[UConn Stamford]

Requires ENGL 1007, 1010, 1011, or 2011 as a prerequisite or co-requisite  

This interdisciplinary course examines the social, economic, and cultural influences on youths’ interactions with, and use of technology for formal and informal learning. Examples include media literacy, digital divide, technology in education, and cyberbullying. Through discussion, lectures, and application of relevant research and social science theories, students will think critically and creatively about issues that have emerged since the rise of the World Wide Web during the 1990s and the growth of social media during the early part of the 21st century. The impact of these issues on youth and their families will also be explored.

Trouble registering? This class has a catalog-level prerequisite of First-Year Writing. If you are an Honors student who will be using First-Year Writing as a co-requisite (by taking at the same time as DMD 2620), you may register by emailing honors@uconn.edu and including (1) your name; (2) your 7-digit Student Admin number; (3) your registration “pick time”; (4) the course number and section; (5) the class number from Student Admin; and (6) confirmation that there are seats available in the course.

[UConn Storrs]

This course will introduce students to the sociological perspective of society in global perspective. The course will focus on the economic, social and cultural processes that shape contemporary society and will help students understand the links between their personal experiences and larger social forces by focusing on the transnational social relationships in which they are embedded. Students will learn to think critically about the causes and consequences of social inequalities and the social construction of human life across the globe.

This class will include active learning, peer mentoring, debates on controversial topics, and engagement (via Skype and blogs) with scholars and students in other parts of the world to help students develop global sociological imaginations.

Sources for course materials and topical coverage include sociology; environmental studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and human rights.

[UConn Storrs]

This course will link the behavioral presentation of communication disorders to an understanding of the neural architecture supporting speech, language, and hearing abilities. This course will consider communication disorders from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing together an understanding of speech and language processing from the domains of psychology, linguistics, neurobiology, and clinical fields. The course will cover numerous communication disorders including developmental disorders (i.e., autism, dyslexia) and acquired disorders (i.e., aphasia, hearing impairment). For each disorder, an interdisciplinary description of etiology, function, and rehabilitation will be addressed. In addition, the course will cover common imaging tools including EEG methods (e.g., ERP, ABR) and fMRI. Students will be instructed on the basic neuroanatomical methods of these tools as well as strengths and limitations of each one. The course will highlight multicultural aspects of speech, language, and hearing disorders including multicultural aspects of Deaf culture. The course will consider the broad implications of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Note SLHS 3295 is a “variable credits” course. Please ensure that you register for 3 credits.

Note SLHS 3295 is coded at the catalog level as open to juniors or higher. If you are an Honors student who will have fewer than 54 credits when this course is offered, you may register by emailing honors@uconn.edu and including (1) your name; (2) your 7-digit Student Admin number; (3) your registration “pick time”; (4) the course number and section; (5) the class number from Student Admin; and (6) confirmation that there are seats available in the course.

Open to all Honors students. Register for MGMT 2234 if you have a major in the School of Business. Otherwise, register for BADM 2234.

Do you want to learn how to see things that others don’t see? Do you enjoy developing solutions that others cannot?

The Entrepreneurial Journey will be taught in a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment, where we can all learn from each other. Early on, we will discard pre-conceived notions of what it means to think and act entrepreneurially. You will learn how to think like an entrepreneur and generate value/benefits from that thinking — and how doing so can benefit you in all of life’s environments, not just in business! Through experiential learning, you will acquire useful knowledge and skills in problem-solving and opportunity exploration, and you will have the opportunity to meet with participating entrepreneurial thinkers and learn, first-hand, about their Journeys.

One of the least-known areas of psychology is the science of learning. After decades of research, a great deal is known about the principles that govern the best (and worst) methods for effective study and instruction. Key principles have to do with communication — creating engaging presentations designed to maximize memory. The principles we will learn about will have immediate application for students; many of the most common study strategies are the least effective, while the most effective strategies are non-intuitive. These principles generalize beyond the college classroom, with implications for education and science communication at all levels, with implications for education, health, policy, journalism, and public understanding of complex challenges facing society.

Permission number A permission number is required. Please email honors@uconn.edu and include (1) your name; (2) your 7-digit Student Admin number; (3) your registration “pick time”; (4) the course number and section; (5) the class number from Student Admin; and (6) confirmation that there are seats available in the class. 

[UConn Storrs]

Who are the Jews? While this may seem like a straightforward question, in this course you will find out that Jewish identity can be a bit complicated. To clarify the issue, we will have a look at the history, religion, and culture of the Jewish people, with a special emphasis on the role played by each of these elements in defining “the Jews.” The major literatures of the Jews that have shaped their sense of peoplehood are discussed throughout. No prior knowledge of Hebrew or Jewish culture is required.

This course fulfills General Education requirements in Content Areas I (Arts and Humanities) and IV (Diversity and Multiculturalism). One of its main goals is to enable students to develop a keen understanding of who the Jews are and an appreciation of the diverse cultures and traditions that comprise Jewish civilization. The emergence of Judaic ideas and their influence on Christianity and western civilization will be especially emphasized. The so-called “Judeo-Christian” tradition is broken down so that students understand the values and ideas that both Judaism and Christianity share as well as their distinctiveness. Students get a taste of how the earliest, ancient rabbis thought and how they succeeded in transforming a biblical religion into Judaism as we know it. Along the way, you will be challenged to think “talmudicly/midrashicly,” a critical form of analysis that may very well enable you to appreciate literary traditions belonging to other peoples and cultures in an entirely different light.

[UConn Storrs]

This course will expose students to a conceptual framework at the intersection of law, economics, and philosophy – what we can call the paradigm of rights and harms.  Working within this framework, you will analyze and debate a large set of controversial social issues.  The goal of the course is to encourage you to think critically and rigorously about such issues and to hone your skills in argument and persuasion.  Students from all majors and backgrounds welcome.

Consider a famous legal case analyzed by the Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase.  A physician sets up an examination room with a wall that is shared by a candy factory.  Noise from the candy machinery makes it impossible for the doctor to examine patients with a stethoscope.  If the candy factory has the right to make noise, the doctor is harmed; if the doctor has a right to quiet, the factory is harmed.  Economists and philosophers have developed ways of thinking about who should get the right – and thus who should bear the harm – in cases like these.  Most if not all controversial social issues take exactly this form: who has the right?  Who is harmed, and in what way?  As we will see, in many of these cases, the harms are immaterial: there is no tangible emission like noise.  I may harm you (make you angry or unhappy) by giving a speech in favor of Marxism or by selling my kidney to the highest bidder – even if you are nowhere in the vicinity and learn of my behavior only through a third party.  Should I have the right to engage in these behaviors?  Or should you have the right to stop me?

Recent syllabus

Note This class has a catalog-level pre- or co-requisite of any 1000-level economics course. We can override this requirement. If you are an Honors student, you may request enrollment by emailing honors@uconn.edu and including (1) your name; (2) your 7-digit Student Admin number; (3) your registration “pick time”; (4) the course number and section; (5) the class number from Student Admin; and (6) confirmation that there are seats available in the course.

[UConn Storrs]

Today, there is growing interest in conservation, and social and environmental scientists, alike, have an important role to play in helping conservation succeed for the sake of humanity, the environment and other species. Many researchers in these fields now argue that ecological data and an expansion of ethics that embrace more than one species, is essential to a well-rounded understanding of the connections between human behavior and environmental wellbeing. Inextricably linked to this, as well, is the fact that we, as the species that causes extinctions, have a moral responsibility to those whose evolutionary unfolding and very future we threaten.

Culture and Conservation is an rigorous course investigating the ways in which innovative and intensive new interdisciplinary approaches, questions, ethics and subject pools are closing the gap between the study of culture and the implementation of environmental conservation initiatives around the world. The course emphasizes the importance of increased collaboration between anthropologists, climate scientists, Connecticut communities and conservationists and represents an ongoing shift towards an environmentally focused perspective that embraces not only cultural values and social equity, but also the underlying urgency of local level sustainability initiatives.

The objective for this class is for students to gain a thorough understanding of the diverse social and environmental repercussions of climate change in a local context and be able to apply this knowledge to the design and execution a conservation-based service learning project. In this course you will be encouraged to bring in your own experiences and expertise, for no productive discussion of conservation should be one-sided. This class, as well as the study and implementation of conservation, in general, should be a multidisciplinary effort.

[UConn Storrs]

Archaeobotany, the study of plant use in antiquity, is an inherently interdisciplinary sub-field of archaeology that integrates botany, ecology, archaeology, and social theory to explore a wide range of topics including: 1) the nature, timing, and cause of plant domestication events around the world; 2) the social and environmental dynamics and causes of the transition from hunting-and-gathering to early agriculture; 3) the role that plant-based agriculture, viticulture, or irrigation played in the emergence and collapse of early social complexity, social hierarchies, and the development of the first cities; 4) the ways in which farmers modified plant-based agriculture to suit prevailing environmental conditions and social and economic needs; and 5) the choices that people made in the past to select and procure fuel in order to sustain everyday household activities and emerging craft specializations and industries.

This course integrates lectures on current and emerging trends in archaeobotanical research with hands-on instruction in the use of a range of lab equipment, microscopy, and digital imaging tools commonly found in many labs to address the topics listed above. These tools include: 1) botanical reference material; 2) analytical balances; 3) a muffle furnace; 4) student binocular microscopes; 5) an upright materials microscope with transmitted, incident, and polarized light; and 6) a confocal microscope with NIS Elements imaging software. Hands-on instruction is also provided in the use of a Jeol NeoScope JCM 6000Plus benchtop scanning electron microscope with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy capabilities for elemental mapping. Throughout the course, students actively engage in the research process by using the tools learned in class to design and conduct an individualized research project (selected from a list provided in class).