Quadrille Winter 2017
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QuadrilleA Newsletter for Alumni, Students, and Friends of the LSU Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College Winter 2017 LETTER FROM THE DEAN 2017 marks the 50th year of Honors education at LSU, and the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Honors College. As we have grown and matured as an institution, Honors has literally transformed LSU’s student body and our beautiful campus. This fall we honored our past while celebrating our bright future. We greeted familiar faces returning to campus to celebrate our 50th birthday and welcomed new ones, including convocation speaker Dr. Arlie Russell Hochschild, New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet, and the almost 600 incoming students in our fabulous class of 2021. I hope you enjoy reading more about the exciting things going on at the Ogden Honors College in this issue of the Quadrille, the first produced with the help of our new Communications Coordinator Jacqueline DeRobertis, a 2014 Honors graduate. As always, we’d love to hear from you: keep your ideas and feedback coming! Wishing you and your family a joyous holiday and a prosperous 2018, Jonathan Earle Roger Hadfield Ogden Dean Contributing Photographers: Collin Richie Chris Granger Zoe Williamson Eddy Perez Contributing Writer: Jordan LaHaye On the Cover: In October we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Honors education at LSU with a gathering of students, alumni and friends at the French House. Dean Earle introducing Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild at the Photo by Collin Richie. 2017 Honors Convocation. 2 REPORTING Ogden Honors Senior Interviews New York Times POWER Executive Editor Dean Baquet At age 22, print journalism major and Ogden Honors senior Sarah everything about legislation. And when you're reporting, you feel Gamard already describes herself as a diehard. like you're actually doing something for everyone because politics is “In the Manship School there's a group of kids who are just ubiquitous.” diehard reporters,” Gamard said. “I'm in that group of diehard, print Her crash course in policy led Gamard to writing opportunities with reporters. When you’re a journalist you kind of adopt this lifestyle. Politico and Salon, both of which positioned her to appreciate her It's just all you do, it's all you think about all day. Writing feels like joint interview with Baquet as a young but experienced journalist. breathing.” When the Manship Gamard was among those selected to School contacted interview visiting Executive Editor Dean a pool of students Baquet of The New York Times. The LSU who might be Ogden Honors College and Manship School interested in of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for interviewing Baquet Media and Public Affairs recently played and asked them to host to a public roundtable discussion submit potential with Baquet on the media’s response to questions, Gamard the current political situation and the was ready. state of journalism in a rapidly evolving “I had just spent industry. Held in the Hans and Donna all summer in DC,” Sternberg Salon of the French House, the Gamard said. “I conversation consisted of a Q&A format with was watching in three reporters from the Manship School – real time the way Gamard, William Taylor Potter and Kayla that the journalism Swanson – questioning Baquet on the latest industry was kind issues facing journalism today. of – I don't want to Baquet, a New Orleans native, began say compromising, his career as a reporter for The Times- Students, faculty and community members packed the Hans & Donna but reacting to Picayune. He has worked in a variety of Sternberg Salon to hear Baquet speak. the scene we're in capacities for the Chicago Tribune, the right now.” Los Angeles Times and The New York Times over the course of his Gamard and her fellows structured the roundtable around issues extensive reporting and editing career. After Honors College Dean such as press transparency and accountability. Drawing on his roots, Jonathan Earle’s opening remarks and Manship School Dean Jerry Baquet discussed how his upbringing in New Orleans has influenced Ceppos’ introduction of Baquet, Gamard kicked off the exchange. his approach to journalistic integrity. Also a New “It's made me care more deeply about people Orleans native, who aren't making it,” he said. “I've never been an Gamard has editor who felt comfortable being too much in the written for company of powerful people. I think it has made the Manship me feel like I should be less attuned to powerful School News people, and more attuned to people who have less Statehouse power, which I think, generally speaking, is a good Bureau and trait for a journalist.” Politico. She Baquet also addressed the importance of having currently serves reporters from different backgrounds cover the as a contributor news regularly — not just when there is an outcry to LaPolitics from those who feel underrepresented. “I don't and as a “Young think a newsroom can actually cover the country Americans” — especially a national newsroom, like mine — initiative unless it has diverse voices,” Baquet said. “I don't reporter for think we can cover those debates unless we have Salon. An different voices and different experiences.” alumna of the For Gamard, emerging from the Baquet New Orleans discussion is the insistence that the news shapes Center for public discourse. She will continue to explore Creative this topic as she develops her Honors Thesis on Arts, Kayla Swanson and Dean Baquet during the roundtable discussion. journalism as an organic art form. In the future, Gamard she plans to keep writing. The lifestyle of a journalist, explained that she developed a passion for journalism through which she describes as “almost monastic,” has inspired her to creative writing and studying nonfiction essayists. When she surround herself with a community of writers with purpose who transferred to LSU from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst immerse themselves in the news on a daily basis. she entered the Manship School and began writing for The Daily “As a journalist, you can really second guess yourself,” Gamard Reveille, where she was thrown into the world of state and local said. “People are yelling at you all the time, people are criticizing you policy. all the time. There's something that brings me back. I really want “I didn't understand a thing about policy,” Gamard said. “Then I to get into the hullaballoo — I just want to be part of the hordes of started reporting on it and you feel like a kid on a playground. It felt journalists that are reporting on these things, because it's important.” like people were speaking German before, and now I understand 3 Honorable Mentions 25% Ogden students have 3.63 in College of Science received more than 100 average collegiate GPA prestigious national awards since our Office of Fellowship Advising was 15:1 24% student to faculty ratio in College of established in 2005. Engineering Including: 85 *36 NSF Research Fellows Honors Theses completed 2016-2017 19% Goldwater Scholars in College of *18 Humanities and *17 Critical Language 84% Social Sciences Scholarships 6-yr graduation rate *10 Truman Scholars *4 Udall Scholars 87% 54% & LSU's first of new grads go on to of Honors Students grad school or full-time are STEM students *Gates Cambridge Scholarship professional positions upon graduation We typically admit Accepted students have:—> the top 10% of incoming *31 LSU Freshmen mean ACT *1430 99% mean SAT equivalent of our incoming We welcomed 594 students receive merit incoming students for the *3.8 scholarships from LSU 2017-2018 academic year mean academic GPA 4 do I belong here?’ And so, in the absence of not seeing that represented, someone believing in you helps tremendously.” At LSU, Lemon did it all — worked in a lab with biological sciences professor Dr. Anne Grove, served as an Honors Advocate, interned with the Ragon Institute in Massachusetts, received a Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention, conducted research in France one summer at the Pasteur Institute of Lille, and developed a thesis on the “Characterization of MarR Homolog in Vibrio vulnificus.” She was also a distinguished communicator as part of the Communication Across the Curriculum initiative at the university, where she began to question how to frame scientific research in a social justice context. “Scientists love to use super complicated terms,” Lemon explained. “They're terms that serve a purpose, but I think there's an opportunity to make that technical language more accessible, especially when opening your research up to a larger audience. One thing that science lacks is a Alumna Tiffany Lemon on Into the Science, Social Justice, and Asking "Why Not?" multitude of voices to inform how it is moving forward. Outside voices really insert those unique research questions into the conversation." While researching HIV and immune system dynamics, Lemon began to ask questions that were slightly removed from science: What about these people and their life experiences? How does life exposure to what they When Opelousas native and Ogden Honors alumna Tiffany Lemon first encounter each day also inform the way their immune systems work? arrived in Baton Rouge to attend Louisiana State University in 2009, she These questions, and a feeling that her time in Baton Rouge had not run knew that something profound was beginning. its course, led Lemon to join Teach for America upon graduation in 2013. “I rememberWorld moving to Baton Rouge and thinking it was the biggest Working locally at Gardere Community Christian School, Lemon found a city I had ever been to,” Lemon admitted. “I just didn't have that much way to continue the tenets of community service, academic engagement, exposure outside of small town Louisiana, so it was just a big deal and mentorship that had inspired her undergraduate career.