A study of literacy, mythic, and philosophical works selected with special attention to texts about the origins of humanity and civilization. The course provides students the opportunity to think reflectively and critically about the origins of various cultures.
Substitutions: ENG 1310, 1320, 2330, 3341, or counts toward the Minor in Ethnic Studies
Substitutions: ENG 1310 or 1320
This course is about baseball as culture and will introduce students to baseball’s place in American history and its role in contemporary society. Using baseball as a lens, students will gain insight into American life.
Substitution: History 1320
This course will examine spirituality and religion as a universal component of human life, explore the world’s major faith traditions, engage in critical inquiry of these traditions, investigate personal and cultural biases, and engage in focused self-awareness to assist students in expanding their global perspective.
Substitutions: SOWK Elective, Humanities Core (040/041), or International Studies
Elementary Number Theory is ideally suited for the Honors College because students students at different levels of mathematical maturity can all participate in and learn from such a cousre. Students will begin by studying simple ideas about the integers, where they already have a well-developed intuition. To paraphrase David Gries in THE SCIENCE OF PROGRAMMING, one should never take basic principles for granted, for it is only through careful applicaiton of simple fundamental ideas that progress is made. The division algorithm is studied in detail, and is seen to have far-reaching consequences throughout the course. Done repeatedly, it yields Euclid's algorithm and the solution to linar Diophantine equations. Advanced topics include Public Key Encryption and quadratic forms. The goal is to teach students to think carefully and precisely, while exciting students with the joy of mathematical exploration and discovery. This course lays the foundation for future courses where the students are required to give careful, rigorous mathematical proofs. We follow Einstein's philosophy that "imagination is more important than knowledge" in stressing the creative aspects of doing mathematics.
Substitutions: MATH 1315 or 3330
What erotic reality lives in the most private and intense of verbal arts: the poem? What are the concepts of Eros when the other is the opposite? When the other is the same? When the other is divine? How do Neruda, Sappho, Rumi and the Song of Solomon treat these subjects?
Substitutions: ENG 2330 or 3341
This course compares contemporary Western feminist ethics and ancient Eastern thoughts regarding care. Each stresses personal relations and high moral value placed on care. The course is interdisciplinary and studies gender and multicultural issues through a focus on care-giving.
Substitutions: Advanced Philosophy or International Studies: Asian Studies or counts toward the Women's Studies Minor
This course explores various manifestations of natural law, man-made laws, and laws perceived as divinely ordained. We will begin in anciet Sumaria and conclude the course by reading texts that have come to epitomize aspects of early modern Europe. We then look at Ancient Greek and Roman culture before entering the medieval period. The focus of the course will be the Middle Ages. Themes will include ethical behavior and judgment, the soverenignty of the state, subjectivity of the individual, and gender. Students will be reading great works of liteature. This is a team-taught class with debate, engagement, and interdisciplinary approaches to the work under consideration.
Substitutions: Sophomore Literature, Advanced ENG, Advanced POSI or Advanced PHIL
Assuming that death is the end, is death bad for the one who dies? Would immortality really be better? Is death to be feared? Would it be better if we hadn’t been born? How should the finality of death affect our judgments about suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment? In the second part of the course, we ask whether we might survive our deaths. This possibility raises a number of thorny problems. How could a human person survive her death? Does the idea even make sense? And if we do survive, what might the afterlife be like? Would we come back for further earthly lives? Can we make any sense of traditional (Christian and Muslim) views concerning hell? What about traditional (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) views about heaven?
Substitutions: PHIL 1320 or Advanced Philosophy
This course will combine the development of improvisational skills with the cultivation of a satirical view of the human situation. Working in smaller groups to sharpen their own wit and humor, students will present prepared sardonic scenes of contemporary social and political folly. Students will develop skills in improvisation through mixing critical attitudes toward news events with wit and humor, utilizing irony, exaggeration and characterization, students will develop their skills in improvisation.
Substitution: TH 4330C
This course is an introduction to LGBT Studies, combining three academic disciplines: social, political, and historical; drama and fine arts; and English and queer theory. These disciplines will be integrated throughout the semester to assist students in developing a perspective of local, national, and global LGBT themes and issues. In this course, students will analyze the contributions and marginalization of LGBT people and their straight allies throughout history, particularly in the more recent sexual and gender rights movement. Students will also conduct and present scholarly research of a topic of their interest within LGBT Studies to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.
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Substitutions: SOWK 3339 or counts toward the Minor in Diversity Studies
This course will shed light on the much-neglected role of the screenwriter in filmmaking and illuminate how the “writing” of a film is a complex process that results in much more than just a screenplay. This course seeks to investigate how the notion of writing for the screen has developed throughout film history. This course is not a class that teaches screenwriting technique. Rather, this course examines how the script has been regarded within the film industry over time, taking a historical perspective on screenwriting and the role of the screenwriter as each has developed throughout film history.
Substitutions: Advanced English, Advanced Theatre, or counts toward the Media Studies Minor
Portraiture is a cross-genre research methodology in which writers study a person, a group of people, an institution, or a concept. Students will create carefully researched portraits that integrate personal narrative, interviews, and academic research. Portraiture values students’ lived experiences and has roots in anthropology, sociology, journalism, and creative nonfiction. The course provides an opportunity for students to learn how to integrate their lived experiences and personal perspectives with the published work of advanced scholars in various disciplines. Students will reflect on the nature of knowledge as it exists both within and outside of academia.
Substitutions: ENG 1320 or ENG 3311
Amongst the genres of American popular music, styles heavily associated with the U. S. South tend to predominate, and the history of each seems to be entangled with that region’s contentious racial history. This course will engage the history of musical production and performance in the South while also examining the hagiography of the South, its music, and its people.
Substitutions: HIST 1320 or counts for HIST upper division course C
During the final stretch of the ongoing presidential campaign, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will be in the midst of not only the general communication and propaganda efforts to win the election, but will also be making the most concerted efforts to woo and win Latino and other ethnic minority votes. Just how that will play in general market and ethnic minority oriented media, and with what outcomes, will be a central part of the discussions and learning of this course.
Substitution: MC 3355 or upper-division POSI Group II
Develop basic professional techniques and skills used in writing for the screen. Analyze contemporary scripts, perform practical exercises in story and character development, study screenplay structure and format, and develop a full-length screenplay. The seminar and workshop format provide opportunities for weekly readings and critiques to assist writers in refining their scripts.
Substitution: Advanced Theatre, Advanced English, or counts toward the Minor in Media Studies
This course presents American history since the late 19th century in a way that differs from the standard survey format. The memoir-centered approach will provide students with an opportunity to build their own understanding of historical events by seeing them first hand through the eyes of the thoughtful observers of the times and then in the contet of broader secondary literature. Featured memoirs will relate American history "from the margins," including vioices of Native peoples, African-Americans, political and cultural dissidents, and recent immigrants.
Substitution: HIST 1320
Examines how artists from Hemingway, to the French Situationists, to contemporary artists all over the world have approached finding or being present in the everyday. Field assignments to ordinary sites will engage students critically in the environment. We will discuss the political and social ramifications of involvement in the everyday environment in order to reconfigure a prescribed space.
Substutions: Art 2313 or Advanced Art & Design
How do we find ways for the world's growing population to live sustainably? This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to U.S. policy for energy, the environment, and sustainability. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the laws, regulations, and treaties that oversee air and water pollution, solid waste, hazardous waste, energy use, natural resources, climate change, and global governance for energy, environment, and sustainability.
Substitutions: International Studies Elective or POSI 4322
Substitutions: MU 2313, Advanced Sociology Elective or counts toward the Popular Culture Minor
This course provides the opportunity to focus on research and learn research techniques appropriate for an honors thesis. This course provides the foundation to develop a realistic project, find a supportive thesis supervisor, build a bibliography and outline, and complete the review of literature.
In this course, students pursue an independent project of research, study, or creative achievement. This will culminate in a paper, laboratory or field research problem, or creative project (play, book of poetry, artwork, etc.) of significant size and scope.
Before receiving special approval to enroll in the Hon 4390B course, students must schedule an appointment with the Dean of the Honors College. At the appointment, the student must turn in the completed and signed Honors Thesis Application. Once the director meets with the student and signs the Honors Thesis Application, the student can register for Hon 4390B through CATS.
Individual study under direct supervision of a professor for Honors credit.
Before receiving special approval to enroll in the Hon 4391 course, students must turn in a completed and signed HON 4391 INDEPENDENT STUDY Course Agreement Form to D. McCabe of the Honors College.
Take an advanced course in your major and contract with the professor to have it count for Honors credit. Turn in the completed and signed Honors Contract form to D. McCabe by the 12th class day.
A survey of basic features of the American legal system and legal aspects of business transactions. Topics include the nature and sources of law, court systems and procedures, agency, torts, contracts, ethics, and government regulation of business.
Introductory course for computer science majors, minors, and others desiring technical introduction to computer science. The goal of this foundations course is to get students to think algorithmically and improve their analytical skills for efficient problem solving. The course takes an in-depth look at the fundamental concepts of algorithm development. C++ is used as the primary language for introducing basic programming constructs, such as decision statments, loops, and arrays. Students taking this course will participate in a semester long project for which the entire class will work as a team to produce software of substantial size. The exact nature of the project will be determined based on student interest and ability. Possible topics include software for controlling robots, customized iphone applications, and non-GUI PC games. No prior programming experience is required. Lectures will be interspersed with detours into the past, present, and future of computing.
A study of money and credit in the modern economy. Examines the development of modern money and banking systems, the structure of the Ferderal Reserve System, and monetary theory.
A required course for Elementary EC-6 Generalist certification, EC-6 Bilingual Generalist certification and All-Level Special Education certification, this laboratory course is designed to acquaint the student with the fundamentals of chemistry and earth space science. Non-creditable for science majors.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1310, 1320, and 1110 or PHYS 1410, 1420 with a grade of "C" or better.
A first course in differential and integral calculus which stresses limits as well as the applications of calculus to the problems of science.
Prerequisite: MATH 2417 with a grade of C or highter, ACT Mathematics score of 26 or more, SAT Mathematics score of 560 or more, Accuplacaer College Mathematics score of 103 or more, Compass Trigonometry score of 46 or more.
Continued development and review of all language skills within Spanish framework.
Prerequisite: grade of C or higher in SPAN 1420. (MC)
University Seminar is an introduction to the nature and aims of university education with special emphasis on the value of broad learning. Honors sections of US1100, limited to 17 students, provides an introduction to the Honors College.
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