Author: Christopher Wink

Thesis timeline

I synthesized this very rough timeline for this thesis project. I am meeting with my adviser Joe Mclaughlin tomorrow to discuss it.

Thursday, May 24, 2007: Planning Meeting – Meet with Professor Mclaughlin to have timeline approved and seek further suggestions.

Friday, June 1: Define Thesis – Distill project to one clear purpose. Formulate a one-page proposal that clarifies the project’s thesis and includes potential sources, expectations and project goals.

Monday, June 4: Begin Research – Establish a timeline for readings, begin review of literature and other pertinent source material, including news articles, studies, opinion polls, etc.

Tuesday, June 5: Meet with Mclaughlin – Develop an enlarged list of literature and desired interview subjects

Monday, June 11: Interview Search – Send initial request for interviews, knowing some delay is inevitable.

Friday, June 22: Paper Outline – Write an outline for the project

Monday, July 2: Literature Development – Have finished a foundation of suggested readings

Friday, July 6: Interview Process – Have begun conducting interviews and correlate to readings

Friday, July 13: Have an introduction and some foundation written, totaling to at least 8-10 pages

Monday, July 23: Meet with Mclaughlin – Bring the paper’s progress and report on readings and the development of interviews.

Friday, August 31: More Research – Reflect on the paper’s progress, and determine more literature and interviews that might enhance the project.

Monday, September 10: Have completed at least 20-25 pages

Friday, September 14: Meet with Mclaughlin – Bring the paper’s progress and a more detailed timeline for the project’s completion

Monday, September 24: Have completed at least 40 pages

Monday, October 1: Complete Primary Research – All readings and interviews should be completed to concentrate on the paper’s completion

Monday, November 5: Complete First Draft – The project should be in rough form, 50-60 pages. Forward to Mclaughlin to read, request suggestions and corrections.

Wednesday, November 21: Complete Final Draft – Before Thanksgiving Recess have the paper in a final form, 60 pages or more. Forward to Mclaughlin with his changes. Because he will be correcting finals from other classes he is teaching, the project should be largely completed now. Perhaps also forward to Dr. Robin Kolodny to read.

Wednesday, December 5: Completed Project – Present Mclaughlin the paper’s final form, including any last changes he suggested from the final draft. Forward a copy to Honors Director Dr. Ruth Ost.

Thursday, December 6: Present Project – If requested, present project to Honors department

February 2008: TURF CreWS – Enter project in competition, to be awarded in April

April 2008: Temple Library Award – Enter project in the competition, citing use of Paley Library

An honors thesis focus: the Philadelphia Republican Party

I had listed a handful of proposals for my honors thesis a few weeks ago. After meeting with Dr. Robin Kolodny, a professor of political science at Temple and a mentor of mine, I have decided to focus on the nearly nonexistent Republican Party in Philadelphia, a good fit considering my interest in this city’s political climate. As suggested by Kolodny, I have signed Joe Mclaughlin, an associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, on to be my adviser. He is remarkably knowledgeable and well-connected in both city and state politics. Check out the initial proposal I wrote out earlier this month.

Philadelphia, one of the largest and most historic cities in the United States, hasn’t had a Republican mayor in 55 years. Arlen Spector gave James Tate a race in 1967, former-Mayor Frank Rizzo ran in the 1991 Republican primary, and Sam Katz led two particularly spirited campaigns in 1999 and 2003, but, otherwise, most elections since Bernard Samuel last nabbed the city’s chief executive office for the GOP in 1948 haven’t even been close. Is Philadelphia’s Republican Party inept, or would nearly four out of five Philadelphians register Democrat regardless of opposition? Interestingly, Samuel was the final chapter in what was an almost entirely uninterrupted succession of Republican mayors for nearly a century, when the city became coterminous with Philadelphia County in 1854. Is Philadelphia simply prone to party loyalty or is there something deeper? What happened during Bernard Samuel’s term, which was the longest continual span in city history?

I have to now expound a bit on that proposal, while I immediately begin trying to develop a comparative understanding of other urban Republican Parties.

Honors thesis: a proposal or several

It is my hope that I begin research for this honors thesis over the coming semester, so that I might be able to accomplish as much as I can efficiently next year, sure to be a hectic one, considering its my last at Temple University. So, I’ve formulated a handful of short proposals of what I might want to research. I want to develop a focus before the end of May.

I also have to choose an academic adviser for the project, though that largely depends on what I choose to research. Still, I have been blessed with a handful of bright, challenging and caring academic mentors, like Political Science Professor Dr. Robin Kolodny, Associate Dean of College Liberal Arts Dr. Joseph Mclaughlin, Filmmaker and Broadcasting and Telecommunications Professor Eugene Martin, and Honors Director Dr. Ruth Ost.

First, I have to choose an academic pursuit, though. Here they are, as follows:

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An honors thesis proposal

Here begins a year-long investment in an undergraduate thesis. The details are a bit hairy, but let’s see if I can’t flush this out.

I came to Temple University in August 2004 as a political science major after an average high school academic career. I wasn’t honors department material. In the past that meant that I was unable to graduate with honors.

Things have changed.

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Hurricane Katrina volunteering in New Orleans

I went to New Orleans with Common Ground to offer some post-Hurricane Katrina support. Mostly, I stayed with a hundred other volunteers on cots in a high school gymnasium and worked in small teams to salvage homes in the Ninth Ward.

I was driven to provide some service, having worked in a shelter in Philadelphia of victims.

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Tokyo Never Happened: Episode Nine

Things are easier on this side. I realized that when I woke up and, in my persistently active manner, decided I had to go the bank and settle some business. I spent at least a full minute worrying about how I would say what I needed to say in Japanese. Once I realized that wasn’t much necessary, it occurred to me that I have begun a nice grace period where everything I do is going to be awfully simple in comparison to my maneuvering and studying and eating and buying and banking in Tokyo.

The question I am almost always asked is if it is “strange” to be back in the United States. Of course, mostly it isn’t. I am a man of limited means so, while I most certainly have done a lot for what I have been offered, I have spent a great deal of my life wherever my family considered home. It is not strange to return to what I have known for two decades. I may have to readjust and rediscover, but strange is unknown and different. To be sure, in a grand sense, there is nothing different about the America I have found.

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Japanese Names

I have an embarrassing admission. It took far too long for several sources to explain to me what is up with Japanese names. Names are one of a handful of cultural issues I readily acknowledged as being different than my Western tradition before I began preparing for my trip here, but, it took me some time asking questions here in Japan before I developed an understanding, so I thought it might be worthwhile to try explain what I’ve learned, if only to hasten my comprehension.

Alright, well, we all have this vague understanding that given names come after family names in Japan, making our contemporary American conception of “first” name fairly meaningless and confusing. Moreover, the family name taking its place in the front of a person’s name is a firmly Asian tradition, from China to Indonesia to most Middle Eastern countries of which I can speak.

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