Undergraduate Courses

American Social Movements

Through the lenses of power, resistance, and identity, this course provides an introduction to American social movements from the 1950s to the present. Drawing from history, sociology, and politics, it examines a range of social movements, including: civil rights and Black Power, second and third wave feminism, gay and lesbian liberation and LGBT movements, and Right-wing mobilization. The course also examines the question of how social activism on both the political Left and Right has changed over the past fifty years.
Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences.

Developmental Psychology

A comprehensive overview of human development from conception through adolescence. Theories of developmental psychology are related to research findings, and implications are drawn for practical issues.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

Education and the American Dream: Historical Perspectives

The course will examine historical perspectives on the relationship between public schooling and the promotion of democratic ideals. Students will explore some of the central goals and purposes of American public education over the past two centuries, and the historiographical debates about those goals and purposes. In the second half of the course, students will the relationship between schooling and civic education, and between schooling and specific communities, in order to ask whether the goals of schooling might promote or contradict the goals of particular groups who seek to benefit from public education, and ways in which education does not promote democratic ideals.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

Food and Identity

Course focuses on how people use food to identify themselves as individuals and as groups. Students will ascertain the meaning and significance of food in different cultures by exploring the way that ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and religion influence our food choices. In addition, they will also examine how people transmit and preserve culture using food. Through reading scholarly articles, personal essays, book excerpts, newspaper articles, cookbooks and viewing films, students will examine the intricate relationships that people have with food. Course looks critically at the following questions: how can food have different meanings and uses for different people? How does food function both to foster community feeling and drive wedges among people? What are some prevailing academic theories that help society understand some of these patterns of identification and how do societies change over time?

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

Food and the City

Food is all around us. It influences who we are and how we related to our surroundings. This course explores food in the city from multiple points of view. Students observe and analyze various aspects of food in the city, from personal experiences to large social issues such as gentrification and food insecurity, and examine the cultural, social, and political aspects of food systems. Students acquire familiarity with basic ethnographic skills and methods such as interviews, observations, visual ethnography, and virtual ethnography

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences.

Globalization and Education

The course examines the conceptual and empirical work on the social, cultural, and economic aspects of globalization and their implications for education. We shall explore education in light of: 1) the increasing de-territorialization of cultural formations; 2) the emergence of global markets along with the post-nationalization of the production and distribution of goods and services -- with a concomitant premiss on knowledge -- intensive work; 3) new information and communication technologies which are reshaping the structure and meaning of work, belonging and community; 4) unprecedented population movements and worldwide immigration. We shall examine recent conceptual work, in globalization and its relationships to human experience with a focus on youth.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

History of Media and Communication

This course introduces students to key concepts in history of media and communication, and to the stakes of historical inquiry. Rather than tracing a necessarily selective historical arc from alphabet to Internet or from cave painting to coding, the course is organized around an exploration of case studies in context.

Introduction to Global Education

This survey course offers an introduction to the field of global education. Education in the 21st century is undoubtedly a central area for international collaboration as well as contestation. In this survey course, we will examine key debates about the role of education in national and international society, examining the multiple stake holders that work to improve education globally, and their diverse interpretations of that mandate. The course will introduce students to the history of mass education as a global phenomenon, and the comparative ways in which it is now studied. Students will examine both K-12 and higher education.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

Introduction to Media Studies

Introduces students to the study of media, culture, and communication. The course surveys models, theories, and analytical perspectives that form the basis of study in the major. Topics include dialogue, discourse, mass and interpersonal communication, political economy, language, subject-formation, critical theory, experience, and reception.

Introduction to Personality Theories

Consideration of the major theories of personality. The work of various theorists is discussed as it relates to personality development through the life span.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

Introduction to Psychology and its Principles

Introduction to the fundamental principles of psychology, emphasizing both the unity and the diversity of a field that spans major theoretical and research areas, including biological bases of human behavior, learning, development, motivation, and social and abnormal behavior. Links between theory and classic as well as contemporary research are a recurrent theme.

Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and the Social Sciences

Introduction to US Education

This course introduces students to the central themes, issues, and controversies in American education. What is the purpose of “school”? How did schools begin, in the United States, and how have they evolved across time? How do children learn? How are they different from each other, and why and when should that matter? How should we teach them? and how should we structure schools and classrooms to promote learning?

Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and Social Sciences

New Immigration and Education in the World

Global migration and displacement of peoples is at a scale unprecedented in human history. This interdisciplinary course examines immigration in the US and globally through the lenses of race, law, psychology, education, and economics. Students explore case studies of out migration and internal displacement through a variety of media including texts, films, podcasts, and personal narratives and examine the isomorphic conditions--as well as differences--in immigration debates, policies, processes, and outcomes. Meets Liberal Arts Core for Societies and Social Sciences

Science of Human Connection

This course is an introduction to the science of human connection and its promise for advancing solutions to our most pressing societal problems. The science of human connection incorporates a wide range of disciplines including developmental and social psychology, neuroscience, primatology, and the health sciences to reveal: 1) the social and emotional nature of humans; 2) how particular cultural values and beliefs disrupt our social and emotional capacities and needs and; 3) the implications for understanding the roots of our problems and how to solve them.

Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Societies and Social Sciences

Social Psychology

Social psychology concepts, theories, and research and their relation to educational problems. Concepts treated are attitudes, values, roles, norms, communication, conformity; areas emphasized are group processes and influence, social motivation, prejudice, and authoritarianism.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society and the Social Sciences

The Talking Brain and Disordered Communication

Have you ever wondered how communication is actually accomplished or who rehabilitates it when it breaks down? This class provides an introduction to the underappreciated processes of speech, language and hearing and the research approaches used to study them. We will also explore disordered communication and the role of the speech-language pathologist and audiologist in facilitating communication. Learn about brain injury, hearing loss, autism, stroke, stuttering, literacy, research methods and more. Discover why communication is an art and a science.
Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Societies and Social Sciences for non-CSD majors

US Student Activism in the Long 1960s

Explores why the 1960s witnessed the greatest upsurge of student activism in American
history. Assesses student movements’ impact on race and gender relations, US foreign policy, free speech,
and the university. The backlash against Left student activism from anti-radical politicians, the FBI, and
CIA will be probed, as will the rise of conservative student activism. Examines debates over the meaning
and legacies of this turbulent era’s youth revolt. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent- satisfies the
requirement for Societies and Social Sciences.