Explores functional elements of arts and culture organizations with emphasis on strategic planning and organizations' fit in the arts ecosystem. An in-depth study of arts management focusing on topics including planning, organizational identity, environmental analysis, strategy development, marketing, human resources, financial planning, fundraising and control systems. Focus will be on the strategic management process and organizational innovation in the context of the contemporary arts environment.

Explores the work of artist educators in and out of school contexts; develops skills to identify learning objectives for their work; documents educational work; increases the potency of marketing and descriptive material.

Introduces students to the basic concepts, theories, and methodologies of sociocultural anthropology. Creates an awareness of the wide spectrum of cultural variation throughout the world. Demonstrates that through the study of anthropology, we may not only gain an understanding of "exotic" cultures, but also of our own sociocultural experience.

Introduces students to concepts and methods that anthropology employs to understand the phenomenon of religion as a complex social and experiential phenomenon. Approaches religion as deeply enmeshed within the broader cultural systems as well as a contested category for classifying varied systems of belief and ritual.

Examines various topics in leadership studies, both current and historical. Emphasis will be placed on exploring and developing the student's personal leadership philosophy, style, and approach. Possible topics could include operational, strategic, and ethical considerations within today's dynamic social, corporate, and non-profit environment. Additional research component will be required of students taking this course for honors credit.

Introduces students to the interactions between people and plants in cultures throughout the world. Topics to be discussed include the current and historical use of plants as food, fiber, fuel and medicine.

Provides skills in identification and knowledge of taxonomy, biology and ecology of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, hornworts) and macrolichens, with focus on the taxa found in northeastern North America. Students will gain experience identifying these groups using hand-lenses and microscopes, dissections, and chemical testing, and will learn techniques for preparing a personal reference collection and specimens for museum-vouchered collections. Required laboratory; lab mostly outdoors.

Studies the chemical dynamics in living systems. Topics include enzymes mechanisms, metabolism and its regulation, and energy production and utilization.

Invites students to identify a topic of their choice at the intersections of sex and violence, and spend the course engaged in an extensive process of research and writing on this topic, culminating in an article-length manuscript and presentation. Students will engage in a rigorous, iterative process of peer review. Readings will be advanced, technical, and often related to provocative topics. The course is designed to be preparatory for graduate study in the humanities and social sciences.

Explores queer theory in discussion with popular and scholarly ideas about childhood and development. We examine the lived experiences of intersectional queer children and families in a US context, with a particular focus on educational encounters. We also look more broadly at queer theories of development, and lean into children’s and adolescent literature by and about LGBTQ+ individuals and communities as a legitimate source for understanding queer childhoods.

Introduces students to the imaginative potentials of reading as a practice that transforms our understanding of the world. Students will learn the fundamental skills associated with the study of literature across multiple genres and from various cultural traditions, with attention paid to how the close reading of a text informs the creative act of interpretation.

Explores how our encounters with images profoundly impact our experiences of the world. Through an examination of diverse modes of visual expression, this course introduces students to key concepts of visual culture, including the social dynamics of representation, power structures of looking, and phenomena of spectacle.

Investigates a range of experimental literary texts that cross, blur, or recombine different modes and genres of writing, in order to invent new forms of expression. Students explore the porous borders between poetry and prose, the creative and the critical, the visual and the verbal, the oral and the written, the factual and the imaginative. In their own writing, students are invited to move between two types of writing, creative and analytical, that are ordinarily kept separate.

Explores the works of John Milton in relation to the major intellectual and social currents of early modernity. Discussions and lectures focus on analyzing the literary, philosophical, and religious attitudes of the period, as well as their uncanny afterlives in the present. Readings include Lycidas, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost.

Explores medieval and Renaissance British literature, history and culture. The course includes a spring break travel component. During travel students contextualize literature with the cultural heritage experienced via visual arts architecture, music, theatre, dance, fashion, food, and landscapes and cityscapes of Britain. There are additional fees associated with the travel portion of this course that the student will be responsible for.

Explores the reciprocal resonances between the writing of white southern modernist, William Faulkner, and the diverse literatures coming out of the Global South. Examines the ways in which Global South writers use experimental poetics to continue Faulkner's project and tell the stories of colonialism from the neocolonial present.

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Provides an interdisciplinary foundation in the physical, chemical and biological principles of environmental science in order to explore earth's terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric systems. Historical case studies illustrate political and ethical dimensions of environmental issues. Lab exercises familiarize you with the forest and freshwater environments of the northeast and how the scientific method is used to analyze and understand the relation between humans and the natural environment.

Provides a foundation in the nature and properties of natural resources in the context of sustainable environmental management. Students will consider and apply the paradigm of social, environmental and economic sustainability to a variety of natural resource issues such as fossil fuels, renewable energy, wastewater, forestry and wildlife, land protection, food production, urbanization and solid waste and recycling.

Studies the development of American consciousness toward the environment throughout our nation's history, emphasizing the political, economic and social forces at work in the consequent creation of United States environmental law. This law will then be considered in detail through the examination of federal, state and local environmental protection legislation, regulations and related court decisions.

Introduces theories, terms and past and contemporary topics in human geography, including how cultures are born and change, how groups of people organize themselves and their activities both spatially and politically, how patterns of activities emerge and change across time and space, and how we interact with our environments. Students in this course will explore demographic, economic, and social trends and issues across the globe in their geographic and historical context.

Explores two key questions: “What is the agenda of public health?” and “Is health a right or a privilege?” Through discussions and activities, students will examine the biological, political, and sociological factors shaping health in the U.S. The course emphasizes understanding public health as a system and its interdisciplinary links to other fields. Critical thinking and analysis of major public health issues will be a central focus throughout the semester.

Introduces the principles of health promotion and strategies to improve individual and community well-being. Examine health determinants, behavior theories, program planning, and promotion through education and policy. Topics include nutrition, mental health, substance abuse, and chronic disease prevention. Focuses on building practical skills through discussions, case studies, and projects, applying health promotion strategies to diverse, real-world settings.

Explores the life cycle from conception to death. Biological, sociological, and psychological perspectives will be examined and applied to everyday situations and social issues.

Provides a multidisciplinary understanding of the science, practice, laws and policy of environmental health sciences, addressing why risk of disease is modulated by the environment. Topics include types and sources of environmental contaminants, exposure assessment, types of microenvironments, human behavior and time-location-activity patterns, toxicology, the risk assessment paradigm, basics of environmental and occupational epidemiology, and communicating about environmental health sciences.

Examines how communication affects and is intertwined with issues of health, medicine and ethics. Communication will be discussed on a personal, intimate level in the way patients and caregivers interact in the examination and hospital room; at the organizational level, in the way policies and community relations affect how health care is provided and how people feel about providers; and in media campaigns that seek to educate people about health.

Explores the problematic notion of human nature employing the open-ended question-asking and interdisciplinary discussion which characterizes the Honors Program. The course ranges widely over philosophical, psychological, literary and anthropological texts, as well as works of art, which propose competing definitions for human nature. Students are asked first to understand and then to criticize each perspective in turn and finally to formulate their own understanding of human nature.

Explores designated intellectual topics employing the open-ended and interdisciplinary research and discussion methods which characterize the Honors Program. Provides an opportunity for critical examination at the honors level in various domains.

Undertakes a concentrated study of an interdisciplinary subject to be determined by the honors director in consultation with the Honors Advisory Board.

Reading texts chosen by faculty and former students to inspire interdisciplinary research in the Commonwealth Honors Program. Introduces students to Honors faculty. Course lasts seven weeks. This course will be graded on a pass/fail basis.

Undertakes a concentrated study of an interdisciplinary subject to be determined by the honors director in consultation with the Honors Advisory Board.

Undertakes a concentrated study of an interdisciplinary subject to be determined by the honors director in consultation with the Honors Advisory Board.

Open to juniors and seniors who desire to read widely in a given area or to study a specific topic in depth. Written reports and frequent conferences with the advisor are required.

Independent research, writing, and editing of a Commonwealth Scholar thesis under the direction of a faculty sponsor and the director(s) of the honors program. Program of study and related disciplinary methodology to be approved in the semester before senior year, and culminating in a public presentation and defense of the thesis. This course is repeatable for a maximum of 8 credits.

Opens up a perspective on cultural diversity in local and global contexts. Takes an interdisciplinary approach to consider how historically shaped intersections of race, class, gender, and ethnicity inform the contemporary and post experiences of individuals and groups in society. Considers social justice and (in)equality by studying themes such as racism; classism; migration; globalization and labor rights; human trafficking; Islamophobia; and environmental justice.

Traces cities back to their origins and ends with the present day where urbanization is happening faster than ever. Following a chronological order, we will examine how global forces and local communities are intimately connected. The course draws from various academic disciplines and introduces students to basic concepts such as density, zoning, gentrification, and urban renewal. The goal is to help students become informed thinkers critical of urban designs and suburban lifestyle.

Applies interdisciplinary critical race and ethnic studies approaches to investigate how society is culturally and institutionally constituted by ideas like race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and nation.

Examines descriptive statistics, probability, discrete and continuous random variables, sampling theory, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing from inferential statistics. Includes the binomial distribution, normal distribution, and t-distribution.

Investigates definitions and examples of graphs, graph isomorphism, paths and circuits, connectivity, trees, planar graphs, Euler's formula, graph coloring, four and five color theorems and applications.

Explores two key questions: “What is the agenda of public health?” and “Is health a right or a privilege?” Through discussions and activities, students will examine the biological, political, and sociological factors shaping health in the U.S. The course emphasizes understanding public health as a system and its interdisciplinary links to other fields. Critical thinking and analysis of major public health issues will be a central focus throughout the semester.

Introduces the principles of health promotion and strategies to improve individual and community well-being. Examine health determinants, behavior theories, program planning, and promotion through education and policy. Topics include nutrition, mental health, substance abuse, and chronic disease prevention. Focuses on building practical skills through discussions, case studies, and projects, applying health promotion strategies to diverse, real-world settings.

Provides a multidisciplinary understanding of the science, practice, laws and policy of environmental health sciences, addressing why risk of disease is modulated by the environment. Topics include types and sources of environmental contaminants, exposure assessment, types of microenvironments, human behavior and time-location-activity patterns, toxicology, the risk assessment paradigm, basics of environmental and occupational epidemiology, and communicating about environmental health sciences.

Examines how communication affects and is intertwined with issues of health, medicine and ethics. Communication will be discussed on a personal, intimate level in the way patients and caregivers interact in the examination and hospital room; at the organizational level, in the way policies and community relations affect how health care is provided and how people feel about providers; and in media campaigns that seek to educate people about health.

Adopts a philosophical approach to the experience, understanding and critical assessment of the products and processes of the creative arts. Our inquiries will center on two traditional questions of aesthetic theory. What is art? What is art's special value? This course will be more theoretical than hands-on, though direct, continued experience in the various creative arts will be encouraged and figure prominently in most discussions and assignments.

Examines and applies principles of cogent, sound or critical reasoning and writing, leading to a deeper understanding of language and of the use of logical argumentation. Considers, in the context of real-life arguments and claims (in the rhetoric of philosophy, history, and other disciplines) formal and informal principles of clear and systematic thinking and writing.

Explores the potentially morally significant relationships between humans and various kinds of non-human animals. Explores moral propositions that we, as a society, subscribe to, to see whether they have unacknowledged implications for non-humans.

Open to juniors and seniors who wish to read in a given area or to study a topic in depth. Written reports and frequent conferences with the advisor are required.

Focuses on theories surrounding American campaigns and elections for presidential and congressional elections. In this course, we will analyze how the structures of the American political system have changed over time and how/why candidates run, win, and lose office. Further, we will explore the role American voters play in the political process and how their attitudes, opinions, and ideologies influence candidate choice and voting behavior.

Examines developmental theory and research from an applied perspective. Physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development from early childhood through adolescence will be covered with an emphasis on application.

Studies problems and disorganization in modern industrial society such as: poverty, racism, sexism, environmental pollution, militarism, and family issues.

Different iterations of posthumanity are examined to gain understanding of how child and youth posthumans relate to new, altered, or unaccepting societies and worlds. Drawing on posthuman and childhood studies theories, posthuman children and youth are contextualized by their positions as or relationships to various entities including aliens, animals, spirits, robots, vampires, witches, and clones.

Studies how the importance of space, place, location, and time in the lived realities of children and youth contextualizes the environments they occupy. Children's and youth's constructions of and interactions with definitions of carework, home, family, neighborhood, emotions, bodies, nature, friendship, animals, and school are examined on the local and global scale.