In the final weeks of the 2025 school year, with many of their classmates having already completed their final papers and projects at Nobles, 33 seniors in the Honors Research Seminar course were busy presenting their 30-page research papers. Introduced in 2024, the seminar reflects recent programmatic changes by the history and social sciences department to ensure a meaningful, values-driven program grounded in intellectual engagement and rigor, responsible global citizenship, and respect for self and others.
“We felt we could do a better job of engaging students and creating rigor—not in terms of mastering lots of information, but helping students learn how to find that information and what to do with it, to be more inquisitive and more comfortable with subjectivity, fostering the idea of global citizenship and respect for self and others,” says History and Social Science Department Chair Louis Barassi. To meet these goals, the program needed to do two things: introduce students to a broader range of human experiences and places, and emphasize diverse ways of thinking over mere information recall. Three significant additions were made to the program: a new world history course, an honors research seminar (as an elective capstone course), and a three-year graduation requirement.
Co-developed by Barassi and history and social sciences faculty member Doug Jankey, the seminar allows Class I students to apply the cumulative skills from previous courses and develop advanced research and writing competencies expected at the college level. Students embrace the unique combination of collaboration and independence at a more advanced level, and their final papers and presentations reflect deep engagement and commitment to the process.
“This year’s HRS presentation days have been some of the very best days ever in my 35 years of teaching history,” says Jankey. “Much of this satisfaction is simply reveling in my students’ scholarly commitment to producing year-long projects on the things in history they care so deeply about. Often, they are exposing me to new ideas and new topics. Equally often, they teach me new ways to think about things I teach every year. I love it when their work becomes—with attribution, of course—part of my curriculum.”
Co-Director of Putnam Library Emily Tragert, who plays an integral part in the research process, explains that the elective “challenges students to learn and think deeply about a topic that interests them, to interrogate primary sources and the work of historians, and ultimately to argue their findings in a 25-30 page paper.”
Research topics are selected by each student and honed over time through discussions with their teachers. The course culminates with a 20-minute presentation that overviews their research question, thesis, argument, historiography, and process.
This year’s research papers covered a wide range of fascinating topics, with titles such as:
- “In the Name of Science: The Hidden Hands of the Tuskegee and Guatemala Syphilis Experiments”
- “After the Silence: Chinese Science Fiction and the Censored History of Tiananmen”
- “Les Fils de la Flotte, Les Péres de la Patrie” (Sons of the Fleet, Fathers of the Nation)
- “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A History of the Disconnect Between American Opinions and Market Performance”
Olivia Golhar ’25, whose paper explored the overlooked roles of three women in the Tuskegee and Guatemala Syphilis Experiments, explains, “This class taught me to analyze history beyond personal opinion, confront uncomfortable evidence, and embrace complexity. It challenged me academically and emotionally, deepening my interest in history, ethics, and medicine.”
Three papers by Clare Struzziery ‘25 on conflict in the African Baptist Church, CeCe Schelter ‘25 on the fight against polio, and Jonas Zatlyn-Weiner ‘25 on Shays’s Rebellion earned the highest honors. Their work demonstrated a compelling and innovative research question, a strong grasp of historical context, thoughtful engagement with the leading scholarship in the field, and extensive use of primary sources.
“From developing my initial inquiry to reading the work of historians on my topic, this class has given me a great sense of how to break down a large piece of writing into manageable chunks,” says Schelter. “I’ve always been interested in public health and medicine, so I was able to combine that with historical research by connecting it to FDR and polio in the 20th century. Using my inquiry and delving into primary sources led me on a historical journey that was exciting and fascinating. Finding historical works that expanded my understanding of FDR’s public fight against polio while also honing my own skills as a historian was a fulfilling lesson in patience and hard work.”
The Honors Research Seminar provides students a new level of independent learning and creative thinking, supported by close collaboration with teachers and librarians. “Our job,” explains Barassi, “is to help them raise questions but not give them the answers.“ “They have all taken on something more demanding than we offered before,” explains Barassi, “and have learned a lot about working independently, developing an interest, and using the tools that we have introduced them to, to actually produce something that is a great culminating opportunity for them.”
