Undergraduate Courses

A laboratory environment where students prepare for and execute all aspects of recording and releasing an Extended Play (EP) album. Students select songs, create accompaniment tracks and band charts, record vocals in a professional studio, mix and master final tracks, and release their EP on all major streaming and download platforms.

A laboratory environment where students explore all elements of contemporary songwriting (structure, harmony, melody and lyric). Students analyze and perform existing songs as well as compose their own original songs.

This course trains the singer in the methods used to create studio recordings. Students learn the protocols of a recording studio environment (Dolan Recording Studio) and record professional background vocals in small groups.

This course combines the technical abilities a student has learned in the voice studio with the performance and practical skills needed to be a well-rounded performer. Focus on performance skills required for a hybrid singer, including but not limited to truthful communication, stage presence, movement, the ability to use the prosody of language/speech inflections to inform vocalism and psychological gesture, and appropriateness of style and genre.

Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.

Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.

Costume Design for the modern stage and the history of fashion. Three hours of practical laboratory a week.

This course is designed to be accessible and approachable for people
who will be future teachers of elementary school mathematics. It is
also intended for people who want to broaden their knowledge in mathematics
and experience it as a relevant, challenging, and enjoyable field. It is
not intended for math majors. It will be taught as a problem-based course,
that allows for students to explore and develop new ideas, and apply them
to real life situations. The course builds on intuitive understandings of
fundamental ideas of counting and chance and moves gradually to more
formal knowledge of combinatorics and probability concepts and techniques.
The learning experiences offered throughout the course are designed
to facilitate student interactions and active role in the learning process.

Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning

Aimed at students who expect to read & interpret, rather than conduct, statistical analyses, this course is designed to help students become better & more critical consumers of quantitative evidence. Using research studies discussed in the popular media & focused on currently debated questions in education & social policy, the course covers key concepts in quantitative reasoning, basic statistics, & research design. Research readings will focus on topical issues regarding early childhood & K-12 education & other social policy issues that affect children.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning

Aimed at students who expect to read and interpret, rather than conduct, statistical analyses, this course is designed to help students become better and more critical consumers of quantitative evidence. Using research studies discussed in the popular media and focused on currently debated questions in health and human development, the course covers key concepts in quantitative reasoning, basic statistics, and research design. Research readings will focus on topical issues regarding food and nutrition, exercise, sleep, education, and child development.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Quantitative Reasoning only for students whose Program of Study does not include a Statistics Course-see your Advisor for more information.

Students study creativity and the science of engaging learning environments and use their findings to brainstorm low-cost solutions for improving classroom atmosphere. Students generate Do It Yourself" ideas that teachers can use to transform the physical space of their classroom on a budget to help students enter the proper mindset for learning. Students aggregate and edit their ideas into an eBook as an inspirational resources for teachers around the country.

Prepares students to navigate today's world of professional music performance. Topics include setting career goals, defining success, finding and creating performance opportunities, grant writing, creating publicity materials, auditions, day jobs, freelancing, and how to manage money, time, and stress

“Creative Coding” is a practice-based course designed to teach basic programming skills in the context of critical & cultural media studies & the digital humanities. The course requires no prior programming experience, simply a willingness to explore code at a more technical level with the aim of using computation as an expressive, analytical, critical & visualizing medium. Students will learn basic coding techniques such as variables, loops, graphics, & networking, all within a larger conversation on the social, cultural, & historical nature of code & coding practices.

This course is designed for students interested in learning about using creativity and future studies in formal and informal educational settings. Students explore technological progress and notions of futurism to better prepare students for a fast-paced world. The course offers an opportunity for students to create tangible and useful educational material and to exercise their creativity muscles in educationally significant ways.

What is the value of an idea? How do we frame ideas to convince others of their value? Students explore methods of fundraising for educational projects, including grant writing, crowdfunding, and community engagement; analyze successful grant proposals, Kickstarter campaigns and events; and discover ways technology has enhanced small-scale fundraising. Students craft their own fundraising pitch around a new creative product, project or need. This course offers a fun and engaging way to gain experience in educational fundraising—a crucial skill for any future educator.

Students serve as a production team that will create, rehearse, produce, and perform a culminating musical presentation at local venues. Such site may be schools, Senior Citizens Homes, Health Care Facilities, Community Centers. Students will assume the roles played by all personnel involved in putting on a performance, as well as becoming familiar with repertoire *music, lyrics, and dialogue) suited to the abilities of the performers.

Course explores the question of what is creativity through a set of practices that can be integrated into professional and personal lives. Students will answer this question through an exploration of three themes: creativity and identity (everyone has creative potential), rules and limits (do they limit and/or foster creativity), imagination and possibilities for action. At each course meeting, students will highlight creative thinking tools, exercises, and strategies to think through various challenges in their particular fields.

Debates about the role of crime in the media have been among the most sustained and divisive in the field of communications, and they are dependent on a foundation of equally divisive debates about “media influence.” This course will broaden this discussion to consider the culture of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media, and its larger social and political context. Topics will include crime reporting, the role of place in crime stories, the aesthetics of crime, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.

The cultural context of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media. Topics include competing theories of criminogenic behavior, news conventions and crime reporting, the aesthetics and representation of crime in the media, the role of place in crime stories, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.

Examines a variety of speech communities and linguistic codes within contemporary American society and their relationship to language use and learning in schools. Black and Hispanic English vernaculars receive special emphasis. Group projects focus on actual investigations in the area of sociolinguistics and language teaching/learning.