As a little girl, Natalie Pye loved to read about ancient history and Greek mythology. By high school, however, she was charting a more practical academic course: French won out over Latin as she prepared to study international relations in college.


Denva Jackson '05 uses a slide of Charte Cathedral in France to illustrate the role of imagination in the sequestered lives of French monks in her HSRP talk, "The Geography of Imagination: Understanding Place in John of Morigny's Liber Visionum." more photosBut a series of courses at Sweet Briar College encompassing Greek civilizations and literature and ancient history awakened her childhood passions. “When I got back to studying the ancient Greeks, I realized I was a classical studies major — and had been for a long time,” she said.

Now as part of the College’s Honors Summer Research Program, the SBC junior gets to explore a subtopic of the field to her heart’s content. Pye will deliver a presentation on her findings, tentatively titled “Madness in the Roman World,” on Thursday, July 14 at noon in room A03 of Guion Science Center.

"I keep asking myself, ‘When are they going to catch on that they’re paying me to have so much fun doing this?’"
Natalie Pye '07

Pye is among 10 students selected for the eight-week program that culminates in a series of mid-day presentations from July 7-14 (see link below for schedule). Lunch is provided for program participants, and all others are welcome to bring lunch and attend the forums.

The HSRP offers fellowships each year to a select group of students for independent research projects supervised by a Sweet Briar faculty member. Along with Pye, this year’s participants include Nell Champoux ’05, Denva Jackson ’05, Erica Kennedy ’07, Brittany Lambert ’07, Margaret Loebe ’06, Christina Moosa ’06, Carlina Muglia ’07, Farzana Sekander ’07, and Brandy Stinnette ’06.

Research topics range from Kennedy’s study of a catalyst that mimics photosynthesis to Champoux’s exploration of the visionary Liber visionum text by French monk John of Morigny. Champoux and Jackson will kick off the 2005 HSRP presentation series on Thursday, July 7. The latter is researching the nuances of imagination through medieval visual cognition — how monks learned to “see” beyond the walls of their monasteries.

Using material that was just recently made available and translated, Jackson is continuing the Senior Honors Thesis project she started with Tracy Hamilton, SBC assistant professor of art history, before she graduated in May. Jackson credits Hamilton’s “Visual Memory in the Medieval World” honors course with laying the historical foundation for her current explorations.

Although it marks the end of her time at Sweet Briar, Jackson sees her presentation as a stop along an ongoing path. “It’s just the beginning, it’s not the culmination,” she said. “I need to be in France to take this to the next level. At this point I am working with translations that are already tainted by other scholars' word choices and their interpretations of the text. I need to visit the work and translate it for myself -- the sign of good scholarship.”

While faculty members guide students where needed, they also prepare presentations for their own ongoing research topics. Honors students receive a research stipend while faculty sponsors earn an honorarium for their work.

The diverse topics presented by faculty members this year included “Testing for Adaptation in Evolutionary Biology” by Jeff Janovetz, assistant professor of biology, “Novel Ligand for Anti-Cancer Drug Design” by Rob Granger, professor of chemistry, and “Soldiers, Stoics, and Students in Ancient Athens” by Eric Casey, assistant professor of classics, philosophy, and religion.

Julie Hemstreet, associate administrator of the SBC Honors Program, said the colloquia provide a dynamic forum for faculty members and students beyond the regular classroom. "It gives the faculty a chance to know what their colleagues are doing," she said. "In many ways it becomes the intellectual center of the College during summer."

A question-and-answer session is often as stimulating as the presentation that preceded it. "There's lots of give and take," Hemstreet said. "It's a unique atmosphere."

A variety of factors go into awarding research grants to students, said Hank Yochum, HSRP director and SBC assistant professor of physics and engineering. Classroom grades and the appropriateness of a project for a concentrated time period are both considered.

"A student's GPA comes into play," he said. "Grades a student got in classes are likely to provide some background. And some projects are clearly better thought out than others. Some are huge projects that you just can't do in the summer."

The program allows students to apply the appropriate mode of research for their discipline and, with a faculty mentor's guidance, carry a project from thesis development to completion. For many students the summer project starts a research endeavor they will pursue throughout college and beyond. It often influences choice of major, commitment to a senior thesis, and decisions regarding graduate school or a particular career.

For Natalie Pye, whose project examines the sometimes-thin line between madness and visionary wisdom, the HSRP is as enjoyable as a summer vacation. “I keep asking myself, ‘When are they going to catch on that they’re paying me to have so much fun doing this?’"

Professor Casey helped Pye shape her concept of studying the often-brilliant Roman historical figures that have been — perhaps unfairly or inaccurately — labeled as “mad.” She is learning that the term is much more ambiguous than its historically accepted role indicates — and adjusting her research accordingly. “One of the directions I’m leaning is a departure from the socially accepted role [of madness],” she said. “The idea that people who see things differently are always unhinged isn’t always the case.

“When you look at the history of early Roman emperors, there’s quite a lot of characters in that bunch who were [considered] insane or just had a different way of doing things,” she said. “Time usually tells on people like this. People ahead of their time, long after they’re dead people start to appreciate them.”

While she considers her presentation a good “stopping-off point,” she looks forward to continuing her work as a Senior Honors Thesis. “It’s so rewarding to be able to be here for eight weeks and read things that are so wildly fascinating to me ... This is a field of study I could spend life on. It’s not going to end on the 14th.”

For a presentation schedule and additional information on the 2005 summer research projects, please visit
Honors Summer Research Program.

-- By Shannon Wells, SBC staff writer




Denva Jackson '05 uses a slide of Charte Cathedral in France to illustrate the role of imagination in the sequestered lives of French monks in her HSRP talk, "The Geography of Imagination: Understanding Place in John of Morigny's Liber Visionum."

The 2005 Honors Summer Research Program participants are Natalie Pye ’07 (from left), Shaheen Moosa ’06, Farzana Sekander ’07, Nell Champoux ’05, Erica Kennedy ’07, Denva Jackson ’05, Carlina Muglia ’07, Margaret Loebe ’06, Brandy Stinnette ’06, and Brittany Lambert ’07.

Natalie Pye ’07 answers a question from Lynn Laufenberg, SBC assistant professor of history (left), during Pye's HSRP presentation on “Defining Delusion: Conceptions of Madness in the Early Roman Empire” on July 14. Pye explored the meaning of “madness” and how the term was often unfairly applied to visionary leaders, thinkers, and artists of the period.

Brittany Lambert '07 fields a question during her presentation on the morphology of jaw protrusion in the creek chub (minnow). For her research, she analyzed video recordings of the fish's feeding events to determine the peculiarities of its strike. The study will ultimately offer insight into the evolution of the jaw in Teleost fish.