the New York mountains and that design was used in mountain sanitariums. The Stetson hat was invented by someone else who traveled west to recover in the “healing” air, especially the air in California. The belief in California air’s healing properties led to the development and popularization of southern California cities such as Pasadena. On other levels, TB was a disease that profoundly influenced the arts, especially in 19th century Europe. Many poets, novelists, composers, playwrights, and artists from that period had the disease or lived amongst those who had it. In fact, infection with TB was thought to spur creativity. And many novels, operas, and other artwork depicted sufferers of the disease. Unfortunately, of course, the disease was not just influential in Europe and the United States: its
introduction proved deadly throughout the world and even today, when there are medicines to treat the disease, it is still deadly. In fact, so deadly that 424,000 people in the African region died of the disease in 2022. So TB has had a tremendous impact historically and continues to infect millions, develop antibiotic resistance, and to influence the imagination. Through reading and discussing the book “Everything is Tuberculosis” and experiencing how the disease was depicted in the arts, this class explores how the infection changed the world. To a lesser extent, it also will explore why it has been so potent throughout its history with humanity.
Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig is Health Science Center Library’s archivist and historian, and College of Medicine’s Director of Health Humanities. She is an affiliate faculty member in the Center for African Studies at UF, teaching a course there-Culture, Health and the Arts in SubSaharan Africa. She teaches health humanities courses to medical and undergraduate students, works with the Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Gold Humanism Honors Society and UF Chapman Society, and studies history of medicine, focusing on eugenics, and the medicalization of race. She also studies nature and nature/arts-based therapies and team teaches a Zoology/Botany course in the International Scholars Program.
UnCommon Writes
1 credit themed writing workshops taught by University Writing Program faculty
Beyond the end of writing, our probes and transmissions will transit the stars. The symbolic rhetorics of our messages at once indicate the significance of priorities and serve to mark by absence what might have been different. By interpreting the messages, analyzing their formation and genre, and reading their history, we will come to fully appreciate the elements of scientific semiosis to prepare for the course project: crafting a message with AI.
In this course we will explore the lavish history of language’s connection to the magical and mystical: From the drafting of spells, prayers and mantras to experimenting playfully with the variety of ways words mediate the world, however visible its forms and figures. And whether we seek to enrich our communicatory capacity or quiet it in the service of nature’s veiled voice, our access to and agency with the mysterious requires above all, the measured cultivation of curiosity.
To use large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, a user needs to learn how to prompt. Because LLMs generate novel responses, they can hallucinate, even with sophisticated prompts. To remedy this problem, purpose-built LLM-powered platforms have evolved for specific circumstances, such as academic research and writing. In this edition of P & C, we will explore the purpose-built platforms such as Notebook LM, Research Rabbit, rayyan.ai, Elicit, Obsidian, and Consensus. We'll try our hand at using "delimiters" to get achieve prompting precision. The goal is still exploratory in nature: how does it feel to work in purpose-built platforms rather than general GPTs? What is gained in their use? How does working this way compare to the more open and flexible nature of general-purpose LLMs?
As large language models (LLMs) become increasingly capable of generating professional, and academic, and even creative prose, the questions this course engages with is: is personal writing more essential than ever?
In this course, students will be exposed to the genre of personal writing and its history, including its usage for reflective, expressive, archival, and political purposes. Within this context, students will explore the evolving space of personal writing in an AI-saturated world, asking questions such as: How do we understand voice, identity, or authorship when machines can mimic them? Is personal writing the last bastion of human-authored text, or is it simply another genre LLMs with master? Can LLMs ever truly engage in personal writing since they are not “persons”? How have writers already been experimenting with LLMs in their personal writing and what are the ethical implications of this? Ultimately, each student will answer the question: Do LLMs have a place in personal writing or not?
Students will read and write personal writing while experimenting with AI, considering how emerging technologies complicate, threaten, and perhaps even deepen our relationships to self and story.
1 credit discussion-based courses centered around books of all genres.
History + Biography
Empires have been shaping human history for millenia, and have shaped the world we live in today. Krishan Kumar, who has worked extensively on the history, nature and impact of empires, attempts to present and distill in this concise book the ways he and other scholars understand the concept of “empire”, imperial patterns, the varying experiences of living in empires, the afterlife of empires, and the links between empire, nation and nation-state. We will put these under scrutiny and ask what is an empire, how is it born, how does it act, how does it die, does it ever die completely, why have empires gone out of fashion, what various forms can empires take, can we still find them around us today?
This course investigates the multifaceted roles of women in Viking Age and Medieval Norse societies across the North Atlantic islands (mainly Iceland and Greenland). Through an interdisciplinary lens that blends archaeology, history, and literary analysis, students will examine how women negotiated power, wealth, and identity in contexts of seafaring, trade, and settlement. Primary sources from archaeological material remains to Icelandic Sagas will be analyzed to uncover the agency of women as warriors, traders, matriarchs, and community organizers.
I am an archaeologist specializing in the Medieval Norse settlements in the North Atlantic islands. I obtained my Ph.D. at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) in 2022, before moving to the United States for a two-year postdoctoral research at Arizona State University. Since fall 2024, I have been Adjunct Lecturing at the University of Florida, developing courses focusing on Medieval Archaeology & History. My research examines the evolution of human-driven exchanges between the American Arctic and North Atlantic islands, with Scandinavia and the European mainland, from the Viking Age until the 15th century. My dissertation examines the political, economic, and social networks that facilitated the movement of goods, ideas, and people across the Medieval North Atlantic. Specifically, I document differences and similarities in social dynamics and adaptive strategies between Norse Scandinavia and its fringes in the American subarctic.
Author Donna Tartt is best known for her most-recent novel, The Goldfinch (2013), which garnered numerous literary awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But it is her debut novel, The Secret History (1992), that has become a cult classic and continues to generate the most interest among readers.
The Secret History is an inverted detective story, where readers are exposed to a murder in the opening pages. Readers are told about the victim, the murderers, and their means, but their motives remain a mystery. The story is told by protagonist Richard Papen, a first-year student at small-but-elite Hampden College in Vermont. Coming from a working-class family, Richard feels out of place at Hampden until he meets a mysterious group of five wealthy and eccentric students—Henry, “Bunny,” Francis, and Charles and Camilla (twins)—that share his interest in classics (i.e., Greek, Latin). Richard is elusive about his working-class background, but over time, Henry and his group grow to accept Richard into their fold. But when the rest of the group—without Richard—attempts to translate their academic interests into ritual practice by recreating an ancient Dionysian rite deep in the Vermont woods, the story takes multiple unexpected turns.
The Secret History’s broad themes include envy, guilt, isolation, manipulation, social class, and the link between beauty and terror. The purpose of this course is to expose readers to a modern murder mystery masterpiece set in a college town and written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who was a student herself at the novel’s outset. Attendance, participation, reactions papers, and leading group discussions will determine grades. Reaction papers will focus on plots and themes that are present in the book.
Science (Non-Health) + Science Fiction
“If it’s free, you’re the product.” is a phrase often touted by those with privacy concerns on the vast amount of data collected in our society. Importance of Ethics in the Advancing the Data Culture is a course that will ask questions about that data collection - by whom? For whom? About whom? Who benefits? A myriad of supplemental readings will be used to spark conversation on the current state of data science and ethics. In particular, we will critically analyze: The role of bias in data collection, use, and dissemination and how that applies to machine-learning systems What is the culture in the data profession around ethics? How can we use data and data collection to advance society, such as in healthcare? The effect of today’s economic framework around data and its collection.
Natya Hans is the Informatics and Reproducibility Librarian in the Academic Research and Consulting Services Department at University of Florida. She received her PhD from the University of Florida, and her research was focused on building statistical and computational models in evolutionary biology. She comes from a research background and transitioned into a non-traditional library support service
role. She provides research consultations and training support on informatics, reproducibility, statistics and data science throughout campus.
The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler’ by Thomas Hager.
From the back cover of this book: “A sweeping history of tragic genius, cutting-edge science, and the Haber-Bosch discovery that changed billions of lives—including your own. At the dawn of the twentieth century, humanity was facing global disaster: Mass starvation was about to become a reality. A call went out to the world’s scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two men who found it: brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, and saved millions of lives.
But their epochal triumph came at a price we are still paying. The Haber-Bosch process was also used to make the gunpowder and explosives that killed millions during the two world wars. Both men were vilified during their lives; both, disillusioned and disgraced, died tragically.
The Alchemy of Air is the extraordinary, previously untold story of a discovery that changed the way we grow food and the way we make war–and that promises to continue shaping our lives in fundamental and dramatic ways.”
One does not have to be an expert in history or in chemistry to read and appreciate this book. Its author, Thomas Hager, a veteran science and medical writer knows how to tell dramatic stories about world-changing discoveries. His books have earned national recognition, including in 2017 the American Chemical Association's top writing award, the Grady-Stack Medal for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public.
After reading the book students will be familiar with the Haber-Bosch process, what it is, how it was developed, and its effects on world history in the 20th century and beyond. They will also be familiar with the lives of the two main protagonists in the story, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. Moreover, students will understand the implications of ‘fixed nitrogen’ on modern agriculture, industrial chemistry, and our environment.
During the first half of the semester we will read and discuss the book in student-led discussions. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to students’ own research on a topic of their interest related to the book. Each student will have the opportunity to share their insights with the rest of the class in a ~15-minute presentation.
Prof. Dr. Alexander Angerhofer received his training in Physics at the University of Stuttgart in Germany (PhD in 1987). After 2.5 years as a postdoc at Argonne National Labs in Argonne, Illinois, and 5 years as a Scientific Assistant at the University of Stuttgart he became a faculty member in the Physical Chemistry Division of the Department of Chemistry at UF in 1995. He is a full professor at UF since 2012. He served as head of the Physical Chemistry Division in his department from 2008 till 2016 followed by two terms as Associate Chair from June 2016 till May 2022. He has published 116 articles in the peer-reviewed literature. He is an expert in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and has used it in both the life sciences as well as materials research. His group has made important contributions to high-resolution ultra high field EPR spectroscopy of biological radicals, and to the elucidation of the catalytic mechanism of the Mn-containing enzyme oxalate decarboxylase. He has extensive experience teaching physical chemistry at the graduate and undergraduate level as well as general chemistry. Dr. Angerhofer has developed a humanities based course on Alchemy for UF’sQuest-1 program which comes with a laboratory component. He has taught this course also in Florence, Italy, for the UF International Center to study-abroad students.
Butterflies are one of the best known and most charismatic groups of insects, and with nearly 20,000 species occupying virtually all habitats, they offer limitless opportunities to appreciate and understand the natural world. This course is loosely based around "The Little Book of Butterflies" by Andrei and Alexandra Sourakov (Princeton University Press, 2024).
The book covers the diversity and classification of butterflies, their evolutionary history, habitats, life histories, color patterns, biology, development, and conservation, and their place in our culture and society. From chastity belts placed on females by males to frass flinging and carnivorous caterpillars – there are many surprises in the world of butterflies.
In addition to regular class discussions, students will have a chance to visit one of the largest butterfly collections in the world and to venture outside to observe and collect caterpillars and butterflies.
No prerequisites are required
In this class, we will cover these facts and some of the most beautiful and surprising arguments from the history of Calculus. These are beyond the scope of regular Calculus classes, but are within the reach of anyone with a good understanding of Calculus II. Sometimes we will provide some historical context as well.
Our book will be the classic book of George F. Simmons, Calculus Gems.
Ideally, students registering for the class should have already completed Calculus II, though in some cases, it is acceptable if the student takes Calculus II in the same semester.
In the middle of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov ideated his Three Laws of Robotics, which would govern his genre-defining stories of human-robot coexistence. Now, as we make our way through the 21st century, a robotic future has started to take shape. Artificial Intelligence, an analogue to Asimov's positronic mind, has taken root in our society; these roots span automated essay writing, self-driving cars, and even surveillance technology. Students will get historical perspectives from Asimov and his non-fiction counterparts on the early ethical quandaries in the fields of AI and robotics, allowing them to contextualize the fields' current issues relevant to our lives and the future.
Health
Drugs by themselves are neither good or bad – it is ultimately how they are used that will lead humans to label them as such. Oliver Grundmann, PhD, has researched both synthetic and natural drugs with mind-altering effects for over a decade. Those who have been used for hundreds of years as part of traditional medicine and rituals are often mis- or abused in modern society. Others are solely intended to either create a fantastic escape from reality or get the user hooked to cause a substance use disorder. Numerous personal accounts and the scientific literature are a testament to this growing problem of what is commonly called “addiction”. But there is more to it as seen through the eyes of a researcher. Accompany Dr. Grundmann as he discusses the landscape, effects, and impact of drugs on the individual and society.
What does it mean to be truly present - for a friend, a colleague, a patient, or even yourself? In this course, we will explore Ronald Epstein’s Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity, a book that explores not only how mindfulness can shape the way doctors care for patients but also how physicians and anyone can care for themselves. Epstein highlights moments of vulnerability and compassion in healthcare, inviting us to reflect on how awareness can shape physician-patient relationships and our daily lives.
Through open discussion, guided reflection, and in class practices such as guided breathing and awareness, we’ll connect the lessons of Attending to our own lives as future health care professionals navigating stress, responsibility, and growth. This book reminds us that mindfulness is not only about becoming a better practitioner, but about becoming a better person; someone who acts with compassion and makes people feel heard. In a fast-paced world, his work challenges us to slow down and live with greater presence. Together, we will consider how mindfulness can help us deepen our relationships and maintain balance on our medical journey. By focusing on empathy and awareness, this course offers students space to pause, reflect, and practice presence in all areas of life.
This course is based on the book “The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think Feel, and Live – and How You Can Change Them” by Richard Davidson, Ph.D.
Dr. Davidson is a professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Dr. Davidson is one of world’s leading authorities of neuropsychology and of mindfulness-based meditation systems. The book explores the brain mechanisms of our six “Emotional Styles” – Resilience, Outlook, Social Intuition, Self-awareness, Sensitivity to Context, and Attention.
Honors students with interests in medicine, psychology, emotions, brain structures and functions, health including mental health, mind-brain-body connections, neuroplasticity and/or meditation experiences will find this course engrossing.
This course is a student-centered discussion class. The final grade will be based on two 1200-word essays and on class participation.
Dr. Lou Ritz (lritz@ufl.edu) is on the faculty of the Department of Neuroscience within the McKnight Brain Institute and the College of Medicine. Dr. Ritz is the former director of Clinical Neuroscience, a course taken by second-year medical students, and is a member of the College of Medicine’s Society of Teaching Scholars. He is the director of the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health (www.spiritualityandhealth.ufl.edu) and was selected by Honors students as the 2018 Honors Professor of the Year.
Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green is a nonfictional account of the world’s most infamous disease. The once romanticized disease is now a symbol of poverty. Tuberculosis has played an unsung role in art, literature, furniture, fashion, and more, shaping the world in ways we’d never think about. The author weaves history and science with the true narrative of a young patient he met to personalize the journey of people suffering from the disease. This course will discuss how one microbe has left fingerprints across centuries of human
life.
This seminar style course, defined by classroom conversation, will provide students the opportunity to read and discuss Everything is Tuberculosis gradually over the semester. Weekly discussions will reflect on the history of TB, infectious disease theory, social and political influence, and scientific and medical advancements. Student assessment will be based on classroom participation, completion of readings, and three brief (one page) writing responses to assigned topics. Additionally, students will have the option of attending the pathology lab to see how different modalities of diagnostics and hands-on gross organ assessment.
Author Dr. Sara Mednick is a ground breaking scientist who runs medical sleep centers in the University of California education system. She has been featured on multiple news programs including NPR. This book explores the nervous system and modes of self-healing interaction to anxiety, depression, mindfulness, and other personal health strategies. In particular the book explores the relationship of the neural states to sleep and wellness with and without the use of prescription drugs. The book is part science and part storytelling by Dr. Mednick using her experiences as a mother, a doctor, a teacher, and a spouse to provide plausible examples of the “down state.” It is an eye opening and cheerful examination of mental health in the United States.
Dr. Craig Smith has taught Uncommon Reads courses since 2014 exploring a range of texts and authors that consider the psychology of the creative industries and their connections to mental health services in the United States. Dr. Smith currently conducts research into novel modalities of clinical work exploring and treating PTSD and certain forms of depression.
This course is based on the book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan, which presents a review of the use of psychedelic drugs throughout human history, including in religious practices in various cultures and the US countercultural movement of the 1960s. The course will require a mature perspective on drug use. Students can expect to participate in frank discussions around the effects of psychedelic drugs under a variety of conditions. The course does not in any way advocate the casual use of psychedelic or other drugs.
Honors students interested in subjects as far-ranging as spirituality, therapeutic treatments, the history of medicine, brain neurotransmitters, psychiatric illnesses, and consciousness should find something of interest in this course.
The class will be structured around weekly discussion of the book and students will be evaluated based on class participation and two 1200-word papers.
Society + Culture + Politics
Ever see a TikTok where the top half is a TV clip or Reddit storytime and the bottom half is Subway Surfers, slime videos, or Minecraft parkour? That split-screen, brain-itch mash-up is exactly what Anna Kornbluh calls the style of immediacy. The phrase “Speak Your Truth,” the #NoFilter hashtag, binge-watching Netflix, being “extremely online,” the do-it-yourself authority of “Do your own research,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe being CGI spectacle with human actors, the nihilism inherent in being non-cringe, "locking in," and even the “😭” emoji all converge in a cultural style that defines our aesthetics. Anna Kornbluh’s 2024 Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism captured the intellectual moment by naming a dominant logic of our crisis-saturated doomscroll era.
Kevin Artiga has worked as a technical communication professional for a variety of organizations in medicine, software development, and cultural resource management. His doctoral research is in technical and business communication, computational media theory, and migration studies.
This course will introduce you into Karl Marx’s revolutionary mindset. We will learn the divisions that Marx found within humanity and within human communities; the way he divided the different revolutionary movements; the main goals of his revolutionary action (the abolition of religion, the family, private property, culture, truth, philosophy and morality); and the strategies and measures that he proposes for seizing power and using it. The text will be clarified in the light of previous writings (especially Marx’s poetry and play, the “Theses on Feuerbach” and the “Philosophical and Economical Manuscripts”), and some of the later writings. We will examine the surprising transformations suffered by the main drive of Marx’s revolutionary action, the interplay between the hope for the utopia and despair concerning human goodness.
The professor will lead the discussion following the Socratic method. Besides, you will have to critically discuss one problem suggested by the reading in a 2,000 words final essay. The last week of the semester will be dedicated to help the students to rightly finish their essay.
Carlos A. Casanova is Senior Visiting Fellow of the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida. He researches and teaches in the areas of classical philosophy, political and moral philosophy, philosophy of Law, metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. He has published 9 books in two languages and more than 50 peer reviewed papers in English and/or Spanish. He has been Fellow at the Jacques Maritain Center of the University of Notre Dame, Researcher for the Chilean National Agency of Research and Development and has university experience in four countries.
Before joining the University of Florida, Professor Casanova was teaching Introduction to Philosophy, Natural Law, Theory and Sources of Law and philosophical seminars at the Law School of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and doing research on Marxism and classical philosophy. He also has taught classical philosophy for many years in Venezuela and Chile.
Explore how three thousand years of history has painted women with power. Using the book, Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power, by Eleanor Herman we will examine how women in positions of political power have been portrayed and perceived. From Cleopatra to Kamala Harris, we will dive into how women throughout history, across the globe and political spectrum face societal and political pressures. This course will use explore how women are uniquely bound by stereotypes, expectations, and limitations. This course will use examples from ancient to contemporary times to illustrate how women’s political leadership is viewed. Herman’s 2022 book explores how women’s attire, voices, and behaviors are often used to diminish their qualifications, leading to their underrepresentation in contemporary politics.
The human experience summarized into a phrase: One foot on a grave another on a banana peel. Death is around us constantly because humans are so fragile and susceptible. Our ribs can puncture our lungs, our temples might as well have an X marks the spot drawn on them, we have outlawed running with scissors, baby’s beware of small objects, and let’s not even mention falling up or down a flight of stairs. Pair the facility of dying with the human psyche and you easily have one of the most talked/thought/drawn/sung about topics in human history. Accordingly, author Emily Austin felt the need to develop a book centered around this age-old topic while also providing insights into the reality of a human who obsesses over death. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead seeks to engage with a topic that, although familiar and inevitable, is often a social blunder/faux pas resulting in people averting their eyes, losing their appetite, or aiming expletives towards you. However, realistically we all must come to terms with death, it is such an integral part of life that recognizing its presence offers us much more peace and fun than ignoring or fearing it, for example. This class will center around reading the primary novel as well as looking over contemporary and historical obsessions with death via art, writing, and media. We will reflect on our own mortality, manifestation of mental illnesses, and what it is to be a human plopped onto a spinning blue orb (earth). We will discuss and think critically about a variety of cultures and their relationships to death, spirituality, religion, and how communities accept/cope with death. Beyond this we will consider literary writing styles: the intentionality of symbols, the narration, salient themes, the inclusion of religious motifs, and how humor makes for great literature.
I received my bachelor's in environmental and agricultural sciences at Florida Internation University, my masters in Latin American studies at University of South Florida and am currently pursuing my PhD in cultural Anthropology at UF. I am interested in the ethnobotany of the Caribbean, including how this knowledge is transferred between elders and youth. I am primarily interested in plants as food and medicine but also enjoy learning about tools and aesthetic use of plants. I am focusing my dissertation research in the Dominican Republic in attempts to identify the overlaps and differences amongst Haitian and Dominican plant use.
In Disclosing New Worlds (1997), Fernando Flores, Hubert Dreyfus, and Charles Spinosa describe “history-makers” as individuals who reshape practices that define how communities live and find meaning. History-makers, they argue, alter frameworks themselves, changing what people see as possible and valuable. They bring forth new “worlds” by rearticulating ordinary practices in ways that open fresh possibilities for action.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr. reconfigured cultural understandings of justice and citizenship. He did not invent equality, but he disclosed new ways of seeing and practicing it, thereby transforming how Americans could imagine our shared lives. Similarly, entrepreneurs, artists, or activists can be history-makers when they shift cultural norms and create new spaces for meaning.
As folk-singer icon, Pete Seeger notes, “it isn’t the big corporations that will create change; it’s all of the millions of small groups that will. You can think globally, but act locally.” With this, ordinary people can also be history-makers when they influence practices in their communities, whether by reframing conversations, modeling new ways of interacting, or making visible once-forgotten possibilities. To be a history-maker is to generate cultural transformation by showing others new paths for living meaningfully.
This course will ask participants to consider the following questions with care:
• What distinguishes a history-maker from a problem-solver?
• Can small, local shifts count as “history-making”?
• How do history-makers balance production with disruption?
Flores, F., Spinosa, C., & Dreyfus, H. L. (1997). Disclosing new worlds: Entrepreneurship, democratic action, and the cultivation of solidarity. MIT Pres
This course explores Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard through the lens of social hierarchy, political power, and individual agency. Using the novel as a primary text, students will engage in dynamic class discussions that connect fiction to real-world systems of oppression, rebellion, and change. Weekly readings and discussions will challenge students to think critically about narrative structure, genre, character development, and the portrayal of societal conflict in young adult (YA) dystopian literature.
Patricia Takacs is the Political Science Librarian at the University of Florida. She provides research support, instruction, and collection development for the Department of Political Science, as well as liaison services to the Bob Graham Center for Public Policy and their Gulf Scholars.
Sacred and Profane: Unlikely Pair Aren't we done with religion? Afterall, haven't we matured as a society, sloughing off our superstitions? While many aspects of societal life have moved away from traditional forms of religion, it seems that humans still have tendencies toward meaning-making experiences. Sociologist Emile Durkheim theorized about religion in terms of "the sacred and the profane", dividing the so-called religious from mundane everyday reality. But Tara Isabella Burton has noticed that this simple division of human experience doesn't capture reality well. She wonders whether the sacred might just be mixing with the profane in surprising ways. Through a close reading of Burton's book, Strange Rites: New Religions in a Godless World, this class will seek to gain clarity on what we actually mean by the concept of religion, and to understand the various remixed forms of meaning making that have emerged. Is religion making a comeback in a world that has mostly gone secular? Or are we remaking religion in new forms of spirituality? Is there room for the sacred in the midst of the profane? Turns out with the fading of traditional religion, space has been cleared for some really surprising activity.
Todd Best is a faculty member in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences where he works as an Academic Advisor and teaches in Honors, Quest, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. A long-time instructor of Uncommon Read courses, he has taught on issues ranging several areas of the humanities and social sciences, including on the topics of media literacy, higher education, ecological literature, the self, and the common good. He received a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of Florida, focusing on religious pluralism and educational philosophy.
In 1996, acclaimed fiction writer David Foster Wallace proclaimed, “Tennis is the most beautiful sport there is.” Wallace’s works, both his fiction and non-fiction, trap readers in disparate locations: a Caribbean cruise ship, the Illinois state fair, an IRS office, a halfway house, and many more. But throughout his career, Wallace’s mind always wandered back onto the space of his youth that is the tennis court. Its geometry, both visible on the ground and in the flight patterns of balls above the net, entranced him throughout his career, making them the subjects of his early personal essays, as in 1991’s“Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley,” and even of his most seminal works, as in the 1996 novel “Infinite Jest.” String Theory, the 2014 posthumous collection of Wallace’s non-fiction tennis writing, brings together the thoughts that he continually mulled over until his untimely death in 2008. The collection of works, intensely personal and yet universal, are some of the best pieces of sports writing ever created. This course will analyze these pieces on journalistic and literary metrics to discover the magic behind these works as well as the beauty of tennis both on paper and on the court.
Douglas Gabriel received his PhD in Art History from Northwestern University in 2019 and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University and The George Washington University. Before coming to UF, he was also a 2021-22 Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art, and a lecturer in the College of Liberal Studies at Seoul National University. Gabriel is a co-editor of ART Margins and has published on North and South Korean art and visual culture in Art History, Third Text, Art Journal, and the Journal of Korean Studies. He is currently completing a book manuscript titled The Cold Contemporary: Realist Art, Reunification, and the Enduring Cold War Across the Two Koreas, which explores connections between North Korean socialist realism and the art of the South Korean democratization movement of the 1980s. The book challenges such dichotomous distinctions as totalitarian aesthetics and politically engaged art, shedding light on how Cold War-era binaries continue to shape our understanding of contemporary art’s structural formations. His teaching covers a wide range of directions, including the avant-gardes of East Asia, performance and participatory art, and science fiction in contemporary art. Gabriel’s ongoing projects include a book manuscript on art and youth culture in North Korea, as well as a study of North Korean artists’ reception and representation of religious cultural heritage.
Tomas Curcio is a Senior majoring in art history and journalism. He has interned in the Curatorial Photography departments at both the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art. Outside of his work relating to art history, Curcio has written articles for WUFT News, the NPR/PBS affiliate of the University of Florida. Curcio, who is an avid tennis player, is also certified in tennis instruction by the United States Practice Tennis Association, showing his ability to connect with people and teach information directly to students. He currently works as a Professional Tennis Coach at Joyce Oransky Tennis Center for Play Tennis Gainesville.
This course explores the themes of gender roles, identity, and the politics of technology as explored in Ira Levin's novel, The Stepford Wives, a foundational text in feminist literature that critically examines the intersection of feminism and technology. Students will analyze the portrayal of suburban life in the 1970s, focusing on how the novel critiques the idealized roles of women and the implications of conformity and autonomy in a rapidly changing technological landscape. Key topics include the construction of femininity and masculinity, the impact of artificiality on human relationships, how technology can both liberate and oppress, environmentalism, pharmaceuticals and psychiatry, the preservation of youth, and the pursuit of beauty. The course will also explore how the novel balances feminist satire and horror. In doing so, we will aim to answer questions such as: Where can we draw the line between satire and real life, or perhaps better stated, the horrors of real life? Can we find horror in the mundane, or is the mundane, at times, horrific itself? Is it better to be robotic in our day-to-day life or to be, as one character exclaims, “rushed, sloppy, irritated, and alive?”
Juliana is a PhD candidate in political science, in which she studies American Politics. Specifically, her research focuses on what factors of individuals’ political lives shape their political behavior. Before attending UF, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Spanish at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. She received her master’s degree in Political Science from UF in the Spring of 2024.
Why are we called the Gators? What is Century Tower’s purpose? What are the oldest buildings on campus? How did UF begin? The University of Florida has a long, storied history that begs to be explored. In this course, we will do a deep dive into materials held in the University Archives to explore how these materials tell the story of UF, including those silent, undocumented stories that were excluded from the narrative. We will explore how these materials create the story of community and identity for the students at UF. You will be able to discuss your own story here at UF, and think of ways to share your story for the future. How will your experiences today be reflected in UF’s future? What kinds of stories will be told and how will they be told? How can we fill in the gaps in the archival record to ensure all aspects of a story are told? These are some of the many questions we will explore in this course. The course will include short reflections, discussion posts, and a final project. No previous archives experience or knowledge is necessary, and this course is open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the history of UF.
Sarah Coates, CA, is the University Archivist at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. As University Archivist, she saves, secures, and shares the story and history of the University of Florida. To achieve this goal, her work includes acquiring and processing records of enduring historical and administrative value from institutional units, faculty, staff, students, and campus organizations at UF. She has worked at the University of Florida’s University Archives since 2018, becoming University Archivist in 2022. Prior to coming to UF, she worked at Oklahoma State University’s Special Collections and University Archives and taught freshman composition at several universities in Ohio and Oklahoma. She received her Master’s in Library and Information Studies from the University of Oklahoma and her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English Literature from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She is also a Certified Archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists.
Class meets in Smathers 208
This uncommon read course is based on the book “The Nonprofit World: Civil Society and the Rise of the Nonprofit Sector,” by John Casey (2016). This book traces the growth of nonprofit sector as a major part of the global civil society. Students will learn the roles, importance and impacts of the nonprofit sector (also known as the Third Sector) locally, nationally and internationally in providing a wide array of vital social, environmental and other services. Assignments will include student-led discussions on various sections of the book and case study presentations by students.
Business + Economics
Literature
This course explores Jane Austen’s witty classic novel Emma and its iconic adaptation Clueless (1995) to examine how self-deception, or being delulu, shapes character psychology, narrative irony, and social critique. From matchmaking mishaps to misguided makeovers, students will analyze themes such as romantic idealism, class mobility, and personal growth across both texts. Beginning with a screening of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, the course continues with a close reading of Emma, alongside weekly discussions and a creative final project that reimagines or responds to the course’s central themes.
Want to form deeper connections to the local area? "Cross Creek" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's and other local Gainesville authors, as well as a couple of adventurous field trips, will help us learn about where we are.
Do you know what it’s like to love a friend intensely, but also feel resentful and jealous? Do you remember what it was like to discover that the world of adults is place of secrecy and menace? So does Elena Ferrante, the Italian author of 'My Brilliant Friend' whose identity remains a closely-guarded secret. 'My Brilliant Friend' tells the story of two young women in post-WWII Naples, Italy who, over the course of their childhood and adolescence, forge a friendship by turns supportive and envious, loving and toxic. Along the way, they discover the histories and hostilities that permeate their working-class neighborhood: a small, claustrophobic world shaped by organized crime and the choices people made under Benito Mussolini’s fallen fascist regime. 'My Brilliant Friend' is essential reading for college students. College is a time of transition and discovery. It’s a period when we reflect on the friendships and communities that shaped us and ask what part, if any, they should play in our future. It’s also a moment when we discover the world that made our own:
when we begin to understand how old choices -- tough and often disturbing -- made by our family and community nevertheless cast long shadows over our lives. Elena Ferrante’s masterpiece explores these topics with beautiful intensity and invites us to do the same. In addition to these two primary themes -- the dark side of friendship and community, respectively -- we’ll also explore several other themes including: • The history of Italy between WWII and the "Years of Lead," the low-intensity civil conflict that engulfed the peninsula during the 1960s through the 1980s • The unique culture of Naples, Italy • The experience of societies transitioning from authoritarianism to liberal democracy • The impact of one’s personal background on life outcomes •
The art of translation, both from one language to another and from one medium to another To explore the latter theme, we’ll not only learn about the original Italian text of 'My Brilliant Friend'; we’ll also watch portions of the book’s beautiful television adaptation.
Dr. Sean Trainor is an Instructional Associate Professor in the University of Florida’s Management Communication Center, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on business and professional communication. He is the co-author of Words at Work: A Beginner’s Guide to Professional Writing (University of Florida Libraries Press, 2026 [forthcoming]), an open-access undergraduate business writing textbook, and was the winner, in 2021, of the Association for Business Communication’s Innovation in Teaching with Technology Award. He has conducted executive education training sessions for organizations throughout the state of Florida and has presented on his teaching practice at the Association for Business Communication and the Management Communication Association, among other conferences. Prior to embarking on a career in business communication, Dr. Trainor was a historian and freelance writer. His writing on U.S. history, politics, and culture has appeared in The Atlantic, TIME, Salon, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications.
Jane Austen turns 250 in 2025, and her work only continues to build a world audience and garner critical acclaim. Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant work of social satire that subjects all levels of society to Austen's scathing wit.
Dr. Jeanne Ewert has been a faculty librarian in the Smathers Libraries for 7 years, and during that time has taught five UnCommon Reads classes. Her specialty is Narrative Theory within the broad framework of global literatures in English.
Step into the glittering, cutthroat world of Old Hollywood through Taylor Jenkins Reid’s best-selling novel: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This semester, we’ll peel back the layers of fame, power, love, and identity as we follow the enigmatic Evelyn Hugo, a silver-screen star whose carefully curated image hides as much as it reveals. Why does Evelyn choose a struggling journalist, Monique Grant, to tell her story? And what does this shocking confession reveal about truth, ambition, and the cost of reinvention? This book is as impactful as it is entertaining. Students will examine themes of gender, sexuality, race, and celebrity culture while also considering how personal narratives are operationalized. Like Evelyn herself, this course asks students to consider bold questions: What does it take to survive in a world that demands you reinvent yourself? What do we sacrifice for success, and what stories do we leave behind?
Olivia Tyler is the Assistant Director of the UF Center for Undergraduate Research. She is a proud alumna of the UF Honors program and has dual degrees in History and Business Administration. She is a PhD student in Higher Education Administration and has her Master's degree in Student Personnel in Higher Education. Her passion lies in making research available to all students. In her free time, Olivia loves to read (especially fiction), do yoga, and take long walks with her dog.
Kidnapped in Igbo Land, in today's Nigeria, and transported to Montserrat, across the Atlantic Ocean, Equiano's life was filled with horror but also wonders. Equiano traveled extensively across Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and the Mediterranean, whether by coercion or out of his own volition. His autobiography, published in 1789 and promoted by the British abolitionists, is a unique portrayal of self reliance and individual fortitude while navigating the injustices of the world that surrounded him. Equiano's autobiography is both personal and collective as it depicts the plights of hundreds of thousands of coerced African laborers of the West Indies plantations. It is a profound religious reckoning and a powerful indictment of the British double standards when it came to faith. It is also a call to action towards moral fairness in order to facilitate economic prosperity and individual flourishing. Equiano's autobiography comes in two parts and twelve chapters. In this course we will read this magnum opus together as we embark on a journey with a man who, in the 1760s, had friends and acquaintances in four continents and was an astute observer of various cultures, languages, customs, and faiths. Besides reading Equiano's autobiography, this course also heavily relies on maps in order for us to make sense of the extent of Equiano's journeys. I’m a fourth year English Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Florida. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Letters (in English and French) and a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Turin, Italy. My interests include the Black Atlantic, post-colonialism, critical theory, diaspora studies, and historiography of capitalism and I usually use these notions and territories as groundings for world literature courses, or an extended British and American literature. I am also a father of a black fluffy cat and if you come to Gainesville, you’ll probably catch me running in one of the trails in town.
Other
Think you know college sports? Think again! In this discussion-driven Honors course, we’ll uncover the real story behind the NCAA’s “amateur” model: how it was built, why it endured for over a century, and how it’s unraveling in the athlete compensation era. Using Ronald Smith’s "The Myth of the Amateur: A History of College Athletic Scholarships" as our guide, we’ll explore the power plays, landmark moments, and politics that shaped the commercialized industry of intercollegiate sports through the labor of college athletes. Along the way, we’ll connect history to breaking news, from the House v. NCAA settlement to debates over athlete pay and governance reform. If you’re curious about law, history, sport, or higher education—or you
just want to see what really happens after the final buzzer—this is your front-row seat. Expect exciting debates, keen analysis, and a final project that lets you investigate the past to make sense of today’s changes in college sport.
Journal 29, by Dimitris Chassapakis, is a collection of original, escape-room-like puzzles centered around the mysterious disappearance of a team of excavators working on a confidential project. The book requires readers to submit solutions online to receive “keys” that they need to solve some subsequent puzzles. Students in this course will engage with the book through frequent collaborative puzzle-solving. They will also discuss elements of good puzzles, the importance of diversity on puzzle-solving teams, the role of a storyline in puzzle-based games, and the ways in which puzzle-solving and logic connect to careers in a wide range of disciplines. Additionally, students will use their experiences with the puzzles in Journal 29 to create their own themed puzzle book game as a class.
1-3 credit courses that are interdisciplinary in focus and typically not offered elsewhere on campus.
In Sometimes, poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mary Oliver, whose work is deeply rooted in the natural world, provides these valuable “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” That is exactly what we seek to do in this course. For centuries, nature has been regarded as a space for connection, healing, and personal growth. Currently, a significant body of research documents the positive impact of nature on our lives and wellbeing. Through artifact examination, physical exposure, and creative visualization, we will explore natural biodiversity and agricultural biodiversity through the themes of wonder, awe, resiliency, stillness, sensory delights, gratitude, and creativity.
1 credit courses focusing on leadership, career development, and other professional development topics.
Advanced Pro Dev Topics
This course is open only to Honors students who applied in the fall semester and were selected to serve as Peer Instructors. Honors Peer Instructors work alongside faculty to develop and lead (Un)Common Read / Arts courses. Through this course, Peer Instructors learn to distinguish pedagogical and methodological approaches suitable for Honors education and develop educational and instructional materials aligned with measurable student learning outcomes that will support their course.
This course is designed for students who are interested in learning more about Tanzania, especially those who are considering participating in the Summer B 2026 UF in Tanzania study abroad. The course will meet one time per week, in person. Content will include an overview the social and economic structure of Tanzania, cultural norms and customs, and some basic Swahili words and phrases.
If you are interested in taking this class, please complete this short google form. Space in this course is limited, but we will accommodate as many interested students as possible. Note that you must be signed into your UF G Suite account to access the form.
Dr. Adrienne Strong
Dr. Strong is a medical anthropologist working primarily in Tanzania. Her research interests coalesce around the conditions and dynamics of care in biomedical health facilities. This started as an interest in maternal mortality in hospital settings and has come to include scholarly interests in obstetric violence, gendered dynamics in the nursing profession and care provision in biomedical settings, health system financing in ethnographic perspective, accountability, pain management practices, as well as care theories and empirical/everyday ethics. Since 2020, she has also been working with physicians at UF Shands on projects related to patient experiences and access to health care, further extending her interests in health inequities, patient-provider interactions, and the dynamics of healthcare in biomedical settings.
Meredith Beaupre
Meredith is the pre-health coordinator for the UF Honors Program. She received her B.S. and M.Ed. from UF and has been working in student services for over 15 years. In her current role, she works with students of all levels who wish to pursue a health profession and focuses on helping students build up the competencies and skills needed to be quality healthcare applicants and practitioners. Cultural competence is something she feels strongly about and seeks to improve opportunities for students to gain the experiences that will strengthen this area. She and Dr. Strong have worked together to develop and lead the UF in Tanzania study abroad program.
Students will learn the basics of communication skills in the health professions. Students will apply the concepts taught in class by practicing with small groups. Although patient communication is emphasized, the course will also cover communication with staff at all levels.
Using various forums, technology provides a mostly convenient, practical, and beneficial method for people to communicate with each other locally and worldwide. This course will analyze the impact of digital tools and social networks on interpersonal communication, and present information to help students effectively communicate in a digital world, improve communication skills, and expand their professional network.
The class is aimed at strengthening information gathering skills such as how to define and find information and how to integrate different types of resources to tell stories. Science education tends to stress peer-reviewed papers as the gold standard of information, but there is a wealth of further information to be found, just not quite as easily. This overlooked trove is often referred to as gray literature, which are sources not published by commercial publishers. Examples include government reports and documents, white papers, and newsletters. These are rich in scientific information but are often isolated in online databases or exist only as physical copies. There is also valuable information in primary collections such as rare books, postcards, photographs, and diaries. This class will be focused on researching what the Florida landscape looked like before colonialization and how these documents can enhance our understanding of current environmental issues. Classes will consist of discussion on readings, and field trips to visit historical and cultural collections around campus. Students will gain experience finding and interpreting peer-reviewed and gray literature, and historical collections. For the final, students will design and execute a group project synthesizing the information to tell a story about Florida’s changed landscape to a wider audience. The format will be determined by the class size, but possibilities include a pop-up event or exhibition in Marston Science Library. The students will learn research techniques and skills that can transfer across disciplines. The class is beginner friendly and open to all disciplines.
Dr. Lundy is a Professor and Certified Enneagram Coach through Enneagram University. The Enneagram is a personality typology that outlines nine core personality types, each defined by a central motivation, set of fears, and behavioral patterns. Rather than placing individuals in rigid categories, the Enneagram offers a dynamic framework for understanding personal growth, emotional intelligence, and relational behavior. Each type has a distinct worldview and strategy for navigating life, along with specific strengths and growth opportunities. This course aims to help honors students understand the Enneagram as a developmental tool. This course will encourage self-awareness and introspection, helping students understand why they respond to stress, success, or interpersonal conflict in particular ways. Each student will have an Enneagram typing session, and we will spend time as a group learning about each other’s styles as a sort of laboratory for understanding people around us.
Are you applying in the spring for your health profession program? This course is focused on supporting students who are applying for the next cycle. Only students applying in this upcoming cycle are eligible to take this course.
If you are interested in taking the course, please complete this short google form. Space in this course is limited, but we will accommodate as many interested students as possible. You must be signed into your UF G Suite account to access the form.
Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences are open to 1st year students in the University Research Scholars Program. Other honors students may register on a space-available basis after URSP registration has concluded. Starting with the 2025 entering cohort forward, CURE courses will count as honors courses for Milestone I.
Basic course information will be provided here as a reference once available. Full course descriptions and URSP course selection instructions are provided by the Center for Undergraduate Research, so please reference your communications from them.
Any CURE course taught by Honors Program faculty will include a full description here.
Society and higher education are continually changing so there is always something new to learn by studying college life and college students. The sociology of education and higher education research fields are storied, producing much of what we know about the macro (e.g., organizations, processes) and micro (e.g., identity development, relationships) outcomes of attending, completing, and not completing college in the USA. What can be learned from studying high-achieving (i.e., honors) students at this snapshot in time? In this CURE course, students will assist the instructor with exploratory research related to student narratives, experiences, and outcomes at a large, public research university. There will be a technical focus on qualitative research methodology and a substantive focus on high-achieving (i.e., honors) students. This course is particularly of interest to high achieving students of all departments.
Signature Seminars and Course-based Honors Signature Experiences
Signature Seminars
Feature cutting-edge research or of-the-moment hot topics
The seminar invites honors students to examine how current scholarship rewrites earlier ideas about dating, attraction, and romantic partnership. Each meeting blends a short research article (read before class), with a guided discussion, and a brief activity or exercise. Students will be able to reflect on their own experiences of and insights into romantic love as they move the conversation of scholarship in the field forward. This course will allow students to practice scholarly critique while learning about the challenges of researching romantic love.
From Washington to Warheads is a one-credit Honors Signature Seminar that traces the evolution of U.S. national security—from George Washington’s first foreign-policy principles to today’s debates over cyber threats, space weapons, and nuclear deterrence. Meeting for just one hour each week, we examine pivotal historical moments, unpack strategic theories, and master the basics of deterrence, escalation, arms control, and non-proliferation. Every session starts with a concise student brief, then shifts to guided discussion and hands-on exercises that connect past events to current policy challenges. Graded work is equally practical: an archival memo, a crisp 1,000-word op-ed, and a five-minute briefing in which you defend your own solution to a real-world nuclear issue. Open to all majors, the course weaves together technology, law, ethics, and strategy—giving Honors students an interdisciplinary forum to sharpen analytical thinking and persuasive communication on some of the most consequential questions of our time.
Prof. Kyle C. Hartig, is an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, member of the Florida Institute for National Security (FINS) at the University of Florida, and Joint Appointee with Savannah River National Laboratory in the Global Security Directorate. Before coming to UF, he spent a year as a Post-Doctoral Scholar at PNNL contributing to remote sensing research in support of two NNSA funded ventures. Dr. Hartig earned his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) at the University Park, PA campus, which was funded in part by the Nuclear Forensics Graduate Fellowship Program supported by DHS. He received his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Oregon State University (OrSU). He has held a number of positions within the Federal Government concerning Counterproliferation and Intelligence topics, and has authored a number of high-level internal publications. His areas of specialization includes remote sensing, nuclear nonproliferation/counterproliferation, nuclear security, and nuclear policy.
Can you spot the real story behind viral headlines, convincing statistics, and polished presentations? In this course, we'll explore the art and science of detecting and debunking BS in our information-saturated world. Using the thought-provoking book 'Calling Bullsh*t' as our guide, we'll develop critical thinking tools to navigate everything from scientific claims to social media trends. You'll learn to identify misleading statistics, question persuasive graphics, and understand how data can be manipulated to tell different stories. This course isn't just about skepticism – it's about becoming a more informed, discerning citizen in an age where distinguishing truth from fiction is more crucial than ever. The course will include short reflections, discussion posts, and a final project. Perfect for students interested in STEM, business, journalism, politics, or anyone who wants to sharpen their critical thinking skills.
The course introduces hands-on components relevant to the Insects and Plants and Biology of Butterflies UnCommon Reads course, where students gain appreciation for the evolutionary arms-race between interacting insects and plants and diversity and ecology of butterflies.
Students will have a chance to spend time in the field collecting and photographing insects, will learn how to make a basic insect collection, how to identify insects and plants using publications and electronic resources, and how to contribute their observations online for broader use by the scientific community.
Course participants will also be introduced to basic taxonomic techniques, such as dissecting and drawing insect specimens, extracting DNA for DNA-barcoding, and “blasting” DNA barcodes against DNA sequence databases for identification purposes.
Students registering for 0-1 credits will be graded on attendance, participation and the final paper, which will be formatted for submitting to the UF-IFAS Featured Creatures website. The paper will represent as complete profile as possible of one of the insect species that occurs in Florida.
Students registering for 2 credits will need to have an additional research component which they will present during the last class.
Pre-requisites / co-requisites: IDH 2930: Insects and Plants or IDH 2930: Biology of Butterflies. Apply here
Additional note from the instructors:
Participants will meet on Thursday, during the 7th period at the lab of McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity (3215 Hull Rd.). Keeping the 8th period open will be a plus, as you may want to stay longer to complete your tasks. Unfortunately, we can only accept 4 students, so the preference will be given to those who took our IDH2930: Insects and Plants (Un)common Read course or is simultaneously enrolling in our Biology of Butterflies unCommon Read course taught in Spring 2026, Thursday, 6th period, at the Entomology Department (Steinmetz Hall). We are looking forward to working with you!
UnCommon Classrooms
UnCommon Classrooms are 1-credit Honors courses designed around unusual topics with cities, places, and natural landscapes serving as experimental classrooms.
These courses are application-based. Students selected to participate will be registered for the course by the Honors office and are responsible for tuition (financial aid may apply). Additional fees associated with each course are provided in the description. Unless otherwise stated, students must arrange transportation to and from the course location. A substantial portion of the cost of UnCommon Classrooms is supported by private funding to the Honors Program for experiential learning.
Are you interested in the world of the ancient Mediterranean but haven’t been able to find your way to Greece or Italy? In this class, on-site in Boston, we’ll discover democratic principles established in ancient Athens as we explore one of colonial America’s most important cities and find parallels in the foundations of American democracy. We’ll unearth the stories behind the people (the demo of ‘democracy’) of ancient Greece at the Museum of Fine Arts, explore historical buildings and other sites important to early American colonial life, and take a journey along the red-brick path of the Freedom Trail before boarding a 18th-century warship and climbing Bunker Hill. Students will explore sites across the city of Boston as they build knowledge of colonial history and democracy, as well as the influence of Athenian democracy on America. They will then use this skillset to build a digital map of important sites along the Freedom Trail to be displayed and presented on the UF campus in the Spring semester.
In addition to tuition, the cost for this course is estimated to be $199, which includes lodging (double occupancy), activities, and site visits. The application will be open until November 7. All majors and disciplines are welcome. Space is limited.
Explore the cypress and Spanish moss of the Okefenokee, paddle through the headwaters of the Suwannee River, and discover the fascinating world of plant communication through the lens of electromagnetic detection. Engage in hands-on learning by constructing electromagnetic detection devices, designed to capture and interpret the subtle signals emitted by plants. The course will delve into the science behind plant communication, examining how plants interact with their environment and each other through electromagnetic fields.
The Florida elements and activities associated with this course (days on the water, night in tents) will be physically demanding, but it will be worth it for the adventure of a lifetime. By the end of this trip-based course, you will have built a functional detection devices and gained a deeper appreciation for where science, art, and our connection to nature coexist. This course culminates in a community “plant sound bath” concert where the plants themselves become performers, inviting students and participants to not only hear the harmonious interplay between technology and nature, but also view it through cymatic visual interpretations of the plant signals.
In addition to tuition, the cost for this course is estimated to be $171, which includes lodging, activities, transportation to and from Gainesville, and meals. All majors and disciplines are welcome to apply.
This immersive field-based course introduces students to the archaeology of Florida through site visits to both prehistoric and historic locations, including indigenous Tampa Bay and St. Augustine, America’s oldest city. Students will explore how archaeologists interpret material evidence to reconstruct the past and how preservation efforts protect cultural heritage. Through direct engagement with public archaeology programs and guided tours, students will critically reflect on the role of heritage in shaping public memory and identity/
This unique UnCommon classroom will take place over 3 weekends during the spring semester: February 21st in Ocala, March 7-8 in Cedar Key and St. Petersburg, and March 14-15 in St. Augustine. Students must participate in all dates.
In addition to tuition, the cost for this course is estimated to be $320, which includes lodging (double occupancy), activities, transportation, lunch, and site visits. All majors and disciplines are welcome to apply.
Community can be a fickle term and concept, largely because the idea is amorphous and the edges can be blurred or fuzzy. Still, most people have an idea of what community is and isn’t based on their own experiences with in-group and out-group dynamics. In this remarkable tour of the city, students will examine how identity-based communities change over time to expand, or constrict, their definitions of membership based on historical and contemporary events. We will use the case of the LGBTQ+ community and its subcommunities as our starting point—with the understanding that other groups based on gender, race, class, and more also intersect with our focal point. This class will culminate in a final paper that asks students to reflect on how they understand community (trans)formation from personal and academic standpoints.
The course will take place in San Francisco during spring break, March 16-19, 2026. In addition to tuition, the cost for this course is estimated to be $415, which includes lodging (double occupancy), activities, transportation, and site visits. Space is limited. All majors and disciplines are welcome to apply.
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