PSU Magazine Spring 1989

many have continued their education at Columbia, Yale, the University of Virginia, Brown and Stanford , to name just a few. Christine Bailey M.D., an Honors biology major who went on to Oregon Health Sciences University, is now in her second-year pediatric residency at Dorn– becker Childrens' Hospital. Bailey was a non-traditional student starting PSU as a freshman in her 30s, but there were still students older than she in the Honors Program. As a science major, Bailey chose the program for an arts and humanities education. "I remember the excitement and intrigue involved in exploring a total– ly different discipline in terms of philosophy, art history and linguistics," said Bailey. "It opened my mind and left me a little bit aghast at times particularly when I would look at the pile of books we would go through in one term." Bailey was a non-traditional student starting PSU as a freshman in her 30s, but there were still students older than she in the Honors Program. "I never felt older, younger or anything other than part of the program ," she remembers. Developing a close camaraderie with other students and the Honors' directors was inevitable, said Bailey, because of the tough work load and urge to talk philosophy. While balancing two difficult courses of study - that of the Honors Program and pre-med biology - Bailey also had to write an undergraduate thesis like all program students. She found this a real plus, with far- reaching ramifications. Biology professor Mary Taylor was Bailey's adviser for her paper on a strain of Escherichia coli (an intestinal track bacterium), which she presented at an American Society for Microbiology meeting in New Orleans. This was a rare experience for an undergraduate, and Bailey was able to continue these studies as a medical student at the Childrens' Hospital of Philadelphia. She plans to ex– tend her research after residency and is applying around the country for a fellowship in pediatric cardiology. At present the program counts among its 90 students the student body president and president of the student senate. Honors students have interned with the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian, and Oregon's Congressional representatives in Washington , D.C. Obviously the program attracts the achievers but it also motivates them . Bailey remembers visiting scholar Alice Stewart M.D. , who was in her 70s when she came to speak at PSU. Stewart entered medicine when few women were in the field . Involved in public health issues, she pioneered the Hanford Study which recognized the risk involved in ex– posure to low dose radiation . " She really opened up new areas of endeavor for herself after 50," said Bailey. "Being a non-traditional, older student it was very inspiring to me to think you don't have to go along with the standard notion of who should do what when." For Bailey, Dr. Stewart represented in– dependent thinking and spirit, traits which the University Honors Program values and encourages in its students. Through the program's framework of liberal education , Honors students discover the meaning of rigorous, in depth research and scholarship. 0 An old house on 12th and Mill provides a comfortable home for the University Honors Program. Joel Wheeler (left) and Todd Walker are current Honors students. PSU 21