The English Channel The English Channel Volume 17 Issue 2 Spring 2017 | Page 21

Reflections...
This past fall, I was the only student
speaker at a teach-in talk sponsored by
the College of Arts and Sciences regard-
ing the theme of "Unity in Diversity." I
was inspired by my final "senior project"
course for my American Studies Concen-
tration, for which I choose to spend the
semester researching the politics of edu-
cation, including the history of institu-
tionalized academia, neoliberalism in
higher education and standardized testing
policies in secondary education. At the
teach-in I gave a short talk on the im-
portance of liberal arts education
aside some of my favorite and most
influential professors on the same
panel. I proceeded to write a 40-page
paper on this topic. The Dean (!!) of
the College of Arts and Sciences con-
tacted me afterwards and asked if he
could use my script for the talk as a
document to show new hires to the
College about the spirit of higher
education. In an e-mail he told me,
"we ought to be giving you an Honor-
ary Doctor of Humane Letters de-
gree for that inspirational speech."
teaching position. I was offered the in-
ternship the following day. By this time
next year, I will be full-time student
teaching an 11th grade English class. To
put this in perspective, I was a student
myself in an 11th grade English class
only five years ago.
On Thursday, my parents and I are at-
tending a formal dinner at Oakland as I
was the Holzbock Humanities scholar
this past year. I was awarded a very gener-
ous scholarship last spring for the 2016-
17 academic year, one that I applied for
simply because I was applying for study
abroad ones around the same time (of
which I was also awarded two more). I
was surprised at the time, not understand-
ing why I was chosen out of so many
Earlier this semester, I was contacted
and interviewed by a teacher at Henry
Ford II high school for a student
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past year I volunteered my time as a stu-
dent study abroad adviser for the Interna-
tional Education office at Oakland. Each
week I talked to fellow OU students
about studying abroad and helped them
change their lives, too.