May 21, 2002

Contact: Virginia Mack (509-963-1530/fax 509-963-1561/e-mail: mackv@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Five Central Washington University students made their Douglas Honors College (DHC) senior thesis presentations Monday, May 20 at the DHC spring convocation in Grupe Center on the Ellensburg campus.

The five are:

• Alexandra Epstein-Solfield, from Langley, a 1998 graduate of South Whidbey High School. Her presentation was titled “Loss of Innocence: Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.” CWU Spanish professor Javier Martinez de Velasco served as her faculty advisor.
• Charlotte Bemis, Chimacum, a 1998 graduate of Chimacum High School. Her presentation was “Toward the Abyss: Isolation in the Writings of Voltaire, T.S. Eliot and Nikos Kazantzakis.” Kelton Knight, CWU French professor, was the faculty advisor.
• Elaine Ray, Auburn, a 1997 graduate of Auburn High School, presented “Rom Brio: The Romantic Myth of Gypsy Life as Seen in the Works of Victor Hugo and Emily Bronte.” Lila Harper, English, was the faculty mentor.
• Caroline Graf, Selah, a 1998 graduate of Selah High School, discussed “An Unholy Communion: the Unlikely Link Between Christian Orthodoxy and the Modern Age.” Roxanne Easley, history, served as faculty advisor.
• And, Keegan Norwood, Ellensburg, a 1998 graduate of Thorp High School. He discussed “The Rorty — Christ: Postmodernism Re-divinized in Dr. Richard Rorty’s ‘Contingency, Irony and Solidarity.’” Jeffrey Dippmann, philosophy, served as the faculty mentor.

“Since DHC is not an academic discipline unto itself, these students come from a variety of disciplines,” Virginia Mack, DHC director, says. “The intense, four-year program is completed in addition to their majors and minors. These are high-achieving students.”

DHC was founded in 1977 to serve academically talented students. Its goal is the pursuit of excellence in university education through basic studies in the liberal arts and sciences, a course of study of the Great Books of the world’s great civilizations and specialized study in a major discipline. DHC students come from the top 10 percent of each incoming CWU freshman class.

The college is named for former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a native of Yakima. DHC encourages intellectual breath, academic curiosity and the fusion of scholarship and everyday life that Justice Douglas personified, according to Mack.

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