Courses

This course explores art making using a variety of media and materials in relation to thematic and inquiry-driven methods.The conceptual focus for this interdisciplinary studio course is that all art is created in dialogue, referencing art history and process, and in response to specific societal, environmental or political issues. Students are involved in independent and collective artistic inquiry and participate in studio critique formats and discussions focused on relevant contemporary artists and select readings.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Articulating Visual Arts is designed to help students express & sharpen their thinking & writing about visual art. Topics will include how to write an artist’s statement, exhibit reviews as well as catalog essays. Additionally students will explore how artists apply creativity, in thinking & writing, as part of their practice in visual arts & other media. Readings include texts by contemporary & past visual arts masters such as Frieda Kahlo, Richard Prince, Robert Smithson, Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, among others.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Picasso famously said: "Art is the lie that tells the truth." Students will read and discuss texts exploring such topics as personal myth/legend and fictionalized confession. Questions of authenticity and personal revelation will be discussed as they relate to contemporary art practice. Students will complete three studio projects that reflect these and related issues. Because this is an interdisciplinary studio course, any medium, e.g., painting, photo, performance, installation, video, sculpture, drawing, digital, is acceptable as a means to explore class content. Regular visits to galleries are not only encouraged, they are expected.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This course is constructed around the belief that artists are highly adaptable & flexible, & that their role in an arts community (& the community at large) is fundamental to their practice. To that end, this intensive MFA-only course will serve as a communal laboratory investigating the meaning of “contemporary practice.” The course will pose the question: how does a young artist find community in the art world? As a result, the course is cursory experiment in community building.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This course provides space and guidance for students to work
on self-driven, individual and group projects in art and media. Course
content consists of texts, site visits, presentations, workshops, and
critiques built around each student's individual practice. Faculty and
guest critics will hold regular studio visits, to help guide students
through their process. Students’ material and technical investigations and
theoretical inquiries will be addressed in group workshops and
demonstrations. This course will culminate in a public presentation of
students’ work.

The artist's body measures the world. In this class student/artists use their own body as a starting point to make art through painting, digital photography, video, and/or performance as well as a mixture of these mediums. These media interchanges allow student/artists to incorporate painting and photography / video into their art at once. Art processes and their mixtures will be taught along with the contemporary history and conceptual ideas of interdisciplinary art to help frame juxtapositions.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This interdisciplinary studio course focuses on a wide variety of creative producers and practices which dissolve the boundaries between art and design. Design is explored as inherently impactful on our experience of the material world and our experience of reality. Focusing on broad areas of culture including fashion, the museum, the store, the government, and the home, we will look at how creative producers employ design tactics to change the way we experience life and living. Each week will be geared towards a specific topic within culture, presented through slide lectures, film screenings, field trips, and guest artists. There will be presentations and critiques of student work created in response to related assignments.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Contemporary environmentalism is an issue dominated by scientific, technical and policy discourse. The terms of this political environmental discussion begs the questions; what role does and can art practice play in the contemporary environmental movement? What have artists contributed to contemporary urban environmentalism? To explore these questions we will use the local urban street as our site of ecological analysis, intervention and exhibition. Building on a history of ephemeral political actions of the “Reclaim the Streets” and other political movements the focus will be on durable or sustainable interventions in urban ecosystems involving both human institutions and infrastructure, and the work of other non human organisms. Students will work on projects that re-imagine our relationship to natural systems.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Course explores Participatory Art and Creative Placemaking.Students will develop site-specific artworks in collaboration with The Prattsville Art Center in Prattsville, NY a small rural Catskill community still recovering from the devastating floods associated with Hurricane Irene. Socially engaged artwork as well as critical ideas institutions, and funders that have been central to these art movements will be discussed within this process. Through this course and collaboration students will explore art in relationship to town planning, social activism, entrepreneurship, and community revitalization.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Using Josef Albers' landmark text "Interaction of Color", this course aims to describe a process of working with color that is applicable to students working in any medium, using drawing as a bridge. Color as a phenomenon is one of the most powerful tools in the artist’s repertoire. It’s relation to perception lies at the heart of our notions of the objective and the subjective. Color will be explored in depth through a series of open-ended projects and a series of short experiment/assignments.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Violent conflicts erode the fabric of communities by diminishing social bonds and trust. What is the impact of violence on societies, and how can groups live and work together in peace following violence? This course explores social psychological
underpinnings of conflict and violence; the impact of conflict and violence on
individuals, communities, and institutions; the psychology of building peace; and various strategies for peace building, including intergroup contact, peace education, transitional justice, mass media campaigns, etc

• Department: Applied Psychology

This course introduces students to regression techniques from a simulation-based perspective, with emphasis on applications rather than mathematical theory. Topics include linear regression with a single predictor and multiple predictors; linear regression assumptions, diagnostics, and interpretation; prediction and inference; transformations and interactions; analysis of variance (ANOVA); and logistic regression. The programming language R is used throughout the course. Appropriate for grad students interested in learning techniques for analyzing quantitative data.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Focuses on developing familiarity, engagement, and critical reflection with some of the most pressing questions in international development today, including definitions and theories of development; international development aid and actors; local and international priorities; and the future of international development. Education - a key of intervention to improve living conditions for many of the world’s poor and politically and socially excluded - is a common thread across the course.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Focuses on the connection between international development and education scholarship and on-the-ground practice. Topics include the role of education in international development- translation from theory to practice- challenges and opportunities for education in developing contexts- best practices- and lived experiences. Course emphasizes Ghanian education- as approached by local- national- and international development actors- and site visits and interactions with schools- state agencies- and non-governmental organizations.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

How do educators & activists spread messages about human rights? What might make them more likely to succeed? What are the ethical & political implications of using education as a tool for moral persuasion? Students will engage with these questions, as well as be introduced to the role of the United Nations, NGOs, & state governments in facilitating human rights education. Students will also engage critically with debates over whether the human rights system is an appropriate way to achieve justice in diverse contexts. Throughout the course, students will apply theory on human rights education & activism to real-life examples, as well as create their own advocacy campaign & lesson plan.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Examination of international human rights standards and principals, using case studies to analyze violations of basic human rights programs. Emphasis is on the role of international and local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the human rights movement, and the role of education in promoting human rights. Considers different approaches to teaching human rights in both formal and non-formal educational settings.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Students will examine the main factors affecting food, nutrition, and health
practices in Cuba. Students will learn about traditional nutrition and health practices, nutrition programs and the Cuban nutrition and health care systems through a combination of lectures, seminars, field trips, fieldwork, and research.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

An in-depth study of education reform in an international context. The goal is to understand education policy reform, with attention to the contexts and variables contributing to reform initiatives, With emphasis on original research and the exchange of ideas, students will explore educational reform's contextual variables and the push and pull factors such as globalization and key international institutions involved in reform. Different theoretical frameworks used to understand educational reform will be examined.

• Department: Administration, Leadership, and Technology

This course uses Italy and the Mediterranean diet as a case study to examine and write about food and nutrition from historical, journalistic, political, health, agricultural, cultural, and culinary perspectives. Participate in interactive cooking classes, take virtual tours, and learn from expert guest speakers in Italy and the US, including archeologists, food writers and historians, restaurant reviewers, olive oil experts, sommeliers, and others.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies