Spring 2006 Courses

Seminars for First-Year Students
(First-year students must take one of HNR 172 or 175)

HNR 175: Humanities and Love
Professor Shawn Tucker (Fine Arts) MW 1:20-3:00

General Studies Distribution: Expression

This course will begin with an overview of Humanities, an overview that will include traditional methods, periodization, and key "monuments." Students will learn about the different theoretical approaches used in the Humanities through explanations, samples, and by trying their own hand at using them. They will examine the theme of love in various works of art and contexts. Finally, they will do a project using two approaches and one aspect of love on a work of their choosing.

HNR 172: Vulnerability and Resilience Across the Lifespan
Professor Catherine King (Psychology) TTh 10:30-12:10

General Studies Distribution: Society

Human development involves continuous change and re-organization across the entire lifespan. In this class, we will focus on the complex interactions of biological and environmental factors that shape development, with a special emphasis on the periods of early childhood, adolescence, and old age as periods of increased vulnerability to conditions that have the potential to lead to poor developmental outcomes. We will examine individual and environmental risk and protective factors, and discuss prevention and intervention strategies.

(Honors courses taught or co-taught by Psychology Department faculty members may count for up to 4 hours of credit toward the Psychology major.  See the Psychology Department chair for approval.)

Optional for First-year students

ENG 110H College Writing
Professor Tim Peeples MW 3:10-4:50

Though a course title like "College Writing" might lead you to assume that it prepares you exclusively for writing in college, this course is designed to prepare you to write with the effectiveness and confidence that college educated people should command in a variety of contexts in your personal, academic, civic, and work lives. All course projects are designed to introduce you to and give you practice with advanced rhetorical strategies, with emphasis on writing as an ongoing process of inquiry and persuasive action. The strategies you learn, however, are transferable from one context to another. In addition to preparing you well for writing outside of college, they prepare you well for the writing required in more advanced college courses and, especially, advanced, independent research writing. This honors section, in particular, will also explore the relationships between writing, rhetoric, and leadership, a relationship that has been a critical part of a strong liberal arts education for millennia.

Team-Taught Courses for Second-Year Students

HNR 272: Literary Journalism (TTH 10:30-12:10)
Professors Tom Mould (Sociology) and Brooke Barnett (Communications)     

General Studies Distribution: Society or Expression (including Literature requirement)

Literary journalism involves employing fiction techniques when writing non-fiction stories.  The effect is extremely compelling and has resulted in some of literary history's most memorable accounts, including a look at the sharecropper experience after the depression, a ride on a bus with a writer and his acid-dropping friends and the discovery of government-funded weapons used to massacre an entire village. In this class you will study the masters who started the movement as well as current writers, and in the end produce your own piece of literary journalism.

HNR 278: Who's Leading Whom? Press, Politics and Public During the Cold War
(MWF 12:00-1:10)
Professors Laura Roselle (Political Science) and Harlen Makemson (Communications) 

General Studies Distribution: Civilization or Society

Fears of Communism and the nuclear bomb, questions about America's role as the free world's lone superpower, and concerns about changing social mores were shaped and filtered during the Cold War by an increasingly omnipresent mass media. The advent of television brought about unprecedented opportunities to inform an increasingly uneasy public, but also proved to be an effective vehicle for manipulation by savvy politicians and media consultants through news events and campaign advertising.  At the same time, new media voices appeared in the alternative press that emboldened citizens to question the status quo. This course will explore the interrelationship among the press, the political system, and public opinion during the Cold War era and seek to understand how each influenced the others.

Courses for Upper-Class Honors Students

GST 381 The City (TTH 12:20-2:00)
Professor Thomas Tiemann

Students in this seminar will learn how the perception of cities has changed in the past 50 years. Readings from economics, urban planning, and literature will be combined with films and television shows to illustrate this evolution. Prerequisite: successful completion of sophomore writing test.