Robert D. Clark Honors College
1293 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1293

Phone: 541-346-5414
Email: honors@uoregon.edu

Volunteer Opportunities

With approximately 2000 graduates since 1959, Clark Honors College has one of the most active alumni bodies on campus, and maintains connections with graduates in Oregon and throughout the world. The CHC's Advisory Council invites participation in projects designed to support the outstanding achievements of current and future CHC students.  

Wanted: Class Agents!

~  Reunite with your classmates while supporting the CHC  ~
 
To dovetail with its 50th Anniversary celebration, the Clark Honors College is seeking alumni to serve as class agents in endorsement of our fundraising efforts. We need one agent for each five-year period of CHC graduates, beginning with 1961.  Time commitment: a couple of hours each year.  Lori Metz '82, is spearheading this effort, and is happy to tell you more.  Class Agents must be current donors to the CHC, and their names will appear on the CHC website as contacts for their classes.
 
For more information, and to express your interest, please contact Lori: lmetz8904@comcast.net

Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

inside out class

 

“At the university we are creatures of habit; students sit in their same seats in the classroom. In Inside-Out I don’t think I’ve sat next to the same person twice. I always have something to talk about with my neighbor . . .I was afraid going into this class that we wouldn’t have much in common, but steel bars are clearly permeable because we have more to discuss than I could have ever imagined.”

- Peter, ‘outside’ (Clark Honors College) student, 2009

 

What is Inside-Out?

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is a national organization that creates a dynamic partnership between institutions of higher learning and correctional systems. This partnership deeps the conversation and transforms our approaches to understanding crime, justice, freedom, inequality, and other issues of social concern.

 

Inside-Out brings college students together with incarcerated men and women to study as peers in a seminar behind prison walls. The core of the Inside-Out Program is a quarter-long academic course, meeting once a week, through which 12 to 15 “outside” (i.e.: undergraduate) students and the same number of “inside” (i.e.: incarcerated) students attend class together inside prison. All participants read a variety of texts and write several papers. During class sessions, students discuss issues in small and large groups. In the final month, students work together on a class project.


Inside-Out is an opportunity for college students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have come to know about crime and justice. At the same time, it is also an opportunity for those inside prison to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Participating in Inside-Out is often transformative and it serves as an engine for social change. The power of Inside-Out can be seen in this award-winning documentary. Tiffany Kimmel and Jessica Reedy, students from the UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, produced and directed the piece which features the CHC’s spring 2009 Inside-Out course. The video, executive produced by UO professor Dan Miller, was the national winner in the Television Feature category in the Society of Professional Journalists 2009 Mark of Excellence Awards


How is Inside-Out affiliated with the Clark Honors College?

Each year, three Inside-Out courses taught through the University are offered exclusively to Clark Honors College students. They are taught by professors from a variety of disciplines including sociology, geography, and literature. More than 75 CHC students have taken Inside-Out courses since 2007. Inside-Out courses are held weekly, throughout a given term, inside either the Oregon State Penitentiary or the Oregon State Correctional Institution. Both prisons are located in the Salem area, and transportation is provided by the University.

Prior to the deadline for application to the following term’s classes, the CHC sends an email notification to all students about the Inside-Out program. CHC students interested in the Inside-Out class are required to attend an orientation, fill out a written application, attend an interview with the Inside-Out course instructor, and undergo a criminal background check. ‘Inside’ students are screened by prison officials for literacy and background,and are also interviewed by the University of Oregon instructor. Instructors attend a special training program for teaching methods, as well as orientation and security training through the Department of Corrections. A list of upcoming Inside-Out courses is here.

 

My Inside-Out course has concluded. How can I stay involved with issues of social justice, and connect with other Inside-Out ‘outside’ alumni to affect positive change in our community?

 Inside-Out at the University of Oregon is powered by a highly active, supportive group of Inside-Out ‘outside’ alumni whose interests were, in many cases, redirected by their experience in an Inside-Out classroom. Inside-Out alumni (including both current students and alumni of the University) lead a book club with incarcerated youth at the Serbu Juvenile Justice Center of Lane County. Last spring they organized a Non-Violent Communication workshop with Sponsors Inc., a re-entry program in Eugene. We are always looking for new participants, leaders, and innovative new projects. Email insideout@uoregon.edu for more information, or visit insideoregon.com.

Inside Out Magazine Cover

 

 

In spring 2010, Inside-Out alumni collaborated on a creative arts journal, Turned Inside-Out . Published by the Clark Honors College, the journal features student essays and artistic expressions examining the texts studied during the CHC’s first three years of Inside-Out classes at the Oregon State Penitentiary. A recent article by Inside-Out ‘outside’ alumnus Ben DeJarnette, published in the Eugene Register-Guard, describes the power of the Inside-Out experience.

For more information about Inside-Out visit the national Inside-Out webpage, the UO Inside-Out program website or send an email to insideout@uoregon.edu.

 

 

 

 

CHC Spotlight

Mark Carey conducting research

 

Mark Carey conducting research at Lake Palcacocha, Cordillera Blanca, Peru

 Mark Carey 

Assistant Professor Mark Carey's article, "Inventing Caribbean Climates: How Science, Medicine, and Tourism Changed Tropical Weather from Deadly to Healthy," was published in the latest issue of Osiris, called Klima. Osiris is published by The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society.

From Professor Carey's abstract: "This article examines how four major historical factors - geographical features, social conditions, medicine, and tourism - affected European and North American views of the tropical Caribbean climate from approximately 1750 to 1950. It focuses on the British West Indies, a region barely examined in the historiography of climate, and examines the views of physicians, residents, government officials, travelers, and missionaries. International perceptions of the tropical Caribbean climate shifted markedly over time, from the deadly, disease-ridden environment of colonial depictions in the eighteenth century to one of the world's most iconic climatic paradises, where tourists sought sun-drenched beaches and healing breezes, in the twentieth. This analysis of how environmental conditions, knowledge systems, social relations, politics, and economics shaped scientific and popular understandings of climate contributes to recent studies on the cultural construction of climate. The approach also offers important lessons for present-day discussions of climate change, which often depict climate too narrowly as simply temperature."

 

"The 2011 special issue of the journal Osiris, published by The History of Science Society, offers several essays that fulfill critical but often overlooked dimensions of climate change research: the social and historical aspects," said Professor Carey. "Special issue editors James Fleming and Vladimir Jankovic did a fantastic job compiling many essays devoted to a range of climate history topics - from perceptions to climate scientists, from Antarctica to northern Europe. My contribution to the historical views of Caribbean climate shows how culture and science intersect to inform views of climate over time, while also showing how the Caribbean  transformed from a deadly climate into a luxurious sunny tourist destination. My work and the others in the volume should push climate discussions toward culture and values, which will augment the more common scientific studies."

Update: Mark Carey learned on October 14 that his 2010 book, Under the Shadow of Melting Glaciers, won the prestigious Elinor Melville Prize for Latin American Environmental History from The Conference on Latin American History.

From the award committee: "We had a very strong pool of nominees this year, which makes this even more impressive. We found Under the Shadow of Melting Glaciers to be exceptional for its fine-grained analysis of the varied human responses to disaster: social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, regional, national, and international. It is also noteworthy for introducing us to some important new historical actors, such as Peru's disaster technocrats, and for using novel archival materials, including one major repository that had been organized by wheelbarrow. It presents even-handedly the viewpoints of the various social groups involved in these contentious events, including the diversity of positions adopted by rural and urban indigenous groups, and has a well-developed sense of place. Above all, it addresses a topic of great originality-the social history of humanity's relationship to ice. Within scholarship on global environmental history, it is the first major study we are aware of that focused on the cryosphere, an environmental realm at the very heart of current debate regarding global warming."

Congratulations, Professor Carey!