Students enrolled in the Standish Honors Program will be enrolled in a specially designated Honors FYSM section with a limited class size. Students remain with the same professor, theme, and peer group for both Fall and Spring semesters.*
These are the FYSM-Honors sections for AY 2026-2027:
DR. BRITT HAAS
Dr. Haas, Co-Director of First Year at Siena Seminar, is an historian specializing in American public policy, who is also interested in culture, gender, and international relations. She has been awarded grants for her research and awards for teaching excellence.
DR. BRITT HAAS, “WOMEN: THEIR VOICES, THEIR VALUES, THEIR VISION”
Both men and women are invited to take this course, which will critically analyze what writers, activists, thinkers, and artists have to say about Heritage, the Natural World, Social Justice, and Diversity in order to understand if and how women’s perspectives about these ideas differ from men’s. Looking across time and across geographical boundaries, we will examine how women are valued (or not) in each of these four topic areas, paying particular attention to the roles women play, the policies they advocate and/or are the targets of, and the images of women presented through literature, music, art, media, etc. in order to gain a better understanding of the complex, gendered world in which we live.
Dr. Britt Haas, “Music: The Soundtrack of Our Lives”
Music provides the soundtrack for our lives. It is all around us. And yet, what do we really know about it? This course seeks to critically address that question. We will explore how music both shapes and is shaped by our culture and cultures beyond the United States.
DR. MICHELLE LIPTAK
Dr. Michelle Liptak is a Teaching Professor in First Year at Siena Seminar and Co-Director of the program. She has been teaching writing, literature, and women's studies at Siena since 2001 and is the co-founder of Gleanings: A Journal of First-Year Student Writing. She has presented her work in pedagogy and literary studies at regional and national conferences, has received several grants for course development, and specializes in theories related to gender and trauma.
DR. MICHELLE LIPTAK, “Trauma Narratives”
In this course, we will explore traumatic experiences - both real and fictional - that are shared through various forms of storytelling. Thinking of trauma as a signal or mark of oppression and subjugation, we will carefully consider whose stories are represented and remembered (and whose are not) while also examining the role of larger social, political, economic, and cultural influences and institutions. Some of the issues that will be explored while "reading" narratives of trauma and triumph include: memory (individual, collective, and cultural), bearing witness, testimony, loss, responsibility, and survivorship.
Dr. Michelle Liptak, “Story Matters”
Stories matter. And there are a number of matters to talk about when it comes to stories because humans are “storytelling animals.” Stories pervade our world - sometimes in obvious and in unrecognizable ways. In this seminar, we will explore how stories are told to us in a variety of forms as well as how they shape and express who we are individually, communally, and culturally. We also will consider how we share our own stories, with whom, and why (or why not). Throughout the year, responses to these and other questions will be discussed: Who is telling the story? What is the main message? Who is the audience? Whose story is it? How is it being shared? Whose story is missing? What is missing from the story? Has, will, should this story endure? Follow-up questions will always include those highlighted in our FYS writing manual, They Say/I Say: Why? So? Who Cares?
Dr. Lara Whelan
Dr. Lara Whelan is an Associate Professor of English at Siena and formerly served as Dean of the School of Liberal Arts. She earned her Bachelor's degree in English from Dartmouth College, her MA in Victorian Studies from King's College, London, and her PhD in English from University of Delaware. She has taught rhetoric and writing to first-year students since 1993, and it is one of her favorite parts of being an English professor.
Dr. Lara Whelan, “Utopias and Dystopias”
What makes a perfect world? Is there any perfect world that is compatible with human nature? Or is it due to human nature that we may someday see the opposite -- a dystopia -- on the horizon? And if so, what would that look like? In this seminar, we will explore all of these questions and more by reading both utopian and dystopian fiction that addresses controversies in ethics, economics, science, philosophy, the environment, nature v nurture, and the push and pull between individualism and community.
* It is expected that all FYSM students, including Honors students, remain in their same section of FYSM for both fall and spring semesters. If a student petitions to leave the Standish Honors Program during their first year at Siena, they will still remain in the same FYSM section in order to maintain the learning community upon which the program is founded.