Fall 2012 From the Director's Chair Dear Alumni and Friends of Plan II, The fall semester is in full swing on the Forty Acres, and with it there come some changes, big and small, at Plan II. Our Director, Michael Stoff, is taking a well-deserved sabbatical for the academic year to finish off a book on the bombing of Nagasaki, narrated from the first-person perspective. Michael was also honored this fall with a Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award for his extraordinary contributions to teaching and mentoring on the UT campus. We wish him a productive and restorative year of research and writing and look forward to his return to UT next fall. In the interim, I am serving as Acting Director of Plan II and my move across the common room from my regular office as Associate Director of the program has been very smooth so far, thanks in no small part to our terrific staff who help us run a very tight ship! I hope you will feel free to stop by and say hello whenever you are on campus. While I know many of our more recent grads, I am looking forward to meeting many, many more of our Plan II alums and friends of the program in the year to come. This fall we are delighted to welcome Dr Paul Sullivan to our staff as the new Assistant Director of Plan II. A graduate of the Plan II program, Paul is a gifted teacher and an accomplished scholar; he received his MA from Middlebury College and his PhD from UT in English in 2005, specializing in Tudor drama. Paul served as an Academic Advisor in Plan II from 2000-03 and has most recently been Associate Director of UT’s Liberal Arts Honors Program. We are thrilled to have him back in Plan II—he brings a wonderful energy, creativity, and deep sense of connection to our program. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to Dr Wendy Domjan who has returned to her full-time duties in the Psychology Department after five years as Assistant Director of Plan II. This fall will be our last semester on the fourth floor of the WC Hogg Building, aka “Hogg Heaven.” In mid-December, the Plan II offices will relocate to the new Liberal Arts Building across Speedway, adjacent to the recently opened Student Activity Center. Our most recent tour of the new space on Friday was breathtaking and we are looking forward to moving into our spacious and beautifully designed new quarters. Front and center will be a large and welcoming common room for the Plan II community, complete with couches, tables, computers, and of course the Cookie Jar (since this is no ordinary cookie jar, it gets caps!). We will send more information about the new Plan II offices as we get closer to the move-in date and hope you will plan to stop by and see us there in the spring. Even with all the changes afoot, some things stay the same and first and foremost on that list is the quality of our students. This year’s freshman class is yet another group of talented and dynamic young people from across the state and across the nation. Eight of the fourteen incoming Forty Acres Scholars (a new four-year merit scholarship created by the Texas Exes Scholarship Foundation to recruit and recognize exceptional students) are Plan II Honors majors: Tiffany Chan (Plan II/Chemical Engineering Honors), Akos Furton (Plan II/Business Honors), Rachel Larson (Plan II/Architecture), Marisa Swanson (Plan II/Social Work), Abhay Divakaruni (Plan II/Business Honors), Mary Elizabeth Guerra (Plan II/Biology), Caroline Meyerson (Plan II/Business Honors), and Steven Wilbanks (Plan II/Business Honors). Sophomores Will Hoenig and Nicole Kruijs were just named Temple Scholars for the next three years, and our seniors are hard at work on their theses, grappling with topics ranging from astrophysics to zoology. Plan II also continues to sponsor a wide variety of exciting speakers and events on campus. In early October, Plan II once again hosted a visit by Stanley Lombardo, a renowned translator and performer of Classical texts. Professor Lombardo gave a dramatic reading of The Fall of Troy from Virgil’s Aeneid and attended several of our classes; this annual event has become one of the highlights of our year. In late September, Pulitizer-Prize nominee Karen Russell gave a reading of her novel Swamplandia! to an overflow crowd in the Marilu Joynes Reading Room, where Program Coordinator Matt Valentine has put together a stunning line-up of events. Coordinator Matt Valentine has put together a stunning line-up of events. The Joynes Room events are always free and open to the public. Plan II alums and friends in the Austin area are frequent audience members and we hope many more of you will join us this year. For a full schedule of Plan II and Joynes Endowment events, see the Calendar link below. Link to Joynes Endowment Events The final thing that has not changed is our need for your help in supporting the superb students and the equally impressive programming in Plan II. From cookies for the Cookie Jar to scholarships, travel grants, and support for thesis research, we depend on the contributions of Plan II families, friends, and alums to keep this tightly run ship afloat. The Plan II experience, so much greater than the sum of its parts, is something all of us believe in to our very core. To those of you who have already contributed, we send our deepest thanks. To those of you who have yet to contribute, please know that no gift is too small (or too large…); we hope you will join the cohort of Plan II supporters to whom we are enormously grateful. With warm regards, Alexandra K. Wettlaufer Professor of French and Comparative Literature Acting Director, Plan II Honors Plan II Study Abroad Fund One of our priorities for the Plan II Honors in the 21st century is an active commitment to Study Abroad: we see our students as “Citizens of the World” and feel it is of the utmost importance that they have the opportunity to study, travel, and experience cultures outside of the US. With the extraordinarily generous support of Plan II alum Austin Ligon ('73), we launched a robust Travel Grant Initiative in 2006 that has enabled us to send our students across the globe on a wide variety of programs and research trips, from the Normandy Scholars Program and UT’s MayMesters in Prague, Costa Rica, Rome, Vienna, and Moscow, to thesis research in Madagascar, Uganda, Istanbul, Argentina, and Ghana, among numerous other places on every continent. As our students can attest, the Study Abroad experience is life changing. Alexandra Arambula traveled to France in the summer of 2012 as part of the Normandy Scholar Program. A senior who plans to attend medical school after graduation, Alex notes how her experience abroad has shaped her in unexpected ways: "Unanswered questions and perplexities characterize medicine and the study of the human body, but [thanks to my study abroad experience] I feel better equipped to face those challenges. I can engage in intelligent discussions with colleagues, appreciate and explore the diversity of viewpoints in various situations and strive to respect the dignity of every individual (remembering what happens when that fails)." Daniel Hung traveled to China in 2012. He is a third-year Plan II student, also majoring in Government and History with a minor in Asian Studies and is planning on going to law school. Reflecting on his travels in a thank you note to the Ligons, Daniel writes: "I met many great people on this trip. From friends that I will hopefully see again in the future, to strangers whose kindness I will never forget. I really believe in giving back to the community as you do, which is one of the reasons I aim to become a public servant. I am very serious about accomplishing this goal, which is why I am attending law school after I graduate." Daniel Hung (center) traveled to the China in 2012 In the course of the past six years and with your help, we have been able to support more than 750 students with in Travel Grants and we hope to continue to make this vital component of a Plan II education available to all, regardless of their financial situation. Here is how you can help: Austin Ligon has made a four-year, $200,000 pledge to the Plan II Travel Grant Initiative and has issued a challenge to all Plan II alumni, family, and friends to match his $50,000 gift each year. With your support, large or small, we hope to double Austin’s gift this year and indeed over the course of the entire challenge, raising more than $400,000 for Plan II students to travel and study abroad. Your tax-deductible contributions will go directly to support the leaders of tomorrow as they explore the world they hope to make a better place for all of us. If you would like to make a year-end gift to Plan II in general, or to Study Abroad specifically, please visit our on-line giving site: Link to Plan II Honors Online Giving Site You'll need to specify Plan II and make a note in the comments field if you have a particular use in mind for your contribution, such as Study Abroad. If you have any questions or concerns about why and/or how you might do this, please call or write Plan II Alumni Liaison Phillip Dubov directly at [email protected].