Below are the WAYS 101 Seminars that will be offered in Fall 2024.
Modern apes exhibit behaviors that anthropologists have described as cultural. For this reason, Dr. Louis Leakey questioned whether we can include apes as human. This course will explore the arguments for creating the “boundaries”, if any, that may separate humans from other living primates, particularly the apes, in respect to the anthropological definitions of culture, language and what being human is. The insights from the studies of nonhuman primates in the wild or in captivity will inform our arguments and enlighten the origins of human evolutionary behavior.
In this course we will explore the importance of understanding our purpose in life as a precursor to unleashing our highest potential. We can’t reach our full potential unless we know our purpose. Am I destined for mediocrity if I don't know my purpose? We will critically explore these life issues and how they relate to business concepts. Critical thinking is the ability to think reflectively and independently in order to make thoughtful decisions and thus avoid future problems that can result from your actions. We will learn to identify problems and use applied critical thinking skills to solve them, including blowing up the business, asking the 5 whys and the 7 so what’s, exploring the 80/20 rule, and more.
Who eats and who doesn't? Who creates the food and who consumes it? Who controls who eats? Why does cheap food create expensive medical bills? This course will investigate possible answers to these questions and give students the chance to critically examine the subject of food and its distribution through the media and research around food systems.
Infographics, hashtags, memes, online trolling, and our elections. This course will focus on how we get and vet our information online. We will explore social and cultural contexts of new media and emergent digital writing technologies and provide a space to analyze and research across social media contexts and platforms. Students will look at multimodal compositions from across the internet, examine not only instances and examples of new media but also the impact new media has on society and how shifting social norms influence new media.
Calling all film fans! Have you ever been curious about how and why the soundtracks of films can stir up different emotional results in the audience and create a compelling scene? In a world filled with movies, videogames, and TikTok the intricate relationship between sound and image is all around us. Learn to explore and analyze the relationship of sound/image through film, art, and media and learn how to create your own audio/visual works to express your understanding of sound and image in our world! No musical or video-editing experience necessary!
Buried treasure, walking the plank, and a bottle of rum: these are our stock images of piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries. But what was piracy in its Golden Age really like? What was a pirate, exactly, and why might a man – or woman – be inclined to go pirate? What were the differences between a corsair, a privateer, a freebooter, and a buccaneer? By examining contemporary writings by pirates, their victims, and enemies, we will discover answers to these questions and grapple with the devilishly wicked problem of distinguishing between the moral legitimacy of private crime versus state warfare.
Or "Why Did you Learn What You Learned in High School about Sex, Sexuality, Your Body, and Consent?" Only 24 states in the US have compulsory sex education for public schools and the range of what is taught varies widely. Sex education may cover health/biology but did you get information on same-sex relationship, HIV/AIDS and other STIs, healthy relationships, and the importance of consent? Who teaches us what about sex and when and why? How would you teach it? Some topics may be triggering to some students but we will work together to make the classroom as safe a brave as possible.
Is tech’s rapid transformation of our world sacrificing our connection to nature? This course explores the social and cultural implications of technological advancements, and their dynamic relationship with nature. From smartphones to renewable energy, we'll examine how technology has both enhanced and challenged our connection to the environment. We'll also delve into mind-bending concepts like whether technology has a life of its own and the paradoxical relationship between tech’s responsibility for the climate crisis and its role in solving it. Join the debates on whether technology has replaced nature, if they can coexist in harmony, and what our technological future might hold.
Socrates’ last words were about it. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. But, only recently has the chicken become humanity’s most important single source of protein. This course will explore the fascinating saga of the modern chicken and the wicked problems which arose because of its domestication. We will develop critical thinking skills to tackle such moral quandaries as the commercialized meat industry, humanity’s role as a preserver of other species, and the emergence of zoonotic diseases, like avian influenza.
Despite society’s efforts to conserve wildlife and their ecosystems, human activities continue to cause declines, extirpations, and extinctions in wildlife across the globe. In this class, we will investigate the causes for the massive decline of biological diversity and our attempts to counter it through international collaboration in wildlife conservation and management. We will explore the challenges that hinder our capacity to effectively conserve and manage global wildlife populations and the multitude of strategies to help reverse biodiversity loss. Our deeper understanding of the complex global issues in wildlife conservation will allow us to better understand our role as both the problem and the solution.
From the Odyssey to Star Wars, myths are stories which guide us through life. But these stories constantly evolve, as new societies adapt them to their concerns. This course explores how and why myths arise and change, from the ancient to the modern world.
What is the best voting system? With only two candidates, majority rule is clearly the best. When there are more than two, the solution is not so clear. We will examine some important questions in voting theory. Students will be encouraged to ask their own questions about voting and critically examine arguments. Be prepared to think critically and logically about different voting scenarios.
Within a few thousand years of the arrival of humans in North America, mammoths, cave bears, dire wolves, camels, ground sloths and other giants of the Pleistocene were gone. The world changed in unimaginable ways and the continent underwent the most significant transformation since the impact that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years before. In this course we will explore the deep history of people and animals in North America and learn about the demise of the megafauna, our perception of wilderness, how market hunting decimated the last vestiges of the Pleistocene bestiary and think about what it means for life in the Anthropocene.