UNIV 3784-Z81: Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar

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[UConn Stamford]

Instructor: Richard Watnick

Instructor consent required. To request a permission number, email Professor Watnick and include the name of a faculty member in your field who would recommend your participation.

This seminar has multiple faculty session leaders from different departments. There will be a guest session leader for approximately 10 of the weekly meetings, and the other meetings are for open discussion. The topic of the course will be finalized after considering the interests of the students who enroll; past topics include Ideas and Actions and Globalization, Culture, & Current Challenges. Professor Watnick organizes the course and attends all meetings. Each session leader assigns reading material ahead of time and then presents before opening up discussion.

Sample topics from Spring 2019 (Where are we? How did we get here? Where should we go from here?):

  • Jerome Sehulster (Psychology): Self‐fulfillment and maturity
  • Joel Blatt (History): Uncovering Rosselli’s ideas and actions and its relevance now
  • Chris Bruhl (President and CEO of the Business Council of Fairfield County): Implications of Stamford’s location on policies and strategies
  • Mark Boyer (Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Geography): Adapting to climate change: Managing threats in uncertain times
  • Susan Nesari (Honors student): Respecting refugees: Evaluation of integration practices by Connecticut service providers
  • Fred Roden (English): Harari’s 21 lessons for the 21st century
  • Yonatan Morse (Political Science): Authoritarianism
  • Charles Yarish (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology): Harvesting and maintaining the Sound
  • Ricardo Salazar (History): The crisis of Argentine gradualism

50% of your grade is based on the open discussion in class and on HuskyCT as well as the additional discussion of the topic on your final exam. The other 50% of your grade consists of a term paper or project on a topic in your major under the supervision of a faculty member in your major. You and your faculty supervisor will decide upon the topic and nature of your project so that you can progress in your area of interest. Your faculty supervisor will determine this portion of your grade. Professor Watnick will help you connect with a faculty member if needed.