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Faculty
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Patricia W. See (Ph.D., Mississippi State University) is Director of the University Honors Program. She teaches HONORS 303: In Search of Relationships and oversees the Honors Forum class and all Honors activities, such as the fall retreat, social events and travel to National and Regional Honors Council conferences. See is a Professor of Sociology who also teaches courses in microsociology, marriage and the family, sociology of consciousness, and holistic health. Both students and faculty bodies have recognized her with outstanding teacher awards. She has served as both department and division chair and been active on faculty, department, and academic committees, in addition to holding positions with community organizations such as Planned Parenthood, YWCA, Orange County Wellnes Coalition and the Sierra Club. She has also served for the past twelve years as a volunteer at the California Institute for Women.
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Honors Faculty |
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Virginia Carson (Ph.D., UCLA) teaches HONORS 204: In Search of Knowledge. A professor of Biological Sciences, Carson also is Director of the W.M. Keck Foundation Science Education Initiative. She has received Chapman’s Award of Excellence on three occasions; her research focuses on ways to improve undergraduate science education and also the neurochemical changes caused by alcohol. Carson is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, past president of Graduate Women in Science, and is active in community organizations including the Discovery Science Center and Orange County Science Education Assn. Other courses she teaches include neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, advance physiology, pharmacology and physiology of chemical dependency.
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Bernard McGrane (Ph.D., New York University) teaches HONORS 302: In Search of Self and HONORS 304: In Search of Reality - Media, Self, and Society in the 20th Century. Among his books are This Book is Not Required and The Un-TV and the 10 M.P.H. Car: Experiments in Personal Freedom and Everyday Life, in addition to an educational video The Ad and The Ego, which analyzes advertising and identity. During interterm, he offers a course in Tibetan Buddhism featuring a 10-day retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado. McGrane is an Associate Professor of Sociology and teaches courses ranging from the Sociology of Death to Contemporary Sociological Theory.
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Marvin Meyer (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University) teaches HONORS 301: In Search of the Meaning of Life. Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, Co-Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. Among his books are The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992), The Ancient Mysteries: A sourcebook of Sacred Texts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), and Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Dr. Meyer also teaches courses in early Christian studies and peace studies.
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Karl Reitz (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine) teaches HONORS 305: In Search of People in Nature. Reitz is a Professor of Sociology and Mathematics. He has dedicated his research to helping find solutions to the world's multiple problems, particularly through the Oaks Institute, which he helped found and whose mission is to help communities in the southwest U.S. move to environmental sustainability. He recently was elected Secretary/Treasurer of Hills for Everyone, an organization dedicated to preserving a wildlife corridor from the Santa Ana Mountains all the way to Whittier and the 605 freeway. The group also was responsible for establishing Chino Hills State Park, one of the largest urban wilderness parks anywhere.
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Joseph Runzo (Ph.D., University of Michigan) teaches HONORS 301: In Search of the Meaning of Life. Runzo is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies. He holds the position of Life Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University. Among his numerous publications are Reason, Relativism and God (London: Macmillan Press, 1986), World Views and Perceiving God (London: Macmillan Press, 1994), and Global Philosophy of Religion: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001). He is co-editor, with Dr. Nancy Martin, of the Library of global Ethics and Religion. Dr. Runzo teaches courses in philosophy of religion and global ethics.
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Matthew Schneider (Ph.D., UCLA) teaches HONORS 306: In Search of American Folklife. Schneider's publications include Original Ambivalence: Autobiography and Violence in Thomas De Quincey, and his scholarly articles on 19th-century British literature, Biblical exegesis, and literary theory have appeared in Dalhousie Review, Anthropoetics, European Romantic Review, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Arts, Poetics Today, and Legal Studies Forum. A two-time winner of Chapman's highest Faculty honor, the Valerie Scudder Award (1994 and 2001), Schneider also received the Graves Award in the Humanities and was the Honors Lecturer in 2003. He also leads an annual travel course to the Wordsworth Summer Conference.
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