College Scholar Program

The College Scholar Program exists because the college faculty is convinced that some students do not need the usual requirements for the degree as guidelines in selecting courses, and that they will benefit from and feel more satisfied with their experiences at Cornell if they are entirely responsible for their own curricula. The program can be useful to different students with different purposes: to explore subjects with a little more freedom than other students enjoy, to develop an interdisciplinary field, to pursue a subject in which they are unusually advanced, or to study two or three distinct subjects. The College Scholar Program is not necessarily for those who know, or think they know, exactly what courses they will take while they are here. It is for students who have an idea of their academic direction, who have formulated questions they can translate into a program, and who possess the necessary skills to carry out the program successfully.

The program frees up to forty students in each class from all degree requirements except 120 credits (100 in Arts and Sciences), 34 courses, and two semesters of P.E. This includes freedom from distribution and major requirements. Its only requirement is the satisfactory completion of a senior project. Scholars are, of course, free to take advantage of all the usual academic options such as majors and study abroad.

Advising Each new scholar is assigned a faculty adviser from the College Scholar Advisory Board. That person will normally be the scholar's contact with the program and a member of the senior project committee.

Seminars Each year two or three college scholar seminars investigate basic problems or texts. The purposes of the seminars are to prepare scholars for interdisciplinary senior projects and to sneak some distribution into their curricula. They are designed to help students become aware of what a "discipline" is and to help them learn how to approach a text or problem from various angles, such as form, the author's approach to the subject matter, or historical and philosophical context.

Honors A voluntary honors track within the program has been established. Scholars who plan to graduate with honors take two college scholar seminars (or approved substitutes); non-scientists take at least one in some aspect of science, and scientists at least one in the humanities or social sciences. During the senior year, candidates for honors who have good records (3.5 average) complete honors projects. These can be research papers, essays on some important off-campus experience, or artistic work. A faculty committee of three, including at least one member of the College Scholar Advisory Board, evaluates the projects.

Informational Meetings Meetings are tentatively scheduled as follows to answer potential applicants' questions about the program:

• Monday, March 3 , 5:00pm in Tatkon Center (Balch Hall)
• Tuesday, March 4 , 12:20pm in 177 Goldwin Smith Hall
• Tuesday, March 4 , 5:00pm in Tatkon Center (Balch Hall)
• Wednesday, March 5 , 12:20pm in 177 Goldwin Smith Hall

If you have any questions, please come to the Academic Advising Center (55 Goldwin Smith Hall).

Application Due the last Wednesday of classes before final exams, in Spring of the freshman year - April 30, 2008.

1. The application essay (no form) should describe intellectual questions and goals and summarize academic plans at Cornell. They are generally three to five pages long. A cover sheet (available in 55 Goldwin Smith) should be attached to your essay. There is no interview.
2. A recommendation from an instructor at Cornell (including graduate teaching assistants) should attest to the applicant's general ability and maturity, and, if possible, to any particular talent in the proposed field of study. The letter of recommendation is due on the essay deadline date. The instructor writing the recommendation may send the letter by campus mail, by email to kag4@cornell.edu, bring it to 55 Goldwin Smith Hall, or give it to the applicant to hand in.
3. In addition to the essay, applicants are encouraged to submit any other evidence of competence such as a paper for a course. (You can retrieve this after selection.)

Selection College Scholars are chosen by members of the College Scholar Advisory Board and the program's director. Along with the material the applicant submits, the selection committee considers the applicant's grades for both fall and spring terms of their first year. The selection committee tries to choose students who will make the best use of the program. It is rarely more than lukewarm to the "I don't know what to do, so let me in" and the "I need to get out of X because I don't like it" applications. It does admit students who have no firm plans but who seem bright, mature, interested, and capable of handling the shock of having no guidelines. Once selected, a student remains a College Scholar until graduation.

College Scholar research ideas – Class of ‘10

1. A Rhapsody in Words: The Relationship Between Music and Literature (Julia Adolphe)
2. The Role of Music and Art on Cultural Development in Cuba, Brazil, and Puerto Rico (Wren Albertson-Rogers)
3. Mozart’s Operas: Music, Text, Drama, Performance (Dorian Bandy)
4. Redefining America: Orientalism in US-Latin American Relations (Emma Banks)
5. An Examination of Language Death in Indigenous Languages (Jonathan Bartnik)
6. The Boob Tube: Interactions of Media and Gender Identity Formation (Julie Block)
7. The Creative Process and Narrative Explored Through Virtual Imaging and Visual Representation (Heidi Celeghin)
8. Orientalism/Occidentalism: The Cultural Relationship of the Middle East and the West (Maurice Chammah)
9. Europe and the US: What Type of Alliance in the 21st Century (Luis-Francois de Lencquesaing)
10. Using Ethnomedicine to Develop Culturally Sensitive Approaches to Third World Medicine (Eleanor Emery)
11. Agricultural Worker’s Struggle for Social Change (Marlena Fontes)
12. Social Constructions of Time and Death (Emma Herzog)
13. Conservation Biology and the Benefits of Community Involvement (Iris Holmes)
14. A Study in Ethnomusicology: American Musical Identity (Stephanie Jenkins)
15. Another Arena: Ideology in the Near East (Suk Chun Kwak)
16. Computer Science and Technical Theatre (Zachary Lipton)
17. World Anarchism in Literature (Sara McDermott)
18. A Marriage Proposal: The Relevance of Marriage in Modern American Society (Alka Menon)
19. A Theater of Emancipation: Historical, Anthropological and Contemporary Perspectives (John Minnich)
20. Understanding the Convergence of First World Countries and Spanish-Speaking Island Communities (Alissa Mrazek)
21. Comparative History and Government (Chandni Navalkha)
22. The Politics Behind Science: Producing Ethical Legislation in the 21st Century (Eiten Neidich)
23. Looking for an Answer: Public Education Reform Through an Analysis of American History (Adam Phillips)
24. Visual Art and Music: Finding a New Confluence (Noah Robbins)
25. Creating Conversation with the Modern Islamic World (Rammy Salem)
26. The Search for a Unified Understanding of Philosophical Ideas and the Scientific Findings of Related Disciplines (Noam Schaap)
27. Searching for Meaning, Understanding, and Existence Through a Video Game (Anne Sternling)
28. Film and Media Influence on Female Adolescent Identity and Empowerment (Laura Transue)
29. An Examination of Transgene D57N’s Effect on Allosteric Control of Ribonucleotide Reductase in Knock-In Mice (Craig Wang)
30. A Case of the “Gimmes”: America’s Obsession with Consumerism (Jennifer Warne)

College Scholar research ideas - Class of ‘09

1. Marxism and Its Legacy (Gavin Arnall)
2. Reading Mathematics as Critical Theorists Would…If Only They Studied Mathematics (Michael Barany)
3. How literature Affects the Public Perception of Science (Janet Freilich)
4. After Cultural Studies (Asad Haider)
5. Computing and the Creative Mind (Chelsea Howe)
6. The New Order: An Amalgamated Theory on International Relations Informed by Inter-state Politics, Resource Management, and Cultural Discord (Victoria Kahn)
7. Game Theory, Inter-state Interaction, Conflict Resolution and Deterrence in Southeast Asia (Christina Kwok)
8. Subsistence/Sustainability: Integrated International Development in the Global South (Jane Olin-Ammentorp)
9. Comparative Colonialism: Africa and Latin America (Ezekiel Rediker)
10. Fear, Awe, and Urge: How Sexuality and Mortality Affect Our Reaction to Beauty (Jane Riccobono)
11. International Politics and Human Relations (Andrew Rose)
12. The Existentialist Spirit in Systems of Religion, Culture and Conflict (Jeremy Siegman)
13. Sensory Perception in Interdisciplinary Fields (Michal Zebede)

College Scholar research ideas - Class of '08

1. Character Psychology in film (Benjamin Birnbaum)
2. A Study through sociology and literature of the disillusionment of today's youth (Josh Gerber)
3. The significance of U.S. governmental policy in relation to environmental processes and outcomes (Branden Buehler)
4. Design of computer-based foreign Language Instruction (Andrew Carr)
5. The Asian Financial Crisis and the Great Depression: A Study of Globalization and Economics Crises (Carlo Caretto)
6. The American South: Politics, Culture and Religion from the Revolution to present (Jaideep Chawla)
7. Religion and Economic Development: Reinvestigating Weberian ideas through Case Studies and Quantitative Methods (Thummim Cho)
8. Environmental Protecton and its Connection to Inequality and Development (Caitlin Corner-Dolloff)
9. Artistic Portrayals of the Female Body: Performance Bound (Ashley Ferro-Murray)
10. Poetry in Context: A Comparative Study of 20th Century American Poetry (Katherine Foley)
11. Human Geography (Alex Haber)
12. Ecotheomusicology: the study of the intersection of environmentalism, religion, and music (Emily Hurst)
13. An examination of the relationship between physical and virtual spaces (Alexander Krivicich)
14. The politics of language in international perspective (Linda Louie)
15. Changing conceptions of personhood within bioethics and biolaw, from a historical perspective (Lindsay Parham)
16. Making medical decisions in modern times: A philosophical study of Bioethics-part, present and future (Alexandra Saltman)
17. Understanding the everyday in Buddhist China (Zhanna Rosenberg)
18. Psychology, Society and Politics in Urban landscape planning (Jaclyn Seow)
19. An investigation of authority, rebellion and alternative sources of power (Sophia Smith-Savedoff)
20. The science of philosophy: from Eastern metaphysics to Western Science (Santiago Suarez-Rubio)
21. Philosophy of Economics (Terry Tang)
22. Applied religion: dynamics of communities in conflict (Ann Wong)
23. Medical and social Gerontology: A study of the neurobiology of aging (Peanut Wong)

For more information regarding the College Scholar Program, please contact:

Ken Gabard, Assistant Dean
E-Mail: kag4@cornell.edu
Academic Services/Advising
55 Goldwin Smith Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-5792