| Each year, graduating seniors are required to complete an oral examination in front of faculty members. Three questions are distributed to all seniors one week before the last day of final exams. On the morning of the last day, each senior individually answers a randomly chosen question from the list.
2007-2008 Senior Orals Questions
1. Race has been the biggest social problem with which the United States has struggled for over 300 years. What importance do you attribute to Barak Obama's candidacy for President in the context of America's historical dilemma?
2. What do Britain's Corn Laws have to teach us about the efficacy of NAFTA and other free trade agreements?
3. If mathematics is a language, as so many mathematicians attest, then why do we expect math to be immutable when it is self-evident that language evolves through use? Shouldn't the language of math evolve also?
2006-2007 Senior Orals Questions
1. The French aristocrat the duc de Levis said, "Gouverner, c'est choisir". (To govern is to choose). What do you think that he meant by this?
2. Martin Luther stated, "Wo rauff du mu... dien hertz hengest und verlesset, das ist eygentlich dien Gott." ( Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. ) Explain what you think he meant by this.
3. If genetic biology discovers that there is a finite, physical basis for behaviors, does this DNA determinism undermine our legal system's method of dealing with criminality?
2005-2006 Senior Orals Questions
1. Some anthropologists have said that architecture express what the desires of society are. If this is true, what does the architecture of Frank Gehry say about us?
2. What are the dangers that society may face from the increasing influence of science on political decision makers?
3. Should the Roman Catholic Church be concerned about the "truthiness" of the new movie The Da Vinci Code?
2004-2005 Senior Orals Questions
1. "America is currently awash in an unpleasant surplus of changing, clashing certitudes. --- It has been well said that the spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure that you are right."
George Will wrote this.
Please explain what you think he means.
2. Why may humanity have more to gain from nanotechnology than space exploration?
3. Now that globalization is at flood tide, how effective do you believe any individual nation's laws can be in curbing abuses to human rights, the environment, or nuclear proliferation?
2003-2004 Senior Orals Questions
1. Astrophysicist tells us that the universe is expanding. Cosmologists tell us that the universe is infinite in size. How can something that is infinite in size expand?
2. Can a nation safeguard freedom by using techniques that deny freedom to those that society believes to be endangering freedom?
3. Does the United States owe reparations to Great Britain for benefiting from the outsourcing of jobs from Great Britain to the American colonies / the United States during the period 1700 to 1875?
2002-2003 Senior Orals Questions
1. Montesquieu wrote that "despots resemble those savages who cut down trees in order to eat the fruit." What do you think he meant? Give examples as part of your explanation.
2. Explain Ayn Rands' view that "the upper class are a nations past; the middle class is its future."
3. "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." Describe what you believe Albert Einstein to have meant by this.
2001-2002 Senior Orals Questions
1. The great artist John Singer Sargent wrote that, "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." What do you think he meant?
2. What do you think is meant by, "The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men and women."
3. T. S. Eliot wrote that, "Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important." It is your duty to explain how this cautionary expression can be balanced with or against contemporary American morés.
2000-2001 Senior Orals Questions
1. Montaigne wrote, "La plus grande chose du monde c’est de savoir être á soi." What do you think that he meant by this? (Michel Yquem de Montaigne, 1533-92)
2. What interpretation do you hold of the poem, "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysse Shelley, 1792-1822?
3. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) wrote, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Who were the giants to whom Newton referred?
|
