The Trillings learned that toro piscine is a competition in which the players (always young men) must somehow entice a bull into a swimming pool. It is never clear whether the competition is between men or whether this is a contest between man and beast. Nor is it evident why anyone would want to play such a game involving a large, horned animal. It was irrational to our way of thinking.

I mentioned this oddity to a Francophile friend who, despite living in France for several years, never heard of anything that associated bulls with swimming pools. She was just as incredulous as I so we both agreed that Trilling’s account of toro piscine was thoroughly tongue-in-cheek. In other words: a lot of bull.

Several years later we found ourselves visiting Arles, a picturesque city in Provence. Similar to Trilling’s account, I was driving a rental car with my wife and young daughter. I think our car was a Citroen—that funny looking car that never made any sense to Americans, yet displayed that French flair for appealing to the irrational. After all, this is the country that bestowed upon Jerry Lewis the National Order of the Legion of Honour. Subsequently, we would discover that this country also gave us the inexplicable toro piscine.

We were driving through downtown Arles when my wife jumped out of her seat and yelled toro piscine! Incredibly, while gazing out the car window she saw a poster with those very words emblazoned at the top. I attributed her “vision� to a lack of sleep and an encounter with Le Cheval Blanc the night before. But she insisted and because no one else saw the poster we were required to double back so that we all could witness an advertisement for cultural irrationality. Doubling back is not easy when you are driving in a historic city where the original urban planners were ancient Romans.

Doubling back is not easy when you are driving in a historic city where the original urban planners were ancient Romans.

It was to take place in the wonderfully restored Roman amphitheater in the city center. Magnifique!

Built in the 1st century, it had 120 arches and could seat 20,000 spectators. In fact, les Arènes d’Arles is so large that you could fit a football field within its walls.

Later that evening, we walked up to the brightly lit amphitheater. It was already night and judging by the noise there were a lot of people inside. From our street-level vantage point we could peer through the arches and see that the floor of the ancient stadium was covered in pale yellow sand. Because the street was higher than the stadium floor we could only see the periphery and not the center of the amphitheater. We walked around the structure and always had the same view. Then we came upon an arch that revealed the edges of—a swimming pool! Its walls appeared to be about two feet high and it was filled with pristine blue water that shimmered under the bright lights.

We stared at the corner of the pool for several minutes. Suddenly a roar erupted from the crowd and with our limited view through the top of the arch we saw the legs and feet of a running man. He was wearing white pants. Moments later we saw the legs of a bull kicking up sand while it ran in pursuit of the man. We waited some more and then saw the man running in the opposite direction followed quickly by the bull. We observed several instances of this, but only saw the legs of the man and beast. I started laughing in disbelief. It was like watching the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon show with the top part of the television screen cut off.

After several years, that summer evening in Arles still remains mysterious to us. Did it really happen? Would any of our friends back home believe us? We didn’t even have photos to back up our claims. However, I can state with some certainty that the bull was chasing the man (men?) in white pants and not the other way around.

Also, we never witnessed the bull or man enter the swimming pool. But we did not stay until the end, so it is possible that there may have been some splashing around by the conclusion of this particular toro piscine.

It is true that my family and I never made it into the stadium event, but decided on this occasion to maintain our status as “outside� observers. We have no regrets.

Because of our decision, toro piscine for us is both a real event and something that could only have been imagined. This is why that evening in Arles embodies the transformative nature of traveling: To encounter the unexpected. To learn about the perspectives and tastes of other cultures. To discover realities that one never could have imagined.

And if one is lucky, to experience the delicious magic that occurs at the boundary of the real and the imagined.

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Psychology this year after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at http://today.ucf.edu and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

So I now find myself washed up on the webbed shores of information technology (IT) where I rely on much younger students and colleagues to help me navigate new systems and applications. This makes me a pilgrim and in order to survive I need help from digital natives.

Marc Prensky, a writer and speaker on education, coined the terms “digital native� and “digital immigrant� in his essay On the Horizon (2001). He points out that while digital immigrants can learn IT and become quite proficient at its uses, digital immigrants will think differently and process information in different ways from digital natives who are socialized in highly digitized, information-rich environments. Even with high levels of IT proficiency, digital immigrants will still retain a “footprint� or “accent� from their analog pasts. But no matter how skilled I am at an application such as PowerPoint, my accent gives me away as a digital immigrant. (Another giveaway: gray hair.)

When I was in grade school, we had lessons on using dictionaries and encyclopedias. I’m referring to hardcopy, carbon-based dictionaries and encyclopedias because that was all we had. It would be well after I completed my graduate studies that online dictionaries, Google and Wikipedia would become commonplace.

By the time I was in college, pocket calculators were starting to supplant slide rules. ÌýHowever, in the early 1970s, few of us had a pocket calculator because the one with a square root function still cost several thousand dollars. My first “mobileâ€� device was a pocket calculator that I purchased as a graduate student. I remember that it was made by Casio and had a square root function, played musical tunes, and even told time. I thought it was the bee’s knees. (For digital natives unfamiliar with this term, an online dictionary defines bee’s knees as an anachronistic phrase denoting excellence).

In graduate school it became clear to me that despite my digital shortcomings, I needed to embrace information technology or die.

In graduate school it became clear to me that despite my digital shortcomings, I needed to embrace information technology or die. This was because my dissertation required complex statistical analyses that were beyond the scope of pocket calculators, even the ones with a square root function. Because my survival instincts were intact, I loaded all my data onto 80-column IBM punch cards. In those days, it was common to see graduate students carrying shoe boxes on campus. I was one of those students.

This was because large data sets required hundreds of punch cards that could easily be transported in a shoe box. The next step was to compile punch-card data to be analyzed. On our campus this required a card reader that converted punch-card data into an optical tape format. Back then optical tape was made of paper in which holes were machine-punched according to the octal numeral system. That is, a base-8 system (imagine that you learned to count having only eight fingers). As a member of the original geek squad, I actually learned to count in octal because there was a need to visually inspect tape when there was no access to an optical tape reader.

I remember my first portable computer in the mid-1980s. The term “portable� is used advisedly as it weighed a whopping 28 pounds. When secured in its case, it looked and felt like a hefty sewing machine. My Compaq had 128k of RAM, operated at 4.77 MHz, and was MS-DOS based. But it did have its own built-in keyboard and a nine-inch monochromatic green monitor. I thought it was the bee’s knees.

Despite many successes, my transition as an immigrant to the digital nation has been uneven. It was only recently that I gave up my “dumb� phone. You know, the kind that only does voice. When I tell my students that I still don’t text on my new smartphone, I immediately set myself apart generationally and digitally.

So where does this leave me? As a digital immigrant I am grateful for the resources and support that is available in our webbed universe. Much like the colonial pilgrims, I need help in order to survive and the digital natives who are my students and colleagues have always been generous in their support. My students are especially eager to assist me and I appreciate when the student has become the teacher with a great deal of humility on my part. I also appreciate that the digital nation is a highly accessible democracy with permeable borders.

Global communication by multimedia, memes going viral, and the rapid creation of online communities are developments for which there is no turning back. The digital landscape is my adopted home now, but I still have memories of my pre-digital motherland.

Perhaps when I have grandkids sitting on my lap, I’ll begin my story “When I was your age going to school, they made me use a dictionary—yeah, the paper kind!�

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Psychology this year after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

In short time, news outlets and the Twitterverse exploded with interpretations as to the meaning of this highly charged event. These interpretations spanned the full spectrum of political stances. On one hand, the elder was seen as a victim of unabashed white privilege; on the other hand, the boy was viewed as the innocent who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That this event could elicit the widest possible array of interpretations is not surprising. Several commentators have explained this as an example of the Rorschach test. For instance, in an NBC News opinion piece, freelance writer Noah Berlatsky said this “moment has become something of a political Rorschach test that also raises thorny questions about the way various perspectives become amplified and even weaponized on social media.�

Zack Beauchamp writing for VOX believes that the “videos are kind of Rorschach test, showing each side seeing what it wants to in a way that’s more revealing about their own worldviews than the actual incident.�

I am not a political commentator, but I am a psychologist. So when I saw the term “Rorschach test� my psychological antennae started to twitch. In the early 1920s, psychologist Hermann Rorschach wrote his dissertation in which he described developing the world’s first projective test of personality. The test items were ambiguous shapes formed by dripping ink on a sheet of paper. What could be more random than an inkblot?

Yet despite the lack of any obvious figures or objects, Rorschach found that his patients could readily tell stories about the inkblots. Moreover, the stories he recorded would differ across patients. For example, his patients might variously interpret an inkblot as either “two persons,� a “dog� or an “elephant.�

Repressed motives and memories may find symbolic expression during our waking moments or even our nightly dreams.

How is it possible that people can impose meaning on an otherwise meaningless shape? For psychoanalysts the explanation lies in the defense mechanism known as “projection� (hence the term projective test). This refers to the process whereby elements of the unconscious are symbolically transferred to external subjects such as an object or person.

Accordingly, repressed motives and memories may find symbolic expression during our waking moments or even our nightly dreams. Our capacity to engage in projection gives rise to the common experience of seeing animal shapes in cloud formations or seeing constellations in the starry skies.

Carl Gustav Jung took this one step further. In 1959, he published the monograph “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.� He wrote this essay largely in response to the outbreak of UFO sightings that first began with reports from Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

For Jung, flying saucers are mandalas (circular shapes) that are archetypal projections of one’s search for life’s meaning and personal closure. Remember, Americans living in the immediate post-World War II era were psychically scared by the deaths of millions of people, the nascent atomic age, and the threat of a cold war with the Soviet Union.

In this troubling environment it became increasingly imperative for Americans to search for life’s meaning as they tried to find their place in this new world order. The result was that people started to project their unconscious motives unto objects in the skies.

A quote from Jung’s 1959 treatise is both relevant and prescient when considered in the context of current events such as the recent Lincoln Memorial video: “In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens…�

For Jung, the skies had became an enormous ink blot onto which spilled the angst of a troubled society.

Consequently, we can understand that the myriad interpretations of the MAGA hat event are propelled by the dynamic unconscious of the viewing public. While the video doesn’t depict random shapes like an inkblot, it does present the viewer with an ambiguous image involving two strangers experiencing a strange relationship.

This ambiguity provides our unconscious the opportunity to give meaning and interpretation to something that is unknown to us.

So what do you see when you view the video? The answer may have more to do with you than you realize.

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Psychology this year after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

One problem with this view is that while it emphasizes our shared commonality, it masks the fact that we end up us individuals with our own distinct constellation of traits, predispositions and quirks. Even identical twins will display nuanced differences in their personalities despite having the same genotype. In short, the question of what makes me me and you you is not easily answered with stage theories of development.

Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity is a refreshing counterpoint to this view because it directly addresses the issue of how we develop as individuals. He defines this concept as a “meaningful coincidence� between outer and inner events that are not themselves causally connected. The gist of this concept is that we will experience unplanned and unpredictable convergences of events that will have a profound impact on our individual development. For Jung, these serendipitous concurrences are catalysts that propel us in developmentally exciting and unimaginable ways.

Jung reports that he had starting seeing a patient in his clinic. The patient was a middle-aged woman who happened to be an Egyptologist. For several weeks she appeared to be making very little therapeutic progress. The patient was so reticent and guarded in her personal disclosures that Jung was actually thinking of referring her to another therapist. But he didn’t.

It so happened that during one session his patient recounted a dream she had in which a giant scarab figured prominently. The scarab (scarabaeus sacer) known commonly as the “dung beetle� is an important cosmological symbol for ancient Egyptians. At the very moment she finished recounting her dream, Jung and his patient were startled by a rapping on this office window. When he ran to the window and flung it open, a giant beetle flew into his office. At that instant his patient had an insight into her troubles—an “aha moment.� She began to understand the source of her troubles and that her preoccupation with Egyptology interfered with achieving a healthy work/life balance.

Having this insight allowed her to begin disclosing her thoughts and feelings. Good therapeutic progress was now possible. As Jung states, this unplanned convergence of events (retelling her dream of the scarab and the surprising entrance of the giant beetle) was the breakthrough that restored her to a state of healthy development. Synchronicity.

I have had moments of synchronicity. The first happened during the summer after my graduation from high school.

I have had moments of synchronicity. The first happened during the summer after my graduation from high school. My good friend Ed and I had planned a one-month camping trip to Europe so we spent our senior year working and saving money for our backpacking adventure. But as soon as we arrived in Europe, things went wrong. Very wrong.

We started bickering like a couple on the verge of a divorce. We argued about everything. Who was going to carry the tent that day? What were we going to eat for dinner? Where would we visit next? No one was having any fun.

One week into our trip, we took the Paris Metro to the small town of Chartres—a lovely pilgrimage destination since the middle ages. When we arrived, Ed decided to walk around town while I pitched our tent at the town’s campground. By dinnertime, Ed hadn’t returned to the campsite. A few hours passed and it was getting dark. Still no Ed. Eventually, I fell asleep and in the morning Ed was still missing. I wandered about town looking for Ed, but he was nowhere to be found. Later that day I returned to Paris without him.

Inexplicably, I found myself in Notre Dame Cathedral. As I was walking down one of the aisles I heard a voice yell: “Hey Al!� I turned around and it was…my sister! What? Amazingly, I had no idea that she was in Europe, let alone Paris and Notre Dame. How could this have happened? I start babbling to her about Ed’s disappearance and my search for him. My sister stared at me and said, “Are you crazy? Ed just walked around the corner!� And sure enough, I found him just a few steps away from me.

Meaningful coincidence. The fact that the only three people I knew in Europe somehow found themselves at the same location at the same time had a profound effect on me. It made me realize how small our world is.

Moreover, it prompted me to be more patient with others and to not let relationships disappear into a void of pettiness and negative thinking. I endeavored to become a better person. I hope I am.

This is the significance of synchronicity.

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Psychology this year after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

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So who are these people? Who ends up being a dean?

Let’s start with undergraduate students. Ask any undergraduate about his/her career aspirations and none, zip, nada will say “I want to become a college dean.� The same goes for graduate students, even those in doctoral programs whose career aspirations are likely to include remaining in academia as a professor or researcher.

If you were to suggest to them a career path that included being a college dean, you will most likely encounter a blank stare (at best) or at worst a stifled guffaw. If you had asked me during my graduate school days, my response would have been the blank stare along with “Dean? What’s that? What does a dean do?�

But that was before I returned to the psychology classroom this year after spending 11 years as dean of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Burnett Honors College.

Evidently, being a dean is not among the dreams and lofty goals of students.

Evidently, being a dean is not among the dreams and lofty goals of students. Certainly, there is no formal training track to prepare for this role (Deanship 101? It doesn’t exist in any college catalog). And yet here we are — faculty members who bear the title of dean.

What do deans do? The pithy answer would be things of a decanal nature. The term “dean� is from the Middle English deen, which in turn is derived from the Latin decanus, which originally referred to a “chief of 10.� During the Middle Ages, when the earliest European universities were associated with the church, a dean would have been “a leader of 10 monks.� This is why college commencements are so medieval in appearance. Gowns, hoods and other marks of academic regalia have retained their ecclesiastical appearance because of this early association between the church and universities.

So the etymology of the term dean suggests that we should lead. Certainly, leadership and resource management are the primary responsibilities of every college dean. However, different types of deanships require a specialized knowledge and skill set regarding the constituencies that they serve. For instance, a dean of admissions oversees the policies and procedures that underlie the identification and selection of prospective students. Deans of students must advocate for the best interest of students, while deans of faculty must promote policies that encourage faculty development.

As dean of an honors college, my primary responsibility was to oversee all of the programs that provide curricular and co-curricular enrichment to our students. This involves course development, budget oversight, staff supervision, campus life, college advancement and community outreach. All of these responsibilities are undertaken with the best interests of our students in mind and always in support of the overall academic mission of our university.

Curiously, the college dean has figured prominently in popular culture — often even more than the college president or other leadership figures on campus. Perhaps the public’s lack of awareness as to what deans really do is attractive to filmmakers because it allows them creative license when crafting the role of an academic administrator. I also think it has something to do with the fact that the position of dean is solidified in academia because it is not found elsewhere.Ìý It doesn’t exist in the ranks of the military, government or the corporate sector. Can you imagine someone with the title “Dean of Industryâ€� or “Dean of Human Resources?â€�

‘Well, as of this moment, they’re on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!’

In 1978, the movie Animal House forever sealed the comedic image of a college dean as the central, albeit beleaguered campus administrator. Who can forget Dean Vernon Wormer when he uttered: “The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me!â€� In another memorable scene, Dean Wormer demands that the entire miscreant Delta House fraternity be placed on probation. When told that they are already on probation he snarls “They are? Well, as of this moment, they’re on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!â€�

Rodney Dangerfield’s 1986 film comedy Back to School portrayed the college dean as a beleaguered character worthy of our laughter, pity and scorn. In this movie, Dean David Martin (referred to, of course, as Dean Martin!) is beset on all sides by the conflicting needs of students, faculty and donors. Yet when push comes to shove, he comes down on the side of a wealthy donor played by Dangerfield. His character is wealthy businessman Thornton Melon, who is accepted as a college freshman only after making a large gift to the college. When Dean Martin’s unethical decision to admit Thornton as a student is challenged, his response is “Uh, right…In Mr. Melon’s defense, it was a really big check.â€�

In the 2006 film comedy Accepted, a slacker whose application was rejected by every college decides to create his own college with an open-admissions policy. But when hundreds of students and family members arrive at the start of the school year, something needs to be done.Ìý Somehow this bogus college needs to gain instant credibility. The answer? Hire a bogus dean who can meet with parents and assure them of their student’s educational experience. Note that it wasn’t a college president, or even professors who were needed to lend credibility to this start-up college — it was a dean!

The popular notion is promulgated that deans are the leading administrative figures on campus who are empowered to build universities and construct dorms and sports stadiums. In real life, a college president and the institution’s CFO have more to do with building campus infrastructure and I am not aware of any stadiums that were built because of the efforts of a single dean — not even a dean on steroids.

Why do people choose to become deans? Maybe some ego is involved, but I’m convinced that there is a higher motive that compelled me as well as others to assume leadership positions in higher education.

The motive is clear and simple — to make a difference. After all, that is why my colleagues and I entered academia: to effect positive change by our teaching and research. As campus leaders, deans embrace the challenge of making a difference that can impact an entire college and university and for the right reasons.

So it is with a great deal of fondness that I look back upon my years as dean. While I no longer serve in this role, I still attend commencements where I don my medieval hood and gown and recognize the accomplishments of our graduating seniors. And with a smile I contemplate my decanal days.

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Psychology in August after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

The three ceremonies at the CFE Arena will be:

Of the 5,393 students who filed an intent to graduate, there are 4,655 bachelor’s degrees, 658 master’s degrees, four education specialist degrees, nine educational doctoral degrees, 65 Ph.D.s, and two Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees. Including these expected graduates, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ will have awarded more than 302,000 degrees since classes began at the university in 1968.

The 300,000th degree is expected to be awarded to a business administration student during the Saturday ceremony.

Speakers for the ceremonies are Dean Alvin Wang of The Burnett Honors College (Friday morning), NCAA official Don Remy (Friday afternoon), and Don Fisher, Osceola County manager (Saturday morning). Here’s more on the speakers:

Wang has served as dean the past 12 years and this year observed his 30th anniversary at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. He joined the university as a psychology instructor, and when The Burnett Honors College began in 2001 he became its first associate dean. He plans to step down as dean next summer and return to the classroom in the Department of Psychology. During Wang’s term as dean, the academic records of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s first-year honors students have increased each year, with 2016 holding the best records to date: a 4.4 GPA and 1408 SAT score. He has led programs such as the Honors Freshman Symposium, Elevation Fellows Program and Honors Educational Reach Out opportunities, more than doubling the number of students involved in community engagement during the past decade. Wang has served the region by his membership on the boards of the Mad Cow Theater, the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation and the Orange County Arts and Cultural Affairs Advisory Council, which he chaired. He received his doctorate in psychology from State University of New York at Stony Brook and his bachelor’s from SUNY at Brockport.

Remy is the executive vice president and chief legal officer at the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He is the key legal, policy and strategic advisor to the NCAA president and members of the senior management group, and is responsible for the organization’s health and safety initiatives, including medical research regarding concussion. Remy previously was with the international law firm of Latham & Watkins and has held positions in government, including deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice and assistant to the general counsel of the U.S. Army. He has served on the boards of many non-profit organizations and spent many years volunteering as an Amateur Athletic Union basketball coach in the Washington area. He graduated from Louisiana State University with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and he earned his juris doctorate from Howard University School of Law. This year’s commencement is an especially memorable one for Remy, whose son Johnathan will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Fisher, who has been the Osceola County manager since 2010, has more than 30 years of local government experience. Most recently, he has been an advocate for the International Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research that Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has been developing with multiple partners in his county. He serves on the consortium’s board of directors for the center that is dedicated to the research and manufacture of smart sensors. He oversees a $1 billion budget and 1,450 employees in the county. Fisher is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the International City and County Management Association and the Florida Association of Counties. In 2016 he was honored as an Orlando Business Journal CEO of the Year. He graduated from the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ with a bachelor’s degree in public administration and was the program’s outstanding undergraduate in 1998.

All guests attending commencement, including children and infants, are required to have a ticket.

Commencement guests should anticipate long lines because of security measures. It is advised not to take purses, backpacks or large bags to expedite security screenings. Doors of the arena will open 90 minutes before the start of each ceremony.

Guests who do not have tickets for the arena can view a telecast of the ceremonies on closed circuit television at the FAIRWINDS Alumni Center and the Student Union if seats are available. The telecast will include closed captions.

For other details, go to the .

The top film in its category was created by students in the 2013 and 2015 advanced documentary workshop class of The Burnett Honors College. This was the first time a Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ film was nominated for a college Emmy, and it beat out films from Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

The movie is about Florida lawmakers and religious activists in 1928 who sought to ban classes and books on evolution at the school that later became Florida State University. Professors and college administrators were accused of “corrupting young women’s minds” and critics called the students “filthy dreamers.â€� Ultimately the college prevailed.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ student filmmakers researched, wrote and filmed the documentary. They said they wanted to inform viewers about the history of censorship on campuses because nearly 100 years later, public figures and activists are still trying to control academic curriculums.

Robert Cassanello, an associate professor of history, and Lisa Mills, an associate professor of film in the School of Visual Arts & Design, were faculty advisors for the project. Connie Lester, director of the history department’s RICHES (Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences and Stories of Central Florida) was the narrator, and voice-over acting included theatre associate professor Christopher Niess and journalism associate professor Steve Collins.Ìý

Bob Graham, a former Florida governor and U.S. senator whose mother was among the so-called “filthy dreamers,” also was featured in the film.

This was the third documentary produced by honors students after Alvin Wang, dean of The Burnett Honors College, sought a collaborative effort with the College of Arts & Humanities in 2010.

The 2013 students involved were: Will Chorvat, Jason Clarke, Carter Howard, Beverly Nwokoye, Amber Pietrowski, Rachel WhiteÌýand Orlando Porro. The 2015 students were Ernesto Calderon, Louis-Christophe Fortier, Kristin Keefer, Ramsey Khawaja, Derek Loucks, Carmen Malca, Shannon Specie, Antony Zeng, Nichole Santana, Emma Duncan, Tiffany Campbell, Alex McKeel, Kristina LeagueÌýand Michael Reed.

Loucks, League and Khawaja traveled to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to accept the Emmy. They also participated in a summit and development workshops at the Television Academy with industry professionals.

To see the trailer for “Filthy Dreamers,� go to .

The Burnett Honors College Medical Scholars Program begins in August with 12 students who have been selected based on their high school academic accomplishments. They will periodically interact with the medical school throughout their undergraduate education and be guaranteed an admissions seat if they successfully complete the program and are approved by the Medical School Admissions Committee.

Participants must maintain a 3.75 grade point average and make a score of 32 on the MCAT exam and must also complete a research project and thesis.ÌýIn many instances their thesis could be the linked to beginning of their Focused Inquiry and Research Experience (FIRE) that is required during the first two years of medical school.

College of Medicine Admissions Director REL Larkin said the program allows outstanding students to fully experience undergraduate education and develop their interests while attending educational programs and meeting medical school faculty and students. Eligible students will be interviewed between their second and third year of undergraduate education. If they successfully complete the interview and all of their medical school admissions requirements, they have a guaranteed spot in the medical school, without the necessity of further admissions interviews, and costly visits and travel to other schools. However, participants in the Medical Scholars Program are not required to enroll in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine.

“This lessens the interview stress and travel stress and time that medical school applicants feel and offers these outstanding students consistent interaction with the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine throughout their four undergraduate years,â€� Larkin said.

During their undergraduate years, the Medical Scholars will receive personalized advising on their career of choice and have half- and full-day educational experiences in College of Medicine environments like the Anatomy Lab and Clinical Skills and Simulation Center. If they complete all of their requirements and choose to enroll in the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine, the 12 students beginning the program this fall will be part of the class of 2017.

This program begins with admission to the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Burnett Honors College.ÌýProgram details may be found on the Burnett Honors College web site

As part of the Burnett Honors College’s newest study-abroad program, senior design engineering students at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ are developing sustainable energy platforms that will power Pomolong’s community center. Accompanied by Dean Alvin Wang and Associate Dean Martin Dupuis, 15 students will travel to South Africa for three weeks this summer to implement their designs and participate in other service-learning projects.

Last March, Wang and Dupuis visited South Africa, where the college already had strong partners, and were asked to create an educational program. In Pomolong, a new partnership was born, which included the Swinburne Sustainability Center and Conservancy, as well as Sunfire Solutions.

“The township of Pomolong asked that their community center have energy, so that they would have lights, be able to show movies, and be able to provide some education in that facility, which right now would be a great challenge, because that township is off the grid,� said Wang. “There is no power, so that is where our senior design students come into play.�

The Burnett Honors College selected five teams of senior design students that are each working on separate projects for Pomolong. The projects focus on solar and wind power and power management and storage.

“We’ve been pulling knowledge from our previous three years of training to build the turbine, but we’re building a pictorial manual that will be provided to the township members so that they can understand how it works and be able to maintain it even when we’re not there,� said senior mechanical engineering student Kelly Cox, whose team is building a wind turbine.

The service-learning program will include senior design students and non-engineering honors students who applied for the program.

At the Swinburne Sustainability Center and Conservancy, students will rotate between projects, including an oral history project in which students will interview local healers about the plants they use as well as a facilities upgrade at Swinburne Elementary School. Students also will have the opportunity to work with captive cheetahs at the Nambiti Game Preserve.

The sustainable-energy projects are limited to senior design students but may require the efforts of the non-engineering students, as well.

“There probably will be a bit of manual labor involved in setting everything up that won’t require a lot of engineering knowledge or education, so I think when everyone pitches in, including the non-engineering students, we’ll be able to get our product delivered in a timely manner and have it work well,� said Michael Jones, another senior mechanical engineering student who is working on the wind turbine.

The group will leave for Johannesburg on May 8 and will stay at the SSCC for the duration of the trip. The area offers historic tours, water sports, mountain climbing and other activities. Students also will have the chance to take excursions to Johannesburg, Lesotho and the city of Durban, which is on the Indian Ocean.

“After many months of work and then putting all of that together on the ground in South Africa, I think it’s going to be a magical moment when they flip the switch and that light bulb comes on,â€� said Wang. “That really is the best way of experiencing another culture and other people– when you have a shared goal that everyone is working toward. This is not at all like an international experience in which you are watching the country through the windows of a bus.â€�

For more information about the study-abroad program, visit http://honors.ucf.edu/students/about-the-south-africa-program/.

She’s an honors student and a dedicated researcher at the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. She loves to write, paint and sing opera. And she’s “Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½,â€� the university’s own beauty queen.

On Saturday, Boehme will trade her Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ crown for a graduation cap when she receives her bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Microbiology. She will graduate during the last of four commencement ceremonies this week at the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Arena.

Boehme will spend another year in Orlando fulfilling her Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ duties while also studying HIV as a research analyst for one of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s clinics. Next fall, she’ll head to one of the prestigious medical schools that have accepted her—Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt or Mayo, among others.

She eventually hopes to work in pediatrics, either as a neurosurgeon or cardiologist. She also wants to travel abroad for medical mission work and would one day like to open her own clinic.

“Giving back is important to me, and I know I can do that as a doctor,� she said. “My family came here as immigrants, and we had so many people helping us along the way. I want to be able to help others.�

A native of the Dominican Republic, Boehme immigrated to the United States with her parents and two brothers at age 2. Her family settled in Central Florida, and she graduated from Winter Springs High School.

She was a National Hispanic Scholar, and she was named a Gates Millennium Scholar by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation awards the honor annually to 1,000 promising new minority college students.

Although she considered prestigious undergraduate programs across the country, Boehme didn’t have to search far for the perfect fit. She chose Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ because it had everything she was looking for, and she was confident she’d receive a first-class education.

Boehme took advantage of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s many opportunities, studying stem cells and bacterial toxins at campus research labs. She traveled to Saint Kitts and Nevis through the Honors College’s President’s Scholars Program, a trip that laid the groundwork for her future career goals and exposed her to the Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ pageant.

While there, she learned about environmentalism and the development of small nations, and she volunteered at orphanages and nursing homes. Her travel companions, veterans of the pageant scene, convinced her that she had the brains, beauty and talent to become Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. Boehme gave the competition a shot the following spring.

Though she placed second runner-up, she remained active at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, volunteering, leading campus organizations and mentoring younger science students. She also enrolled in an opera course at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ to prepare for the next pageant.

Her hard work paid off when she was awarded the title in February. That month she was also inducted into Order of Pegasus, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s highest student honor.

“Jacqueline is a young woman with many distinguished qualities and well-rounded interests. And if there’s an award out there, she’s won it,� said Alvin Wang, dean of the Burnett Honors College. “I always joke with her that she must have an evil twin running around helping her accomplish everything. She’s smart, talented and determined.�

As Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, Boehme will share her platform with others during activities at the university and in the community. She is striving to motivate students of all ages with her message that college and success are attainable.

Boehme is preparing to compete in July’s Miss Florida competition. Should she win the state title, she’ll go on to compete in the Miss America pageant.

While she is excited about sporting her Miss Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ sash for another year, Boehme says her crowning achievement will be the opportunity learn and grow as a doctor.

“I’m looking forward to working in a field that is continuing to evolve,� said Boehme. “I want to be a lifelong learner, and I know I’ll be able to do that throughout my career.�