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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
This four-credit course provides an introduction to various dimensions of philanthropy and volunteerism. Using the seminar format and an array of interactive activities, we will conduct a broad but intellectual inquiry into the systems and ethics of giving time and money to charitable causes. In four units of inquiry, we will consider the giving traditions that have influenced American culture and society since its colonial days. We will examine the role that the Third Sector (also known as the Independent or Nonprofit Sector) plays as an agent of social change in a functioning democratic republic. We will explore the nature of donors and volunteers and take a critical look at the missions and goals of a cross section of nonprofit organizations. We will wrestle with ethical issues related to philanthropy and consider the giving patterns of different social, religious, and ethnic groups. We will also turn our collective thinking to how the nonprofit sector might better serve the social needs of the nation and the world. At the end of the semester, we will reflect on how our ideas about philanthropy have changed over the course of fifteen weeks.
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4.00 Credits
This course has two major foci: poverty and social policies designed to ameliorate poverty. Sociologists in the United States and in other countries have made major contributions to studies of poverty. They have primarily focused on income-based poverty, but more recently, have also studied other forms of poverty. In this class, we will examine different conceptualizations and measures of poverty. We will then examine short-term and long-term poverty experiences and their potential consequences. We will then turn to explanations of poverty: why are some individuals more likely to experience periods of low income than others? While the United States will be the focus of the course, we will contrast the experiences of other countries. The second component will be an analysis of social policies designed to ameliorate poverty. In particular, we will examine the development and retrenchment of welfare states and other social policies, the various goals of social policy, and the different impacts social policies have had on individuals, families, other groups, and the country overall. This discussion will reflect on experiences of other countries.
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4.00 Credits
This four credit-hour course provides an introduction to various dimensions of modernization in contemporary China, especially cultural and social changes such as consumption, education, migration, and tourism as a result of economic reforms, trade expansion, foreign investments and technology transfer, especially the development of information technology. The seminar will also asses the impacts of these changes on various aspects of globalization and vice versa. It will be characterized by intense yet open-ended intellectual inquiry, guided by reading relevant material, and will include practice in written and oral communication in discussion forums and small groups. The goals are to enhance basic intellectual skills of academic inquiry, such as critical reading, thoughtful analysis, and written and oral communication; to introduce basic information on literacy skills; to provide a foundation for ethical decision-making; to encourage a global and multidisciplinary perspective on the learning process; to facilitate faculty-student interactions; and, in the most general sense, to provide a supportive common intellectual experience at CWRU.
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4.00 Credits
This seminar is an introduction to some of the most important global developments of our times. We will examine these events through political, historical, economic, cultural, sociological, scientific and ethical lenses. Readings will come from a wide-range of sources, and assignments will include exercises in written and oral communication. The professor will choose the first three global developments to be investigated as well as the relevant readings. His topics will most likely be the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the rise of China as a great power and the fiftieth anniversary of the European Union. Each of the remaining seven will be chosen by small groups of students, who will assign the readings and run the sessions for their respective topic. Possible topics include the global food crisis, genocide and the failure of the world community to stop it, global warming and the growing gap between the world's rich and poor.
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4.00 Credits
Although war is a highly rational, organized and purposeful affair, it also is the most destructive and bloody of human activities. For this reason, war and warfare has always been subject to various religious and moral restrictions. As technology has developed, the conduct of war has changed and the definitions of just and unjust war, as well as what it means to fight justly, have undergone profound changes. This course looks at war and warfare from a variety of angles and examines how various religious and moral thinkers have tried to define just war, and create guidelines for fighting a war justly. At the end of the semester, the course looks at the moral challenges presented by new technologies and new concepts of war.
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4.00 Credits
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has" (Margaret Mead, 1901-1978). This seminar is about understanding what enables people to make a generative impact on the world. Students will explore the socio-emotional and motivational characteristics of effective leaders and their ability to create positive change. Students will also be encouraged to develop their own theories of leadership and to explore their personal approaches to making a difference. The seminar will profile leaders from different occupations and walks of life. Seminar sessions will feature assigned readings on leaders and change agents, class discussion on what drives movers and shakers, and individual and group presentations on class members' emergent leadership perspectives. A key objective of the seminar is the development of critical thinking skills, writing skills, and verbal skills. Consequently, the weekly class readings, reflection papers on class readings, class discussions, class presentations (individual and group), and final project are vital features of the seminar experience. Students will be expected to leave the seminar with a grounded perspective on leaders and leadership, and the ability to articulate their own personal views on making a difference in the world.
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4.00 Credits
We live in a world in which millions of people die every year in developing countries due to poverty-related conditions. Within the United States, where most commentators characterize the population as "middle class," at least 35 million people live in poverty. This course examines social inequality from multiple perspectives. We will discuss the concepts of poverty, discrimination, and social change on a global and national level. The first third of the course assesses several economic, cultural, and environmental theories of inequality. We will then survey a wide range of scholarship that has addressed various types of social inequalities from diverse viewpoints.
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4.00 Credits
This First Seminar will focus on the socio/political/economic environment of the Cleveland/Northeast Ohio Region. Students will be encouraged to explore the agents that create change in our region; major employers and start-up innovative businesses, politicians, philanthropic funds and grassroots activists. Our analysis will also include the topic of growth. Definitions of it, creation of it, measurement of it, equity of it and sustainability of it.
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4.00 Credits
We make judgments of our own intelligence as well as the intelligence of other people, of animals, of decisions and responses, and of descriptions of the world. What is intelligence? This course will examine a variety of ways in which we ascribe the concept of intelligence, and evaluate our measures of intelligence and the consequences of our use of the term. Intelligence, and the evaluation of its type, degree, presence, or absence is strongly linked to symbols and symbol use, and so the course is themed around segments that focus on specific aspects of symbol use and how they relate to intelligence. Segments include: Intelligence and Symbols, Mental Disorders, Moral Intelligence, Artistic Intelligence, Religion and Intelligence, Neurological Methods, Biographical Methods, and Animal Intelligence. Language as a dominant form of both symbol use and intelligence indication will recur as a topic throughout the course. At the end of the course, students will be well acquainted with a variety of notions of intelligence, common controversies surrounding such notions, measures of intelligence and their flaws, and different venues in which research on intelligence promises to be fruitful.
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4.00 Credits
The twentieth century has often been referred to as a traumatic century, characterized by unprecedented and unimaginable acts of violence. Traumatic events have engrained themselves into both individual and collective memory structures. Not surprisingly, trauma studies have become a central topic of investigation across disciplinary lines. Yet much of the field is still negotiated. We will try to recreate this ongoing discussion in our classroom, when learning, talking, and writing about trauma and its remembrance. The goal of this writing-intense seminar is to give insight into the topic as well as introduce students to academic research, life, and expression. At first we will familiarize ourselves and take part in some fundamental debates: the distinction of memory and history, false memories, individual and collective memories, as well as the definitions of trauma across the disciplines. We will then have a closer look at the difficulty faced by researchers who grapple with trauma and its remembrance. In a final segment we will analyze representations of traumatic memories in public spaces, literature, and the visual arts.
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