Courses and Syllabi
The University Catalog is the authoritative source for information on courses. The Schedule of Classes is the authoritative source for information on classes scheduled for this semester. See the Schedule for the most up-to-date information and see Patriot web to register for classes.
Integrative Studies (INTS - Formerly NCLC) Spring 2023
Undergraduate
Directed field studies in topic not otherwise available to students. Notes: Topics vary, but entire course or significant component is located off campus. In addition to fieldwork, course may also include reading assignments, tutorials, lectures, papers, presentations, portfolios, journals, and exams. Students bear costs of required field trips and should consult the Center for Social Action and Integrative Learning for more information. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 24 credits.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Combines process of learning to speak in front of audiences with analysis of arguments and persuasive appeals. Students learn how to create and present effective speeches, adapt messages to specific audiences, and evaluate and critique messages produced for others. One credit of experiential learning enables students to examine public speeches, news stories, political campaigns, and advertising, among others, to make meaningful connections between public speaking theory and practice. Limited to three attempts.
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4 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Examines the relationships between academic research, individual acts and society's social and political structures. Students design a community-based research project, explore a rich array of qualitative and quantitative approaches, apply information and communication technologies to all aspects of the research process, and learn from individuals and organizations outside the classroom. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines historical and contemporary leadership theories and invites students to be reflective of their own leadership experiences through the lenses of those theories. Students develop critical lenses through which to evaluate their own self-awareness, effectiveness in groups, and ability to navigate structures and systems. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Covers basic issues in the natural and social sciences that underlie current environmental problems. Considers ethical matters such as equity as they pertain to global resource consumption, pollution, and climate change. Limited to three attempts.
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5 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Explores the role of visual culture in contemporary society including an examination of photography, the visual and performing arts, film and video, and electronic media. Readings focus on the historical foundations of visuality as well as theories of visual culture and aesthetics. Students investigate the ways that forms of visual culture function in society and how these are linked to race, class, and gender as well as politics and economics. Students will gain hands-on experience working with contemporary visual media tools such as computer graphics and digital video editing. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Investigates information literacy, the mobile web, and interactive and immersive media, including gaming, social networking, blogging and micro-blogging, intellectual, political and civic collaborations, digital aesthetics and emerging digital cultures and art forms. Explores major theories of digital literacy and culture and introduce diverse social, artistic, theoretical and cultural practices that characterize today's digital domains and virtual environments. Notes: One experiential credit is required in this class. Limited to three attempts.
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3 Sections Currently Scheduled
Bridges students' academic interests with their residence hall living experience. Students with common interests live together in the same residence hall and develop personal and academic relationships with other students and faculty from their chosen Living Learning Community focus. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 8 credits.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Examination and discussion of the current trends in science as reported in the popular media. Students learn how to evaluate the science that is reported so they may become informed consumers; discuss how scientific advancement might shape society by looking at how science and society have changed together over time; and use examples from the past to discuss future trends. Limited to three attempts.
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3 Sections Currently Scheduled
Explores a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing world issues. Combines lectures, field trips, discussion of readings, films, case studies, projects, and active inquiry-based learning to examine the natural environment, infectious disease and globalization, media and technologies, and war and violent conflict, with an attempt to deepen community members' understanding of an increasingly interdependent world. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines how citizens, individually and collectively, accomplish social change in society through case study analysis. Considers advantages and limits of social change strategies from communication and social movement theory perspectives. Surveys topics including how leaders maintain momentum in face of opposition; how movements and organizations use slogans, symbols and music to inspire followers; and how participants construct persuasive media campaigns and political arguments to facilitate policy change. Notes: One credit of experiential learning enables students to explore their role as social advocates and effective citizens in context of community. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Using nonfiction, research documentaries, oral histories, case studies, literature, feature films, music, dance, and visual arts, examines the dynamics of violence through different cultural lenses. Students work in university and community settings to integrate their academic experiences with practice. Equivalent to WMST 320.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Immerses students in the images of childhood through the media of literature, video, and poetry, with a strong emphasis on historical perspectives of childhood. The class is interactive, requires some work in groups, and requires classroom participation. Equivalent to HIST 386, HIST 498.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Develops in students an appreciation of human resilience and helps them acquire better coping mechanisms. Imparts knowledge of the nature and dynamics of trauma and healing. Investigates the difficulties people face in responding to settings of conflict such as war, school shootings, abuse, domestic violence, including natural disaster. Examines case studies from a variety of personal, national, and international settings. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Focuses on the study of childhood from birth to adolescence from the perspective of several disciplines. Covers childhood theory, research, and policy and their applications to decisions regarding children and youth. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Introduces students to concepts and challenges in parenting, along with family diversity and risk factors. Considers interactions between parents and children from birth to adolescence as well as cross-cultural, historical, and societal influences. Explores efforts that have been successful in changing detrimental parenting actions. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Readings, classroom discussions and activities, and practical experience reveal historical, legal, and socioeconomic forces that define and influence the American nonprofit sector. Explores structures, issues that affect nonprofit management, governing, and financial systems. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines historical and contemporary sociopolitical and socioeconomic conditions that have given rise to the environmental justice movement. Analyzes how individuals contribute to environmental justice or injustice through everyday decisions. Considers how environmental justice movement responds to these issues. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Explores the social, cultural, political, and spiritual implications of poverty, wealth, and inequality in the United States. Examines the ways in which class identity informs one's views of the world and its politics; how socioeconomic status affects one's access to education and other social goods; and how dominant discourses and stereotypes related to poverty influence mass perception regarding a range of social issues, from educational policy to welfare. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
This learning community explores historical records to understand different ways art has been produced, distributed, and consumed. Examines ways artists have affected change in their worlds. Through interdisciplinary studies, teaches major social movements and artists and theories used in socially engaged art. Students engage in experiential learning outside classroom as course requirement. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Explores the way in which gender has been represented across the decades in television, movies, music videos, pop art, and print media. Provides a review of the scholarship on historical and contemporary gender roles and examines the contradictions and expectations associated with these. Incorporates active group learning through creative, insight-oriented exercises, critical thinking and discussions, and group presentations and media research activities. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Explores the science of well-being, including theories and practices linked to various domains of well-being such as mindfulness, resilience, life-satisfaction, happiness, mind-body wellness, and meaning and purpose. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Focusing on the individual in context, examines the growing research, science, and literature on well-being and resilience. Considers the many ways in which resilience can be learned and developed on individual, community, and organizational levels. Explores how resilience promotes growth and restores efficacy and agency, leading to higher levels of flourishing. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Considers the philosophical foundations of social justice and human rights. Explores the interpretive difficulties related to identifying what constitutes human rights abuses, and evaluates regional perspectives on human rights. Analyzes institutions that strive to promote and enforce social justice and human rights standards including the United Nations system, regional human rights bodies, and domestic courts. Limited to three attempts.
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3 Sections Currently Scheduled
Studies topics of special interest to undergraduates. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
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4 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Familiarizes students with the theory and practice of integrative learning. Challenges students not only to learn but also to think deeply about what, why, how, and for what purposes you learn. Develops reflective, critical thinking, and research skills. Limited to three attempts.
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3 Sections Currently Scheduled
Examines the portrayal of powerful and/or sexual women throughout history, identifying famous historical "temptresses" and investigating the facts known about them. Explores representations and perceptions of contemporary female sexuality, considering possible future concepts and images of female power and sexuality. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Provides students with a working knowledge of conservation biology. Integrates the study of social, economic, and political factors with biodiversity, population modeling, habitat degradation, and management issues. Students confront the leading edge of this exciting field by developing real species conservation plans. The experiential learning component of the course will include trips to the Smithsonian Institution's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia, to study with nationally known experts. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Uses an interdisciplinary approach to deepen and broaden student's learning about theories, models, and constructs related to the study and practice of ethics and leadership. Teaches students to develop ethical decision making strategies, communicate effectively in diverse group settings, value civic engagement and actively apply ethical leadership skills. Includes experiential learning activities and discussions that connect formal knowledge with real world experiences and includes one credit of experiential learning. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Develops a concept of global leadership, emphasizing the critical importance of
ethical decision-making, social responsibility, and cultural awareness. Students
formulate the construction process of a global mindset and begin to develop a
personal philosophy of global leadership. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Explores the complexity of human trafficking and smuggling, one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world. Examines forms of human trafficking and smuggling and the countries that serve as source, transit or destinations of trafficked and smuggled individuals and groups. Studies the role of the international community in addressing trafficking and smuggling, including regional and national authorities and non-governmental agencies. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Focuses on contemporary perspectives on youth, resistance, and advocacy, both in the form of social movements and subcultures. Asks questions such as: When do everyday activities constitute "resistance"—and resistance to what?—and how do everyday forms of resistance relate to broader forms of historical change? How do these forms of resistance perpetuate forms of exclusion and inequality? Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Develops a variety of work-readiness skills needed to transition to local and global marketplaces. Topics and skills covered include developing a tailored cover letter or goal statement, problem solving in the business setting, workplace ethics and etiquette, interviewing skills, professional networking, and salary negotiations. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Examines history of philanthropy and public policy, and the economic and legal frameworks that shape it. Combining theory and practice, students study human behavior, communications, and management systems that are hallmarks of successful fund raising, and begin to develop skills to generate donations, foundation grants, and other unearned revenue for a nonprofit organization. Notes: Includes 1 experiential learning credit. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Introduces interdisciplinary research methods for social change. Explores students' epistemological assumptions, and uses tools of inquiry and discovery to explore transformative approaches to scholarship and creative work. Examines multiple critical approaches to inquiry including auto-ethnography and ethnography, feminist, queer, and Indigenous research methods, participatory action research, critical quantitative analysis, and more. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines diverse definitions and processes of change across multiple complex contexts. Focuses on identifying innovative, collaborative solutions to seemingly intractable social problems. Explores topics such as social change and globalization, creative conflict resolution, the nature of power, oppression and influence, and systemic leadership. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines educational policy, practice, and materials using a variety of lenses informed by social justice theory and praxis. Investigates ways in which racism, sexism, economic injustice, heterosexism, ageism, and other forms of discrimination influence schools and educational access and opportunity for youth. Considers and practices what individuals and communities can do to ensure that all students have equitable educational opportunities. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Investigates the social and cultural construction of racial categories that have led to inaccurate and stereotypical representations that persist and cause harm today. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Offers a dynamic, practical, and hands-on approach to synthesizing our leadership philosophy with real problem-solving and decision-making skills. Through cases and experiential learning, students will work through framing and diagnosing problems as well as identifying and implementing solutions. Integrates students' interests with the tools necessary to be an organizational problem-solver. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Prepares students to understand and meet a distinct set of challenges facing professionals in careers that involve directly helping others. Studies research findings about factors such as stress, burnout, and compassion-fatigue that undermine professional success and longevity in these career fields. Explores the fundamental tenets of the science of well-being, learning the vocabulary and core principles related to aspects of self-care and well-being such as positivity, strengths, mindfulness, and resilience. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Culminating experience for Environmental and Sustainability Studies majors enrolled in the Sustainable Food and Agriculture concentration. Focused on helping students see how their specific talents, interests and experiences can prepare them for specific professional roles within the emerging field of sustainable food systems. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Studies topics of special interest to undergraduates. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
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4 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Students may take no more than 6 credits in any one semester, unless approved by executive director. A maximum of of 12 credits can apply to the degree. Structured and supervised professional experience, within an approved agency, for which the student earns academic credit. The primary purpose of an internship is to connect the student's academic course work to experiences and challenges outside the university classroom. The faculty also expects that students will enhance their competencies and skills and explore career options. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
This course requires students to reflect and self-assess their undergraduate learning, synthesizing knowledge and ideas from various courses and experiences; address an issue of multidisciplinary inquiry from the perspective of their concentration in order to demonstrate critical thinking, research and communication skills; and to provide evidence of their qualifications for the workplace or graduate study. 85 credits required. Graduation requirement for integrative studies students. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Directed field studies in topic not otherwise available to students. Notes: Topics vary, but entire course or significant component is located off campus. In addition to field work, course may also include reading assignments, tutorials, lectures, papers, presentations, portfolios, journals, and exams. Students bear costs of required field trips and should consult the Center for Social Action and Integrative Learning for more information. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 24 credits.
Read More »
1 Section Currently Scheduled
Studies topics of special interest to undergraduates. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Read More »
4 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Studies topics of special interest to undergraduates. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Read More »
4 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Directed field studies in topic not otherwise available to students. Notes: Topics vary, but entire course or significant component is located off campus. In addition to field work, course may also include reading assignments, tutorials, lectures, papers, presentations, portfolios, journals, and exams. Students bear costs of required field trips and should consult the Center for Social Action and Integrative Learning for more information. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 24 credits.
Read More »
1 Section Currently Scheduled
Graduate
Introduces interdisciplinary research methods for social change. Explores students' epistemological assumptions, and employs methods of inquiry and discovery to explore transformative approaches to scholarship. Examines multiple critical approaches to inquiry, including auto-ethnography and ethnography, feminist and indigenous research methods, participatory action research, critical and quantitative analysis. May not be repeated for credit.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Investigates the social and cultural construction of persistent and harmful racial categories. May not be repeated for credit.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Studies topics of special interest to graduate students pursuing integrative, multidisciplinary degrees. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
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3 Sections Currently Scheduled
