Featured Courses

UNIV 3784-Z81: Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar

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[UConn Stamford]

Instructor: Lori Gresham, Ph.D. 

Honors students are able to enroll without a permission number. Non-Honors students who are interested should email kaitlin.heenehan@uconn.edu for more information. 

Mondays, 3:35-6:05pm, UConn Stamford, in-person

This course invites mid-career Honors students to explore their personal intellectual interests, to expand their knowledge of research approaches within various fields of study, and to examine topics with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. As an interdisciplinary seminar serving Honors students of many majors and led by scholars from a variety of disciplines, an important goal of the course is to cultivate comparative conversations across fields of specialization.  The successful student will present sophisticated and developed ideas in a manner sufficiently generalist to promote learning and innovation across subject areas. Students will also create a plan of action to expand their learning and build their skills and knowledge beyond this course. This plan will include individualized goals for completing the Honors thesis and learning goals for beyond graduation. This course will help support students within a community of scholars as they pursue Honors undergraduate research at UConn Stamford.  

Sample course schedule for fall 2023 (subject to change):

Week 1 – Welcome & Getting to Know You

Week 2 – Guest Speaker from the Library, Using the CRAAP method to assess sources, Brainstorming areas of interest with “Mind mapping”

Week 3 – Faculty Speaker Panel #1 (A panel of faculty members/experts will describe research in their field, including how DEI informs current research)

Week 4 – Faculty Speaker Panel #2

Week 5 – Guest Speaker from Enrichment Programs/Advising, Developing a Learning Plan

Week 6 – Guest Speaker from the Writing Center, Writing within your discipline

Week 7 – Honors Alums Guest Speakers Discussion of their Honors theses and careers

Week 8 – Guest Speakers on the Important of Life-Long Learning

Week 9 – Discussion on Research presentations from various disciplines

Week 10 – Who Has a Seat at the Table? The importance of representation in all fields

Week 11 – Minority Voices in Literature

Week 12 – Student TED Talks

Week 13 – Student TED Talks

Grading will be based on Participation/Engagement and Assignments. Assignments are likely to include: Attending a Getting Started in Undergraduate Research workshop, Identifying reliable sources assignment, creating a Quick Guide for writing within your own discipline, writing Reflections, presenting a “Ted-Talk” style presentation, and crafting a future Learning Plan.

UNIV 3784-890: Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar

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[UConn Stamford]

Instructor: Annamaria Csizmadia, Ph.D. 

Honors students are able to enroll without a permission number. Non-Honors students who are interested should email Dr. Csizmadia for more information. 

Mondays, 3:35-6:05pm, UConn Stamford, in-person

This course invites mid-career Honors students to explore their personal intellectual interests, to expand their knowledge of research approaches within various fields of study, and to examine topics with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. As an interdisciplinary seminar serving Honors students of many majors and led by scholars from a variety of disciplines, an important goal of the course is to cultivate comparative conversations across fields of specialization.  The successful student will present sophisticated and developed ideas in a manner sufficiently generalist to promote learning and innovation across subject areas. Students will also create a plan of action to expand their learning and build their skills and knowledge beyond this course. This plan will include individualized goals for completing the Honors thesis and learning goals for beyond graduation. This course will help support students within a community of scholars as they pursue Honors undergraduate research at UConn Stamford.  

Sample course schedule and Assignments (tentative for fall 2024): 

Week 1 – Welcome & Getting to Know You
Week 2 – Guest Speaker  – Identifying reliable sources, Mind-mapping areas of interest
Week 3 – Faculty Speaker Panel #1 (A panel of faculty members/experts will describe research in their field, including how DEI informs current research)
Week 4 – Faculty Speaker Panel #2
Week 5 – Guest Speaker from the Writing Center, Writing within your discipline
Week 6 – Guest Speaker from Enrichment Programs/Advising, Developing a Learning Plan
Week 7 – Honors Alums Guest Speakers Discussion of their Honors theses and careers
Week 8 – Discussion on Research with potential field trip
Week 9 – Guest Speaker on the Important of Life-Long Learning
Week 10 – Who Has a Seat at the Table? The importance of representation in all fields
Week 11 – Minority Voices in Literature
Week 12 – Student TED Talks
Week 13 – Student TED Talks

Grading will be based on Participation/Engagement and Assignments. Assignments are likely to include: Attending a Getting Started in Undergraduate Research workshop, Identifying reliable sources assignment, creating a Quick Guide for writing within your own discipline, writing Reflections, presenting a “Ted-Talk” style presentation, and crafting a future Learning Plan.

ANSC 5618: Probiotics and Prebiotics

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Graduate courses act as Honors credit, as long as you earn a grade of B- or higher.

Instructor: Mary Anne Amalaradjou

Recommended preparation: MCB 2610 (can be taken concurrently) or equivalent background in microbiology.

Interested to learn more about probiotics/prebiotics and how they are good for your health?

This course will provide an overview on probiotics, prebiotics and the microbiome, their biology health benefits and applications in human and animal health Commercially available probiotic and prebiotic supplements and functional foods will also be discussed.

Note: ANSC 5618 is cross-listed with ANSC 3318. Enroll in the graduate course in order to earn Honors credit.

MCB 3421: Introduction to Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics (Conversion Opportunity)

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Instructor: Johann Peter Gogarten

Recommended preparation: At least one 2000 level course in MCB.  

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Gogarten welcomes Honors students of all majors. For an Honors conversion, students compile and analyze a sequence dataset of their choice in parallel to the lectures and computer lab exercises. This will include databank searches, multiple sequence alignment, and phylogenetic reconstruction.

Evolution of biomolecules and application to molecular data analysis and the design of new molecules. Topics include selfish genes, molecular innovations, data bank searches, alignment of sequence and 3-D protein structures. Course includes lectures, discussions and computer lab exercises.

MATH 3094: Mathematics & Politics: Voting, Fair Division, and Conflict

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Instructor: Myron Minn-Thu-Aye

Prerequisites: MATH 2710 and instructor consent.

This course applies mathematics to shed light on problems in the realm of politics, both domestic and international. We begin with a study of voting systems, including both electoral and legislative processes. By formalizing notions of fairness, we will work towards theorems that will inform just how fair we expect elections to be. Our discussion of fair division will revolve around the problem of distributing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives among the fifty states. We will explore various apportionment paradoxes (e.g. how could an increase in the total number of seats lead to a reduction in the number of seats assigned to a particular state?) through history anddetermine whether these are avoidable in the future. The development of methods to measure the political power of voting blocs and coalitions will inform our analysis of the apportionment problem and lead us to investigate political conflict via game theory.

ANTH 3098-002: Anthropology of Jews and Jewishness (Conversion Option)

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Instructor: Sarah Willen

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Willen welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. 

What does it mean to be Jewish …
… in Cuba? … in Ethiopia? … in Turkey?
… if you’re an atheist? … LGBTQ? … a convert?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this course, which will tap into the rich anthropological scholarship on Jewish life and Jewish communities around the world.

No prior knowledge of Judaism is required. Prior coursework in anthropology or sociology is helpful but not required. Question? sarah.willen@uconn.edu

Pending approval, this course may count toward the major or minor in Judaic Studies and/or as an ethnographic course toward the major in Anthropology.

ANTH 3098-50: Anthropology and the Writer’s Craft (Conversion Option)

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Instructor: Sarah Willen

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Willen welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. 

In this seminar, we will dive deeply into classic and cutting-­‐edge anthropological writing – and try our own hand at various genres of writing, in workshop format. Together we will engage critically with the texts we read and reflect on the following questions:
• How, why, and for whom do anthropologists and other social scientists write?
• What genres and writing styles are available to anthropologists, and how do they differ?
• What distinguishes strong – and weak – writing?
• How can deep engagement as readers, and a serious commitment to the revision process, help us become better writers?

The seminar is geared primarily toward advanced undergraduates who want to explore the range of contemporary forms of writing – and become better and more effective writers themselves. Prior coursework in Anthropology is helpful but not necessary. Writing activities will include ethnographic sketches, book reviews, peer review of colleagues’ writing, and blog posts / op-­‐eds for public audiences.

Questions? sarah.willen@uconn.edu.

HIST 3559: History of Childhood in the United States, 1620-Present

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Recommended preparation: HIST 1501 or 1502 or 2100.

This course will examine the history of childhood in the United States from the colonial era to the present. It will consider both the actual experience of children and the changing ways in which adults have understood this phase of life. Readings will include eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and fiction, in addition to scholarly studies. Students will be expected to produce a research paper on a subject of their choosing, focusing on childhood before 1970.

SOCI graduate classes Spring 2020

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Graduate courses act as Honors courses, with Honors credit awarded for a grade of B- or higher.

The Sociology department invites Honors students to consider the following graduate courses. For a permission number to enroll in any of them, email the instructor.

SOCI 5203: Quantitative Research I

Instructor: Jeremy Pais

This is an introductory social statistics course for graduate students. The topics covered in this course form the foundation of modern quantitative social research. The primary goal of the course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of statistical reasoning and to the role of statistical methods in social research. Topics include linear regression, hypothesis testing and model selection; regression diagnostics; non-linearity and functional form; mediation and moderation effects; path analysis; and factor analysis.

University Honors Laureate: STEM

SOCI 5231: Qualitative Research I

Instructor: Nancy Naples

This course will emphasize the relationship between epistemology, methodology and method begun in the fall semester. We will also discuss contemporary debates in qualitative methodology and critical perspectives on qualitative methodology including feminist, queer, Third World, indigenous, and postcolonial approaches to social research. We will also explore the design and application of different methods including interviewing, the case method, institutional ethnography, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, content analysis, policy analysis, mixed methods. The readings for the course are designed to assist you in locating your own work within the larger sociological tradition.

The class will include an intensive workshop in use of NVivo for data analysis and conducting research using various media including online and newspaper sources led by Kate Ragon (UConn ABD).

University Honors Laureate: SS

SOCI 5515: Sociology of Immigration

Instructor: Bandana Purkayastha

Do you want to learn about immigration as a terrain of struggle, shaped by forces of inclusion and exclusion? We will use a decolonized approach to the sociological study of immigration by focusing on scholarship from the global South and North. We will focus on internal and international migration, examine migration “by choice” and forced migration (including human trafficking), and examine the racialized/gendered/class/sexualized structures that shape policies and practices towards migrants. We will examine 20th century concepts such as assimilation but we will emphasize 21st century discussions such as changing governance of migrants (including detention) migrant and refugee activism and resistance amidst questions of their human security within national and transnational contexts. The cases will be drawn from the US, selected Asian, European, South and Central American, and African countries.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M

SOCI 5601: Gender and Sexualities

Instructor: Mary Bernstein

This course explores the social organization, construction, and politics of sexualities with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) experiences and the intersection of sexualities, gender, race, age, and class. We look at how institutions, identities, and discourses interact with, are regulated by, and produce sexual meanings. We examine the ways in which sexuality and desire are constituted through the state and the political economy as well as the ways in which sexuality serves as an axis of domination. Other topics include sexuality and immigration, sex work, transnational sexuality, sexuality and masculinity, and adolescent sexuality.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M

SOCI 5895-002: (Special Topics) Genders and Globalizations

Instructor: Manisha Desai

“Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights,” entered the global human rights discourse at the Second UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 as a critique of the gendered nature of Human Rights discourse and practice. In this seminar we will study the history of women’s mobilizing around the world that led to this articulation; how it has or has not influenced human rights theories and practices; how the gendered critique might perpetuate other inequalities even as it challenges gendered ones; and what it has meant for global gender justice specifically and social justice more generally.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M

HRTS 3298-003/DMD 3998-003: Social Documentary in Theory and Practice

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Instructor: Catherine Masud

This is a special opportunity to learn from an internationally award-winning filmmaker. 

This course aims to open students’ eyes to the tremendous power and possibility of the documentary form as a vehicle of social discourse and change. The first half of this course will examine the documentary from a historical, ethical, and aesthetic perspective, providing a theoretical grounding for students with a special interest in documentaries that address social and political themes. Some of the topics to be addressed include the evolution of the documentary genre, the modes and models of documentary, the rhetorical, narrative, and poetic documentary ‘voice’, and the question of ‘social impact’. Major milestones of the non-fiction genre will be studied along with lesser-known short form documentaries that illustrate specific aspects of technique, style, and content. The second half of the course will provide students with a practical framework for discovering their own documentary voice. Students will be guided through the process of pre-production, shooting and editing as they create their own short form documentaries on a social issue of their choice.

University Honors Laureate: This Variable Topics course will count toward the Arts & Humanities category.