Nine first-year seminars are being offered this spring for those students who did not take a seminar first semester. The classes being offered include Nuclear Power and Society; If I Can’t Dance – Keep Your Revolution; Understanding Afghanistan: Past and Present; Interpreting Vermont: History, Culture, and Tourism; Finding Your Passion: Beginning the Quest; Art of Social Imagination; Mathematical Puzzles through History; What is Called Thinking?, and Truthiness 101: Advertising, Industrialization, Globalization.
As in the fall, these courses offer topics that are interdisciplinary and, in many cases, “non traditional” in terms of fitting into any specific discipline.
For example, Nuclear Power and Society, taught by Professor of Environmental and Health Sciences Les Kanat, explores different concepts and applications of nuclear power. In the course, students learn about the effects of nuclear technology, whether it be biological or environmental.
“I took classes first semester that talked a lot about nuclear power,” said Sadye Easler, a JSC freshman taking Nuclear Power and Society, “and I wanted to learn more about it because I think it’s going to be a big part of the future. We’re learning about the different aspects of nuclear power right now.”
The first-year seminar series also provides faculty with a chance to explore other areas sometimes beyond their designated specialties.
Lisa Cline, assistant professor of humanities with a background in European history, is teaching Truthiness 101, a class addressing advertising and the economy. “I’m really interested in the history of industrialization and our economy,” she said. “So I wanted to look at that, but I thought advertising is one of the most interesting elements of that.”
The class focuses on the history of advertising and how it really affects the human mind. It also deals with America’s economy and how it functions today. Cline believes that although some choose not to believe it, advertising affects everyone in some way. The class helps to bring this to students’ attention.
“Truthiness” is a word that became popular because of television comedian Stephen Colbert. Colbert created the word to describe something that isn’t exactly the truth, but someone’s perception of what they intuitively believe could be true. Cline’s brother-in-law came up with the idea to name the class after Colbert. “He’s more into pop culture than I am, so I asked him if he could think of a good name for the class and he came up with ‘Truthiness,’ which is perfect,” Cline said, adding that her goal “is for students to think critically about the world we live in…I think ultimately I would like to be able to denaturalize the economy so that we can think about it not as something that emerged organically, but as something that is created on an on-going basis by all the little acts we participate in by going shopping and buying things.”
According to Cline, it’s easy for students to be blind to how they are individually participating in advertising without realizing it. “I think it’s really easy to think of economic decisions as they are that way because they have to be,” she said. “As a historian, I know that it’s not really that way, and that it was invented at a certain point in time, so I would like to make it seem less natural, the whole system of buying that we live in.”
Shawn Biloings, a JSC freshman taking Cline’s seminar is enjoying himself so far. “It’s out of the norm of other classes I’m taking,” he said. “It’s a different experience. I wanted to take the class because I thought it would be a different view point from the high school setting classes I’ve been taking.”
Biloings was drawn to the idea of taking the course when he noticed that it involved Stephen Colbert. “There were some good options but none of them really grabbed my interest like this one did. It’s a great way to meet new people, especially people with the same interest in advertising.”
Freshman seminars are now part of the core curriculum and count as one of the mandatory three interdisciplinary courses.