Creating Knowledge, volume 9, 2016

Dear Students, Colleagues, Alumni and Friends, Throughout my career as faculty and administrator in higher education I have been honored with the opportunity to introduce and celebrate the publication of scholarly work by colleagues and graduate students in many disciplines and institutions around the world. After more than three decades of doing so, this is the first time that I have the pleasure of introducing a formal publication of work created by a talented group of undergraduate scholars. This honor is further magnified by the fact that beyond its formal format, this is a reviewed publication of extraordinary rigor and evident intellectual sophistication. This publication makes palpable the exceptional commitment of our community to not only consume knowledge but also be fully engaged, at all levels, in its creation and dissemination. In this ninth volume of Creating Knowledge: The LAS Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship, we celebrate 19 essays and 13 art works, representing advanced coursework produced in twenty different departments during the 2015-2016 academic year. Most of the work hereby presented has already been subject of recognition through department awards and supported by undergraduate research and creative grants. All have been selected by department-based faculty committees as the best of the year’s student creative work and all have been revised for submission under the supervision of faculty. The first footnote to each essay provides information about the class in which it was written and the processes of selection and revision. Together they represent the intellectual diversity for which our college is rightfully renowned. I hope that our readers will experience the same sense of pride on the work of our students that I feel. I also hope that our students see the work of their more advanced colleagues as a challenge soon to be transformed into the opportunity to build on the accomplishments of their predecessors. Last, but certainly not least, I hope that our alumni and friends of the college will take this opportunity to renew their support of our students through the establishment of additional scholarships and the inclusion of our graduating students in their recruitment and hiring plans. In closing I would like to express my profound gratitude to the more than 60 faculty who supported, reviewed, selected, and helped to edit this remarkable collection of student work. Thanks are also due to the three Department of Art, Media and Design faculty who served as jurors of the art work and the three masters in writing and publication students who proofread the volume. In particular, I would like to thank Warren Schultz, associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, who serves as editor of the volume, putting out the call for submissions, supporting the faculty work of reviewing, selecting, and editing the student essays, and coordinating the production of the print and digital editions. We are a collective of perpetual learners that finds great joy in creating knowledge. It is my pleasure to invite you to enjoy this new issue of Creating Knowledge: The LAS Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship. Sincerely, Guillermo Vásquez de Velasco, PhD Deanhttps://via.library.depaul.edu/ckgallery/1008/thumbnail.jp