Editor’s note: As the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death approaches, five UT Austin scholars share how they celebrate his work and his ultimate staying power. In 10 years, people won’t care about Kim Kardashian’s face-contouring regimen or that she had 35 million Twitter followers. But William Shakespeare? Four centuries after his death he’s still […]
Features
Living The Examined Life
The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic […]
Teaching An Understandable World
The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic […]
Leading His Longhorn Family
The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic […]
Chatting in Chatino
Graduate Students Revive Early Languages In Rural Oaxaca In a rural village between two rivers outside of Oaxaca, Mexico, Ryan Sullivant walked door to door like a salesman, asking neighbors to conjugate verbs. The village, Tataltepec, is one of few within a small mountainous area between Oaxaca and the Pacific coast where a dwindling population […]
Spooky Research: The Unexplained Explained
To the ancient Celtics, Oct. 31 marked the end of harvest and the beginning of barren winter, or a time when life and fertility ended and arid death began. Today, cultures around the world celebrate Halloween as a day where life and death intersect with traditions based on mystery, magic and superstition. Within the College […]
A Gigantic Step Forward: LAC President Details ’15-’16 Plans
Initially denied an interview to join Liberal Arts Council his first semester on campus, Austin Reynolds received an interview slot through a last-minute cancellation and earned his spot in the organization with an impressive question and answer session. Two years later, the English honors junior from Texarkana, Texas, became the organization’s 2015-16 president. The following […]
Students Make an Impact with 2015 Summer Internships
This summer, liberal arts students took to professional settings with internships that helped sharpen their skills and develop their roles as employees. Below, read about three students who interned in a variety of settings, from nonprofit organizations, to innovative local companies, to reputable news organizations. Madeleine Toups Major: Government and Liberal Arts Honors senior Hometown: […]
A Q&A with English Alumna Ashley Hope Pérez, Author of ‘Out of Darkness’
In March 1937 a gas leak caused a massive explosion that killed almost 300 children and teachers at a school in New London, Texas. Amidst the backdrop of this catastrophic event, a Mexican-American girl falls in love with a Black boy in a segregated oil town. In a town where store signs mandate “No Negroes, […]
Meanwhile in Peru: Report from an Epicenter of Climate Change
In the Peruvian Andes, the future is now. In fact, people there are incredulous that lawmakers in the United States actually debate climate change, and baffled that many North Americans challenge the worldwide scientific consensus that Earth’s average temperature is steadily on the rise. South American climate observers (i.e., regular citizens as well as scientists) […]
Field of Dreams
Larry Carver’s Got a Marshall on First, a Truman on Second and a Rhodes on Third It’s been more than 20 years since Larry Carver began working with UT Austin students applying for the nation’s most prestigious graduate school fellowships, and he can still tell you the names of all the nominees from memory. It’s […]
Diagnosing Disease Faster: Q&A with Courtney Koepke
Courtney Koepke is a Plan II Honors and biomedical engineering junior from Austin, Texas. She works as an undergraduate research assistant at UT Austin’s Laboratory of Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Bionanotechnology. What made you want to be a research assistant? As a freshman entering college, I didn’t know much about research or understand the important […]
Promoting National Security: Q&A With Mark Jbeily
Mark Jbeily is a Plan II Honors and Naval ROTC senior from Austin, Texas. He is a recipient of the 2015 British Marshall scholarship, which will fund his pursuit of a Master of Philosophy in international relations at the University of Oxford. Jbeily is also a Naval ROTC battalion commander, a Bill Archer fellow and […]
Bridge to Somewhere
Connecting STEM and the Humanities to Fix America’s Failing Infrastructure The next time you get behind the wheel, consider this: The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave our major urban highways a big, fat “D” on their infrastructure report card. A “D” on a report card usually means you’re getting grounded, and in a […]
Depression: Making Treatment Personal
For the estimated 350 million people worldwide who suffer from depression, the health consequences go far beyond “feeling down.” In fact, it is a leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people with symptoms of depression will never receive treatment, and for those diagnosed with major […]
Grand Victory
Liberal Arts alumnus Wes Anderson (Philosophy ’90) won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy in January and also received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014). The whimsical and complex comedy earned a total of nine Academy Award nominations and took home four […]
Borderline: The Politics, Law and Identity of Immigration
Temperatures hovered around the triple digits in deep South Texas when the children arrived on the U.S.-Mexico border. They traveled alone, without parents. They traveled from the faraway mountains of Guatemala and El Salvador and the depths of the world’s most violent city — San Pedro Sula in Honduras. Their numbers grew over months until […]
Undergraduate Research Week 2015: Liberal Arts Students Present the Evidence
The fields of study within the College of Liberal Arts are vast, and the number of topics that merit in-depth investigation are seemingly endless. Each year, liberal arts undergraduates at The University of Texas at Austin get first-hand experience in conducting academic research that can have an impact on themselves, the academic community and even […]
Honors Day 2015: Q&A with 3 Liberal Arts Honorees
More than 1,000 liberal arts students are being recognized this Saturday in a UT Austin tradition that began in 1948. The University of Texas at Austin holds Honors Day each year to recognize students who have achieved academic excellence. The Honors Day Convocation serves as a prelude to commencement and is attended by UT faculty […]
With Liberty and Justice for All: Liberal Arts Student Interns with Nonprofit Law Firm
Valentina Gudiño is an anthropology and international relations & global studies senior who was born in Cabimas, Venezuela and grew up in Houston, Texas. This semester, she’s working 10 hours per week as an intern at the Equal Justice Center. Monica Chartier, programs manager for Liberal Arts Career Services, says roughly one third of students who […]
Fighting the World’s Fight: Q&A with Sai Gourisankar
Sai Gourisankar is a Plan II Honors and chemical engineering senior from Fort Worth, Texas. He is a recipient of the 2015 Rhodes scholarship, as well as being a Dedman distinguished scholar, a Goldwater scholar and an Astronaut Foundation scholar. What does winning a Rhodes scholarship mean to you? It enables me to study at […]
Jewish Latin America Figures Prominently in Schusterman Center’s Activities
While the study of Jewish Latin America and Jewish Latinas/os might seem a small and specialized niche, the themes that emerge are often universal: cultural clashes, assimilation and blending in, loss, being part yet apart. Students and scholars of Latin American studies often ponder these very same questions. When these two disciplines meet or overlap, […]
Liberal Arts Backs Entrepreneurship
Major Ellis, an economics junior from San Angelo, Texas, says entrepreneurism runs in the family. “My father started his own company about 30 years ago,” Ellis says. “Growing up with that experience revealed to me not only the challenge but also the significance of leading and succeeding as an entrepreneur.” He chose to study liberal […]
Liberal Arts Refugee Alliance Introduces New Residents to Austin: Q&A with Founding Member Sarah Fischer
Sarah Fischer is an international relations & global studies and journalism sophomore from Mechanicsville, Maryland. She is a founding member of the Liberal Arts Refugee Alliance, which started last spring with grant from the Liberal Arts Honors program. How did the Liberal Arts Refugee Alliance come about? Last Spring, I attended a volunteer orientation at […]
Op-Ed Project Fellows Address Challenges African Americans Still Face Today
Turn to the op-ed pages of any major newspaper, and you’ll see how writers are wielding the power of the written word to keep people honest, to speak out about injustices, to shake readers out of apathy. You’re also likely to see the article was most likely written by a man. Only 10 to 20 […]