Fall 2011 | Spring 2012
Fall 2011:
FYS 101D – Turning to One Another: Beliefs and Behaviors
(AH) GEP, (AH) GFR
TuTh 8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Academic Building IV Rm. 108
C Randles, Diane Lee
This course is oriented toward exploration of questions that are both personal and global in their orientation. What do I believe about others? What is the relationship I want with the earth? When and where do I experience sacred? Conversations will occur around topics such as these to expand and inform our understanding of how our beliefs and behaviors have the power to transform.
FYS 101Q – Creating A Culture of Peace: What would it take?
(AH) GEP
TuTh 10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Sondheim Hall Rm. 108
Joby Taylor
Building a Culture of Peace will engage students in investigating the diverse meanings and methods operating in the study and practice of peace. The course will include an interdisciplinary exploration of primary texts, key terms, major theories and methods, and a guest presentation. There will also be individualized research opportunities for students that will result in critical and creative essays across a range of interrelated topics and build toward an overall course learning portfolio.
FYS 101R – Sustainability in American Culture
(AH) GEP
TuTh 1 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Fine Arts Building Rm. 215
Rita Turner
This course explores the concept of sustainability, and how it is presented in popular American culture. We will examine cultural conversations and beliefs about the environment and about pressing environmental challenges, investigating how attitudes toward these issues get presented, debated, and constructed in American culture, through such media as books, movies, television, poetry, art, and news stories. Students will be expected to critically analyze readings and viewings, to discuss and reflect upon their own environmental attitudes and experiences, and to produce creative writing, digital stories, research presentations, and a final essay exploring an issue of their choice related to sustainability in American culture.
FYS 101S – Creating Stories About Times of Change
(AH) GEP
TuTh 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Engineering Rm. 336
Dr. Judah Ronch
This course explores common themes in both adolescence and aging, stages in life that can transform a person’s sense of identity. In intergenerational teams, students will explore changes in their identities by producing video stories together that will focus on common threads, shared insights and lessons about growth. The narrative collaboration will offer opportunities for empathy and broadening of perspective, and participants will gain wisdom about creating identity in times of change.
FYS 102A – Images of Madness
(SS) GEP, (SS) GFR
Th 4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Academic Building IV Rm. 011
Carolyn Tice
This course reviews Academy Award winning films depicting mental illness to consider the influence of motion pictures on the public perception of social issues, policies, and services. We will analyze films using a historical framework and with assigned readings that address cultural stereotypes, societal attitudes, and the public’s response toward people with mental illness.
FYS 102C – Diversity, Ethics and Social Justice in the Context of Schooling
(SS) GEP, (SS) GFR
Mo 3 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Location TBA
Vickie Williams, Sue Small
We will explore and mediate the tensions that exist in current reform efforts as schools endeavor to meet the needs of diverse students. This course will use an inquiry-based approach to examine federal and local policies and how they impact students, schools and society.
FYS 102P – Creativity, Innovation, and Invention
(AH) GEP
We 4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Meyerhoff Chemistry Rm. 272
Dr. William LaCourse
This course is for undergraduate students of all majors to explore the invention process from the germination of an idea to the development of a prototype in order to solve problems that address everyday needs. The purpose of the course is to inspire creativity and motivate students to invent, and supply them with the minimum expertise necessary to design, market, and protect an invention. Students will work in “active-learning” I-teams that will assume responsibility for tasks that are important to the development and success of their invention. Students will essentially act as the divisions of a company that are all working toward a common purpose.
Spring 2012:
FYS 102K – Passive-Aggressive Behavior
(SS) GEP
TuTh 8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Math & Psychology Rm. 105
Karen Freiberg
This semester long course will provide information about the developmental pathways to passive aggressive (P/A) behavior, or to a passive aggressive personality as well as identifying five distinct and increasingly pathological levels of passive aggressive behavior. The course will help students distinguish between situational and pathological passive aggression and identify specific reasons why people use passive aggressive behaviors. Passive aggression will be examined across the lifespan and in four distinct contexts; home, school, marriage and extended family. Students will learn the different ways that passive aggressive behavior is exhibited across these settings
FYS 101R – Sustainability in American Culture
(AH) GEP
TuTh 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Fine Arts Rm. 530
Rita Turner
This course explores the concept of sustainability, and how it is presented in popular American culture. We will examine cultural conversations and beliefs about the environment and about pressing environmental challenges, investigating how attitudes toward these issues get presented, debated, and constructed in American culture, through such media as books, movies, television, poetry, art, and news stories. Students will be expected to critically analyze readings and viewings, to discuss and reflect upon their own environmental attitudes and experiences, and to produce creative writing, digital stories, research presentations, and a final essay exploring an issue of their choice related to sustainability in American culture.
FYS 102D – Investigating Everyday Problems and their IT Solutions
(SS) GEP, (SS) GFR
TuTh 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Academic IV Rm. 150
Susan Evans
As we proceed through a normal day, we are faced with a myriad of small problems ranging from \”How can I avoid that traffic jam?\” to \”What’s the number for the pizza place that delivers?\” Other larger problems, such as \”Are Maryland”s new voting machines accurate and secure?\”, and \”How do we train our surgeons without putting patients at risk?\” also occasionally get our attention. The purpose of this course is to provide first-year students with an opportunity to study some real-world problems and to see how research is carried out on those problems at UMBC. This course will concentrate on problems currently being studied by members of the CSEE Department, but it is interdisciplinary in nature since those problems vary in subject matter tremendously.
The course is a solid introduction to research methods used both in the discipline of Computer Science and also in the fields associated with the specific problems being studied that semester. Problems studied will vary from semester to semester based upon the current research topics being investigated by the CSEE Department at the time of the course offering.
FYS 102G – Sexuality, Health and Human Rights
(SS) GEP, (SS) GFR
Ilsa Lottes
Who has the right to access scientific information about individuals’ sexuality and sexual health? What privacy rights do people have in their sexual relationships? Who controls when and if one has children? In the last decade, scholars and advocacy organizations have been asking such questions that link sexuality, health, and human rights. Increasingly, these linkages are made by human rights advocates, those marginalized by their gender and/or sexuality, feminists, and professionals in the health and family planning fields. Students will become sensitized to issues that have become increasingly important to the international community in the areas of sexuality, health, and human rights. They will also become familiar with steps in the social science research process, including background literature review, survey construction, data collection and analysis and reporting of findings.
FYS 102M – Conflict Resolution Education: Handling Conflict Constructively
(SS) GEP
We 4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Academic IV Rm. 110
Sue Small
A key component to successful and meaningful educational experiences is related to conflict resolution education. This course introduces students to the broad field of CRE (including social and emotional learning, anti-bullying programs, peer mediation, negotiation processes, expressive arts, restorative justice programs, and bias awareness programs). The course provides students with examples of programs and encourages them to consider how they can support and utilize these programs first in their personal lives, and then as future leaders. Throughout the course there are opportunities for reflection about how the principles of CRE apply on an individual level in one’s life. There are many applications for CRE across careers from the business world to public service.
FYS 103C – Issues in Biotechnology
(S) GEP, (S) GFR
TuTh 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Biological Sciences Rm. 461
Nessly Craig
Through directed readings, class discussions, and student presentations, this seminar will focus on understanding these various aspects of modern biotechnology with an emphasis on its scientific basis. Practical demonstrations and visits to UMBC labs using biotechnological techniques will be an important part of the course to illustrate how the methods theoretically discussed in class are actually done.
FYS 103D – Global Warming
(S) GEP, (S) GFR
TuTh 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Physics Rm. 107
Raymond Hoff
First Year Seminars are open to any student in their first year at UMBC.
FYS 103L – What is the world made of?
(S) GEP
TuTh 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Sondheim Hall Rm. 209
Laszlo Takacs
A historical approach will be used to explore how the concept of matter developed from the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers through the modern concepts of elements, atoms, and molecules to our current view of elementary particles and how the matter of the universe evolved since the Big Bang. The development of practical materials will also be studied from the use of native metals and early pottery to modern materials engineering and ultimately the atomic-level control of nanomaterials. Although the unifying theme of the course is science history, substantial excursions will be made into the relevant areas of physics, chemistry, and materials science, especially when discussing current understanding and practice.
For More Information, Please Contact:
Jill Randles
Assistant Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education
jrandles@umbc.edu | (410) 455-3715