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Co-curricular activities, including field trips, are inspiring Marquis Scholars to think about the ways they contribute to society and advance the public good. Their theme is “Exploring the Unfamiliar.”
This fall, students will learn about Harlem’s history and heritage among other activities during a two-day trip to New York City and will visit Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site. Next spring, they will have a day of political engagement in Harrisburg, Pa., and will tour Civil War battlefields in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia for two days.
Marquis Scholars have been visiting cultural centers since the program began in 1990. What’s different now, says Gladstone A. (Fluney) Hutchinson, dean of studies, is the trips’ objective of building “human cultural capital.”
“The Marquis Scholars are some of our most talented and outstanding students. If they’re exposed to the challenges facing society, they can develop a desire and commitment to make things better that are commensurate with their great intellectual gifts,” Hutchinson says. “We’re trying to inculcate in them a sense of how their minds can make a difference in society if making a difference is part of their focus.”
Spearheading the initiative, now in its second year, are faculty advisers Roger Ruggles, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering (chair), Edward Gamber, associate professor of economics and business, Elizabeth McMahon, professor of mathematics, George Panichas, professor of philosophy, Polly Piergiovanni, associate professor of chemical engineering, Robin Rinehart, associate professor of religious studies, and Helena Silverstein, associate professor of government and law.
In September, Lehigh Valley civic leaders spoke with Marquis Scholars in the class of 2007 about the students’ potential for improving society. Present were the mayors of Easton and Phillipsburg, N.J.; director of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.; executive directors of Third Street Alliance for Women and Children, Boys and Girls Club of Easton, and First Youth Center of Phillipsburg; and representatives of local offices of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum.
“Being a Marquis Scholar is great,” says Meghan Towers ’04, who has an individualized, interdisciplinary major called Gender and Ideology in Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives to go along with a major in International Affairs. “It gives us opportunities to make connections and do things we otherwise couldn’t.”