HUST Hooding

This year, hooding took place campus-wide on the Sunday before finals week. HUST hooding tradition begins with a food spread, including the much-talked-about mini-quiches, continues with a presentation by Professor Shinners on the history of university apparel that dates back to the Middle Ages. What better way to commence the ceremony than to make connections from history to our own lives, in true HUST fashion! Each of the eight seniors, in turn, was hooded by the department staff--Professor Hicks, Professor Shinners, and Professor Ambrose. During the toast portion of the ceremony, students gave sentimental toasts focusing on the bonds formed between each other and between the students and professors. The moment was bittersweet, but the now graduated seniors are all on their ways to do great things--Teach for America, Law School, Graduate School, and the workforce.

Department Field Trip

During the Spring 2011 term, the Humanistic Studies majors and faculty took a trip into Chicago to see the Art Institute's exhibit "Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France." The exhibit highlighted painting, sculpture, tapestries, and, of course, manuscripts from around the turn of the sixteenth century in France. The junior class was especially primed for the visit as they had been studying this period in their Renaissance Cultural History and Colloquium courses with Professor John Shinners and Professor Gail Mandell.

The value of a humanities degree

This excellent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a much-needed student's perspective on the importance of the humanities and, specifically, humanities majors. Often the justification for such programs and areas of study comes as a kind of top-down approach (profs to students). This is a nice change and offers points many of our own majors/alums have made time and time again.