Fall 2024 First Year Seminar

Have you ever watched a film that depicts a major historical event and asked yourself what really happened? Are you a fan of Jet Li or have you wondered what it was like to be a samurai? If you are curious about any of these issues and or some aspect of Asian culture or history, consider taking this course. This course will examine films about Asia's past, including both Asian and Western blockbusters. It will analyze how filmmakers have influenced both Western and Asian perceptions of Asia's past by using artistic license while portraying important events and personalities. Case studies for this Fall 2024 semester will emphasize China and Korea, including Jet Li films and movies about the Korean War. Please note that this course will feature films involving war and violence.

Your Professor

Leander Seah holds a PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, and teaches courses on Asian history, military history, diplomatic history, and modern world history at Stetson. He is currently the Chair of the History Department and has also served as the founding Director of the Asian Studies Program. In terms of research, as an ethnic Chinese citizen of Singapore who lives in the United States, he is particularly interested in migration and diasporas, China-Southeast Asia connections, modern China, East Asian relations, modern Japan, US-China relations, and transnational and world history. He has published journal articles, has presented his work at conferences in the United States and Asia, and is currently revising a book manuscript, Decentering Chinese Identity: China, the Nanyang, and Trans-Regionalism. He has also begun work on another book, a transnational study of the Burma Theater during World War II with emphasis on China, the United States, and Southeast Asia. His accolades include over twenty fellowships, research grants and awards from the Association for Asian Studies, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Center for Chinese Studies in Taiwan, the National Library Board of Singapore, the National University of Singapore, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stetson University.

Step into the dynamic landscape of the Gig Economy, delving into contemporary employment structures such as freelancing and on-demand platforms. Throughout this course, we will immerse ourselves in meaningful discussions on the impact of gig work on individuals and society, guided by the personal narratives in the book Gigged. Simultaneously, we will learn about how the gig economy came to be and how it works thanks to analysis from academics and scholars from various disciplines in The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction. These texts will serve as windows into the experiences of gig workers and lenses through which we critically analyze the economic and social implications of this evolving work landscape. In addition, students will have the opportunity to explore real-world case studies, delving into companies like Uber and Airbnb. While also examining industry data drawn from reputable sources such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This hands-on approach will provide a practical understanding of the gig economy, enabling us to bridge theoretical concepts with concrete examples and statistical insights. The seminar will not only cultivate insights into the world of gig work but also hone foundational skills in reflection, critical analysis, and effective communication.

Your Professor

Alexander Navas currently serves as the Associate Director of Academic Success. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Organizational Leadership from Valencia College, followed by an MBA from Stetson University. As a first-generation college student himself, Alexander intimately understands the challenges and obstacles that can accompany the college journey. His personal experiences have ignited a deep-seated passion for supporting students as they navigate their path through higher education. With a solid foundation in business-centered education, Alexander is eager to merge his skills and knowledge in the classroom, fostering an environment where students can thrive and excel.

How influential is Hollywood? Who decides what appears on our screens? Hollywood has a long history of avoiding official censorship by organizing its own office to control and edit out provocative content before controversy could attract official attention. While we often talk of repressive regimes elsewhere, during WWII Hollywood created its own propaganda films and the government did, in fact, make many decisions about what should or should not be screened to benefit the nation. This course explores the history and morality of movies, the Motion Picture Production Code, the politics of WWII, the Blacklist, the code’s breakdown, and the rise of the rating system. How DID films express ideas in the face of these codes? Last, we will discuss current issues in censorship including marketplace demands and cancel culture.

Your Professor

Nicole Denner, PhD, attended Indiana University for her undergraduate and master's degrees and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Northwestern University. She studied horror films at IU and eighteenth-century Enlightenment literature for her doctorate (they aren't so different after all). She has taught at Stetson since 2001 in both the French and English departments. She is most interested in how and why texts so frequently turn inward and comment upon themselves.

This First Year Seminar will explore charismatic leadership in the 20th and early 21st centuries and the impact these leaders have on their organizations and the causes they espouse. The course will explore the attributes of charismatic leaders who have emerged over the last 100 years, along with the role that their followers play in supporting the leader’s power and mission. The course will also examine the nature of Personalized and Socialized charismatic leaders and explore examples, and implications, of modern cults and causes.

Your Professor

Chris Colwell is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at Stetson University. Prior to his work at Stetson, Professor Colwell served as a teacher, counselor, elementary, middle and high school principal, and as Deputy Superintendent for the Volusia County School Board.

Chris Colwell served as President of the Florida Organization for Instructional Leaders. He was named Florida’s Principal of the Year in 1997. Professor Colwell is a frequent presenter at the state and national level on issues relating to education leadership, innovation, and reform.

Chris Colwell’s scholarly work centers on best practices in educational leadership. He has published three books on the subject; Impact: How Assistant Principals Can Be High Performing Leaders (2015), Mission Driven Leadership: Understanding the Challenges Facing Schools Today (2018), and the Fourth Tier: Leadership and the Power of Charisma (2020)

Sound provides a unique method for learning about any location, especially coastal regions. These regions are home to diverse ecosystems both above and below the water and attract a range of recreation and commercial activities by humans. All of these contribute to the sound of the place or its soundscape. This course applies concepts and methods from acoustic ecology to investigate issues relevant to Volusia County and selected coastal regions around the world. These investigations require an interdisciplinary perspective that draws from environmental studies, musical acoustics, geography, bioacoustics, and digital arts.

Your Professor

Nathan Wolek is a sound artist and audio researcher whose work encompasses electronic music, audio field recording, multimedia performance, and sound design. He is also a two-time Fulbright Scholar, recognized twice by this prestigious academic exchange program (Norway 2012 and Scotland 2021). His music and sound installations feature rapid edits, gradually changing textures, and environmental recordings of personal significance. Wolek has presented his creative work across the United States, in addition to engagements in Korea, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Canada and Brazil. In 2020, Wolek collaborated with the Atlantic Center for the Arts on the launch of Young Sound Seekers. The program creates opportunities for blind and partially-sighted youth to learn about natural soundscapes and audio field recording at Canaveral National Seashore.

Stories told in words and pictures go by many different names all around the world, such as comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, manga, bandes dessinées, fumetti, comix, image-texts, sequential art and graphic narratives. Whatever they are called, comics and their influence are everywhere magazine racks, online, in literary journals, in museum galleries and on movie screens. They have been used to tell the simplest of jokes, create the wildest fantasy worlds and explore the depths of the most profound human experiences. This course will examine the art form that the French call "The 9th Art" in order to: Examine how words and pictures combine to make meanings; Survey a variety of texts from different times and places; Investigate where comics have come from, where they are now, and where they might go in the future. We will work together on reading visual/verbal texts closely, on writing analytically, and on finding ideas and presenting them in class. Students will have the opportunity to design a creative project in which they make their own comic or create a work of art about comics.

Your Professor

Joseph "Rusty" Witek, professor of humanities, has been teaching English and Humanities courses at Stetson University since 1989. He is known as one of the first academics in the United States to focus on comics as an art form, making Stetson one of the first universities to offer regularly scheduled courses on comics and graphic novels. He has published books and articles on such topics as comics criticism and theory, autobiography and history in comics, war comics, 9/11 in comics and the fact that Donald Duck can't fly. He is presently working on a book project that examines some of the worst comics ever published.

Countercultural movements throughout the twentieth century, holding values contrary to those of mainstream society, have sought to challenge the status quo with radical works of music, art, and literature. Were they effective? Does art have the power to change the way people think? Have these works of music, art and literature contributed to the creation of the culture in which we live, and, if so, how? In this course, students will be introduced to some of the more radical and controversial works of music, poetry, theatre, and visual art from the 1880s to today as well as the cultures that produced them: from the composers, writers and painters of the fin de siècle to those of the New York art scene in the 1960s; from the writers of the Beat Generation to the musicians and artists of the San Francisco psychedelic movement, to the formation of hip-hop in the late 1970s. Through class discussions and writing assignments, students will be asked to reflect upon what art is and what its role is in society. They will be asked to reflect upon the music and art of their own generation, its culture and its countercultures and identify the values that are propagated by it.

Your Professor

Lonnie Hevia holds a D.MA in composition from The Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Christopher Theofanidis, Nicholas Maw and Michael Hersch. His bachelor's and master's degrees in composition were earned from The Florida State University School of Music, where he studied with John Boda and Ladislav Kubik. Dr. Hevia has presented music in master classes conducted by John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse and Justin Dello Joio, and he has taken individual lessons from Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Libby Larsen and Chen Yi. His music has been performed throughout the United States by world-class musicians. It has been presented at conferences of the College Music Society, Society of Composers, Inc. and The Midwest Graduate Music Consortium. The confluence of a variety of influences, Dr. Hevia's music often combines the energy of rock, the melodic lyricism of pop, the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of jazz, the timbres of spectral music and the counterpoint and dramatic form of concert music, all into a unified style that is uniquely his own. While at Peabody, Dr. Hevia earned a second master's degree in music theory pedagogy, and, before his appointment at Stetson, he held teaching positions at Peabody, Towson University and Johns Hopkins University. He has taught music theory, aural skills, keyboard skills, counterpoint, form and analysis, twentieth-century theory, composition, arranging and the history of popular music.

Data has become an integral part of everyone's daily life. Every time you post on social media, select a movie to watch online or make an online purchase, you leave a digital footprint. These are only a few of the ways that data is generated. That ever-growing ocean of data can be used to help doctors make better medical diagnoses, help you find a movie that you might like, help a marketer target the sales of a product or possibly even affect how a person will vote. In this class, we will explore different aspects of how data and technology affect your day-to-day life. We will critically think about the ethical implications of the use of data, the consequences of how you share information and how others may misuse data. We will reflect on the implications of these uses (and abuses) of data through discussions, presentations and written activities.

Your Professor

Jay Stryker is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Stetson's Business Systems and Analytics department. He has been a consultant to Volusia County Schools and has many years of experience teaching and tutoring various aspects of technology and data analysis. He is a Stetson graduate who received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics. He went on to receive a master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Georgia Tech and a PhD in Mathematics from Florida State University. His research interests include machine learning, big data and multi-criterion decision-making.

Designing Your Life" is a seminar at Stetson University that merges academic theory with life's practicalities, probing questions of purpose and path. With a curated selection of texts, students critically engage with diverse viewpoints, refining their thoughts through iterative writing revisions. Collaboration with faculty shapes a personalized "Five-Year Plan," integrating academic goals with life ambitions. This course also hones information literacy, utilizing library resources to cultivate discerning research skills, essential for constructing informed, well-articulated life strategies. It’s a blueprint for students to thoughtfully design their academic and future personal landscape.

Your Professor

Michael Denner is Professor and Chair of Stetson's program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and editor of the Tolstoy Studies Journal, an annual refereed journal. He has been a professor at Stetson University since August 2000.

In this course, we will examine the meaning of diversity and its relation to global education. Through literature and film, we will discuss the broad definition of diversity, focusing on the study of race, ethnicity, language, gender, social class, sexual orientation, religion, and emotional and physical disabilities. All students will use field placements in local schools or non-profit organizations to provide practical experiences that will illuminate our class's major concepts.

Your Professor

Bette Heins holds the Nina B. Hollis Chair of Educational Reform in the Department of Teacher Education. She directs the Hollis Institute for Educational Reform and teaches educational psychology, exceptional student education and classroom management. Her research interests include single-gender education, reading issues and classroom management. She loves teaching about diversity in the classroom and, in her words, "celebrates deviancy daily." 

This freshman seminar investigates food in East Asian societies, as well as overseas Asian communities, from a sociological perspective. In the first part of the course, students will examine the social construction of food and the relationship between food and identity, particularly among Asian (American) groups. The course then turns to how economic development changes food systems, consumption, and population health in East Asian societies. Finally, the course traces the environmental impacts of food from farm to table to landfill. The course will feature numerous opportunities to sample Asian cuisine and snacks without leaving DeLand.

Your Professor

Rachel Core is a medical and comparative historical sociologist whose research examines how social conditions and factors, including access to healthcare and preventive programming, affect health outcomes. Dr. Core has spent ten years overseas, including eight years in East Asia. She is obsessed with food and looks forward to sharing this obsession with her FSEM students. She is currently Associate Professor, Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department, and Chair of the International Learning Committee at Stetson University.

One of the most important challenges facing the world in the twenty-first century is to identify and develop sustainable sources of energy in order to maintain a reasonable standard of living while also minimizing our impact on the environment. This seminar will discuss the science of energy production and usage for a variety of energy sources and energy conservation strategies, and also examine the environmental advantages and drawbacks of each source or strategy. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the nuclear disaster in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 illustrate just some of the dangers underlying our current energy production portfolio. The science regarding the challenge of global climate change will also be discussed. While the seminar is discussion-based and writing-intensive, students will be introduced to the basic physical principles and skills necessary to understand the issues involved in energy systems and sustainability, including physical unit conversion and problem-solving techniques. The course will also include course blog postings and discussion of topics of current interest regarding energy and environmental issues found in the popular press.

Your Professor

Kevin Riggs holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Minnesota and specializes in research on magnetic materials useful for magnetic recording and information storage. He also holds an MS in Physics/Musical Acoustics from Case Western Reserve University and has an active research program using laser-based holographic techniques to image the vibration patterns of musical instruments. He teaches many advanced courses for physics majors, but especially enjoys interacting with students from a wide range of backgrounds in his general education course on musical acoustics titled "The Science of Music" and his new first-year seminar titled "Energy and the Environment." In his spare time, Riggs enjoys playing guitar in a Stetson University faculty jazz quartet, the "Thin Film Magnetism."

Embark on an intellectual journey with "Navigating Your Odyssey in the Age of Uncertainty," a course that provokes deep self-inquiry and invites you to redefine success on your own terms. In a world of shifting identities and societal norms, explore who you are and your purpose amidst information overload. We'll dissect the notion of success and impact, using resources like Malcolm Gladwell's “Outliers” and Steven Bartlett’s “Diary of a CEO,” to guide you in carving your unique path. This course goes beyond conventional learning, urging you to get inquisitive, embrace life's unpredictability, and thrive in today's society. It's not just about discovering your place in the world, but actively shaping it. "Navigating Your Odyssey in the Age of Uncertainty " is your starting point to a journey of bold questions and self-defined destinations.

Your Professor

Markus-Daniel Jones currently serves as the Associate Director of Admissions and oversees recruitment processes for Premier Programs and Scholarships. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies, concentrated in Cultural and Political Ecology, and the Certificate of Community Engagement from Stetson University. He has also completed Stetson’s Master of Business program and sampled courses in the Department of Counselor Education. His particular interest lies in understanding how our built, social, and natural environments shape who we are as individuals, and how our level of engagement in the community affects our overall health and wellness.

A few buildings at Stetson University are said to be haunted, most notably Elizabeth Hall and the remnants of Hulley Tower. Central Florida abounds in ghost stories overall and such tales can be found all over the world. Students may be familiar with the misty apparitions that glide through walls or walk noisily upstairs in the middle of the night, but what about the life-sucking powers of Chinese fox spirits, the gory appetites of Tibetan flesh-eating demons, or the unrelenting stalking of Japanese vengeance ghosts? This course will introduce students to both classic examples of Western ghost stories and gothic tales as well as folklore and fictional accounts from India, Tibet, China and Japan. Western examples will include the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, M.R. James, and H.P. Lovecraft, while Eastern stories will include Indian tales by Rudyard Kipling, Pu Songling's "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," and the Japanese "Tales of Moonlight and Rain" by Akinari Ueda. Students will read these stories and compare and contrast how ghosts and otherworldly spirits are portrayed between cultures. Assignments will also focus on how these stories reflect the societies in which they were written and include viewings of popular Chinese and Japanese horror films.

Your Professor

Christopher Bell received his BA and MA from Florida State University and his PhD from the University of Virginia. His specialization is in Tibetan Buddhism, with a secondary concentration in Asian religions overall. He is particularly interested in Indian, Tibetan and Chinese demonologies. He has presented papers and published articles on Tibetan deity cults, oracles, and divination. Before joining Stetson in the fall of 2013, he taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, conducted fieldwork in Tibet and India, and lived in the south of Turkey. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. 

Today, more than ever before, globalization is part of our everyday local lives. We are linked to others on every continent:

• socially through the media and telecommunications
• culturally through movements of people
• economically through trade
• environmentally through sharing one planet
• Politically through international relations and systems of regulation.

In a fast-changing and interdependent world, education can, and should, help people to meet the challenges they will confront now and in the future. Global Citizenship is essential in helping people rise to those challenges. In this course, we will define global citizenship. We will discuss what steps need to be taken in order to prepare to become a global citizen. We will reflect on what it means to be an individual, what it means to be a citizen in your local community, and what it means to be a citizen of the world.

Your Professor

Savannah-Jane Griffin is a nationally recognized leader with a specialty in non-profit leadership, strengths-based leadership, strategic planning, DEIA, and community building. She currently serves as CEO of the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia, which is the leading non-profit organization benefiting the homeless in Central Florida. Prior to serving as CEO, she worked at Stetson University for 15 years where she led and managed the campus's efforts in community engagement, diversity and inclusion, and religious and spiritual life. Through her consulting work, she has helped numerous businesses, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions build strategic plans that help them achieve their long-term goals. She is a Certified Strengths-Based Facilitator. She has been nationally recognized for her work in community engagement and was named a Bonner Foundation National Fellow and achieved the Florida Campus Compact Community Educator of the Year Award. Griffin holds a BA in Business Administration and an MBA from Stetson University.

Hidden disabilities are not easily obvious to others and include mental health conditions, autism spectrum disorders, and other learning disabilities. Approximately 26% of adults living in the United States have some type of disability but, of that number, nearly 20% are considered hidden disabilities. The course will cover what a disability is under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA, 2008) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) and discuss the steps to consider a person with a disability to receive accommodations for accessibility purposes. Students will ask themselves what it means to be a person with a hidden disability by reflecting on knowing a person with a disability in their circle of friends and family and how their knowledge has affected them throughout their lived experiences. In addition to texts on the ADAAA and Section 504, students will read real-life stories – the first of a young adult diagnosed with Autism and the second of a man who was not diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome until his early forties – in order to explore the experiences of people with hidden disabilities at two different stages of their lives.

Your Professor

Martha von Mering earned both her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her bachelor’s degree in Music Voice Performance led her to seek her master’s degree in Organizational Management from Antioch University New England followed by her Ph.D. at UMASS in Educational Administration and Leadership with a concentration in special education. With two deaf siblings, Professor von Mering is passionate about serving all students with disabilities so that they may be lifelong learners and successful in both their personal and professional lives. Having spent over twenty years in the PK12 special education arena, Professor von Mering is excited to be able to bring her skills to the post-secondary level.

How does life work differently for people in the working class, the middle class, and the executive class? How do class differences shape people’s opportunities and perspectives? And how do these differences relate to having a meaningful college experience? These are the kinds of questions we explore in this course, which is part of Stetson’s WISE program and intended for first-generation (first-gen) students: students who will be the first in their family to complete a bachelor’s degree. It combines academic study, practical skills, personal reflection, and community building and engagement to empower first-gen students to find their pathways to support and success during college and beyond.

Your Professor

Jeremy Posadas holds Stetson University's Hal S. Marchman Chair of Civic and Social Responsibility along with a joint appointment as associate professor of religious studies and gender studies. He joined Stetson after 11 years of teaching in rural North Texas. As a professor, his chief goal is to foster learning experiences for diverse students to build an equitable and caring community as they co-create new understandings that are useful for disrupting and dismantling systemic injustice.

As a social ethicist, he critiques unjust aspects of society and proposes alternatives to promote social justice, on the basis of inter-sectionally feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and eco-centric moral principles. He majored in the Great Books in college yet later wrote his dissertation shaped by the post-structuralist thought of Michel Foucault. His recently published essays have addressed topics including reproductive justice; feminist anti-work theory; pedagogies to dismantle rape culture and its root cause, toxic masculinity; and solidarity with the working class. At his previous institution, he led the effort that secured a $1.3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for social justice curriculum development. In addition, Posadas has held faculty fellowships at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Auburn Seminary (in NYC) and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. He serves on the elected committee that oversees the world's largest gathering of religion scholars and also co-chairs its unit on the study of class and labor.

In 2018, Posadas created the United Regions of America map, clustering all 3,142 counties (and equivalents) into 14 regions that calibrate local perceptions with major landforms and industries. This map offers a more useful alternative to the cultural stereotypes and colonialist assumptions projected in Colin Woodard's map of eleven American nations.

Before becoming a professor, Posadas worked as an organizer in the labor and LGBTQ movements; a ministry leader in a multi-racial urban congregation; a social work assistant in a pediatric hospital; and an award-winning fast food order-taker/cashier. His hobbies include ice and inline skating, listening to Beethoven, watching sci-fi and rom-com/dramas (bonus if they're gay!) and delving into Census data and regional geography.

From the geometric line-work found on the 5,000-year-old mummy of Ötzi the Iceman to the full-color, photo-realistic portrait of their dog that someone, somewhere is getting tattooed right now, tattoos have been a part of societies across the globe for millennia. In this seminar, we will explore the art of tattooing, examining different styles and methods, as well as delve into tattoos as self-expression and their place in various cultures and subcultures. Through frequent writing assignments, lively classroom discussions, oral presentations, and debates we will examine the questions of why people get tattoos, what they mean, how are they received by others, and much more.

Your Professor

Colin MacFarlane comes from a social science background with a focus on quantitative analysis and postmodern historiography. He is heavily tattooed, receiving his first piece at the age of 18 and continuing to build his collection every year since. His ink is diverse in content but has predominant stylistic influences from Japanese Traditional and Art Nouveau. He is a strong proponent of identity exploration and expression and has facilitated dialogues and presented workshops around identity development and intercultural competence with college students, business leaders, and higher education professionals. Joining Hatter Nation in the fall of 2012, he serves as the Director of Assessment and Operational Effectiveness where he leads the division of Campus Life and Student Success in answering the questions of what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how could we be doing it better. He received his Master of Education in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics and Assessment from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been working in higher education since 2009.

This course will explore the cultural and social factors that shape the Latinx (Latino and Latina) experience and identity in American society today. As the Latinx population continues to grow, its impact on society becomes increasingly profound and dynamic. From the origins of Latinx communities to contemporary issues, the intersections of ethnicity, social institutions, and culture will be studied. Media, art, food, and influence that amplify Latinx voices will be examined, fostering critical thinking and dialogue. Through discussions, written works, research, and interactive experiences, students will gain a better understanding of the challenges and triumphs within the US Latinx population. This course aims to empower students with cultural competence and a deeper appreciation for the complexities of the Latinx identity today. Students will also have an opportunity to engage in experiential learning through community involvement giving back to the local Latinx community. Join us as we celebrate the beauty of Latinx culture together!

Your Professor

Joanne Morales Bembinster holds a bachelor's Degree in Sociology and a master's Degree in Educational Leadership for Higher Education from Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). Joanne is also a Stetson alum and holds an Education Specialist Degree (Ed.S.) in Curriculum and Instruction where she focused her research on first-generation college students. Her background in sociology and education has led to a passion for supporting and mentoring students from underserved populations. As a former first-generation student and proud Colombian/American whose first language was Spanish, Joanne understands the complexities of navigating the higher education environment and aims to pay it forward to the next generation of Latinx students. Joanne shows her dedication to the Stetson community through her role as advisor to the Latinx Student Union and co-advisor to the Alpha Alpha Alpha First Generation Honor Society. In her full time role, Joanne serves as Director of the Academic Success department and joined the university in 2017. Joanne firmly believes that every student possesses the potential for excellence and is dedicated to providing the support and resources needed to unlock that potential.

Communism swept the globe after 1917. What is it that has made socialism or communism widely appealing to so many people over the past century? Why, on the other hand, has it been so challenging to translate a doctrine that was so compelling on paper to reality? And if communism is, intrinsically, an anti-authoritarian ideology, why did it produce so many autocratic regimes? In this course, we are going to examine different facets of Socialist ideology and Communist state and society, using three case studies: USSR, PRC (China) and Cuba focusing on the rule of Stalin, Mao and Castro.

Your Professor

Monika A. Kurlander received her BA from the University of Wroclaw, Poland and the University of Massachusetts, and her MA from Stetson University. Prior to joining Stetson, she was a resident scholar at Harvard University, a faculty at PH College in Freiburg, Germany, and has been teaching International Baccalaureate for years.

Moby Dick is the story of two kinds of philosophical heroes. One kind of hero seeks to pierce the wall of the mundane in order to catch a glimpse of the Real. “To me,” Captain Ahab says, “the white whale is that wall.” Ishmael represents a different kind of philosophical hero. And while Ahab is ultimately brought down by the whale, Ishmael not only survives the confrontation but is arguably transformed by it for the better. As humans, we find ourselves adrift at sea. How best, then, to confront its mysteries?

Your Professor

Joshua Rust, Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department, specializes in the subfield of Social Ontology. Having taught courses on philosophical choice within video games and the philosophy and Harry Potter, he's especially interested in how the discipline of philosophy can illuminate questions raised within popular culture.

"Persuasion is often more effectual than force"...Aesop. From social media to marketing, or the courtroom, we are persuaded (and we persuade) on a daily basis. But, how do we know which tactic to use in a given situation? When should technology be included? In this course, students will examine, analyze, and practice a variety of strategies designed to improve their argument designs and communication skills. Be prepared to have thoughtful conversations and substantive analysis, critical thought, & reflection. This is a writing-intensive course.

Your Professor

Michele Randall holds degrees in Technical Writing (BA), Creative Writing (MA), and Poetry (MFA), and has taught College Writing, Composition, Creative Writing, Interdisciplinary Studies and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction. Her book, Museum of Everyday Life (Kelsay Books) was published in 2015, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Painted Bride Quarterly, The Potomac Review, Newport Review (First Prize Flash Fiction) and elsewhere. Her current work focuses on the new realities of mental health patients and was a finalist for the Peter Meinke Poetry Prize. She appreciates a good sense of humor and has been known to geek out over Dr. Who, Torchwood, Star Trek, and Star Wars.

Why has Putin invaded Ukraine? What should we do about it? In the end, why is there so much mystery and intrigue surrounding present-day Russia? This adventure will focus on critical moments creating ordinary Russians’ perceptions of the world. Surprisingly, many of these moments are not all that different from those shaping our own reality. Polarization, inequality, racism, popular culture, climate change, technological innovation, even the private sphere—everything will be on the table. But the particular intellectual trajectories working to form Russians’ understandings will be the points for analysis. Can we capture some of these dynamic historical processes that have long been being formulated behind what amounts now to a new “iron curtain”? The forces then creating the everyday lives and dreams of Russians will be what we talk and write about with the goal of understanding where our own futures are headed.

Your Professor

Martin Blackwell is a specialist on Eurasian history, having lived in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Kyiv, L’viv (Ukraine) and Almaty (Kazakhstan) and speaking fluent Russian. Before earning his Ph.D. in History from Indiana University Bloomington, he worked in various capacities across the post-Soviet space including two memorable years as a Russian-speaking laborer at the Embassy of the United States in Moscow. His recent book Kyiv as Regime City: The Return of Soviet Power after the Nazi Occupation uncovers the reasons for Joseph Stalin’s popularity following the Second World War. While currently researching Soviet Communism’s unprecedented collapse in the 1980s, he is also interested in the cyclical nature of history and has taught survey courses on the ancient and medieval worlds. In his free time, Dr. Blackwell especially enjoys hanging out with his wife and nine-year-old daughter and exploring the world as a family.

How do you see the world like an artist? In this course, students will explore new ways of perceiving and engaging with the visual world around them. Through exercises in meditative slow looking, de-skilled observational drawing exercises, visual formal analysis, and urban drifting (dérive), as well as engagement with a variety of text-based resources and physical and virtual art collections, this course will encourage students to develop critical thinking, communication, and writing skills. During the course, students will compile a multi-media Journal of Inquiry that will act as a document of their experiences.

Your Professor

Leah Sandler is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and educator based in Orlando, Florida. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Rollins College in 2014 and a Master of Fine Arts from University of the Arts in 2017. Recent exhibitions include the Corridor Project Billboard Exhibition, the 2020 Florida Biennial, Interstice at MOTOR (curated by the Residency Project) Los Angeles, CA, Utopian/Vermilion, a solo exhibition at ParkHaus15 in Orlando, FL, and CPCH Staging Area, a solo exhibition at Laundromat Art Space in Miami. Sandler’s writing and projects have been featured in publications including Textur Magazine, Salat Magazin, SPECS Journal, and Mapping Meaning Journal. She is the author of The Center For Post-Capitalist History’s Field Guide to Embodied Archiving, published by Burrow Press, released in September 2021.

What does the term "individual" mean apart from "the community"? What does "community" mean apart from the concept of "the individual"? This seminar will explore the relationship between these two concepts with a view to understanding how the community shapes the individual and how the individual can, and should, shape the community. We will think about issues pertaining to social justice and ask what responsibility the individual has for her or his own formation and what responsibility the individual has for the formation and well-being of the community. Service-learning in the community is central to this exploration.

Your Professor

Jeremy Posadas holds Stetson University's Hal S. Marchman Chair of Civic and Social Responsibility along with a joint appointment as associate professor of religious studies and gender studies. He joined Stetson after 11 years of teaching in rural North Texas. As a professor, his chief goal is to foster learning experiences for diverse students to build an equitable and caring community as they co-create new understandings that are useful for disrupting and dismantling systemic injustice.

As a social ethicist, he critiques unjust aspects of society and proposes alternatives to promote social justice, on the basis of inter-sectionally feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and eco-centric moral principles. He majored in the Great Books in college yet later wrote his dissertation shaped by the post-structuralist thought of Michel Foucault. His recently published essays have addressed topics including reproductive justice; feminist anti-work theory; pedagogies to dismantle rape culture and its root cause, toxic masculinity; and solidarity with the working class. At his previous institution, he led the effort that secured a $1.3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for social justice curriculum development. In addition, Posadas has held faculty fellowships at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Auburn Seminary (in NYC) and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. He serves on the elected committee that oversees the world's largest gathering of religion scholars and also co-chairs its unit on the study of class and labor.

In 2018, Posadas created the United Regions of America map, clustering all 3,142 counties (and equivalents) into 14 regions that calibrate local perceptions with major landforms and industries. This map offers a more useful alternative to the cultural stereotypes and colonialist assumptions projected in Colin Woodard's map of eleven American nations.

Before becoming a professor, Posadas worked as an organizer in the labor and LGBTQ movements; a ministry leader in a multi-racial urban congregation; a social work assistant in a pediatric hospital; and an award-winning fast food order-taker/cashier. His hobbies include ice and inline skating, listening to Beethoven, watching sci-fi and rom-com/dramas (bonus if they're gay!) and delving into Census data and regional geography.

Have you ever wondered how race/nationality/ethnicity can affect decision-making, not only in this country but around the globe? What about gender? Environmental considerations? How do these concepts shape culture and affect our physical environment? This course explores the different perspectives that analyze these relationships. In addition to discussion and in-class group work, this course uses activities such as developing guidelines for and conducting group observational research, individual field trips, and physically charting/mapping globalization to determine these social concepts' effects on social and physical environments. We then consider how an understanding of these concepts may contribute to the betterment of humankind.

Your Professor

Sven Smith holds a PhD in Law and Society from the University of Florida and has an active research program regarding group organizations, critical race theory and globalization. He also holds a law degree from Florida State University and an MA in Sociology from the University of Chicago and has recently completed a multi-method research project on the structural effects of group organization on judicial decision-making. He teaches beginning as well as advanced sociology courses and seeks to make the classroom a vibrant learning center wherein students learn conceptually and through experiencing sociology. In his spare time, Dr.Smith enjoys playing music, attending the cultural events here at Stetson and reading.

With the rapidly increasing monetization of sports and the continual growth and evolution of sport business, conflict and controversy is inevitable. In this course, students will examine current “hot-button” issues within collegiate, professional, and Olympic sports, including the business and ethical implications that arise within these issues. In addition to fostering insight into the world of sport business, this course will enhance the student's analytical, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills.

Your Professor

Elizabeth (Libba) Galloway has enjoyed a comprehensive career as a university professor, lawyer, and business executive. Prior to joining Stetson, she served as a partner in the Business and Finance Department of Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, a national law firm based in Cincinnati; Deputy Commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA); and Executive Director of the Professional Association of Athlete Development Specialists (PAADS). She has taught sport law, ethics and governance in undergraduate, graduate and law school programs, where she enhances the learning experience by infusing her industry experience and perspective into the classroom. Through a combination of readings, presentations and interactive exercises, Galloway follows a three-pronged approach in teaching business and sports law: 1. Laying the foundation: Students learn the fundamentals of a particular area of law, and how they relate to business. 2. Engaging critical analysis: Students sharpen their critical thinking skills by analyzing the application of legal principles to a particular issue. 3. Applying the learnings: Students understand how their learnings from the classroom relate to situations they may face in the workplace.

This first-year seminar prepares students to critically examine our culture's extreme obsession with technology and media in an era of perpetual crisis. Using literature, film, graphic novels, and video games, students will analyze the cultural crisis of technology and explore societal issues surrounding privacy and information security, the coming AI revolution, and how science and technology are redefining what it even means to be “human.” How should we live in a world so conditioned—and threatened—by technological progress? To what extent does technology aid humans' search for meaning—and to what extent does it limit us? How are we to protect ourselves in a post-truth world? In this discussion-based and writing-enhanced course, we will address each of these topics as well as the question of how technology and digital culture are shaping our identities and lives. Texts may include (but are not limited to) Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Spike Jonze's Her, Lauren Beukes' Moxyland, Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, Issac Asimov's "The Last Question," Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation, the B-Game "Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy," Toby Fox's Undertale, and selections from the television series, Black Mirror and Westworld.

Your Professor

Christopher D. Jimenez is an Assistant Professor of English at Stetson. His research examines the discourse of catastrophe in 20th- and 21st-century global Anglophone literature, with interdisciplinary interests in ecocriticism, nuclear criticism, biopolitics and the sociology of literature. His secondary work in the digital humanities focuses on the theoretical and computational features of alphabets and their relationship to artificial intelligence and the philosophy of language.

For people who don't have a background in music, going to a classical concert may be unfamiliar, boring or even intimidating. In "The Art of Listening to Music", students will learn to increase the enjoyment of classical music, particularly orchestral masterpieces, through intelligent listening. You will learn how to write about music, talk to professional musicians, hear them perform on their instruments, and discuss the main elements of music: rhythm, pitch, melody, and tone. No musical training is required to fully participate in course activities. The course is open to non-music majors only.

Your Professor

TBA

The young United States Navy was a failure for the first decades of existence, and only gained strength after the War of 1812. This course will introduce you to the study of naval history through the lens of the fighting ships of sail, their officers and the politics, economics and society that defined the evolution of the navy. Race, class, and gender will also be studied as we look at the crews that manned these ships, and the unique naval culture that formed shipboard.

Your Professor

Kimberly D. Reiter is an Associate Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at Stetson University. Besides her favorite courses in Roman and English history, Dr. Reiter also teaches maritime and environmental history. As a teenager, she sailed around the world in a homemade boat, comes from a naval family, and has expertise in naval and pirate history in the age of sail (She teaches a killer course on the History of Piracy). On dry land she is an expert on Stonehenge – ask her anything. She is past President of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Association (IEA) and a National Councilor in the Council for Undergraduate Research. She has also been a Coleman Scholar for Entrepreneurship and recipient of the NEH Enduring Questions Grant. She directs the Stetson Field Course on the Early English landscape and the Stetson Rome Experience.

Why do war memorials and historical films spark controversy years after the events they depict? It's because they are part of historical memory—how people shape a collective identity based on ideas about the past. This kind of memory exists in many places—monuments in public parks, films, museums, public art, tourism, and public celebrations like parades and festivals. People learn about history from these kinds of places as much (or more) as they learn from history classes and books. To understand the power of historical memory, we have to think about what these collective memories tell us about the American past. Whose stories are told and whose are not? Whose faces and what events do we learn about in public space? What kinds of films tell America's stories? This course examines how Americans have shaped historical memory at various points in time from the early nineteenth century to the present. We will get out into our local community and use DeLand itself to examine the workings of historical memory in our own times. Ultimately, we will consider how Americans, collectively and in conflict, produce ideas about the past.

Your Professor

Dr. Emily Mieras teaches a range of courses in the History Department as well as in the American Studies Program and the Gender Studies Program. She is currently working on a research project about historical memory and community identity in the American South, work that helped inspire this course. Originally from Lexington, Massachusetts, Dr. Mieras grew up attending battle re-enactments on the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord—an experience that also shaped her interest in the ways history influences tourism, landscape, and sense of place. Dr. Mieras attended Harvard University (A. B in History and Government) and the College of William and Mary (M. A. and PhD, American Studies). Outside the classroom and the archive, Dr. Mieras enjoys exploring new places and seeing firsthand how “the past is present.”

From depictions of drug use and addiction in popular culture to reports on the opioid epidemic, our culture is beset by conflicting representations of drugs as both pharmaceutical and recreational, legal and illegal. Contemporary debates about the benefits and side effects of caffeine, alcohol abuse, the medical uses of cannabis, and the advent of “study drugs” also ask us to question our assumptions about the potentially beneficial and harmful effects of substances. In light of the proliferation of drugs in our culture, how can we understand them in relation to the shifting social and political contexts that define them? What is a drug and who decides? This first-year seminar asks students to read and write about representations of drugs in multiple genres, using various compositional modes. Students will interpret print, visual, and digital texts to develop critical thinking and reading skills as they learn how different rhetorical, disciplinary, and cultural situations produce different ideas about what defines a drug. By learning to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the texts they encounter about drugs and culture, students will develop their writing skills and situate their written arguments in broader public and scholarly conversations by citing and summarizing the sources from which they draw. Over the course of the semester, students will come to understand the written work and presentations they do as part of a writing process that requires them to research, draft, revise, edit, and reflect on the practice of writing over time. Each assignment in the course will include a draft, revision, and reflection element, encouraging students to see their written work as part of a long-term process that will culminate in a final project. The final project asks students to develop a poster campaign, event, poster session, video, or podcast to communicate knowledge about drugs and culture that they have developed over the semester for a broader public.

Your Professor

Hannah Markley is an Assistant Professor at Stetson University. Her teaching and scholarly interests include the intersections of literature and science, the medical humanities, gender and sexuality studies, and the history of addiction. She has published several articles on the intersection of addiction narratives and psychopharmacology, femininity and the nineteenth-century practice of opium-eating, representations of appetite in fiction and medical history, and the hypodermic needle role in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Her current book project is entitled Morbid Cravings: Medicalizing Appetite in Nineteenth-Century Literature.

Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious condition that causes honeybees to abandon their queen and disappear from the hive, burst onto the scene in 2006, heralding an era of unprecedented public interest in honey bees, beekeeping, and all things pollination. By 2015, the phrase “Bees are dying at an alarming rate” had reached meme status. While it's hard to judge the validity of the quote often misattributed to Einstein, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live,” it is true that roughly 1 out of every 3 bites of food you take is dependent upon pollination. In this seminar course, we will use bees as a focal point for examining myriad issues plaguing our agricultural systems, environment, and social structures. Topics include the history of beekeeping, migratory beekeeping, native pollinators, the “honey bee democracy,” bees in pop culture, and much more! Students will learn basic beekeeping skills and gain hands-on beekeeping experience by tending to the campus beehives and harvesting a crop of honey together at the end of the semester.

Your Professor

Sarah Cramer is a Brown Visiting Teacher-Scholar Fellow in Sustainable Food Systems and a member of the Environmental Science and Studies faculty. She holds a PhD in agricultural education and a master of public health degree from the University of Missouri. Her primary research interests are alternative food systems, experiential learning, and elementary garden-based education, but her one true love is the humble honey bee. She has been keeping bees since 2012 and can often be found sitting in front of a hive just watching worker bees return home loaded with colorful pollen.

This course provides an introduction to immersive technologies (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) and their application in business and society. Students will learn how these technologies have enhanced today's world by studying their use in everyday life and across a variety of industries including retail, education, healthcare, entertainment, sports, real estate, hospitality, manufacturing, military, and law enforcement. In addition, students will research and conceptualize a real-world virtual reality application that can be used to overcome challenges currently faced by business or society.

Your Professor

William Sause is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Business Systems and Analytics at Stetson’s School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Nova Southeastern University and has over fifteen years of professional experience as a software developer for corporations such as Lockheed Martin and McKesson. At Stetson’s School of Business, Dr. Sause teaches courses in programming, databases and big data, management information systems, and spreadsheet modeling. His research interests include virtual environments for e-learning and data visualization, software development, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Sause also serves as the Brown Center Fellow for Digital and Remote Learning where he consults with faculty colleagues on the transition to online delivery of classes and promotes faculty development in digital and remote learning.

Water is life. We are water. We are drawn to water. We surround ourselves with water in every way possible, except when we try to expel it or hold it at bay. This multi-disciplinary course will explore human interfaces with water: water in music, literature, art, architecture, engineering, religion, culture, politics, business, geography, biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and the fluid earth. Students will read three books and several articles about water; experience water-themed art and music; swim in springs; and smell sewage. They will create works of writing and other artistic expression to reflect on and express how they understand water and will use all of these perspectives to address this ultimate question: Is clean, fresh water a fundamental human right?

Your Professor

Wendy Anderson, Professor and the Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Studies has taught at Stetson since 2014 after 16 years as a professor at another university. She earned her B.S. and M.S. from Baylor University and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, all with majors in Biology and a specialty in plant and ecosystem ecology. Her research is focused on the movements of nutrients across ecosystem boundaries and the impacts those moving nutrients have on the plants and animals in the ecosystems where the nutrients arrive. As the county-wide elected Chair of the Volusia Soil and Water Conservation District, she brings science to the public to inform local and state policies for the protection of Florida's natural resources.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain – a mass-produced, porcelain urinal turned 90 degrees and signed “R. Mutt” – was hidden from public view and dismissed as non-art. In 1999, a 1964 replica of the “original” Fountain was sold for $1,600,000 at Sotheby’s art auction. In 80 years, Duchamp’s famous ready-made went from a marginalized and largely forgotten artistic prank to a universally recognized icon of modern art. This course will investigate how this process of validation in the art world works. The main question we will ask is not “What is art?” but rather “Who gets to decide what is art?” We will discuss the role of art institutions (auction houses, galleries, museums, and universities) and the art market in shaping the way art and its history is consumed and marketed.

Your Professor

Katya Kudryavtseva is an art historian and curator of the Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection. She specializes in twentieth-century art with a focus on the intersecting trajectories of art history, politics, art institutions and business and their role in the development of the canon of modern and contemporary art. In her book, "The Making of Kazimir Malevich's Black Square" (2017), Kudryavtseva offers a comprehensive analysis of the artistic journey of Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935), a pivotal figure in modernism. Through meticulous exploration, she traces the evolution of Malevich's seminal work, the Black Square, from its origins as an easel painting to its transformation into a revolutionary emblem, a signature, and ultimately, a commodity. Kudryavtseva's expertise extends beyond scholarly publications to include curatorial projects. She has curated a range of exhibitions that offer fresh insights into diverse facets of art history. Notable among these exhibitions are "Malchish -- The Soviet Super Hero" (2020), "Bluemner At Stetson: Exhibition History" (2021), "The Artist’s ’Labor: Oscar Bluemner and Mario Saponaro" (2023), and "The Beauty of Politics: Oscar Bluemner and Luca Molnar" (2024).

Course Description

This course is an interdisciplinary introduction that takes a global perspective on gender equality, feminism and workplace issues that affect women. Theories about gender differences, workforce discrimination and the legal framework for equity at work will be explored while looking at the position of women in the workplace from a global perspective. The course encourages reflective practice, critical thinking, collaboration and creativity. Writing as an inquiry-oriented and developmental process will be emphasized, along with oral communication with attention applied to critical thinking.

Course Concepts

• Workforce women
• Segregation
• Gender differences
• Employment discrimination
• Networks
• Mentors
• Communications
• Hostile environments
• Sexual harassment
• Life balance
• Women entrepreneurs
• Policies and practices

Your Professor

Meg Young, DBA, is a proud first-generation college graduate and faculty member. Her teaching philosophy is simple: to change the world for the better, one student at a time. Relationships matter!

Why do humans look at animals? Do animals look back? Can forests think? And what are plants feeling? Through the lens of literature, art, and film, this course examines how the human imagination shapes our relation to animals and other inhabitants of the natural environment. In modernity, we know and experience the natural world either as a resource made available for exploitation (mining, agriculture, renewable energies, tourism), or as a sanctuary humans must protect from human interference (conservationism, national parks). This way of relating to the natural world has a long history and is shaped by social and economic forces such as capitalism and colonialism. Today, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, scorching heat waves, and ever more powerful hurricanes challenge us to fundamentally re-imagine nature and our place in the environment. Writers, artists, and filmmakers play a crucial role in this process: they have given expression to our shifting attitudes toward animals, they have chronicled large-scale environmental destruction and extinction, and they have envisioned radically different ways of imagining nature and relating to its inhabitants.

Your Professor

Trained in comparative literature, philosophy and history, I specialize in German literature and critical thought and their global reception. I am currently working on a book project titled "Floating Abstractions: Crises of the Real between Empty Symbol and Intuitive Image, 1850-1950," which explores the problem of symbolic abstraction and the concomitant representational crises in the exchange between literature, mathematics and political economy from Karl Marx and Bernhard Riemann to Sigmund Freud and Robert Musil. In a second project, titled “Cut/Milieu: Media Ecologies and Experimental Form in Art and Literature,” I intervene in the growing field of environmental studies by re-formulating the question of ecology in terms of media. I suggest shifting focus from the traditional ecocritical problem of how cultures describe and conceptualize nature to the question of how different media practices construct or deconstruct different, media-specific imaginations of the natural world Additionally, I am interested in the global reception of German critical thought as well as the entanglement of philosophy and literature with racialized imaginaries from the 18th to the 21st century. I have written articles on the racial imaginary of German modernism and Indigenous receptions of Marx and Freud. Currently, I am editing and translating Gayatri Spivak's collected writings on Marx from English into German (Marx Sabotage, Diaphanes 2024). In a second editorship, tentatively titled "The Color of Difference," I am working on an English-language reader that revisits key texts from the German canon through the lens of postcolonial and critical race theory. Inspired by my work for artist and filmmaker Hito Steyerl, I am also interested in developing new approaches that combine media theory with critical media practice in both teaching and research.

First-Year Seminars (FSEMs) are part of the university's mission to acclimate you to the academic standards and practices of this institution, particularly in reference to writing and critical thinking. This is a one-unit/four-credit course. Learn more about the workload expectations for this course.

Regardless of political orientation, class, nationality (or any perspective that informs a worldview), everyone is in agreement that something is wrong with the “system." As we examine a wide range of historical reform figures and their strategies to effect social and institutional change (i.e., Lycurgus, Cicero, Not Sure, Oge´, and Anonymous), you will work to emulate and/or adapt these models to achieve some degree of measurable civic improvement, either in a local or national context. Although this course is geared toward social action, it is also a writing course, which means that a premium is placed on refining your communicative fluency. To achieve this goal, a portfolio of your revised work is required (e.g. a comprehensive collection of all your course papers/drafts). The purpose of this course is

• to improve your ability to argue in writing,
• to analyze persuasive methods, and
• to provide historical/social contexts for your assignments that enable you to offer informed, convincing and critical arguments.

The course will incorporate some aspects of a traditional lecture, but dialogue/interaction is expected, since we will engage in many oral debates that will affect the content and revisions of your portfolio. 

In this class, critical thinking is embedded within the rhetorical process (e.g. by examining how authors/historians use tropes, for example, you learn how arguments become convincing. By applying these strategies yourselves, you then internalize these creative and critical processes. These rhetorical strategies are evaluated in all of your papers as you model sources and use similar approaches.

Your Professor

While intermittently working on his graduate degrees (Clemson, MA, English; University of South Carolina, PhD, Composition and Rhetoric), Michael Barnes taught, wrote and traveled in the Far East, calling Tokyo home for four years. Tenured at Stetson University in 2006, his current research interests focus on computer-facilitated empirical studies on academia via overlooked institutional artifacts (textbooks, internal communiques and so forth). Pedagogically a sophist, most of his courses push students to "argue both sides equally well."

>This Honors First Year Seminar explores the following question: “Why prison?” We return to this question throughout the semester, and will explore additional sub-questions together, including What do prisons teach us about society? What do prisons and policing teach about the historical legacies of racial violence in the United States? What do prisons teach us about (in)justice? What does studying prisons teach us about ourselves?

Your Professor

Yohann C. Ripert is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures as well as a Faculty in the Honors Program at Stetson University. Yohann Ripert is currently completing two projects: the first is a book translation of the posthumous volume of Leopold Se'dar Senghor's essays on education and culture, entitled Education & Culture (Paris: Presence Africaine, 2013); the second is a monograph entitled Global Negritude: Confidential Conversations Across the Ocean. Global Negritude explores a set of recently declassified cables that reveal how Le'opold Se'dar Senghor engaged with Cold War cultural politics to strategically transform vestiges of colonial exploitation into postcolonial weapons.

This Honors First Year Seminar explores the following question: “Why prison?” We return to this question throughout the semester, and will explore additional sub-questions together, including: What do prisons teach us about society? What do prisons and policing teach about the historical legacies of racial violence in the United States? What do prisons teach us about (in)justice? What does studying prisons teach us about ourselves?

Your Professor

Sam Houston specializes in modern Islamic thought, comparative religious ethics, and Christian-Muslim relations. He spent two years teaching English in Abu Dhabi, UAE, during which time he traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. In 2013, he was awarded a U.S. State Department-sponsored Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Morocco. He earned his PhD from Florida State University, an MA in philosophy from Boston College, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a BA from Baylor University. He enjoys traveling with his wife Shannon, long-distance running, and watching Arrested Development ad infinitum.

This Honors First Year Seminar explores the following question: “Why prison?” We return to this question throughout the semester, and will explore additional sub-questions together, including: What do prisons teach us about society? What do prisons and policing teach about the historical legacies of racial violence in the United States? What do prisons teach us about (in)justice? What does studying prisons teach us about ourselves?

Your Professor

TBD

Introduction to Music Education: Principles and Methods of Diverse Learners is an introductory course that provides a foundation for upper-division coursework in education. Emphasis will include research-based literature on teacher effectiveness and student learning with classroom observations/participation. This course is designed to help music majors explore the historical, philosophical and social foundations of music education while examining issues that focus on music curricula, goals and objectives of music programs and the many aspects involved in teaching music. Teacher effectiveness and student learning are demonstrated through classroom observations and instruction.

Your Professor

John A. Lychner is the Director of Music Education in the School of Music at Stetson University. He teaches classes in music education, supervises intern teachers, serves as an academic advisor as well as the advisor for the collegiate NAfME chapter, and is active as a clinician and conductor. Before coming to Stetson, Dr. Lychner was a Professor of Music in the School of Music at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

Lychner earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) and was then awarded a Rotary International Foundation Scholarship to continue studies in music and education at the University of Nottingham in Nottingham, England. He taught band, choir and general music in the Lindbergh School District in St. Louis, Missouri. He received a Master of Arts from Northeast Missouri State University where he was the principal conductor for the University Concert Band and then went on to complete a PhD at Florida State University in Music Education. While in Tallahassee, Lychner was also assistant director of Bands at Rickards High School and woodwind coach and rehearsal assistant with the Tallahassee Symphony Youth Orchestra. During his career, he has also worked as a summer music camp instructor, church organist and church choir director.

Lychner has served in a variety of leadership roles with the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), including national Chair for two Special Research Interest Groups and President for the Michigan Music Educators Association, the Michigan affiliate of NAfME. He was also a member of the Production Staff for the International Association for Jazz Education annual convention.

His research in the areas of aesthetic response to music and teacher education has been published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education: Research, and the Journal of Band Research, among others. He has also been published in several volumes of the series Teaching Music Through Performance in Band and has written articles for the Music Educators Journal, The Michigan Music Educator and The Instrumentalist.

Introduction to Music Education: Principles and Methods of Diverse Learners is an introductory course that provides a foundation for upper-division coursework in education. Emphasis will include research-based literature on teacher effectiveness and student learning with classroom observations/participation. This course is designed to help music majors explore the historical, philosophical and social foundations of music education while examining issues that focus on music curricula, goals and objectives of music programs and the many aspects involved in teaching music. Teacher effectiveness and student learning are demonstrated through classroom observations and instruction.

Your Professor

Gregory W. LeFils Jr., PhD, is a visiting assistant professor of choral music education at Stetson University. His duties include teaching music education classes and supervising student teachers. LeFils holds a PhD in music education from Florida State University where his teaching included assisting with music education, conducting and graduate choral literature classes. As a conductor, he was the assistant conductor of various choral ensembles including the Women's Glee Club, Choral Union, Chamber Choir and the Tallahassee Community Chorus.

LeFils' professional experience includes directing two secondary choral music programs in Florida, conducting The Orlando Chorale and The Orlando Chamber Choir, and singing/soloing with the Festival Singers of Florida. His research interests include teacher effectiveness, music teacher curriculum and training, incorporating elements of teamwork into rehearsals, choral improvisation and choral history. LeFils has presented research and educational clinics throughout the region including the annual conferences of Music Education Associations in Alabama and Florida and other workshops for music educators in central Florida. His dissertation is entitled The History of the Stetson University Concert Choir. In addition to his roles as researcher and educator, LeFils maintains an active agenda as a speaker, clinician and adjudicator across the region.