Fall 2004 Courses

Courses for First-Year Students

GST 110  The Global Experience
Professor Jean Schwind

This interdisciplinary seminar will examine the social, economic, and political responsibilities of global citizenship. It will explore cultural and natural diversity from Mauritania (a police state in the desert supported by a primitive and tribal form of slavery) to Calcutta (a filthy, overpopulated, and impoverished “hellhole” in the American press, but a “magnet of hope for the world’s third largest population”) to the low-density suburban sprawl of Colorado Springs. It will also examine the challenges and benefits of human communication and cooperation within this diversity.

Like all General Studies courses at Elon, GST 110 strives to promote scholarship, leadership, wholeness, diversity, independence, and foundational skills. All sections of Global Studies explore themes of the importance of individual responsibility; the relationship of humans to the natural world; globalization and tribalization as powerful world forces; the impact of imperialism and colonialism; the nature of culture; and the plights of disempowered groups.

Team-Taught Course for second-year students:

HNR 273 Imperialism and Cinema
Professors Heidi Frontani and Michael Glaesel Frontani

General Studies Distribution: Society and Civilization

Focusing upon the British, French, and American examples, and using film as a primary test, this course examines the ways in which "empire" has been constructed by the dominant imperial powers of the twentieth century. In particular the course observes protrayals of the Indian subcontinent, Asia, Africa, and the Americas in the cinema of Great Britain, France, and the United States. In so doing, the course is intended to offer the student effective critical tools for scrutinizing the meaning of "empire" as a mass media construct; to examine the mass media industries disseminating that construct; and to offer an historical perspective for students interested in the development of global culture.

HNR 274 The Quest for the Ordinary
Professors Andrew Angyal and Yoram Lubling

General Studies Distribution: Civilization and Expression (can count for literature)

As in the formative years of the New World, Americans find it difficult to depart from European traditions and experiences and find themselves using discredited ideas to resolve unique American problems. We are continuously charged with answering Walt Whitman's ultimate question: "Where in America can I find America?" To answer Whitman's question, the course examines the classical tradition in American thought, its originality, and its continuing relevance to both academic activity and contemporary experience. The course will explore the various expressions of the American angle of vision through the works of American philosophers such as R.W. Emerson, William James, and John Dewey; the psychological and social writing of G. H. Mead and B.F. Skinner; the musical compositions of Charles Ives, Aaron Copeland, and Leonard Bernstein; the paintings of William Sidney Mount, Georgia O'Keefe, and the New York School of Colors; the films of Woody Allen; the poetry of Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams; and the environmental writings of Henry David Thoreau.

Courses for upper-class students

GST 383-HW  Kings and Artists: The Age of Confidence
Professor Russell Gill

Between the Renaissance and the modern world lies a period when artists, philosophers, and rulers alike thought and acted in bold, confident ways. This course looks at six people in seventeenth-century whose thoughts and actions are boldly assertive and/or characterized by a desire for certainty. This course examines how wars and cathedrals, science and literature reflect similar ways of looking at life during this historical period. Study of this period introduces many of the problems of the modern world as well as looks at some of the most characteristic art and architecture of Western Europe.

Courses open to all Honors students

MTH 112-H  General Statistics
Professor James Beuerle

Upon successful completion of this course, students will have greater competence in descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, probability theory, regression analysis, writing, and technology.

MTH 121-H  Calculus and Analytic Geometry
Professor Jeff Clark

Students are introduced to analytic geometry, functions, limits and continuity, differentiation of algebraic functions with applications, the definite integral, and the fundamental theorem of integral calculus. A specific graphing calculator is required.

SCI 121-H   Science Without Borders
Professor DanWright 

Investigate the major ideas in the natural sciences and their commonalities in this non-traditional science course emphasizing the processes of science through hands-on, minds-on activities. Intended for non-science majors, Science Without Borders is a natural science course and students are responsible for understanding science content and processes. Students collaborate to prepare projects relating the natural sciences to a complex “real-world” problem and bring in other disciplines in a benefit/risks analysis. Counts toward the non-laboratory General Studies science requirement.