2021-2022 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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IDCE 30106 - Political Economy of Urban and Regional Revitalization
We demand quite a bit of our regional economies: we want them to grow and to provide jobs; we want those jobs to provide a living wage. We want the private enterprises that comprise the urban and regional economies to earn enough profit or generate enough revenue to make significant contributions to workers’ health care and pensions, on the one hand, and to public budgets in order to fund a range of public goods including schools, roads, and environmental stewardship, on the other. In short, we care about the functioning of the urban and regional economy, the outputs of that economy, and the distribution of those outputs. Some metropolitan regions are on an upward trajectory on the “bundle of these indicators” (i.e., providing sufficient jobs at living wages in the context of a metropolitan regional economy where a high quality of life is widely enjoyed). Others, however, are not. This course will take a political economy approach to examining proposals for inventions that are aimed at significantly altering metropolitan regional trajectories.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDCE 30111 - Urban Development: Process and Change
This graduate level course provides students with a framework for understanding the complexity of change in urban environments. The course looks at current challenges and new strategies in cities nationally and internationally, including cities experiencing disinvestment and population loss; environmental and political stress; and/or rapid expansion, among other. The course will pursue several themes throughout: the role of equity in urban development; the challenge of resiliency in the face of changing external forces, and the reality on the ground of local culture, governance, land, and politics that affect outcomes. The course is open to Clark University graduate students and prospective ADP students in their senior year, who would take this as a graduate level course. There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is an elective in the following IDCE concentrations: Conservation and Development; Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging; Youth Development; and Urban Resilience.
Concentrations:
Conservation and Development- Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging- Youth Development - Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 30120 - Analytics & Visualization for Development
This course introduces students to basic methods of analysis and visualization of quantitative data. We begin with an overview of big data in development, theoretical approaches to data analysis, explore some applications in the fields of health and development (among other topics). Students will learn ways of locating, cleaning/wrangling, organizing, analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data from publicly available national and international databases.
This course will merely give students a taste of what data analysis is about, and how you can use it to make effective and well-thought-out decisions. We will not, unfortunately, dig too deeply into analytics, especially not machine learning or AI (although that would be tons of fun!). By the end of the module, students will be comfortable enough with the process of analyzing and visualizing data that they might want to pursue it further on their own.
While no prior statistical knowledge will be assumed, a familiarity with using Excel is essential for success in the course. For those who are not very familiar with Microsoft Excel, they will be required to complete an online (free) training course in the first two weeks of the course.
Success in the course will largely depend on students’ curiosity , patience, and not being afraid to look at the world through a different and potentially unfamiliar analytic lens. Classroom sessions include lectures, discussions, and technical sessions. Course open to IDCE graduate students; ID seniors or ADP students with previous analytics experience. If space permits, graduate students from other departments may request permission to enroll in the class.
Concentrations:
Monitoring Evaluation, and Learning- Health Equity- Healthy People, Healthy Planet- Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-Annually
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IDCE 30121 - Food Systems: Place, Politics and Policy
Agriculture and animal production have changed dramatically over the last century, especially after WWII, bringing higher yields and less expensive food to people. The changes also brought considerable costs to the natural environment and human (and animal) health. The “agribusiness model”, as we have termed the combination of low-cost, industrial, mechanized, fertilizer-intensive food production, has fueled global climate change, which in turn is dramatically shifting yields and costs, and our strategies to feed people. This course will investigate the causes and consequences of the transformation, and alternative pathways to protect communities against the negative impact of such large-scale transformation. We will explore, first, the economic and political determinants of the industrialization of food and animal production: the agribusiness model and its diffusion throughout the world. The drivers of the agribusiness model are highly concentrated corporate entities, which control the production of agricultural commodities, and rely upon vast supply chains to move products from production to the consumer throughout the world. The global control and outreach capacity of such corporate entities is backed-up by a robust scientific and political complex whose main objectives are not necessarily to feed the growing population of the planet. The second section of the course will be devoted to understand and dissect in greater depth the joint effects of global climate change and the agribusiness model on the environment and health of territories, with a focus on trade, gender, health disparities, and food waste. The third section of the course will be devoted to examine the challenges of development for local and regional food systems, with a special emphasis on policy instruments, collective action, and community development. While the focus of the course is on the United States, we examine a variety of topics in a comparative and global perspective. The course has a seminar format.
Concentrations:
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation- Healthy People, Healthy Planet- Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
May be repeatable for credit one time.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
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IDCE 30185 - Sustainability and the Role of Higher Education
Sustainability and the Role of Higher Education Course. This course explores both the theory and practice of sustainability and sustainable development by examining the role of higher education in promoting change toward sustainability. The societal role of higher education involves more than providing formal course instruction for enrolled students; institutions of higher education are also critical places of discovery and innovation, centers for political discourse, and catalysts for political action and social change. This course explores the unique potential that institutions of higher education have to contribute to a sustainability transition. The focus on the university provides a lens for examining how organizations with complex structures make a myriad of decisions with environmental consequences, a context for considering the broad role of education in sustainable development, and a framework and perspective with direct and personal connections for us consider the challenges of promoting sustainability. In addition to reading and writing about the challenges of sustainability and the role of the university in promoting sustainable practices in society, we will engage directly with the challenges associated with promoting sustainable behavior and fostering institutional and social change through team projects right here in the Clark and Worcester communities. Graduate students enrolled in this course should be prepared to take on a leadership role with an associated team of undergraduate students.
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IDCE 30186 - Social Enterprise Practicum
This course involves the operation and organizational development of a 501c3 nonprofit corporation, the Community Development Training Institute (CDTI). The organization is transitioning from historic (1984) to a new governance structure–a student-run and inspired nonprofit, operated by graduate students and alumni at Clark University. The hope is to create a solid base in professional skill areas, to develop relationship networks and begin formulating training and consultancy resources to use in the future. The goal is use CDTI as an institutional base where we can promote mainstream classic and alternative community development tools and implementation strategies. In the process, students seek to shift community development discourse and practice by employing socially and ecologically transformative processes and practices. This will be accomplished by offering consultancy services and offering our innovative skills and ideas to clients. Some of this will be fee based and pro bono. Additionally, we will be promoting alternative tools and strategies by developing training programs for interested community organizations. The students will be responsible for the successful and ongoing operations of CDTI. During the ‘credit period’ with CDTI, students will learn about social enterprise governance which will prepare them for possible board membership after the credit period. During the credit period, students will provide staffing capabilities and consultancy to the CDTI student board. Board membership is solely by invitation only, extended after demonstration of capabilities, post-credit period time commitment, interest, and team-work propensities.
A component of the work will also be grounded in theory with academic elements; namely, exploring state of the art community development strategies, social enterprise and implementation accompanied by corresponding literature and research.
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IDCE 30196 - Special Topics in Community and Global Health
This course is meant to engage in deeper conversations about different topics related to Community and Global Health (GCH). The course will be in a seminar format.
The topics covered range from methods, to theories, to applications from GCH emerging scholarship. May be repeatable for credit.
FALL 2019 TOPIC: Community and Global Health
This course will examine a number of key theories that have been used in health promotion globally (e.g., health belief, stages of change, PRECEDE-PROCEED and social-ecological models, among others). We will draw on real-world examples to explore the strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches. Additionally, students will be introduced to detailed case studies of specific health “interventions”, and will explore why some interventions succeed and others fail. Case studies will largely be drawn from the Global South and will focus, among others, on infectious disease control programs (e.g., TB, malaria), reproductive health (e.g., maternal health), sexual health (e.g., sexually transmitted infections) and child health (e.g., immunization campaigns). The course will discuss these issues from a multi-disciplinary lens that encompasses anthropological, feminist, global health and public health perspectives.
Course Designation/Attribute: No
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 30203 - Program Evaluation for Youth and Community Development Initiatives
This course provides students with skills required to apply research methods to the assessment of youth and community development programs. By gaining exposure to the various types of program evaluation (e.g. process evaluation, impact evaluation, empowerment evaluation, etc.), analyzing evaluation case studies, and working on an actual evaluation of a program. Students will leave this class with an understanding of the importance of and challenges involved in conducting high quality program evaluations. Students will gain enough skill to assist in the development and implementation of evaluations.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Anually
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IDCE 30205 - Climate Change, Energy and Development
This course explores climate change, energy, development and policy using multiple perspectives, disciplines and scales. Fusing perspectives from both the natural and social sciences, this interdisciplinary course will grapple with diverse themes and issues at the intersection of environmental science and policy. Climate change related topics deal with the evolving science of climate change. Energy related themes deal with pro and cons of different forms of energy generation, including an examination of geoengineering and carbon capture and storage. Development dimensions deal with human dimensions of climate change and energy challenges and address ethical and economic perspectives, food and human security. The course also engages with policy and climate action at multiple levels and tracks current developments.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring
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IDCE 30213 - Master’s Final Research Paper
A year long seminar for second-year IDCE master’s degree students writing their final research paper.
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IDCE 30216 - Sustainable Fisheries Management
This course explores the complexities of marine and freshwater fisheries and aquaculture, including basic fish science and monitoring, policy and regulation. The emphasis is on vulnerable fish stocks under international multilateral treaties and policies. A range of scales and perspectives will be used: small-scale fisheries and communities; international fisheries and the Law of the High Seas; and aquaculture including shell fish, shrimp and salmon. Students will use case studies from specific fish treaties as the basis for team research on sustainable fisheries science and policy. The course is highly interdisciplinary and deals with national and international controversial topics such as fish science and monitoring, marine sanctuaries and IUU (illegal, un-flagged and unregulated) fisheries.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDCE 30217 - Economic Fundamentals for International Development
This course is primarily intended for students entering the IDCE masters program. Its objectives are to introduce economic history, as well as microeconomics and macroeconomics to the noneconomist, while illustrating practical applications of these techniques in real-world situations. A flexible seminar format is used, in recognition of the diverse backgrounds and perspectives that students bring to this class.
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IDCE 30222 - Advanced Topics in Development Theory
Advanced Topics in Development Theory. This seminar provides students with an opportunity to engage in an in-depth study of some classical theorists of modernity and development. It aims to establish firm theoretical and textual foundations for the future study of politics, economics, culture and social relations related to “third world development.” Topics vary.
May be repeatable for credit.
Spring 2020 TOPIC: ADVANCED MONITORING AND EVALUATION
This courses is for students who intend to ‘practice’ M&E professionally and who have successfully completed an introductory M&E course (including training in qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation methods), and/or who have substantial prior experience working in program M&E or a closely related field. It will focus on exploring the range of M&E methods and methodologies and M&E systems and will provide opportunities for applying and practicing these modes and methods. The course aims to enable students practitioners to develop deeper understanding of the characteristics of an effective M&E system, review approaches to planning for M&E, including Theory of Change, select and use appropriate data collection methods and tools effectively, consider principles and steps in data analysis and the issue of quality of evidence, toward improved M&E within projects, programs, and organizations. This course will have a substantial professional and applied component which will run concurrently and parallel with the regular weekly course/class meetings and workshops.
Anticipated Terms Offered: typically in the spring
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IDCE 30225 - Grant Writing for Community Developers
Students go through a step-by-step process to gain fundamental grant research and writing skills. Writing problem statements, goals and objectives statements, program activities, evaluation templates, and logic models are covered. Students learn about public and private funding sources. The end product of this seven-week module is a completed grant proposal for an organization of the student’s choosing.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Anually
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IDCE 30238 - Public Communication Seminar
This master’s level course introduces students to public presentation, professional writing, and record keeping skills as used in public and private planning practice and the community development field.
Gain experience verbally communicating professional objectives, research findings, and various viewpoints through improved public presentation skills in informal and formal settings. Obtain necessary tools for producing professional written documents and organized and accurate record keeping principles as it relates to the project management and public administration tasks of planners and community development practitioners. Students will also become familiar with strategies to avoid common communication pitfalls in the field. The class format is structured around various public speaking activities with opportunities for peer and instructor feedback as well short, focused technical writing tasks that reflect practicing planners’ typical assignments
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IDCE 30239 - Microfinance, Gender & Neoliberalism
Today, micro-finance is the dominant policy in the poverty alleviation strategies world-wide. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a Mohammad Yunus, a leader in micro-finance in Bangladesh. Increasingly micro-finance is used as important instrument in development policies concerned with income generation, sustainable development, gender inequality, empowerment, reproductive health, education, good governance etc., Hence, the need to develop increasingly flexible, responsive and sustainable financial products constitutes perhaps the most compelling challenge facing in development interventions. This course will take an in-depth critical look at micro-finance from developmental, political economy and operational perspectives. It is based on case studies and analysis of microfinance models and experiences in different geographical regions in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of micro-finance based financial intermediation in development. It will also examine the strategic planning, implementation and evaluation strategies of micro-finance projects. The purpose is to provide a sound theoretical and practical knowledge of micro-finance.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
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IDCE 30241 - Environmental Toxicology
Focuses on the assessment of hazardous properties of toxic chemicals in the environment and on development of public-health policy. Covers the principles of absorption, distribution, excretion, and toxic action of chemicals on humans; animal testing; and human epidemiology. Also covers assessment of public-health risks on the basis of animal and human test results, development of standards for air and water contaminants, and uncertainty in regulating hazardous chemicals.
Prerequisites: One semester of organic chemistry or permission of the instructor.
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IDCE 30245 - Natural Resource Management
Natural resource management is the planning and operation of ecosystem components and processes for human benefit. Management of natural resources can be approached from many sometimes conflicting perspectives such as exploitation versus conservation. The purpose of this course is to explore the science of natural resource management by examining the fundamental topics that include ecology, climatology, and economics; latest concepts and technology such as mathematical modeling and life cycle analysis; and policy and institutional frameworks such as planning and policy development.
Concentrations
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation - Monitoring, Evaluation, and Effectiveness - Conservation and Development - Healthy People, Healthy Planet - Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDCE 30247 - Development Economics
You simply cannot understand and practice development without having a good grasp of economics. This course is designed to help you understand how economists produce knowledge, and their concepts, models, specific methodologies and analytical processes, so that you will know how they theorize and formulate policies relating to development.
The first part of the course will introduce you to the essential concepts in micro and macroeconomics in order to provide a foundation for understanding development economics. This part will also include a brief history of economic thought from classical to modern period. The second part of the course will explore topics in development economics.
Development economics is the branch of economics that studies theoretical and policy issues relating to economic development in developing countries. Development has been one of the liveliest and thought provoking areas in economics. Over the past two decades there have been many advances in mainstream economic theory, which have allowed economists to reformulate some age-old questions and seek new answers. This course will introduce you to these advances and give you a feel of the debates that have ensued, and their implications for development.
Development economics will take you through an exciting journey that will acquaint you with new ideas and new ways of answering fundamental questions about economic development. These are the very ideas that have enriched our understanding of the processes that ultimately engender economic development. The course has a broad reach and is relevant for scholars and practitioners. It is designed to equip you with the theoretical and applied tools that will allow you to analyze the problems faced by deprived communities across the world in a systematic and analytical way.
We will explore economics development policies since World War II. We will trace the interplay of the theory and the practice of economic development from the state-led, import-substituting industrialization that was the dominant development paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s, to the rise of dependency analysis in the 1960s and ‘neostructuralism’ of the 1970s, the resurgence of market-oriented policies in the 1980s, the ‘second generation’ reforms of the 1990s, and the current questioning of free market economics.
The scope of the course is strictly limited to how mainstream economists think about policy issues relating to development. It will provide an introduction to development economics. Topics covered include:
(a) conceptual approaches to economic development; (b) theories and facts pertaining to economic growth, inequality, poverty, rural-urban transformation, population and human development; (d) development policy issues including, food security, education, health, population, land reform, credit, industrial policy and globalization; governance; conflict and security.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDCE 30250 - People and Places: Theories of Community Development and Planning
This course deepens students’ understanding of social, economic, and political forces that shape places. Students learn to critique assumptions, values, and methods of various approaches in order to more effectively apply them to actual cases. Topics covered include political economy of urban areas, race, social construction of space, and planning models and theories.
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IDCE 30253 - Sustainable Communities
Communities around the world are taking a lead role responding to sustainability challenges, including climate change, by pursuing various forms of sustainable communities which seek to re-imagine the relationship between human societies, the built environment, and ecological systems. This course will explore the different approaches to sustainable community development and it will interrogate the assumptions, philosophies, and economic models that underlie these different approaches. It will investigate the many dimensions of sustainability that are valued in lived communities, including ecological integrity, economic security, empowerment, responsibility, and social well-being, and it will consider the extent to which different approaches to sustainable communities support these goals. Case studies will be drawn from around the world.
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IDCE 30262 - Web Mapping and Open Source GIS
This course introduces a variety of open source GIS and proprietary technologies for front-end web development and web mapping. The course emphasizes a hands-on learning approach to real-world problem solving. Various web services and programming languages will be introduced to explore different ways to gather, manipulate, and display spatial data on the web, with the goal of deciding how they can best be used with stakeholders in different contexts.
Prerequisites: Students should have prior programming experience in addition to IDCE 310 OR GEOG 397 OR IDCE 388.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
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IDCE 30274 - Computer Programming for GIS
This course introduces fundamental concepts of computer programming for geoprocessing, spatial analysis and mapping. This course is ideal for graduate students and upper level undergraduates who want to learn about programming skills for GIS. Topics covered include the use of Python and related packages, Python within the ArcGIS environment, the basics of Google Earth Engine, and a series of lectures and activities around understanding user needs and prototyping ideas using Human Centered Design methods. The course consists of technical lab exercises, tutorials, and group work.
Prerequisites: IDCE 302 & GEOG 390 OR IDCE 310 OR IDCE 388 (concurrent enrollment is allowed)
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
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IDCE 30277 - Sustainable Consumption and Production
The increasingly unsustainable pressure on the Earth’s natural systems calls for radical changes in the way people in the industrialized and in the rapidly growing economies satisfy their appetite for goods and services. Some believe that innovation in technologies is our great hope, while others emphasize the need to change the consumption patterns of individuals and societies. Both necessitate changes in institutions, values, and social arrangements. This advanced seminar examines the role that changes in technology, institutions and culture might play in bringing about the necessary change toward more environmentally sustainable development. Four types of innovation are discussed: in the production process, in product design, in function delivery by way of products and services, and in a larger sociotechnical system. The course draws on theories of technological innovation, consumer behavior and institutionalism as well as empirical case studies from the United States, Europe and some developing countries. The course considers the key drivers of change, such as government policy, market forces, cultural norms, activities of mission-oriented organizations, social movements and others.
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IDCE 30282 - Community Based Health Research
This advanced IDCE course will provide students with an overview of community health through a “hands on” experience in conducting research in the field. As a trans-disciplinary course, it will draw on and integrate the theoretical and methodological perspectives of fields including medical anthropology, community and population public health, and medicine.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annual
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IDCE 30292 - Participatory Development Planning
The course combines participatory theory and practice in a seven week module. The first two classes will cover the rationale for using participatory tools in development planning and action. The second two classes will introduce a wide variety of participatory data collection, analysis, and planning tools. The next two meetings will be conducted in a field setting (probably a Friday night and all day Saturday) in either Manchester or Concord, New Hampshire with Bhutanese refugees. Your role as a member of the class will be to lead exercises in the workshop, using some of these tools. The goal will be to help the refugee community advance from its present state of semi-disorganization all the way through a process culminating in a community action plan that the entire group both supports and will implement. Our final class will be a review of the action plan and an evaluation of the methodology. Grades will be based on field performance and two short (6 pages) papers. One will focus on evaluation of a particular tool and its usefulness in our exercise. The second will be your design of a community planning exercise for an urban setting. Nepali speakers are especially urged to take the course.
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IDCE 30296 - Nonprofit Management
Students who took IDCE 30298 Non-Profit Managment II are not eligible to take this course.
This class will be taught from the perspective of community spirited action associated with civil society. Missions of examined organizations will include social services; economic justice; human rights and advocacy; and housing endeavors covering both programs and projects. Topics will include a coursework related to mission selection and definition; gender-related trends; administrative and governance issues; budgeting; personnel management; public relations; and leadership approaches. These are generally generic topics relevant to both nonprofits and NGOs. The course will prove valuable for students intending to work for-or start-up-a U.S. nonprofit (NP) or an international nongovernmental organization (NGO). The course will compare issues associated with domestic NP and international NGOs. Generally, this skills course will inform the students how to start and/or operate a NP along with the basic core elements of running–or working within a NP or NGO. Also, this course would be useful to those interested in governmental services at the local or regional levels, including potential careers in housing, economic development, equity advocacy, environmental planning or other enterprising nonprofit organization.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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IDCE 30309 - Research Practicum: Health, Communities, and the Environment
This course is a substitute for the individual Masters Final Project course IDCE30213 when the student is working as part of a larger project team. The course is designed to coordinate, guide and implement team project research efforts that are new or ongoing in the Health and Environment IDCE Signature domain. Each student has a specific task and role in the larger team effort, and her/his efforts make a significant contribution to the success of the larger project. The course supports - and is supported by - the ongoing Holliston Health (H2). Project H2 is a multi-dimensional project that draws from environmental science and policy, epidemiology, GIS, hydrology, water engineering, political and social networks, and health anthropology. Students can take the course for 0.5 or 1.0 course credit (as they could with IDCE30213). Students not only learn how to develop their own research focus/questions in the context of the larger research goals, they learn mixed methods for data gathering and processing, as well as valuable team-project collaborative learning that is highly sought-after professionally.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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IDCE 30325 - Controversial and Emerging Environmental Issues at the Science-Policy Interface
This graduate course examines cutting-edge and controversial environmental challenges situated at the nexus of environmental science and environmental policy. Through a series of in-depth case studies, each week we tackle a specific controversial or emerging environmental issue from two perspectives: (1) scientific evidence framing understanding of the issue and (2) policy implications and desirable countermeasures to tackle the issue. By combing both social science and natural science perspectives, we will tackle a broad array of emerging topics at the forefront of scientific understanding and policy action. Topics will include marine plastic waste, urban waste treatment options, nuclear energy and waste, carbon capture and storage, nitrogen use, pesticides (neonicitinoids and glyphosphates), GMOs, methane emissions in agriculture, gas fracking, and natural resource (fish stocks and water) management, and deforestation. We will examine each of these issues from a range of geographical scales and locations. Some cases will be centered on the USA (e.g gas fracking) whilst others will be focused globally (marine plastic waste and fishing stocks). Other cases will involve a multi-national comparison of policy responses (e.g. GMOs, pesticides etc.). Our study of scientific evidence shaping understanding of the nature and dangers of the environmental challenge will highlight scientific uncertainties. It will also contrast differing scientific conclusions regarding the same environmental phenomena. Our study of policy will scrutinize both existing policies in place to manage the specific problem, and new or additional policy actions required for further addressing the problem. This graduate course is of especially high relevance to Environmental Science and Policy students, or other graduates interested in gaining scientific and policy literacy in an array of cutting edge environmental challenges. ES&P major undergraduate enrolments will be considered after consultation with the instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
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IDCE 30326 - Beyond Victims and Villains? Politics of Gender-Based Violence in the “Global South”
Reductionist analyses of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the “Global South”, that often depict women as victims and men as villains, are embedded in the imagery and discourses of International media, politics, and the realm of International development. While GBV continues to be a predicament worldwide, this problematic representation of this region has served to reinforce cultural, religious, political, and moral stereotypes of the “Other.” How do we understand and critique GBV in the “Global South”? How can we acknowledge the seriousness of GBV without contributing to the stigmatization of particular communities and their representation as exceptional? How can GBV be understood and analyzed in a way that does not (re)produce the Orientalist and xenophobic stereotypes of victims and villains? This course aims to look at the politics of GBV as a highly complex and variable phenomenon, which intersects with a web of political, structural, and legal systems of oppression and power relations operating locally, regionally, and globally (Merry, 2011). The course will examine these structures of power that continue to shape and complicate the experiences of women and men in the “South” with violence. Reductionist analyses of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the “Global South”, that often depict women as victims and men as villains, are embedded in the imagery and discourses of International media, politics, and the realm of International development. While GBV continues to be a predicament worldwide, this problematic representation of this region has served to reinforce cultural, religious, political, and moral stereotypes of the “Other.” How do we understand and critique GBV in the “Global South”? How can we acknowledge the seriousness of GBV without contributing to the stigmatization of particular communities and their representation as exceptional? How can GBV be understood and analyzed in a way that does not (re)produce the Orientalist and xenophobic stereotypes of victims and villains? This course aims to look at the politics of GBV as a highly complex and variable phenomenon, which intersects with a web of political, structural, and legal systems of oppression and power relations operating locally, regionally, and globally (Merry, 2011). The course will examine these structures of power that continue to shape and complicate the experiences of women and men in the “South” with violence.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-Annually
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IDCE 30330 - Approaches to Community Health
What makes a community healthy? Why do some community members thrive, while others consistently experience health disparities? The social determinants of health - the conditions in which people are born, live, work, play and age have significant impact on individual and population health. Similarly, the factors that influence community health and wellness are complex and inter-related such as health literacy, availability of services, culture, and social and behavioral norms, these issues require multi-disciplinary coordinated approaches across sectors. In this course, you will learn:
How to assess a community’s health and how to identify needs using evidence-based methodologies
How to identify and select evidence-based approaches to solve problems
How to empower and mobilize community members to engage in community health improvement efforts
Paying particular attention to vulnerable populations, we will examine challenges and barriers communities face, as well as current movements that promote social justice and health equity across a variety of current and emerging threats to community health.
Concentration
Healthy People, Healthy Planet
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annual
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IDCE 30334 - Special Topics
This course addresses current or timely topics, that are in a pilot phase or that are known to be one time offerings. Special Topics are unique for each instroctor and vary from semester to semester. May be repeatable for credit.
SPRING 2022 TOPIC COMMUNITY POWER, COMMUNITY CHANGE - This course examines how communities build power for change. With an equity lens, the course will introduce students to the processes of structural change that improve community well-being and build community leadership. We will focus on community-driven solutions that change public policy and practice to address disparities in income, health, housing, education, and food access. Students will learn how different “bottom-up” strategies such as civic engagement, policy advocacy, community organizing, participatory action research, and public-private coalitions facilitate these changes and what diverse impacts they have on individual and institutional change. While this course draws primarily from a U.S. context, it covers theories, concepts, and practices that apply to local and global communities.
Fall 2021 TOPICS SECTION 01- TITLE: MODELING CLIMATE CHANGE & WATER RESOURCES fOR SUSTAINABILITY
(One Unit)
Climate change poses an enormous challenge to our management of water resources and related sectors and issues. At the same time, factors such as population growth, land use and land cover change, construction of new infrastructure, and changing social habits also influence water resources and must be considered in the design of sustainable systems. Water resources influence all major development sectors: human health and wellbeing; livelihoods and economy; energy systems; food systems and agriculture. They are also critical to conserving ecosystems and biodiversity. This interdependence of multiple sectors on water makes it a ‘gateway’ into climate-change resilience and sustainability.
Cities, towns and their surrounding regions are experiencing the impacts of climate-change, climate variability and instability in ways that reflect the interdependence of issues and sectors: changes in rainfall and/or temperature can have cascading impacts. To adequately understand and anticipate these impacts in a given place requires us to build models using social, economic and ecological data (qualitative, quantitative, geospatial and narrative). This process needs to be participatory and collaborative, involving diverse stakeholders who co-create the model(s), derive understanding from them, and apply them to consider ways to respond to impacts and problems.
In this graduate seminar course, we will look at climate change impacts on water resource management in mega cities and their surrounding regions, using Mexico City Metropolitan Area as an active case study. In the first part of the course, we will review existing models, including assumptions and data sources. Next, students will learn how to build their own system dynamics models using VenSim®. A major Team Project component acts as a Practicum: student teams tackle real cities and regions, then compare and contrast findings. As well as elucidating interdependencies, models will explore the implications of future climate scenarios projected by the IPCC. In the last part of the course, we will explore adaptation measures including policy interventions that would enhance the sustainability of water resources.
The course is designed to attract students from ES&P, ID, CDP, GIS, and Geography programs. It serves as an elective for several IDCE concentrations: Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation, Environment & Development, Urban Resilience, and Health People/Healthy Planet. It is also a Methods/Skills class; employers increasingly value the ability of graduates to model systems.
SECTION 02- TITLE: THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)
(One Unit)
In 2016, the governments from around the world agreed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities, and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. In this course, we will look at the origin and key concepts of sustainability and the nature and relevance of the SDGs. Through a series of case studies, we will then examine how the SDGs are understood by different actors and across levels of governance, investigate the strategies and applications focused on achieving the SDGs, and consider challenges related to the measurement of progress. This course is multidisciplinary in nature and experientially-focused. This course is designed to span IDCE concentrations through projects that fit within any given IDCE graduate concentration.
SECTION 03- Title: THE NEC COUNCIL COLLABORATIVE
(Half Unit)
The NEC Council Collaborative introduces students to the theory and practice of council, deepens their engagement with the literature of climate change, and prepares them to help facilitate sessions of the Council on the Uncertain Human Future.
As a collaborative, the course is shared and horizontally organized. Conducted as a council and beginning with the CUHF process, its further structure and content are generated collectively, building especially on questions and problems generated by the students in the initial sessions.
Council practice is at the core of the New Earth Conversation, a curriculum initiative at Clark designed to explore the role of universities in the context of our unfolding climate disaster.
NEC asks, What are universities called to be and to do at this moment? How can we best prepare students to face the existential challenges of these times? The Council Collaborative goes to the heart of these concerns, while modeling one distinctive way of answering them.
Before enrolling in this course, students must have participated in one or more UHF Councils and receive permission of the instructors.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 30338 - RUMORS, CONSPIRACIES, MISINFORMATION, AND HEALTH
Why do rumors and conspiracies attract so many believers despite facts and evidence? What are the implications of rumors, conspiracies, and mis/disinformation and beliefs on health? How do we, as community health practitioners, inform the population on these important health matters, despite some people’s unwillingness to believe the counter evidence? What information about race, governing, mistrust of science communicate about society.
In some situations, rumors can have a positive role, lending information on outbreaks, or conveying appropriate caution. But in others, they can have catastrophic effects on individual and community health leading to outbreaks of eradicated diseases and evasion of medical care.
The course will start by looking at the various theories that guide the discussions on rumors, conspiracies, and mis/disinformation, and ways that they are shared and spread. We will then look at specific “controversial” topics that include: vaccination; the spread of HIV/AIDS and other highly infectious diseases; reproductive health; immigrant “invasions”; zombies and vampires during colonialism; “alternative” therapies; organ theft/trafficking; “clean” eating and living; and climate change.
Concentrations:
Health Equity- Healthy People, Healthy Planet- Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging- Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation- Gender and Identity
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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IDCE 30341 - HEALTH PROMOTION AND INTERVENTIONS
This course will examine a number of key theories used in health promotion globally (e.g., health belief, stages of change, PRECEDE-PROCEED and social-ecological models, among others). We will draw on real-world examples to explore the strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches. Students will examine detailed case studies of specific health “interventions”, and will explore why some interventions succeed and others fail. Case studies will largely be drawn from the Global South and will focus, among others, on infectious disease control programs (e.g., TB, malaria), reproductive health (e.g., maternal health), sexual health (e.g., sexually transmitted infections) and child health (e.g., immunization campaigns). The course will discuss these issues from a multi-disciplinary lens that encompasses anthropological, feminist, global health and public health perspectives.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 30360 - Spatial Analysis for Health
This graduate-level course provides an introduction to Geographic Information Science and its application in public health research and practice. Each week incorporates a lecture and a computer lab that focuses on a health-care issue. Topics covered may include mapping disease rates, analyzing health outcomes, access to health care and health resources, environmental justice, exposure assessment, and social determinant of health. Students will learn how to visualize and analyze health-related and demographic data, and how to geocode tabular data. They will have the opportunity to develop their GIS skills using commercial and open source GIS software and to conduct their own independent research on a topic of their interest.
Concentrations
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Effectiveness - Gender and Identity - Health Equity - Healthy People, Healthy Planet
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 30391 - Introduction to Public Policy: Context and Analysis
Nonprofit and public affairs professionals are faced with finding viable solutions to increasingly complex public problems-from raising revenue to fix congested roadways to reducing poverty. To do so they often rely on policy analysts to investigate problems, formulate solutions, forecast outcomes, and choose between competing policy proposals. This course introduces students to the major institutions and processes involved in the development and implementation of public policy in the United States. We will examine why some problems reach the public agenda, why some solutions are adopted and others rejected, and why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail. The course will also explore a number of contemporary issues in American public policy that can impact the work of nonprofit and public affairs professionals such as education, health, social welfare, immigration, and the environment.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually (Module)
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IDCE 30397 - People on the Move Research Studio
Refugee Integration in Worcester
People on the move, including refugees, migrants, and undocumented movers, can be hard to incorporate in standard social science methodologies and difficult to include in participatory research. The first third of this full-semester participatory research studio familiarizes students with innovative techniques for producing knowledge of mobile people’s lives, livelihoods, and concerns in a collaborative way, and promotes understanding of local, state, and national policies for refugee support, integration, or management. During the middle of the semester, students will participate in an action research project with refugee participants, agency staff, and other researchers (project may change from year to year). Analysis of data, write-up, and community sharing take place in the final part of the semester. This year, we will be exploring Refugee Integration in Worcester-Best Practices with community partners and practitioners.
ID or IDCE research methods course - can be taken concurrently
Concentration
Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging
Prerequisites:
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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IDCE 30398 - Innovation and Societal Transformations Toward Sustainability
This course examines the various forms of scientific, social, technical and political innovation required to drive societal transformations towards sustainability. In particular, we will focus upon the way by which science (and universities in particular) contribute to societal innovation through cross-sector networks with various stakeholders from government, industry and civil society. We begin by examining the evolution of the modern research university and the global emergence of the entrepreneurial university and technology transfer to industry. After identifying trends and problems with traditional forms of technology transfer and university-industry collaboration, we will consider the need for alternative forms of university-stakeholder collaborations for tackling complex sustainability problems. From here our course will explore through case studies various emerging innovation attempts around the world to trigger societal transformations towards sustainability. Various analytical lenses used include “living laboratories”, “climate experiments”, “environmental governance” and “sustainability transitions”, in addition to emerging concepts of “co-design”, “co-production” and “co-creation” for sustainability. The examination of real-life partnerships (particularly in the New England region) for spurring innovation towards sustainability will form a key component of this course. Students will also gain firsthand knowledge via field trips to Boston (University of Boston) and the City of Cambridge (MIT and Harvard) and live SKYPE interviews with key actors in various locations across the USA and Canada.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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IDND 011 - Making a Difference
This course will offer a scholarly perspective on “making a difference,” defined as the many varieties of social change ranging from philanthropy to political activism. Students will analyze how others have made a difference in a range of times and places, and will learn skills to make a difference at three levels: in their lives, on the Clark campus, and in the city of Worcester. This is a multi-disciplinary course in which readings will be derived from the fields of sociology, psychology, community development, urban studies, education, social policy, and political science. Themes of personal growth, leadership, collaboration, and activism will be explored. In addition to writing assignments, students will be expected to participate actively in class discussions and experiential exercises, as well as complete a structured service placement in a neighborhood agency. The concluding assignment will be a proposal for community-based social change activity.
Prerequisites: VE placement required
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: unknown
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IDND 015 - CLARK COMMONS: SPECIAL TOPICS
Summer & Intersession Topic: PANDEMIC: FROM HORROR TO HOPE —– COVID-19 may be dominating our lives, but it is hardly the first pandemic in human history. Others, like the plague, cholera, smallpox, and influenza, swept across the globe in earlier periods. Our present experience has only reinforced what we have learned from the past -that pandemics are more than the interaction of a disease and the human body. From pushing developments in science and public health, to inspiring artists and writers, to reformatting economies and patterns of spending, to exposing fissures in our social world, pandemics have fundamentally shaped human experience. This course will provide prospective on COVID-19 by looking at pandemics broadly from a multidisciplinary perspective, including contributions from faculty in history, literature, art history, screen studies, biology, geography, anthropology, and philosophy.
Intersession Topic: COVID, POWER, INEQUALITY —— This interdisciplinary team-taught course uses the idea that COVID-19 can teach us not only about power and privilege - that is, illuminate inequities -but also about human possibility, resilience, and resistance. The instructors’ position is that we, as a society, can neither break with the past nor imagine the world anew without social critique and engaging with tools and strategies of activism. The course will focus on power, privilege, and possibility from multiple disciplinary perspectives (sociology, psychology, international development and sociolinguistics and literacy) encouraging students to read broadly and synthesize across disciplines.
Prerequisites: varies
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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IDND 018 - Expository Writing
Centered on student writing, this course teaches the writing process, emphasizing revision. Students write informal exercises and essays. This course is required of some students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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IDND 019 - Fiction on the Fringe: Crimes, Addictions, and Psychoses
This course examines representative works of 20th century fiction (both literary fiction and film) that deal with the social or psychological outcast(s). While studying these works of fiction, students will primarily focus on each author’s/filmmaker’s construction of narrative point of view and characterization, both of which help create the marginalized figures who dominate the novels/films. These marginalized characters allow the authors/filmmakers to question and critique traditional, mainstream society’s morals, values, laws, and codes of behavior. Students will also investigate the novels’/films’ subjective versus objective realities and the differentiation between marginal versus mainstream ethos.
Prerequisites: VE placement or IDND 018
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDND 020 - Writing: Life Among Beasts
This course focuses on human-animal relationships in places shared by both. Many of us have pets or encounter undomesticated creatures in our daily lives, but what are the boundaries that exist between us or define our differences? How are these determined by the spaces we share and our gendered constructions of identities and relationships? Why are certain species demonized in popular narratives? And what is with all those cat memes?
This is a writing-centered course that will emphasize two dichotomous modes in the essay genre: the personal essay and the research essay. Students will engage in formal and informal writing exercises inspired and drawn from course readings and other media. You will learn in a supportive, welcoming environment and build crucial skills-including critical thinking, writing, and debating-that will increase your confidence and success in other courses.
Prerequisites: VE placement or completion of IDND 18
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring 2020
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IDND 021 - Queer Horror
From Frankenstein to Freddy Krueger, the horror monster has thrilled and terrified horror fans for decades. What the general audience might not recognize is how the monster embodies society’s anxieties, particularly those involving sexuality and gender. In this class, we will analyze a selection of horror novels and films, paying attention to how the monsters are “coded” as queer, exploring how the monsters are representations of popular culture’s changing views on queerness, and considering how and why the queer monster has evolved over the decades. We will also consider how a queer audience might have responded to these monsters.
Prerequisites: VE placement required
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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IDND 022 - Writing: Topics Workshop
Topic: Writing: Horror, Serial Killers & the Grotesque
This course aims to understand the location of evil within text and visual media of the past and present: the evil of “the other” and the outsider, versus the evil within ourselves. We will research and discuss infamous names like Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper, Aileen Wuornos and Ed Gein as serial killers of American history. We will study the disturbing annals of Grimm’s fairy tales written far before Walt Disney got his hands on them. Students are encouraged to be creative, insightful and open-minded, especially in narrative voice and analysis within formal and informal assignments assigned throughout the semester.
*Disclaimer: Some of the texts, television and films viewed as part of this class may be disturbing. They may contain forms of violence, harsh language, and horror in its many shapes and sizes in order to understand and analyze human monstrosity both in ancient and current history. If you are at all uncomfortable with the previously stated themes, this course may not be the right fit for you.
Prerequisites: Verbal Expression placement or previous completion of IDND 18
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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IDND 030 - LEEP Fellows Symposium
This course is designed to prepare and support students completing LEEP Projects. The goal of this course is to provide a forum through which students learn how to communicate their experiences completing problem-based projects in various ways to different audiences. The course will emphasize communication skills, project development, proposal writing, professional development, and reflection. By the end of the course, students will be able to integrate their summer experience with both their academic coursework and professional goals, and communicate this in a number of ways to different audiences.
This course is required of all students completing LEEP Projects.
Anticipated Terms Offered: every summer
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IDND 052 - Writing: Sense of Place
This is an introductory course to place studies that fulfills the verbal expression (VE) perspective. In part, the course will help you reflect on where you have been, ground you where you are, and illuminate where you want to go. We will accomplish this through readings, film studies, field expeditions, dialogues, place-based activities, mindfulness practices, and both formal and informal writings.
We will entertain guiding questions: What is a “sense of place” and why is it important? What characterizes Clark and the new city in which we find ourselves? What are the various lenses through which we can explore place? What forms a connection to place and the natural world? How does place shape identity, worldview, and imagination? How can we learn to see keenly and use our senses? How do our values and sense of self intersect with place and nature?
Prerequisites: IDND 018 or Verbal Expression placement
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
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IDND 066 - Global Society
The globalization of cultural, economic and political life is a defining theme of modern existence. Globalization presents the possibility of a common humanity. It also offers the reality of peoples in intimate contact, yet utterly divided. The great international institutions of the 20th century-the United Nations, the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization-try to reconcile these differences. Yet they also re-assert Western dominance. This course provides a wide-ranging, historical and theoretical introduction to these themes of global society. Fulfills the Global Perspective.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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IDND 087 - Challenge Convention, Change our World
The motto of Clark University is “Challenge Convention, Change our World.” But how does societal change happen? What theories and paradigms exist to help us understand when change occurs or fails to occur? This course will use a series of case studies to introduce students to the analysis of societal change. Among the cases we will study are Clark’s role in its Worcester neighborhood, social entrepreneurship in health care, contemporary social movements as a force for change, and efforts to improve educational opportunity in schools. Whatever your intended major, this course provides a foundation for your success at Clark. Students will have the opportunity to develop their own case studies, and will be presented with different ways of building capacity to lead and effect change. We will encourage social learning through dialogue and classroom discussions, lectures, multimedia presentations and guest speakers, capacity-building activities, and written assignments.
Prerequisites: VE Placement
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: unknown
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IDND 101 - American Sign Language I
This course is an introduction to American Sign Language (ASL), a visual/gestural language used by deaf people in the United States and Canada. Students learn visual readiness skills to recognize and express spatial relationships and to use appropriate non-manual signals, such as facial expressions and body movements. Course topics include communicative functions, vocabulary, grammar and cultural aspects of the deaf community. The course also covers functional communication to help students understand the needs and history of the deaf as well as their community. Students learn the differences between American Sign Language and oral communication for the deaf.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year in the fall
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IDND 102 - American Sign Language II
A continuation of American Sign Language (IDND 101), including grammar, basic vocabulary, manual alphabets/numbers, and visual gestural communication. ASL written code will also be covered.
Prerequisites: IDND 101
Course Designation/Attribute: LP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Spring
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IDND 120 - Exploring Liberal Education and the World of Work
Exploring Liberal Education and the World of Work is a course designed to encourage students to explore connections between their Clark education and their future. The goal of this course is to provide a forum through which students learn how to articulate the benefits of a liberal education, broadly and personally. In this course, students will explore, discover, and evaluate their own interests, values, strengths, and skills while examining possible connections to academic programs and employment opportunities. By the end of this course, students should be able to link their Clark education to their personal and professional goals, and communicate this succinctly to multiple audiences.
Course Designation/Attribute: no PLS, but this is an FYI
Anticipated Terms Offered: spring
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IDND 121 - Future Building: Mindfully Navigating Success at Clark and Beyond
This course, offered by the Dean of the College, supports students where the first-year experiences of the FYI and Navigator leave-off. Students will learn and practice tools of mindfulness and contemplation that will foster reflection on their college experiences, greater self-awareness, and avenues of experiential learning and career choices aligned with their strengths, values, and sense of purpose. We will address career readiness competencies, specifically that of self-development, and Problems of Practice methods to design a path of successful academic and personal engagement at Clark and beyond.
Interdisciplinary readings will span literature, philosophy, psychology and be literary, nonfiction, and scientific in nature. Various learning methods will be used including mindfulness practices, reflective writing, small-group dialogue circles, and other student-centered, team building activities. Students will engage with DOC staff, peers, and faculty and community partners in discovering pathways toward enrichment and involvement. All will be approached through a lens of equity and inclusion regarding the selection of course materials, teachers, and visitors to ensure a compassionate, intimate setting where students from different demographics are given equal voice in dialogue to explore the following questions:
How can mindfulness and reflection benefit my wellbeing, my intentions, and my actions toward academic and career exploration? Who am I and what strengths and gifts do I offer? What do I believe in and feel strongly about? How can I better attune my actions and choices to my values? What constitutes a good, successful life, and what role does a sense of purpose and community play? How do I choose academic and co-curricular experiences that lead to self-discovery regarding majors and career exploration and grow my skill set? Who can support me on my path toward gaining opportunities at Clark and beyond aligned with my gifts, values, and aspirations?
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every spring
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IDND 140 - Race, Health, and Social Justice in United States History
IDND 140: Race, Health, and Social Justice in United States History
Students will examine the inextricable connectedness of race and racism to medicine, science and health care throughout United States history. Race and health will be studied as historical phenomena that rely on the constructions, productions and experiences of each other. Despite examining race writ large, we will focus on the African American experience within the medical and health services delivery system of the United States. Students will explore how public health, medical, and scientific authorities have conceptualized, portrayed and treated African Americans as both individual “patients” and as a “racial” group, writ large. We will also explore how political and cultural authorities have used health and medical sciences to enact racist ideas and policies. Furthermore, students will assess the ways in which individual African Americans and predominantly African-American organizations have earned for themselves quality and equitable health care services, thus constituting an important American social movement. African-American doctors, nurses, scientists and political activists play important roles in many of the histories that students will read and discuss. This course progresses chronologically and thematically. It is designed to be topical, not comprehensive.
Course Designation/Attribute: Historical Perspective (HP)
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall 2017
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IDND 200 - Advanced Topics in Gender, Race, and Area Studies
SPRING 2020 Topic: Sports & Physical Fitness in U.S. History
This course examines the development of physical fitness, athleticism, and competitive sports in America from the antebellum period to the present. Students begin the course with a chronological and thematic examination of the most popular sports in U.S. history. Students will also explore how physical fitness, team sports, and athleticism have reflected and informed issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and international politics throughout U.S. history. Utilizing this intersectional lens, students closely examine the historiography on boxing/organized fighting, baseball, basketball, and bodybuilding/weightlifting. Throughout the second half of the course, students will complete a research project on their favorite sport or a topic of interest in physical fitness. Students will work closely with the instructor to choose a topic that reflects both their interests and themes of the course. May be repeatable for credit.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP, DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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IDND 215 - Collaborative Learning: Facing the Uncertain Human Future
Collaboratives are an opportunity for students, faculty, and community partners to engage in genuine inquiry and a collective search for insight as they pursue a deeper understanding of the current and future challenges posed by a changing climate. Collaboratives rely on horizontal learning and shared responsibility for the scope of questioning, an iterative learning process, and engaged praxis. Participants will begin their collaborative experience in an initial session of the Council on the Uncertain Human Future. From that common ground, members of a Collaborative will spend a semester moving through the following three questions:
- What is the issue, question, dilemma that we most want to grapple with?
- What do we need to know now?
- What do we choose to do, given what we know?
For the duration of the collaborative experience, collaborative members will participate in a cycle in which they move from reflection and discernment to observation, application, action, and a return to reflection. Collaboratives are intended to be dynamic, emergent, and iterative, therefore the direction of inquiry, the process of discernment, and the arena of action or intervention will be determined by collaborative members. The collaborative experience is designed to build a learning community in which students, faculty, and community members practice establishing horizontal relationships of teaching and learning in which they grapple with an issue or problem of collective concern.
Course Designation/Attribute: NA
Anticipated Terms Offered: 1 or 2 annually
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IDND 297 - Honors
Readings and research for students in the honors program. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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IDND 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic (in an area not covered in regular courses) approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Summer
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IDND 1220 - Horror, Homicide & the Grotesque
This course aims to understand the location of evil within text and visual media of the past and present: the evil of “the other” and the outsider, versus the evil within ourselves. We will research and discuss infamous names like Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper, Aileen Wuornos and Ed Gein as serial killers of American history. We will study the disturbing annals of Grimm’s fairy tales written far before Walt Disney got his hands on them We will journey through the myths and realities of witchcraft and witch-hunts as well as the roles that gender and age play upon each. Students are encouraged to be creative, insightful and open-minded, especially in narrative voice and analysis within formal and informal assignments assigned throughout the semester.
*Disclaimer: Some of the texts, television and films viewed as part of this class may be disturbing. They may contain forms of violence, harsh language, and horror in its many shapes and sizes in order to understand and analyze human monstrosity both in ancient and current history. If you are at all uncomfortable or triggered by something within this course, please seek me out and we can figure out an alternative assignment.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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IDND 1300 - Game Over: Narrative in Video Games
We will take a comprehensive and analytical approach to a common leisurely activity. This course will examine a variety of videogame genres, from side-scrollers and first-person-shooters (FPS) to roleplaying games (RPGs). Each offers a unique player experience, as well as varying degrees of interactivity within the story. Close examination of recorded gameplay footage and critical texts by an array of social, cultural and gaming scholars will inform our investigation of videogames as a continually evolving art form.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IDND 1630 - Another Way of Seeing: The World View of the Bible
We will see how a particular way of looking at God, the world and the nature of humanity emerges by tracing the historical development of the people of Israel through to the early followers of Jesus. This way of seeing will provoke thought, challenge our own presuppositions and engage us in lively conversation about the bible and its meaning. This course assumes no prior knowledge of the Bible, but will require students to interact with the biblical material by reading significant portions of it from each of its different genres. The readings, discussions and presentations will challenge students to let the Bible speak for itself and draw their own conclusions accordingly. Students will also explore areas of personal interest and share their discoveries with the class.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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IDND 2000 - Special Topics: Interdisciplinary
This course addresses current or timely topics, that are in a pilot phase or that are known to be one time offerings. Special Topics vary from semester to semester.
May be repeatable for credit.
SUMMER 2017 TOPIC: YOUTH CULTURE IN CUBA - This course will address topics related to youth culture in modern Cuba, including opportunities for youth to express themselves creatively, socially, and politically. Readings for this course will range from scholarly articles, newspaper articles and blogs, to documentaries on Cuba’s economy, political structure, history, and culture. This course includes travel to Havana, Cuba from June 18-June 27, 2017. In Cuba, students will participate in lectures, site visits, and service learning opportunities regarding youth culture. There is a fee of $2,680 associated with this course. To register for this course, students must have successfully submitted an application and been approved as a program participant in February 2017.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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IMED 3000 - Interactive Media Seminar I
Working with a faculty mentor, students will begin to explore and develop their academic research focus and project in interactive media. Faculty will provide customized readings, assignments, and opportunities for students to explore and advance their understanding of specific areas of interest in interactive media. Students will engage in extensive research and collaborate in teams. On a regular basis, students will exchange ideas and stories about their work and constructively critique their own and each other’s work. Students will also work individually to complete an independent project/deliverable that they will present/showcase at the end of the course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall/spring
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IMED 3100 - Interactive Media Seminar II
Working with a faculty mentor, students will build on their work from IMED 3000 to further develop their academic research focus and project in interactive media. Faculty will provide customized readings, assignments, and opportunities for students to explore and advance their understanding of specific areas of interest in interactive media. Students will engage in extensive research and collaborate in teams. On a regular basis, students will exchange ideas and stories about their work and constructively critique their own and each other’s work. Students will also work individually to complete an independent project/deliverable that they will present/showcase at the end of the course.
Prerequisites: IMED 3000 - Interactive Media Seminar I
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall/spring
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