Sophomore Seminars
Sophomore Seminars are interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary courses that integrate approaches and methods from two or more disciplines. Students are exposed to multiple modes of thinking about subjects, concepts, and problems, and engage in evaluating complementary and competing ways of knowing.
The Sophomore Seminar offered in Fall 2012 is:
GNED-234 Our Digital Planet – Jill Klein, Information Technology
As digital technology continues to change the ways we work, live and communicate, digital citizens must understand the implications of accessing, managing, exchanging and disseminating information electronically. Fair information practices, ethical, legal, privacy and security issues will be introduced through course readings and lectures, combined with virtual labs and discussions of current events. Students may apply the course credit toward either Area 3 or Area 4 of General Education.
Past Sophomore Seminars
GNED-2125-001 Science and Literature: Bridging the Two Cultures - Nathan Harshman, Physics & Richard Sha, Literature
C.P. Snow described the polarization in western intellectual life into "Two Cultures," with literary intellectuals and physical scientists straddling a vast gulf of non-communication. Although the different methods of the disciplines can create tension, they also can provide complementary perspectives on the big questions, like "What is life?", "What is matter?" and "What is thought?". We will negotiate across the gulf by exploring historic and modern texts by Mary Shelley, Benjamin Franklin, and Richard Powers, and by applying methods across disciplinary lines. Students may choose to use this course for Area 1, 2 OR 5.
