Considering Your First-Year Seminar

This course offers an overview of the discipline of sociology from a global perspective, focusing particularly on cross-cultural examples of social, economic and political relationships. It explores how social forces impact the structure of society and its social institutions as well as cultural patterns, crime, groups, personality, and human interactions.

This course is taught by Professor Deb Lemke.

An introduction to the analysis and appreciation of theatre, the student receives an overview of dramatic theory and practice by reading and attending plays, studying critical evaluations of professionals, and participating in classroom discussions.
This course is taught by Professor Shana Joslyn.

This is a college level chemistry course that equips students with the skills and experience necessary to succeed in any discipline or potential career where chemistry knowledge and understanding is vital. It equates to CHE-1103 General Chemistry I in content, so any course that needs CHE-1103 as a prerequisite will have this requirement satisfied in taking FYS-1137. It also serves as a freshman seminar. This course has seven contact hours per week: 3 in class, 1 in flex, and 3 in lab; you must register for a section of CHE-1001 General Chemistry I Laboratory to be taken concurrently. There is a math prerequisite. This means when you take the math placement test, you need to test out of college arithmetic and algebra. This equates to testing out of MAT-1100. Are you prepared to take on this challenge? As a fast-track start into realizing your career aspirations, it could be very lucrative and rewarding. 

This course is taught by Professor Peter Craig.

Be a man! That’s not very ladylike! We’ve all heard statements like these, but what do they really mean? What is “masculinity,” what is “femininity,” and how have these concepts changed over time? This course will examine the social construction of masculinity and femininity over the last century or so. We will read literature and examine cultural artifacts from early twentieth century Boy Scout manuals to contemporary magazine advertisements, and from a sex manual to popular movies and books in an attempt to chart some of the changes in the social construction of gender over the course of the twentieth century. How much have things changed? Have books, movies, television, advertisements helped advance new gender roles, or have they reinforced traditional ones?

This course is taught by Professor Becky Carpenter.

Do you like to draw? Would you like to learn ways that drawing can help you explore and address the social, cultural, and environmental world you live in? Then this course is for you! Mark to Message is a Studio course in drawing that combines practices that will help you develop an understanding of perceptual drawing techniques with a working knowledge of traditional, modern, and contemporary art history and theory. With sketchbooks, pencils, and markers we will explore the world around us, from the studio, to Main Street in Westminster, and beyond!
This course is taught by Professor Steve Pearson

Students will be exposed to a range of disability issues through various media, including, but not limited to: films, novels, poetry, journal articles, and performing and visual arts. In addition, students will explore the marginalization of, as well as, some of the pros and cons of the current state of exceptionalities in the US, including how individuals with disabilities are portrayed in the media.

This course is taught by Professor Matthew Ramsey.

George Washington, Winston Churchill, Queen Boudica, and Genghis Khan. The annals of human history are filled with examples of these and other valiant leaders and vile dictators. But how can we assess the positive and negative qualities of leadership that make leaders great, terrible, or merely mediocre? This course will examine theories of leadership that stem from multiple disciplines, including political science, communication, business administration, and military science, while also examining a rich diversity of political and senior wartime leaders, both past and present.

This course is taught by Professor Francis Grice.

This course is concerned with how we make and find meaning in the world. It will focus on the relationship between personal identity and the quest for a meaningful life. Guiding questions include: What factors shape our identities? Are we free? Is religious belief a necessary part of life? Is life absurd? Is knowledge part of the good life? Throughout the quarter, we will familiarize ourselves with how major figures throughout the history of Western philosophy and contemporary Western philosophers approached these questions. We will also place these authors into dialogue with several ancient and contemporary Asian philosophical works. In addition to philosophical texts, this course will address the aforementioned themes through a film, a short story, and a novel.

This course is taught by Professor Elizabeth Tyler.

Water and food have been a crucial but often overlooked part of Chinese history. How have changing patterns of its production and consumption shaped China’s ecology and its daily life?  What elements have shaped the Chinese relations with water, food, and ecology? Despite lakes and rivers, why have Chinese repeatedly suffered in history for lack of water? Which plants were served as staple or exotic foods in China? With diverse fauna and floras, why has China faced repeated famines? How have solutions to these problems been wrapped in economic shifts, cultural integration and disintegration, and the expansion/diminishing of state power?  Employing a range of disciplinary perspectives—historical, literary, philosophical, economic, technological, and ecological —this course examines the changing images of water, food, and ecology in Chinese history.  

This course is taught by Professor Qin Fang.

The "Master of Horror" Stephen King is also known as "America's Storyteller" because his 60+ books and over 200 short stories are written in variety of genres including science fiction, supernatural fiction, thrillers, drama, and nonfiction. Dozens of these stories have been adapted as feature films, TV movies, and TV series — and Americans have devoured them for almost 50 years. This class explores King's works, such as The Shining, Stand by Me, Misery, and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. We will read and discuss these works, and discover what they tell us about America's aspirations, fantasies, and fears. We will then see how his written works are transformed, enhanced, or degraded by their translation into film. This course will include several three-hour film-viewing sessions outside of regularly schedule class time. 
This course is taught by Professor Mary Bendel-Simso.

Football is America’s most popular sport. It’s a cultural phenomenon that brings together family, friends, and communities, while providing a source of “friendly” competition between towns, cities and states. At the professional level, the NFL is a multi-billion-dollar industry that’s essential to national media, local journalism, and many other areas of the economy. But for all its popularity, football remains a source of persistent social and political controversy. In this course, students explore the virtues and vices of America’s game, including a central focus on the problem of player safety and head trauma. Students will also explore issues surrounding youth football safety, player activism, racial justice, gender equity, LGBTQ rights, domestic violence, public funding of stadiums, players unions, ownership power, sports betting, pay for college athletes, sports journalism, the role of analytics, and more. This course focuses primarily on the NFL; students will be asked to stay up to date on the current football season and to participate in a class fantasy football league. Students will not be asked to play football or attend games in person.

This course is taught by Professor Matthew Mongiello.

It is difficult to think objectively about violence. It is a threat that we fear, and yet a tool we cling to and find arousing. It is also difficult to think about nonviolence, partly because the word itself is misleading. In this course, we will examine the causes and effects of violence using the best available evidence. We will also learn about the achievements of strategic nonviolence, and ask whether nonviolent skills and values are applicable to everyday life.

This course is taught by Professor Charles Collyer.

What does it mean to “design for good?” Students will become citizen-designers and work collaboratively between on and off-campus partners in Westminster to establish a research question that will guide their creative work throughout the semester. Brainstorming, experiential learning, play, and research will be used to create artifacts, systems, or experiences for citizens of Westminster and the McDaniel community. This course may involve traveling off-campus via walking or shuttle, and there may be one or more experiences where student work is showcased to the general public. No previous art experience is required.

This course is taught by Professor Chloe Irla.

In this course, students will explore several periods of the medieval past by playing and critiquing video games from various popular series. Students examine not only key historical events of the period—such as the Zanj Rebellion and the Third Crusade—but also its art and architecture, the organization of cities, cross-cultural trade, and religion. As a final project for the course, students will propose their own historical video game. Students will consider how the Middle Ages is portrayed—and often misrepresented—in mainstream culture and how the choices of the game makers impact how players view the past.

This course is taught by Professor Jillian Bjerke.