Course Work
There are many courses at Carleton that work in the Northfield and surrounding communities. The list below contains the courses that are currently supported by the Center for Civic and Community Engagement's curricular programming and the Dean of the College. It is by no means comprehensive and does not include many ongoing courses.
Spring '13
A Journey in Journalism - ENGL 272 - Doug McGill (23 students)
In this workshop-style class in journalistic storytelling, the classroom becomes a newsroom and students become working journalists reporting on Carleton and Northfield events as well as broader social issues, personalities, and trends of their choosing. Working in a multimedia lab, students will create and publish their stories online in a variety of digital platforms and styles. Guided by the journalistic values of truthfulness, fairness, and serving the public interest, students in this class may choose stories of any locale and scale and work in any online medium they choose--from blogging and still photography to videos, podcasts, and infographics.
Carleton in the Archives: Studies in Institutional Memory and Culture - HIST 115 - Paul Petzschmann (16 students)
Ours is a world of institutions - schools, corporations, government agencies - that shape the way we act, think, and remember. The memory of institutions themselves, the records they keep and the way these repositories are organized and used is crucial for their functioning and survival. What is the relationship between "official" and "individual" memory in the making of an institutional world? We will explore this and related questions through readings, discussion, and a hands-on project based on materials in Carleton's own archives.
Museums, Monuments, and Memory - HIST 285 - B. Horrigan (12 students)
"History" is not just the name of a department at Carleton College; "History-making" is an activity engaged in by everybody, everyday. We watch historical movies, listen to political leaders invoking history in making policy, tour historic sites and museums, etc. We listen to our elders tell us stories about their lives, and we tell ourselves stories that place our experiences into the historical continuum. This course ranges widely over the varied and sometimes risky terrain of contemporary history-making in Minnesota and beyond to examine preservation organizations, museums, archives, oral history projects, documentary films, historic sites, schools, theater, TV, and cyberspace.
Introduction to Peace Studies -SOAN 236- N. Saidei (# students to be determined)
Peace studies is an evolving and emerging holistic interdisciplinary study of collective harmony and collective violence. In this course we will study the alternative definitions of peace and examine the relation between peace and a variety of societal factors including modernity, post modernity, international anarchy, forms of state, cultural construction of violence, religious prejudice, patriarchy, nuclear weapon, ecology, militarism, globalization and a global civil society and culture.
Advanced Ceramics - ARTS 330 - Kelly Connole (10 students)
Students in this art course will create over 500 bowls for a yearly event to highlight the problems that hunger creates in society. The event is called Empty Bowls and includes a fundraiser selling the handmade bowls with soup provided by the Carleton community for the Northfield Food Shelf. Students will do research and design publicity based on hunger in a local context in collaboration with the Northfield Community Action Center. Bowls are a fundamental skill in the field of ceramics and the bowls that students made for the event were designed as tokens to remind participants to give back.
Teaching Reading in the Content Areas - EDUC 386 - Cathy Oehmke (7 students)
The course provides a theoretical and practical foundation for helping secondary teachers learn to provide specific instructional support for secondary readers. The course will cover instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Students for this class will partner with students from the Prairie Creek Community School to work on reading skills.
Senior Seminar - EDUC 395 - Deborah Appleman (9 students)
This is a research and design seminar for educational studies concentrators. It focuses on a contemporary issue in American education. Recent seminars have been on educational reform and reformers, service learning, literacy leaders in education, education and the emotions, and personal essays about education. Some off campus work with public school students and teachers is an integral part of the seminar. The academic civic engagement component for this class will focus on charter schools.
Global Religions in Minnesota - RELG 289 - Shanna Sippy (15 students)
This course examined how global religions adapt to and transform the disparate local communities where their practitioners make home. Students supplemented historical and theoretical instruction with hands-on research with living communities in Minnesota including Muslims in Faribault, Hindus in Eagan, and Cambodian Buddhists in Hampton. The studies and experiences may be published online.
Ethics of Civic Engagement - SOAN 285 - Adrienne Falcón (20 students)
In this course, students will discuss the ethical questions that arise when they engage with others in research, service, organizing, or policy work. Students will read and talk about the meanings and forms of civic engagement and use these readings to reflect upon their own research or service projects. Gaining insights from sociological and practice based readings, we will examine different perspectives on the ways that power and privilege relate to civic engagement. Each student will take on a project based on their own interests.
Peace Studies - Nader Saidi (7 of __ students)
Peru Off-Campus Studies Program
Winter '13
Methods of Social Research - SOAN 240 - Annette Nierobisz (19 students)
The course is concerned with social scientific inquiry and explanation, particularly with reference to sociology and anthropology. Topics covered include research design, data collection, and analysis of data. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are considered. Student will demonstrate their knowledge by developing a research proposal that is implementable. The class will partner with the NESNA neighborhood association around Carleton and develop a survey for them and partake in interviews examining the meaning of community and building neighborhood ties for both elder residents and college students.
Immunology -BIOL 310- Debra Walser-Kuntz (33 students)
This course will examine the role of the immune system in defense, allergic reactions, and autoimmunity. Topics to be covered include the structure and function of antibodies, cytokines, the role of the major histocompatibility complex in antigen presentation, cellular immunity, immunodeficiencies, and current techniques used to study immune responses.
Foundations of Modern Europe -HIST 139- Susannah Ottaway (22 students)
A narrative and survey of the early modern period (fifteenth through eighteenth centuries). The course examines the Renaissance, Reformation, Contact with the Americas, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment. We compare the development of states and societies across Western Europe, with particularly close examination of the history of Spain.
Africans in the Arab World: On Site and Revisited -HIST 286- T. Willis (6 students)
This course is the second part of a two-term sequence. It begins with a two-week December-break trip to Dubai, UAE, to visit museums, mosques, other heritage sites, universities, media outlets, and markets. It promotes dialogue with Afro-Arab women around the historical constructions of gender, race, and ethnicity in heritage sites, Islam, Arab media, academic institutions, and popular culture. Ultimately, students will ponder Afro-Arab women's voice and visibility beyond the home in this Arab society. Then upon return to Carleton, students will reflect upon their experiences in the UAE, analyze their data, and present it in oral, written, and visual formats.
Anthropology of Health and Illness -SOAN 262- P. Feldman-Savelsberg (16 students)
An ethnographic approach to beliefs and practices regarding health and illness in numerous societies worldwide. This course examines patients, practitioners, and the social networks and contexts through which therapies are managed to better understand medical systems as well as the significance of the anthropological study of misfortune. Specific topics include the symbolism of models of illness, the ritual management of misfortune and of life crisis events, the political economy of health, therapy management, medical pluralism, and cross-cultural medical ethics.
Women's Lives in Pre-Modern Europe -HIST 236- Victoria Morse (6 students)
Did women have a Renaissance? Were women increasingly relegated to a separate sphere from men: "domesticated" into the household? Or, on the contrary, is the history of European women characterized by fundamental continuities? This course seeks to answer these questions through an exploration of women's place in the family and economy, laws and cultural assumptions about women, and women's role in religion. Throughout the term, we will be focusing not only on writings about women, but primarily on sources written by women themselves, as we seek a fuller understanding of the nature of European women's lives before the modern era.
Materials Science, Energy, and the Environment -ENTS 262- Melissa Eblen Zayas (27 students)
Drawing on chemistry and physics principles, this course will focus on the relationship between the structure and physical properties of materials, how materials science can address environmental and energy challenges, and the technological and societal impacts of materials development. Topics to be covered will vary from year to year, but may include material life cycle assessment, traditional plastics and biodegradable alternatives, materials and technologies for solar energy conversion, and the role of materials in developing energy efficient buildings.
Methods of Teaching Science -BIOL 302- D. Walser-Kuntz (10 students)
This course will explore teaching methods for the life and physical sciences in grades 5-12. Curricular materials and active learning labs will be discussed and developed. In addition, time outside of class will be spent observing and teaching in local science classrooms. Will not count toward a biology major.
Fall '12
Early Medieval Worlds -HIST 137- Bill North (44 students)
Through the intensive exploration of four "worlds" in the early Middle Ages (Late Antique Italy, Anglo-Saxon England, Carolingian Europe, the Holy Roman Empire) this course seeks to offer an introduction to formative political, social, and cultural developments in Europe between c. 250 and c.1050s. Particular attention will be paid to the sources of our knowledge of early medieval people and polities. Development of a student-designed public exhibition on early medieval books and scribal culture will be an essential element of the course. Students will be bringing these outreach projects to three different local schools.
Agroforestry Systems: Local and Global Perspectives -ENTS 247-Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh (13 students)
This course will examine the principles and practices of tropical and temperate agroforestry systems. Focus will be given to the ecological structure and function of agroforests, the economic costs and benefits of agroforests, and the social context in which agroforests operate. Specific topics include plant/soil relationships, competition and complementarity, biogeochemical cycling, design principles, and the synergies and tradeoffs among economic, social, and ecological management goals.
Educational Psychology - EDUC 234 - Deborah Appleman (24 students)
Educational Psychology brings together theory and classroom experience to help Carleton students form a better understanding of teaching and learning. Carleton students act as classroom assistants and tutors in local schools, giving them a context with which to understand their studies. This experience also gives students a chance to reflect upon education and its practices in a hands-on and practical manner.
Methods of Political Research -POSC 230- Greg Marfleet (22 students)
An introduction to research method, research design, and the analysis of political data. The course is intended to introduce students to the fundamentals of scientific inquiry as they are employed in the discipline. The course will consider the philosophy of scientific research generally, the philosophy of social science research, theory building and theory testing, the components of applied (quantitative and qualitative) research across the major sub-fields of political science, and basic methodological tools.
Geomorphology -GEOL 210- Carrie Jennings (24 students)
Study of the geological processes and factors which influence the origin and development of the surficial features of the earth, with an emphasis on some or all of the processes in Minnesota. Laboratories and field trips included.
Media and Election Politics: 2012 Election -POCS 100- Barbara Allen (16 students)This seminar introduces basic methods of political analysis through a case study of media and politics in the 2012 elections. Students will participate in a study of election advertising and produce projects to be displayed at an exhibition. Concepts from public opinion analysis and political psychology will be used to understand the 2012 campaigns. Our work will focus on content analysis of the effects of campaign ads and news coverage.
Media and Electoral Politics: 2012 United States Election -POSC 204- Barbara Allen (29 students)
Our analysis of media influences on politics will draw from three fields of study: political psychology, political behavior and participation, and public opinion. Students will conduct a study of the effects of campaign ads and news using our multi-year data set of content analyzed election ads and news. These will be presented at a political engagement exhibition. We study a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods to learn how political communication affects U.S. elections.
Comparative Social Movements -POSC 358- Dev Gupta (21 students)
This course will examine the role that social movements play in political life. The first part of the course will critically review the major theories that have been developed to explain how social movements form, operate and seek to influence politics at both the domestic and international levels. In the second part of the course, these theoretical approaches will be used to explore a number of case studies involving social movements that span several different issue areas and political regions. Potential case studies include the transnational environmental movement, religious movements in Latin America and the recent growth of far right activism in northern Europe.
Spanish 204: Intermediate Spanish
Information for students, faculty and community partners involved in the Intermediate Spanish courses at CarletonPast Course Offerings
Past courses supported by Academic Civic Engagement resources.