College Honors Program
The College Honors Program brings together academically accomplished and highly motivated students to pursue multidisciplinary studies in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. This highly selective and challenging program is composed of sophomores, juniors, and seniors from any major, and incorporates special seminars, an honors colloquium and a thesis.
The College Honors Program, established in 1962, is one of the oldest programs providing distinctive educational opportunities at Holy Cross culminating in the senior honors thesis, and the intellectual excitement of a multidisciplinary classroom, where students from all majors address significant matters with faculty who are experts in integrative teaching and scholarship.
Theses from 2011
The Other Lost Generation: The Economics and Social Impact of Growing Old in China, Abigail Chorlton Riskind
Flood Rising, James Roach
The Effects of Disasters on State Population, Francis Sanzari
The Literary Warrior: Conceptions of the Hero in European and Japanese Literature, Carrie Staab
The Unknown Self: Fragile Identities in Eating Disordered Women, Allison Wagner
Leaders Vs. Followers: The Patterns of Genocide in the Nazi Holocaust and Rwanda, Sarah Q. Weinstein
L'Evoluzione dell'Amore: Filia, Eros, e Agape nelle Opere di Ada Negri, Sarah Margaret Wright
Theses from 2010
The Analysis and Characterization of Glutamine and Glutamine-based Peptides Using Infrared Spectroscopy, Marianne Bauer
What Went Wrong: The SEC & the Crisis of '08, Gregory J. Bennici
Ceremonial Observances: A Collection of Poetry, Sarah Brown
Proclaim Liberty: The Year of Jubilee in Ancient and Modern Contexts, Tia Carley
Identifying APOBEC3G domains as targets for therapeutic intervention, Patrick C. Cheney
Off this Corner in the Wild: An Analysis of Metaphor in Robert Frost's and Elizabeth Bishop's Nature Poetry, Amy Garvey
Exploring the Effects of Leadership on African Democracies, Elizabeth M. Green
Propertius and the Elegiac Labor, Connor Hayden
Realism in American Culture: J.D. Salinger and Robert Frank in the 1940s, Alexandra Humphreys
The "I" in Platonic Irony: The Platonic Call to Autheniticity, Andrew Jussaume
The Conception of Mental Illness: What it is, what it means, and what it should be, Elizabeth A. Kayajian
Till Death Do Us Part: On Love and Death, Alexandra Mersereau
"I Ain't Yo' Uncle:" The Masculine Rhetoric of Resistance of Frederick Douglass and Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., Shala Murray
Social Class Embodied: Understanding Body Image, Power, and Resistance Across Socio-Economic Class, Emily A. Panza
An Analysis of the Piano Etude "Fanfares" by György Sandor Ligeti, Samuel Partyka
Poverty, Infant Mortality and Structural Violence, South Worcester, Ankur A. Patel
Effect of Arousal in Cognitive Control over Behavior, Neha Patel
Polygamy and Power: Mormon Plural Marriage and Religious Authority, Brian D. Regan
Loyal Harbors: Tory Social Networks in the Revolutionary Atlantic World, Laurel Richardson
Chasing and Ideal: The Baby M Case and Conceptions of Motherhood in Modern American History, Jennifer Scro
A Study of Television Writing: A History of the Sitcom, an Exploration of 30 Rock, and the Creation of a Spec Script, Victoria Strahl
Безумне: Differing Portrayals of Insanity in Russian Literature, Brendan M. Sullivan
The Courtly "I" of the English Renaissance: A Study of Selfhood and Rhetorical Alienation in the 16th Century Verse, Alexandra C. Sweeney
Third Parties in Presidential Politics, Christopher R. Szkutak
War and Christian Responsibility: The Rhetoric of Peace According to C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton, Emily L. Turner
The Without World: A Collection of Poetry, Justin Winn
Theses from 2009
The Use of a Lock-In Amplifier to Stabilize the Frequency of a Laser Diode, Jose M. Juarez
Theses from 2007
Rhenium (I) Compounds with Tripod Ligands as Models for Radiopharmaceuticals, Christopher T. Aquina
Sactuary: A Collection of Short Stories, Cristina Baldor
Female Bonds: The Compartmentalization of Female Identity in the Work of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Sarina Borase
Women, Work and Motherhood, Tara Calcagni
The Mafia and the Fascist Regime, Andrea Canuel
"When This You See Remember Me" A Study of American Civil War Soldiers and the Death Culture of the Nineteenth Century, Nacie Elizabeth Carson
The Politics of Immigration Policy Reform, Megan M. Conti
Theatricality and Dramatic Expression in Monteverdi's Fourth and Fifth Books of Madrigals, Sarah D'Angelo
Toward a Politics of Aggression: A Study of Human Nature, Violence, and the Prospects for Real Peace, Sarah DellaPosta
The "Pro-Family" Movement and Social Injustice: A Feminist Liberation Theological and Ethical Analysis of the Christian Right's Ideology of the Family, Taylor Anne Denis
The Influence of an Intein on the Activity of the Methanococcus jannaschii UDP-Glucose Dehydrogenase, Matthew Drago
Mythology and Opera: The Ambiguity of Political Allusions in Opera That Allow For the Change in Power Roles When Mythology is Used In Opera, Maureen Gassert
Parental Reaction to Child Death in Nineteenth-Century New England, Lauren P. Gearty
Congressional Barriers to Effective Reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Stephen Hansen
Light on the Floor, Christina Imrich
Autism: On All Sides and Inside, Andrew Jaico
"A clear light": Courage and Fantasy in The Lord of the Rings, Kyle R. Koerber
In the Shoebox, Lindsey Konkel
Matrix Groups: A Confluence of Algebra and Geometry, Renee A. Laverdiere
The Summer Country, Rosemary Virginia Lee
Turning Fortune's Wheel: The Individual's Attempt to Refashion Political Structures in Marlovian Drama, Michael Lueger
Spectating Illness and Death in the Novels of the Brontё Sisters, Katherine Makowski
Telling a Good History: Narrative and History in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Kara L. McShane
Storytelling in Action! Oral Tradition Alive in History and Contemporary Experience, Sara Meyer
The Mathematics of Patterns: Symmetry in the Plane, Amy Morbely
Representations of the Exotic in Opera, Anoosua Anita Mukherjee
Media, Mags, & Muscles: A Look Into The Boundaries of Weightlifting, Brenden Murphy
Multivariate analysis of Drug Mixtures using Raman spectroscopy, Kathryn Y. Noonan
A Brief Explanation of Quantum Theory, and Bohm's Reinterpretation., Daniel O'Connor
Video Killed the Radio Star: Exploring the Advancement of Technology and the Evolution of Popular Musicians in America, Lauren Joan Palmeri
Wired or Tired? Caffeine & Sleep in Adolescents., Bosky Patel
Our Boys: An Analysis of the American "Boy Crisis," Gender Privilege, and Academic Ethic within Higher Education, Kara M. Pipoli
The Crime Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Doomed by Feeling, Andrew Rhoades
Psychotropic Effects of Estrogen, Lesley Russell
You Are What You Eat: Embodying Gender and Morality in Eating, Anna Vannucci
Morphology and Taxonomy of the Kaiparowits Ornithomimid Manus, Ivan Vrcek
Vulnerability and Masculinity in Adopted Versus Non-Adopted Adolescent Boys, Laura A. Walsh
Theses from 2006
A Meditation on The Ecclesiology of Pope Benedict XVI, Emily Brennan
The Ticking Heart of Life: Clocks and Time Consciousness in Renaissance Florence, Christopher E. Brown
Freud and O'Neill: An Artist's Journey from the Unconscious to the Concious, Eric A. Butler
Site of the Uncanny: The Contemplative Dimension of Dramatic Tragedy, Nicholas A. Coccoma
The Lady and the Two Cities: The Concept of Fortune in Ancient and Medieval Views of Roman History, Kathleen Derrig
Poland in the U.S.: Understanding the Birth of Solidarity through American Eyes, Brenna Dion
A Study of the Biology and Chemistry of Protein Splicing, Deirdre M. Dorval
Imagined Nación: Mexican Settings and Ethnic Identity in Four Chicana/o Novels, Keridan Doyle
Collateral Source Rule: Special Interest Groups and their Effects on Jurisdictional Statutes, Andrew Feeley
Strange New Universe: A Study of Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries, Ellen K. Gasparovic
"Enemy Aliens:" FBI Domestic Surveillance of Japanese in The World War II Era, Andrea N. Isabella
Religious Thinking and Philosophy: The Influence of Kierkegard on Heidegger's Conception of Inauthenticity in Being and Time., Timothy Jussaume
The Politics of Violence: The Impact of ETA Terrorism on Spanish Democratization, Samantha P. Kingsbury
Green Solutions to Arsenic Contamination, Suzanne E. Kulevich
A Connecticut Yankee in King Leopold's Court: Mark Twain's Congo Crusade, 1904-1906, Michael C. McLaughlin
The Constitution of Self-Development: The Jurisprudence of Anthony M. Kennedy, Timothy W. O'Brien
Women Motorcyclists: Rolling the Throttle, But Riding Under the Radar, Kimberly N. Richardson
Playing Politics with the Policy Process: The Pitfalls of Public Policy Reform, Erin B. Robert
The Oppression of Silence: Young Women Coming of Age in Poverty, Kathryn Scheinberg
A New Sense of Self: Exposing the Subject in Renaissance Sonnet Sequences, Whitney E. Schmitt
When a Reporter 'Becomes the News': Judith Miller's Contribution to the Journalists' Privilege Debate, Heidi Stack
Images of God in Postmodern Literature, Emily Sweeney
Calculating Heading from a Video Camera: A Computational Model of Motion Perception, Robert Truxler
Pubs, Swans and Leprechauns: Exploited Icons of Irish Literature, Sarah Wetherbee
The Impact of Charter Schools on Fifth Grade Student Engagement Levels, Maggie Zweiben
Theses from 2005
Effects of the Internship Experience on Recruitment of Women and Minorities at Public ccounting Firms, Bridget Anne Blazek
Daniel and Philip Berrigan: Peacemaking Priests in Times of War, Molly E. Bobek