After reading the descriptions below, rank your top four choices (1 being the highest, 4 the lowest) on the Orientation/Academic Advisement registration.
Intro to World History
This world history course focuses on the peoples, forces and ideas that have shaped the way individuals have experienced (and still do experience) the world. The course's perspective is global and focuses on the origins and development, geographical context, and interactions of world cultures. In this course, we will focus on two key themes of modern world history: 1) the ways in which global connections have developed; and 2) the ways in which different peoples at different times have resisted globalization, instead seeking to preserve their distinct cultural traditions.
International Organizations and Global Governance
This course explores the growing importance of global governance. This course studies how recent trends have generated greater international cooperation in various issue areas, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, trade and investment, environment, and human rights. Students will be required to design their own plans to resolve selected policy problems through global cooperation.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset
This course identifies and analyzes the values, abilities, and personal attributes of entrepreneurs, with the premise that all people have the ability to be successful entrepreneurs. This course is the first of three required core courses in the entrepreneurship minor. Students will be introduced to the basic concepts of creativity and innovation, creative problem solving and brainstorming, opportunity recognition, networking, technology utilization, effective written, verbal and non-verbal communication, new venture development and entrepreneurship as it relates to for-profit, not-for-profit, and social ventures. Through the development of an original business concept and case study analysis, students will explore and develop the entrepreneurial mindset.
Introduction to Refugee Studies
This course will introduce students to the basic theories, concepts, and vocabulary of Refugee Studies. It will primarily focus on the political, historical, economic, socio-cultural, and global processes that have impacted refugees and Refugee Studies in our world today. Why are there refugees? How does local, national, and international communities address refugee crises? How can the academic study of refugees lead to policy changes in national and international political and economic systems? To the extent that forced migration of refugees is an integral part of the relationship between poor and rich nations, the issues facing refugee communities are not just a product of internal/civil wars and local impoverishment, but are closely linked to the fundamental political and economic structures and processes of our globalized world. As such, students, organizations, policy advocates interested in working with refugees need to take the holistic approach to refugee studies in order to have a better understanding and in-depth knowledge of the issues. This course will provide students with foundational knowledge of refugee populations and the field of Refugee Studies. The course will involve intensive reading and writing, the use of theoretical analyses, critical discussions, and in-depth examination of displacement and forced migration of refugees globally.
American History from 1877 - Present
This course seeks to have students gain a perspective on the position of the United States among the nations of the world and on the controversies and agreements among Americans concerning the desired attributes of their own culture, government, and ideals. Major themes include: conquest of the West; the Populist movement; the creation of the Jim Crow system; industrialization and its effects on the American society, economy, and political processes; immigration and urbanization; the American Empire; Progressivism and the struggle for social justice; World War I; social changes of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal; World War II; post- war affluence and social change, the Cold War and anti-communism; the liberal state; minorities and civil rights; the Vietnam era; the New Right and neo-conservatism; and the recent past.
Visual Experience
An investigation of the visual aspects of the world through artistic themes, techniques, and landmarks. Methods of analyzing form will aid students in experiencing aesthetic responses to historical artistic examples and the contemporary, immediate environment.
Introduction to Sociology
This course focuses on the systematic study of social behavior and human groups. Examination of the influence of social relationships upon people's attitudes and behavior and on how societies are established and changed.
Survey of Statistics
An intuitive study of descriptive and inferential statistics with emphasis on applications using a statistical package.
Medicine, Culture, and the Self
The course explores crucial questions about health, well-being, medicine, environment, and social inequality in the twenty-first century. Through a philosophical study of historical texts, scientific and clinical data, and first person narratives on illness and wellbeing, students will examine definitions of health and well-being; the strengths and limitations of science and medicine in making sense of illness; disparities in global burdens of disease; the relationship among health, illness, and narrative; and gendered, racialized, and cultural differences in the experiences of illness and the practices of healthcare and medicine.
Public Policymaking
This course is an introduction to the policy making process and the subfield of Public Policy and covers the evolution of the field of public policy, and the policy making process from agenda setting to policy termination and change; select substantive policy areas and current events are used as illustrative examples. Students will learn the basic social science research approach and its critical uses in policy-making and analysis.
Cultural History of Russia
This course introduces students to select themes in the Russian cultural tradition. The peoples of Russia have engaged actively with other cultures in Europe and Asia for over a millennium. We will explore how a distinct Russian culture has emerged, with special emphasis on the following developments: the introduction of Christianity; the "Mongol Yoke;" the "Europeanization" of Muscovite Russia; the cultural splendor of the Russian empire during the reign of Catherine II; the flourishing of Russian literary culture under an absolutist regime during the "Golden Age" of the mid-19th century; and Russia's role in the birth of Modernism at the end of the tsarist era.
International Relations
An introduction to international politics. Covers the transformation of world politics since the early modern era. Examines major international events such as the two world wars, the Cold War, and the end of the Cold War. Exploration of the origins and causes of wars and conflicts, the roles of international organizations and international law in achieving lasting peace, and key issues of post-Cold War international politics including globalization, the environment, human rights and terrorism.
Culture and Story
This course, which compliments and will be in continued dialogue with THA 119 Theatre, Madness and Power, examines the role that ancient religious belief plays in establishing and maintaining categories that have been essential to modern life: purity, holiness, morality, sexuality, and honor. We will then look at how modern life maintains, redefines and transgresses these fundamental categories. For the first part of the course, which deals with antiquity, we will primarily employ the Bible, which will be put in dialogue with the plays of Sophocles and Shakespeare. The modern part of the course will explore the relevant issues with the help of both historical events and secular and religious writers.
Theater, Madness, and Power
This course, which complements and will be in continued dialogue with REL 114 Culture and Story, examines the role that theater plays in establishing, creating, maintaining or transgressing the categories and boundaries considered essential to modern life: purity and the sacred; morality; sexual identity and gender roles; sanity; honor; free will and choice.
Woman’s World: Global Issues in Women’s Studies
This LC explores women's experiences in a wide variety of cultural contexts by focusing on themes and issues shaping women's lives across the world. WST 216 examines the impact of global and transnational issues in shaping women's lives, historically and currently.
Women and Girls in Literature and Film
This course focuses on issues presented in fiction, drama, and short and full length film. The topics examined in this learning community include women's traditional roles in families and communities, capitalist economic development and poverty, the world of work, women's place in the environment, political participation, transnational movements of people and ideas, feminism, and human rights policies related to women.