Honors Program

All students at Oglethorpe are encouraged to attain academic and personal excellence through active engagement with and initiative in their education. The University offers an Honors program for those students who demonstrate the potential and desire to further challenge themselves intellectually, both within and beyond the classroom setting.

The honors program allows students the opportunity to work closely with peers and faculty from various disciplines, while developing their own interests and initiative.

Students who complete the Honors program will develop their own independent project, while learning how their interests relate to relevant disciplinary discourse, other academic disciplines and the world beyond academia. Completing an honors thesis and successfully defending it at our annual Liberal Arts and Science Symposium is the culmination the program.

Please read examples of past years’ honors theses below.

2024

Inactivation of SPR-2, an inhibitor of histone acetyltransferase, results in a rapid and transgenerational germline mortality phenotype in C. elegans
Thalia Boston (Dr. Karen Schmeichel, Advisor)

Purgatory is Humid; A Screenplay of a First-Time Screenwriter
Jack Bulger (Professor Ron Burgess, Advisor)

Opening a New Can of Worms: A Transgenerational Behavioral Phenotype Caused by Chromatin Hyper-repression
Jaely Chavez and Mackenzie Roberson (Dr. Karen Schmeichel, Advisor)

Unveiling the Past: The Crypt of Civilization as a Public Monument
Maria Coles (Professor Christina Price-Washington, Advisor)

Playing with Perceptions: Gender, Aggression, and Competence in Video Game Environments
Sarah Farmer (Dr. Lisa Hayes, Advisor)

History of the Israeli-Palestinian Educational Systems and Curriculums: Prevailing Impact on Israel-Palestine
Isabel Forster (Dr. Glenn Sharfman, Advisor) 

The Case of Italy: Perpetrators and Perplexities of a Stagnant State
Shelby Jones (Dr. John Orme, Advisor)

Who Let the Ghosts Out?: Gender and Abjection in the South Indian Horror Comedies Chandramukhi and Kanchana
Bhavana Kunnath (Dr. Reshmi Hebbar, Advisor)

The Tragedy of the Mother’s Agency
Haley Liddle (Dr. Robert Hornback, Advisor)

From Plantation to Incarceration Nation: Analyzing Reproductive Oppression Against the Black Female Body Through Slavery, Eugenics, and Incarceration
Jaden Poindexter (Dr. Nicholas Maher, Advisor)

Investigating the Function of FAP93 in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Casandra Slocum (Dr. Lea Alford, Advisor)

The AlJayRhythm: A One-Woman Show
Jariyah Williams (Professor Matthew Huff, Advisor)

2023

The Impact of Gender and Diagnosis Label on the Stigmatization of Individuals on the Autism Spectrum
Caidyn Ellis (Dr. Lisa Hayes, Advisor)

Assembly of FAP93 is dependent upon total ciliary length and ODA10
Sarah Gordon (Dr. Lea Alford, Advisor)

Diagnosing De-stabilization: An Analysis of Sudan’s 2019 and 2021 Coup d’Etat
Ashrakat Hassan (Dr. John Orme, Advisor)

Cleft Curse: Cultural Connotations of Cleft Lip and Palate in México City, México
Andi Kezh (Dr. Jaclyn McWhorter, Advisor)

Investigating the Effect of Two Mood Induction Procedures and Arousal on False Memory
Alexa Tringali (Dr. Justin Wise, Advisor)

2022

Decatur Where It’s Greater? An Examination into the Relationship between the Charter School System and Gentrification in Decatur, Georgia
Zoë Geiger

Post-Impressionism in Great Britain: Woman Artists from 1880-1930
Hayleigh Stonham

2021

A Qualitative Study Examining Black Women’s Experiences within Maternal Healthcare
Ron’Nesha Bryant (Dr. Janelle Pham, Advisor)

Female Candidates and Voter Turnout: An Empirical Study on the Effects of Nontraditional Candidate Spending on Voter Behavior
Fatima Boumahd (Dr. Cassandra Copeland, Advisor)

Worse Singers or Harder Songs? Pop Music Melodies from the 1970s through the 2010s
Alison Curl (Dr. Timothy Powell, Advisor)

Bridging the Gap: Updating Representations of Slavery in Museums in the Southern United States 
Nyree Dowdy (Dr. Nicholas Maher, Advisor)

Convivencia and Music in Medieval Iberia
Samantha Foster (Dr. Brent Runnels, Advisor)

The Syrian Civil War: Why Did it Get So Bad?
Addison Furst (Dr. John Orme, Advisor)

Intraflagellar Transport is Not Required for Flagellar-associated Protein 93 (FAP93) Assembly in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cilia
Reagan Goodwin (Dr. Lea Alford, Advisor)

The Collective Memory and Collective Amnesia: Japan’s Occupation in the Korean Peninsula
Nina Lopez (Dr. John Orme, Advisor)

We Make Life: Self-Authoring in The Waves
Milo McGehee (Dr. Sarah Terry, Advisor)

Abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir: Implications and Why Now?
Sidhant Sharma (Dr. Nicholas Maher, Advisor)

Length-dependency of FAP93 Assembly in Chlamydomonas cilia
Courtney Stuart (Dr. Lea Alford, Advisor)

2020

Why Diversity Matters: Finding Community as Desi College Students
Syeda Bano (Dr. Janelle Pham, Advisor)

Perception of Child Abuse by Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Marital Status
Erin Raquel Battaglia (Dr. Rebecca Bays, Advisor)

Characterization via transcriptomic analysis of a potential gene interaction between spr-5, met-2, and mep-1 in determining germline versus soma in C. elegans
Jovan Brockett (Dr. Karen Schmeichel, Advisor)

It Was an Extraordinary Summer: Youth, Memory, and Homosexual Desire in Mrs. Dalloway and The Goldfinch
Lexi Covalsen (Dr. Sarah Terry, Advisor)

“Feels bad man”: Internet Memes as Alt-Right Discourse
Ansley Dyer (Dr. Katharine Zakos, Advisor)

Modern-Day Relics of Quaker Ideals: How Solitary Confinement Practices Continue to Negatively Impact the American Prison System
Emily Shultz (Dr. Robert Hornback, Advisor)

Engaging the City: An Ethnography on the Beltline’s Promotional Framework
Yasmin Tehrani (Dr. Janelle Pham, Advisor)

2019

Investigating How Repressive Chromatin Modifiers Interact during Early C. elegans Embryogenesis
Sindy Chavez (Dr. Karen Schmeichel, Advisor)

Expressive Complexity of Computer Algebra Systems
Robert Dougherty-Bliss (Dr. Brian Patterson, Advisor)

A Union with Reality: Reconsidering Mysticism in a World of “Othering”
Arman Niknafs (Dr. Nicholas Maher and Dr. Amanda Printz Whooley, Advisors)

To Be Determined: A Perspective. A Play in Two Acts
Gillian Rabin (Dr. Anne Rosenthal and Mr. Matt Huff, Advisors)

Migration Dynamics of Ancient Indo-Aryan Speakers into India
Nipun Shukla (Dr. Jeffrey Collins, Advisor)

Birthright: A Play in One Act
Gavonta’ Zanders (Dr. Anne Rosenthal and Mr. Matt Huff, Advisors)

2018

Characterizing a Role for CoREST (SPR-1) in Regulating the Function of LSD1 (SPR-5)
Robert Goldin (Dr. Karen Schmeichel, Advisor)

#parlezvousfemme – A Show about Women in the 21st century, as Told by five Famous Women
Victoria Lindbergh (Dr. Jay Lutz, Advisor)

A Self-Propelling-Wheel: Prefigured Recurrence in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy
Jared McSwain (Dr. Amanda Printz Whooley, Advisor)

But This Is Where All the Trouble Starts! With Words!: Self-Determining Characters and the Struggle for Narrative Authority
Meredith Myers (Dr. Sarah Terry, Advisor)

Rotation of the Solar Wind’s Magnetic Field in Jupiter’s Magnetosphere
Iris Daniela Ponce Pinto (Dr. Mariel Meier, Advisor)

Hamilton and the American Promise
Sarah Rodgers (Dr. Reshmi Hebbar, Advisor)

The Influence of Media Representations on Perception of Real and Made-Up Drug Names
Katie Wilson (Dr. Justin Wise, Advisor)

2017

On the Road and the Meaning of ‘Beat’
Allie Armbruster

The Search for Belarusian National Identity: An Explanation of Authoritarianism
Sarah Baughn

Selective Tactile Attention Under Auditory Perceptual Load
Stephanie Bowar

“Mom, I got it”: Identifying Zygotic Roles for SPR-5 and MET-2 in C. elegans Development
Elias Castro

“And Now There’s No Chain”: Punk, Dada, and Art as Commodity Negation
Evan Drew

The Role of Attachment Styles and Personality in Predicting Coping Methods
Miranda Evans

The Presence of the Past: An Argument for Reconsidering Three Boston Historians
Kelly Jacobson

Byzantine Restoration and Collapse under the Komnenoi
Zachary Roberts

Piracy and Religion: Navigating their Connections During the Golden Age
Sarah Wampler

Potential Interactions of Alcohol and Multivitamin Use on Prenatal Oxidative Stress
Jaclyn Weinberg

2016

Forging the Mormon Myth
MaryAnne Hafen

Serotonin Modulation of Anesthesia-Induced Hypothermia
Ty Murphy

Thou and It: Personhood Actualized through Water Rights
Kierra Powell

The Significance of Economic Significance
Dakota Sneed

The Extent of Indigenous-Norse Contact and Trade Prior to Columbus
Don Warden

Tantric Alchemy of the Soul: A Philosophical Analysis and Synthesis of Jung and Kashmir Shaivism
Derek Wolter

2015

The Business Structures of Private Schools: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Research Study
Delaney Bush

Authentic Knowledge from the Perspective of the Early Moderns
Caleb Connell

The Art of Interpretation in Dialogue: The Emergence of Meaning in Everyday Life
Nicole Gallagher

Interstate Land War in the Information Age
Eric Hunt

Models of Time Travel and Their Consequences
Antonio Mántica

One State: An Illusion or Solution?
Ruwa Romman

2014

The New Gold Standard: New York City’s Counterterrorism Bureau
Courtney Barrett

Justice Not Long Delayed: Historical Perspectives and the Twenty-First Century Fight for Gay Rights
Charles Boyd

Invocation Dei- The Competing Roles of Christianity and Secularism in the Polarization of American Political Culture
Samantha Flynn

Till Death Us Do Part: The Evolution of Monogamy
Kirsten Glaeser

The End of Ataturk’s Tutelage: Political Islam and Lessons Learned form the Rise of the AKP
Corey Ray

The Immersive Medium: Art, Flow, and Video Games
Christopher Yalen

2013

Invocatio Dei: The Competing Roles of Religion and Secularization in the Polarization of American Political Culture
Samantha Flynn

Horror-Comedy: The Chaotic Spectrum and Cinematic Synthesis
Marisa Manuel

Shadows in Time: A Study of Temporal Metaphysics Through Hard Science Fiction and Its Restrictions on the Past and Future 
Lindsey Mitchell

Lifting the Veil of Violence: The October Crisis, 1970
Jef Palframan

2012

Executive Functioning, Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, and Reading Skills in Adolescents with Traumatic Brain Injury in Comparison to Typically Developing Adolescents
Livia Balaban

The Evolving Literature and Branding of the Sanford Meisner Technique
Kyle Brumley

Southern Discomfort: Anti-Mormon Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century
Clair Carter

El Pajaro Rebelle: Cultural Confusion in Bizet’s Carmen
Whitney Daly

Mediators of Social Skill Deficits in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
Cassandra L. Hendrix

The Evolution of Fairies in Literature: From Oral Folk Tales to Peter Pan and More Modern Stories
Jacquelyn McFadden

Graffiti Explosions: The Local Ecology of Atlanta’s Creative Graffiti Scene
Robert Mynatt

Islam en France vs. Islam de France: The Impact of Islam and Immigration
Melinda Peerboom

Repeated Exposure to Admired Gay Men: A Case for Modulating Automatic Attitudes and Changing Behavior
Brittany A. Weiner

2011

The Changing News Media Scene and Consequential Effects on Societal Values of the ‘Other’
Alexandra K. Bryant

Globalization’s Effect on Censorship and Social Taboos
Alex Clark

Coming Out: Building Communities by Contesting Constructions of Binary Gender Identity
Ramika R. Gourdine

Economics and Revolution: The Dutch Revolt and the Baltic Trade
Christopher Hendrix

Physical Artifice and the Spiritual Ideal: English Decadent Poetry
Jonathan M. Jordan

Protest: The Missing Link to German Identity?
Deborah Leighty

Idealistic Realism: How Generation Y Views the World
Erica Taylor