Name: Anne Yoncha (AS '10) Hometown: Wilmington, DE Majors: Fine Arts, English Minor: Religious Studies Favorite Book: I think Shakespeare has a little bit of talent!
Activities/Clubs at UD: StuArt Club, Sailing Team, North Green Croquet Society, Quip Magazine, Students in the Political Interest, UVote Delaware
Goals: This summer I will (hopefully) be working as an intern with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program — working with a mural artist, the community, and very large amounts of scaffolding. In the longer term, I have a running list of places where I really want to spend some time, especially New Zealand, the American west, Italy, and South America.
Why did you choose Delaware? It’s a great location — a walkable college town with lots of things to do right nearby on Main Street, close to beautiful pieces of almost-wilderness like White Clay Creek and Cape Henlopen, and right near great cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Washington DC. There’s always something to do. It’s also a great size — being in the Honors Program really gives you a sense of community and individualized attention, but there are always new people to meet.
What has been your favorite Honors class so far? World Religions with Dr. Alan Fox — it was a great, discussion based class with only about twenty people, and he did a great job of relating the information to us — he would draw comparisons across all different disciplines, from art to string theory to raising children, so that even the most obscure religions and texts made sense. The new religions I learned about really affected me — sometimes I still run around wondering if I am “daoing” ideally — and I got a new perspective on the ones I’ve grown up with. I liked this class so much that I took Chinese Philosophy with him the next semester, another Honors class which gave us a chance to meet with him separately and help him work on his research. It also convinced me to add my Religious Studies minor.
Who has been your favorite Honors professor and why? Devon Miller-Duggan has been a really great mentor — I first met her in a one-credit forum, where we learned to crochet blankets for the Wilmington homeless while talking about current issues. We went on great day trips to Philadelphia and New York, saw graduate school theatre productions here in Newark, and we were invited to her house a few times for “Movies You Should Have Seen Dammit” and some tasty hot apple cider. I love going in to her office hours, either for advice on classes I ought to take, summer plans, or a game or two of Boggle.
What has been your most rewarding leadership or extra-curricular activity at UD? This winter I spent January in London, took two English classes — one was London Theatre, the other British Culture and Institutions. We saw a show just about every night, from Henry IV in Stratford to a crazy mime show and everything in-between, even some shows still in preview. We also got a chance to tour Parliament (where the speaker of the House of Commons, who isn’t allowed to leave during session, has a toilet conveniently located in the back of his chair), the Cabinet War Rooms (where you can still see some carefully hidden sugar cubes), St. Paul’s Cathedral (we climbed to the top for the most amazing view of London), the BBC, Oxford, Stonehenge, and Bath. As if it could get any better, we spent six days in Paris for our vacation, climbed just about every building we could there, rode a boat down the Seine, and found out that Dali’s melting clocks were inspired by Camembert cheese. Every day was so full of places and facts like these that it felt more like a year than a month.
