Literature Professor Discusses Opposing Views & Empathy

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When Honors English professor Dr. Kathryn Warren, during her first year of teaching, met a student who adamantly didn’t want to read her assignments, she found evidence for the theory that literature makes people more empathetic, including herself.

Dr. Warren wrote an article this semester for the Chronicle of Higher Learning about her experience with a student who refused to read the assigned literature. It gave her some insight on working with students who may have different opinion from hers.

The student, whom she gave the psuedonym Henry, had qualms with the material she assigned. He found the progressive American literature problematic compared to the more traditional British tales of heroism and valor he grew up with.

Dr. Warren concluded that for some students, reading the assignment can be a truly ethical dilemma when confronted with material that doesn’t reaffirm one’s worldview. It’s important to try — at the very least– to understand the other side.  Continue reading

Meet The Staff: Cathy Pritchett

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In the hall near the entrance of the Honors College, Cathy Pritchett’s doors are covered with theater production posters. She loves theater as much as she loves working students at the college, where she has called home for over a decade.

It’s not hard to spot Cathy’s outgoing personality around the college and her door is always open to students.

As a UTA grad with a BA in Music, she has always made the arts a part of her life. Cathy often plays a role in plays for UTA’s theater department. She loves performing and often sings in choirs, does music performance in churches and all sorts of odd things. For her, it’s more than a hobby.

“I call it my therapy,” she said. “I get to go and be somebody else for a couple of hours and I love that about musical theater.” Continue reading

Student Explores Possibility Of Epidemic At UTA

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If an epidemic were to happen at UTA, the campus wouldn’t be prepared to deal with it.

At least that’s biology freshman Ross Armant estimated when he wrote a compelling paper about the possibility of an epidemic for an English class about covering data of epidemics.

Ross imagines the worst-case scenario play out if an virus spread, but not like the so-called Ebola “outbreak” of 2014.

“Ebola was a very rare incident and wasn’t really a true outbreak,” he said.

The disease would infect the UTA community — and would then spread to the greater DFW area. He studied how quickly it spreads with a simple modelbased on the Spanish flu epidemic. Each infected person is likely to infect two other people.

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