1. A Different View: How Can We Change the World?
Students will participate in a United Nations Simulation with teams from other universities throughout the world, each representing a different country. Millersville’s team will represent Spain. The semester begins with an in-depth study of Spain, its history and its culture; past civilization and how it informs its present-day civilization; its politics and foreign policy. Students, working in teams, will investigate some of the major problems facing the United Nations, such as world health, the global environment, terrorism, conflict resolution, the refugee problem, and world trade. Students will then enter the negotiation and decision-making phase through interactions with teams from other universities using the ICONSnet online communication system via messaging, conferences, writing and considering proposals.
2. Biodiversity and the Sixth Great Extinction
This seminar will introduce students to biodiversity, an exciting current global issue, by providing the biological and geological background to understand it, introducing the actions that humans are taking to prevent losses of biodiversity, and to allow freedom to choose examples of different concepts to present to the class. Human actions are reducing biodiversity which includes species diversity (number of species), genetic diversity and ecosystem diversity. Scientists have coined the accelerating loss of biodiversity as the “sixth great extinction,” since the present estimated extinction rate is similar to the five previous great extinctions know from fossil records. The fifth resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. This course will provide background on biodiversity, analyze how humans impact biodiversity and consider how humans can restore and prevent biodiversity losses.
3. Liberty and Justice for All: The Promise
of American Education
This seminar explores questions of fairness, justice, and equity in education. What should all children know and be able to do and who gets to make that decision? Should education be considered a civil right? Whose responsibility is it to insure quality education? What is your responsibility as a citizen for students in your own community? What is your responsibility to all students, especially in communities where schools have failed to provide students with equal opportunity for success in society? We will seek answers to these questions by examining the familiar (schools) from different and often challenging perspectives. Students will read, research, discuss and present various aspects of education inequity framed within the social issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. By analyzing their findings, students will develop their own understanding of American education helping them to become more informed and involved citizens.
4. Homes and Homelessness
What is a “home?” What elements—both physical and psychological – make up the experience of home? How does one come to feel “at home” in a new place? In contrast…what are the social/emotional, economic and psychological consequences of being without a home? Who are the homeless? Why are people homeless? In this course we will attempt to answer these and other questions by studying the concepts and realities of “home” and “homelessness.” The course will also offer a service learning opportunity as students investigate the problem of homelessness here in Lancaster County.
5. The Deindustrialization of the
United States: Jobs Today, Gone Tomorrow
During the early 1980s a debate on deindustrialization began in the United States. Was America losing its industrial base to other nations? If so, why, and what would that mean to America and its citizens? With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disappearance of a bipolar world, the emergence of the Indian and Chinese economies, and a federal government trapped by an obsolete trade ideology and preoccupied with the War on Terrorism, America’s national economy has been radically transformed in less than a decade. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics new results indicate the United States currently has the new jobs-created profile of a third world nation as a result of outsourcing. Outsourcing has also contributed to the explosion of the U.S. trade deficit over the past decade. If these trends are not altered in the near future, what will the future of America be? What will the future of the middle class be? What type of world might emerge from such a pattern of economic activity? What do these trends mean for Western civilization? If you are interested in exploring these and similar questions, this seminar is the one to choose.
6. What turns you on? Minds, Motivation, and Learning
The purpose of this seminar is to engage in an examination of the complex concept of motivation and how it is related to success in our academic, professional and personal lives. Through an exploration of theoretical and practical approaches to motivation, students will engage in a critical analysis of their own motivational profile and develop an understanding about how to best respond to their characterizations in order to succeed.
7. Culture, Science and Mathematics
in the Pre-Columbian Americas
An introduction to the study of the Pre-Columbian Americas, part of the broad interdisciplinary field of Native American Studies. The emphasis will be on the role that science and mathematics played in the culture of these indigenous groups (including the Aztec, Incan, Mayan and other Native American groups). The course will explore the Pre-Columbian world through the eyes of our ancestors, as well as through our classmates. Special attention to the science of archaeoastronomy and mathematics in which all of the great cultures of antiquity have left a mark.
8. Facing Fear
Students in this seminar will explore – through literature, philosophy, social science, religious/wisdom traditions, and personal experience – the various faces and facets of fear as a near-ubiquitous human experience. “Facing fear” also suggests a personal challenge – to understand fear and to respond to it constructively, especially with regard to one’s own education and growth.
9. Political Engagement, Citizenship & Communicationr
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the importance of political awareness, citizenship, and how best to communicate with key communities. The course will focus upon the interdependent role of individuals, policymakers, and media in political processes.
Specifically, when the course is complete students will be able to:
- Understand how to professionally communicate with policymakers at the local, state, and/or national levels,
- Identify the signifigance of political awareness and civic participation in election and non-election years,
- More effectively participate in and communicate about issues important to various communities,
- Recognize the outcomes of nonparticipation in community issues,
- Understand the importance of civic engagement to lifelong learning.
10. Telling Your Story
Telling Your Story provides students a broad understand of narrative practices, including how they are constructed, how we act upon them, how they act upon us, and how we employ them in every aspect of our daily lives. Students will also experiment with the techniques/theories they have studied to write stories of their own lives.
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