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Academics
First Year Seminar Courses
| Question/Topic | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Expressions from the borderlands | Emily Manone | What is a border? Migration and the U.S. southern border are important issues in our contemporary society. This course is an opportunity to go beyond the political realm and connect with the human experience in this unique space. |
| How do we heal? | Kaitlin Hublitz | This seminar will examine the multifaceted question How do we heal? Our investigation will begin with an in-depth consideration of what causes the need to heal, specifically centering around both the individual’s experiences of heartbreak and that of larger communities. |
| What does it mean to be human? | Stacy Murison | The fundamental question all human beings attempt to address, and many hope to answer, is who they are. Each new era promises a technology that will give us the time to pursue these higher ideals of self-awareness and humanity. But how does technology evolve our understanding of what it means to be human? |
| What is family? | Kama O’Connor | What makes a family? Are they strictly composed of our biological ties? Or are they created as we move through life and accumulate “our people?” Are they the folks in our corner or those standing in our way? This central question, and the others it inspires, have been the center of philosophical self-inquiry as well as asked and answered in pop culture (think: Fast and Furious--an entire franchise was created around the idea). |
| What is forgiveness? | Steve Smith | Forgiving is a complex human action and interaction, a unique facet of the human experience and a distinguishing human phenomenon. The act has produced substantial works from a diverse landscape over several millennia that includes philosophers, theologians, psychologists, researchers, artists, and literary artists that we’ll examine together. |
| What is her story? | Emily Manone | This course aims to bring voice and visibility to a story often omitted from traditional accounts, her story. We will explore the female narrative from pre-conquest to the present in various regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. |
| What is justice? | Kym Richard | This First Year Seminar will introduce students to the ways in which justice is perceived in our world, particularly the United States. The course will examine values and beliefs that surround the concept of justice. What does it mean to be a just society? |
| What is school? | Cody Canning and Melissa Westover | What is school? Is it controlling, a prison? Is it a place where we can flourish and grow, a garden? Is it an institution that reveals who we really are, a mirror? To answer these questions, and more, we will look at the history of American education, court battles, law, educational philosophy, art, and music about school. |
| What is sport? | Jacob Lesandrini | What is sport? This seminar will explore the question What is sport? Our inquiry will focus on multiple forms of artistic expression including, but not limited to, creative nonfiction, film (and other visual arts), and fiction. Our critical conversations will explore ideas about the role sports play in our lives through the lens of the arts. |
| What is story? | Jacob Lesandrini | Story-telling is an ancient, simple, uniquely human practice. This course will investigate a surprisingly wide variety of creative expression in an attempt to dissect and understand what makes a story and what role they play in human culture. What is a story is a rich and complex inquiry into the profoundly human practice of story-telling |
| What is truth? | Stacy Murison | It seems that truth is not as fixed an idea as it once was. We understand both our desire for facts and our desire to be “right” based on our ideas and feelings. But whom can we trust with information in increasingly biased media and political landscapes? We’ll examine contemporary media, including current conspiracy theories, to get to the heart of what truth might mean to you today. |