[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Clarissa Ceglio

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Ceglio welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. Alternatively, Honors students may enroll in the cross-listed graduate section (DMD 5998-010), which will entail additional advanced work.

To paraphrase James Baldwin, nothing can be changed until it is faced. This is certainly true of the inequities that have historically shaped digital media technologies, content, fields, and careers. This class interrogates how racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and other forms of oppression are perpetuated through digital media works, practices, and industries. We will, as the chief learning activity of this class, meet and talk with contemporary practitioners who are challenging and changing the status quo. For six of our class sessions, we will meet virtually and sometimes in-person with industry professionals, artists, and media scholars from film, game, design, cultural and other sectors so that we can learn how issues of equity manifest in their work, creative processes, and professions. Because these practitioners are also part of DMD’s Diverse Perspectives in Digital Media & Design: 2023 Speaker Series, students will also have the opportunity to participate as hosts in the series, learn how to professionalize their on-camera presence, and gain skill in preparing and moderating live Q&A sessions. Interactions with our guests will be supplemented by readings, in-class film screenings, and engagements with other media works. Over the course of the semester, we will reflect on how our own areas of practice can support greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in digital media and design.

To see what we do, you can access the Spring 2022 and 2021 installments of the Diverse Perspectives in Digital Media & Design series here: https://dmd.uconn.edu/major/diverse-perspectives/

Permission number required. Contact: clarissa.ceglio@uconn.edu

University Honors Laureate: This Variable Topics course will count toward the Arts & Humanities category and will also meet the Diversity & Multiculturalism requirement.

[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Tracy Llanera

Is humanity getting better? A way of gauging this question is via the lens of social ethics. Social ethics is concerned about investigating systems of (explicit or implicit) principles governing conduct in human societies. Are we treating ourselves well? Are we behaving in ways that improve the lives of (human and non-human) others as well as our own?  Are we thriving in our communities? Do we owe anything to human beings, even other beings, in the future? This course examines moral and social issues using philosophical argumentation, with the hope of engaging – critically, collectively, and clearly – the challenges raised by the question of human progress.

CA 1.

[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Elena Comay del Junco

Prerequisites: At least one of PHIL 1101, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1105, 1106, 1107 or WGSS 1104, 1105 or 2124.

This course will take a philosophical approach to feminism, understood as a theoretical and political attempt to understand and combat gender oppression. Topics of discussion will include: the idea of “feminist philosophy”; the nature and origins of gender inequality and oppression; the concept of patriarchy; the relationship between gender and sexuality; “woman” and the gender binary; race and gender in the American and global context; class, labor, and “women’s work”; pornography; gendered violence; MeToo and other contemporary feminist movements and reactions to them.

We will read a variety of authors, both historical and contemporary, writing in different contexts and with different backgrounds. Our guiding assumption will be that all of these authors offer important insights *and*  that our task is to read them critically, to ask what they do not say and what is omitted from their arguments. The syllabus will include some or all of: Gloria Anzaldúa, Simone de Beauvoir, Talia Mae Bettcher, Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone, John Stuart Mill, Catherine McKinnon, Christine de Pizan, Gayle Rubin, Ida B. Wells, Monique Wittig, Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan Stryker.

MATH 3094-001: Knot Theory

Instructor: Katie Hall

Prerequisites: MATH 2710/W or 2142Q is preferred. Linear algebra and some familiarity with proofs and/or mathematical maturity is necessary. Email instructor with a description of your mathematical background for a permission number.

The objectives are this course are twofold: First, students will learn how to distinguish knots using both basic knot invariants like 3-coloring and more compli- cated invariants like knot polynomials. They will learn how to determine properties of a knot, for example, whether a knot has an alternating knot diagram, from these invariants. Students will also learn about surfaces, including the classification of orientable and non- orientable surfaces. Finally, we will tie these ideas together to see what surfaces we can get from knots.

Second, this class will introduce students to potentially new proof techniques including how to write an appropriately rigorous proof in a very visual area of math.

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MATH 3094-002: Mathematics for Machine Learning

Instructors: Jeremy Teitelbaum and Kyu-Hwan Lee

Prerequisites: MATH 2110Q, MATH 2210Q, and MATH 2710/W, or permission of the instructor. Email one of the instructors for a permission number.

Machine Learning is a “hot topic” that brings together ideas from computer science, statistics, and mathematics to extract structures from large data sets. As a branch of artificial intelligence, it has applications in building automated systems, identifying patterns and making decisions. Some typical problems in machine learning include image recognition, fraud detection and extracting meaning from text.

Machine Learning uses mathematics as its basic language and main resource of important techniques. In order to exploit the immense possibilities of Machine Learning, a thorough mathematical understanding of many of these techniques is necessary.

In this course we will discuss the mathematical foundations of key algorithms in Machine Learning, and, through lab projects, apply these algorithms to some real world data. This course will incorporate computer work in Python. Necessary programming skills will be taught as part of the course.

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Karen Menuz

Prerequisites: PNB 2274 or 3251 or instructor consent; open to juniors or higher.

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

This course is designed to provide students with an in-depth understanding of sensory physiology. Special attention is paid to the receptors, cells, and physiology in peripheral sensory organs. The course covers senses that are familiar to humans, such as olfaction, taste, vision, touch, and hearing, and those that we lack such as magnetoreception, electroreception, and infrared detection. A comparative approach will be taken, highlighting the common principles and key differences in select sensory systems in vertebrates, invertebrates, and other organisms.

The Honors conversion for this course will involve researching one of the “atypical” senses, such as electroreception, and delivering an oral presentation to the class.

[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: David J. Goldhamer

Prerequisite: BIOL 1107.
Recommended preparation: MCB 2400 (Human Genetics), MCB 2410 (Genetics), MCB 2210 (Cell Biology), or equivalents.

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

MCB 3219 emphasizes molecular, cellular, and genetic mechanisms that regulate animal embryonic development. At a fundamental level, animal development across species is remarkably similar. It is these similarities in gene regulatory networks, signaling mechanisms and cellular processes that will be emphasized. Yet, variations (sometimes enormous) on fundamental themes will also be highlighted to give a sense of the richness and diversity by which embryos of different species accomplish the monumental task of creating the next generation.

By emphasizing both classical and modern experimental approaches, you will gain an appreciation for the process of discovery and a conceptual framework by which to understand and approach the study of development, as well as other disciplines. Knowledge gained from the study of embryonic development is increasingly being applied in a clinical setting in the rapidly growing field of regenerative medicine. Thus, the practical value of understanding how embryos develop is enormous, and the relationship between embryology and clinical application will be a theme that runs throughout the course.