LSTD 1003 - Introduction to Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Academic learning has traditionally been organized into different categories: the arts and humanities, the physical and natural sciences, and the social sciences. Each of these three areas has different ways of approaching knowledge and of creating new knowledge. In this course we will look at how the disciplines differ, and learn a bit about their ways of discovering knowledge.
We will also work to develop our skills in writing. Writing is not just a means of communicating; it is a way of exploring and thinking. When we write, we crystallize our thoughts and organize them and come to understand them better. Better writers are better communicators and better thinkers and better able to take advantage of life's opportunities.
LSTD 1213 - Creativity in the Arts
In this course, students will learn about the Literary, Visual and Performance Arts by viewing, reading and listening to some of the most famous examples of these fields. Students will also learn about the creative process and what creativity means through the production of their own art. (Gen. Ed. Core IV-Understanding Art Forms).
LSTD 1223 - A History of the United States
A study of the United States may appear to you at first to be an impossible task. You recognize the geographic diversity of the country, the five hundred years of history that have shaped the nation, the intricacies of representative government, the peculiarities of American capitalism, and the broad mixture of races and cultures that make up the American population. This large and complex nation might be studied from any one of the perspectives suggested here. You might focus on the geographic base and natural resources, trace the development of political theory, examine economic models, or develop sociological paradigms. This course will guide you through a study of the United States by emphasizing the people of this country and the relationship of American citizens to the institutions they have created. Your study will include the efforts of some "great" men and women, but, for the most part, you will concentrate on the roles of ordinary people. Your will investigate population diversity, politics, economics, and social characteristics in an historical fashion, that is, with an eye to what has happened over time.
LSTD 1313 - What In The World Are The Social Sciences
This course discusses what comprises the Social Sciences and how we perform research in the different areas, including addressing ethical questions.
LSTD 1323 - Governing Ourselves
This course is an analysis of the differing ideologies governing autocratic vs. democratic systems of government, the structure of the United States government, and the role of extra governmental elements such as lobbyists and PACs on the process of governing. In this course, the student will be introduced to the study of government. The course will provide an overview of various types of governments followed by an in-depth examination of the American political system. The emergence of the American government, the three branches of the American government, and the political process will all be examined.
LSTD 1413 - Mathematics In Liberal Studies
This course is designed to enhance the students' ability to utilize mathematical tools in their daily lives. It covers such topics as use of statistics, evaluating others use of statistics, mathematics in finance, and use of exponents and logarithms in scientific calculations.
LSTD 1423 - Physical Sciences
This course emphasizes physics and chemistry, including topics such as laws of motion, elements of thermodynamics, wave forms and properties, structure of atoms, and the formation of chemical bonds.
LSTD 2213 - Humanistic Tradition: Prehistory Through the Renaissance
In this course, which is the first part of the humanities overview, students will gain an understanding of what the humanities are, what areas of study are included in the humanities, and why this field is an important and interesting one. Because the basic definition of the Humanities refers to a historical study of the great achievements of humans through time, each of these disciplines will be introduced within a historical framework, and by the end of the class, students should be able to trace the development of the humanities both chronologically and typologically. Students will focus on the humanistic traditions found beginning in the prehistoric time period, before writing, and end with the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe.
LSTD 2220 - Images of Persuasion: Images, Propaganda, and Media
This course is the study of the messages in the images found in popular culture used to persuade individuals to purchase something, to believe something, or to behave in a certain manner. The images will be examined to determine what they indicate dominant culture attitudes about gender, race, ethnicity, science, tradition, and being "different."
LSTD 2223 - The Humanistic Tradition: Renaissance to the Modern World
This course is a continuation of "LSTD 2213 The Humanistic Tradition from Prehistory Through the Renaissance." In this course, students will gain an overview of what the humanities are, what areas of study are included in the humanities, and why this field is an important and interesting one. Because the basic definition of the Humanities refers to a historical study of the great achievements of humans through time, each of these disciplines will be introduced within a historical framework, and by the end of the class, students should be able to trace the development of the humanities both chronologically and typologically. Students will focus on the humanistic traditions found beginning in the Baroque Age through the Modern World. This course will be organized in the same way as LSTD 2213, with seven weeks to complete the textbook readings and its workbook assignments, and one week for the comprehensive exam or final project. Consult your instructor for more detailed instructions on these assignments and deadlines.
LSTD 2233 - Evil Acts, Religious Reasons
The course will examine the ways in which religious faith has been used to rationalize war, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and other evil acts. Using comparative religious study as a basis for inquiry, students will learn the five warning signs of imminent evil in the name of religion. This is an interdisciplinary course, drawing upon perspectives from religious history, sociology, education and religious philosophy.
LSTD 2313 - The Human Experience: The Role of Culture in the Social Sciences
A study of culture from a Social Sciences perspective, including investigating topics such as ethnocentrism, cultural relativism and personal identity within the context of being American.
LSTD 2320 - Issues in Post-Colonial Change
We will discuss about why things did fall apart in Africa, the after-effects of British colonialism, post colonial theory, and the wide diversity of cultures in Africa. Post-colonial theory deals with the reading and writing of literature written in previously or currently colonized countries, or literature written in colonizing countries that deals with colonization or colonized peoples. It focuses particularly on: (1) the way in which literature by the colonizing culture distorts the experience and realities, and inscribes the inferiority, of the colonized people; (2) on literature by colonized peoples which attempts to articulate their identity and reclaim their past in the face of that past's inevitable otherness. It can also deal with the way in which literature in colonizing countries appropriates the language, images, scenes, traditions and so forth of colonized countries.
LSTD 2323 - Human Groups and the Distribution of Resources
This course is a critical discussion of prejudice, discrimination, gender identity and crime and deviance from the perspective of various Social Sciences.
LSTD 2333 - Contemporary Social Issues
This course serves as an introduction to some of the social issues that we are faced with in our modern day society. It begins by introducing learners to differing sociological perspectives, and addresses issues such as the consequences of the changing demographics of the U.S., gender inequality, the environment, and a look at utopian and dystopian societies. Students will review, ponder, and write about how each of the addressed topics affects their lives either directly or indirectly.
LSTD 2413 - Introduction to Interdisciplinary Life Sciences
This course focuses on life's diversity and its unity through thinking critically about the natural world. Key concepts, current understandings, and research trends are highlighted throughout the course.
LSTD 2423 - Science as a Process
This course will analyze and criticize the scientific method, design of experiments and collection, and interpretation of data in scientific investigations.
LSTD 2613 - Business Ethics
Business ethics is applied ethics. It is the application of our understanding of what is good and right to that assortment of institutions, technologies, transactions, activities, and pursuits which we call "business." A discussion of business ethics must begin by providing a framework of basic principles for understanding what is meant by the terms good" and "right"; only then can one proceed to profitably discuss the implications these have for our business world. (from Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases)
LSTD 2623 - Understanding Management
This course examines organizational planning, the process of organizational decision-making, the early research on leadership that focuses on personal traits, motivation in organizations, communicating in organizations, teamwork in organizations, the principles of organizational, and organizational control.
LSTD 2633 - Leadership From Within
According to Spiritual Leadership: Transforming Dysfunctional Organizations into Healthy Communities, the most significant difference between leadership of the past and leadership of the present and future will be in distinguishing between "sole" leadership and "soul" leadership. Traditionally isolated sole leadership being characterized by independence, competitiveness, authoritarianism, obedience, and self-aggrandizement. Contrast this with a post modernistic soul leadership, which is characterized by interdependence, creativity, collaboration, and community development (2001). Therefore, personal growth and self-awareness are key components to effective and successful leadership today. In doing work that suits our natural strengths and being aware of our own integrity, leaders find enhanced meaning in their lives and tend to promote this in others, as well. This course will utilize a primary text that includes depth psychology, adult development theory & leadership theory in exploring these concepts. Assignments are designed to focus students on key points from the text, reflective applications of the material, online research & the opportunity for communication with fellow classmates. The final paper will require students to apply the course concepts through research of a leader of their choosing, the inclusion of their references in APA format and incorporation of their personal reflections with a vision of their own leadership style.
LSTD 2700 - People and Differences: Closing the Gap
This course is intended as an introduction to the study of social inequality. It is based upon the assumption that social inequality is multidimensional, and that a theoretical understanding is necessary for students to understand inequality's undesirable consequences (hence the content of Unit 2 is an overview of several theoretical explanations for social inequality). By the end of this course, I hope that students will not only have a better understanding of social inequality, but also a desire to use this knowledge to close the gap of inequality among the haves and the have-nots, and to do away with discrimination in its various forms. The course is divided into four units, and specific topics addressed will include forms of social inequality, general explanations of inequality, consequences of social inequality and stability and change in the system of social inequality.
LSTD 3223 - Renaissance Art
The majority of the art made in Italy during the time of the Renaissance was commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church for didactic, propagandistic, or devotional purposes. Therefore, artists had to devise a method of translating biblical and apocryphal texts into visual images of great beauty. In this class, we will explore how artists created these images, and what style, subject, compositional devises, techniques and materials they used to create such effective messages to the public. Thus, the focus of our discussion will be on explicating religious textual narratives and exploring how artists translated these ideas into visual form to create an effective message. The course will deal with painting, sculpture and architecture, yet we will highlight well-known artists such as Giotto, Raphael and Michelangelo.
LSTD 3233 - Special Topics in Humanities of the Ancient World
In this course, students will explore a broad variety of cultural themes found concurrently in both western and non-western cultures from Antiquity through the Renaissance. This course consists of four parts that are divided both chronologically and thematically, and focuses on different disciplines within the humanities.
LSTD 3243 - Special Topics in Western Humanities: Renaissance Through the Modern World
In this course, students will explore a broad variety of cultural themes found concurrently in both western and non-western cultures from the Renaissance through the Modern World.
LSTD 3253 - Foundations of Ethics in Liberal Studies
This course reviews ethical theory and issues in applied ethics. It reviews current issues, while looking at both sides of each argument. Each unit contains a set of guiding questions which are used in order to direct the student to look at the entire ethical view of each issue. Many basic questions must be addressed in order to help attain a decision on each issue. This course is to give the student a chance to look at each issue in a broad sense, while trying to develop your own view point on each topic.
LSTD 3263 - Art in Non-Western Culture
In this course, students will explore a broad variety of cultural themes found in non-western art from the ancient world to the modern world. Specifically, students will gain an introduction to the art of a variety of non-western cultures and examine the role that art history plays in the study of these visual objects. The course will be divided into four parts: African art; Asian Art of India, China and Japan; Native American art of North, Meso America; and South America and the Pacific.
LSTD 3313 - Creativity
Fresh ideas fuel progress. The arts, science, medicine, engineering, politics, business, education -- all thrive on continuous improvement. That requires breakthrough ideas. Where do such ideas come from? What are the proven idea-generating techniques? And which ones work best? Our course in creativity will address those questions. We will explore the thinking of both modern and historical icons.
LSTD 3323 - Sleep and Dreams
Sleep and dreams occupy approximately one third of our lives. This course is designed to review the history and current research regarding sleep. Theories of the purpose and significance of dreams will be investigated.
LSTD 3333 - Human Arrangements: Troubled Institutions and Problems of Inequality
This course will address issues that affect institutions from family through those that affect the national population, including health care, education, the economy, and the interaction of government with all such questions. The course also addresses problems that arise from inequality among groups in the society, including poverty, elderly and young, minority and majority, and gender concerns.
LSTD 3343 - Challenges in a Changing World
This course introduces students to challenges that people living in the world are facing today. These new challenges include perspectives of conformity and deviance as they apply to sexual behavior, drugs, crime and violence. In addition, changes in population, environmental issues and global issues will be addressed.
LSTD 3353 - Women and Consumer Culture
To stroll through a shopping mall, scan a newspaper, or flip through the channels on a television set is to confront the ubiquity of consumerism in contemporary America. Demonstrating the pervasiveness of consumption is easy. But making sense of consumer culture is a far more complicated and far more important task. And, as scholars, writers, and critics have increasingly realized, gender is central to consumption. This course analyzes the relation between gender and consumption by drawing on captured the attention of scholars in the social sciences and humanities. in social and cultural history, as well as scholarship in literature, cultural studies, economics, anthropology. It also encourages students to apply the theory, method, and knowledge they have acquired from assigned readings and web-based research to their own lives and experiences.
This course will give students an opportunity to analyze women's relationship to consumption and consumer culture. At the end of the course, students will be able to take a position and defend it with respect to various controversial arguments or ideas about women's relationship to consumption and consumer culture.
LSTD 3363 - Ethics in Social Sciences
This course reviews ethical theory and issues in applied ethics. It reviews current issues, while looking at both sides of each argument. Each unit contains a set of guiding questions which are used in order to direct the student to look at the entire ethical view of each issue. Many basic questions must be addressed in order to help attain a decision on each issue. This website purpose is to give the student a chance to look at each issue in a broad sense, while trying to develop your own view point on each topic.
LSTD 3373 - History of the American Public Intellectual
The American Intellectual is different from his or her European counterpart in his/her simplicity and ability to communicate profound truths to the average citizen. This course examines the unique and diverse styles of four important Americans from four different eras in order to determine the impact these individuals had on society and posterity.
LSTD 3423 - Chemistry for Changing Times
In this course, you will learn how to relate chemistry to your everyday life. The course will cover various topics that are useful to people and relate to the field of chemistry. The student will write summaries over each reading and end the course by writing a final paper that covers the ethical issues that come up throughout the readings.
LSTD 3433 - The Dynamic Universe
This course addresses the evolution of the universe through consideration of the laws that govern its behavior. The course assumes that students have a basic understanding of classical physics, especially the concepts included in Newton's Laws of Motion, Gravity, Energy, Momentum and Kinetic Theory of the Behavior of Gases. If you need to refresh yourself on these concepts, you should review the appropriate chapters in the text, An Introduction to Physical Science. These chapters are: Chapter 3, Newton's Laws of Motion, Gravity and Momentum; Chapter 4, Energy and Chapter 5, The Kinetic Theory of Gases. These concepts will be referred a number of times throughout the readings for this course.
LSTD 3443 - Ecology and Evolution
This course addresses the interaction of ecology and genetic alteration in bringing about biological diversity through evolution. This course assumes that students have a basic understanding of what constitutes an organism and how organisms perform the basic functions of living systems. If you find you need to review these topics, you may wish to look through Chapters 4-7 of Biology: Concepts and Applications by Cecie Starr, which is the primary text for the course.
LSTD 3453 - Physics for Poets
The goal of this course is to introduce non-science students to the conceptual development and philosophical implications of some aspects of physics with a minimum amount of mathematics. The topics covered this semester will include motion, energy conservation laws, electricity, optics, atoms, the nucleus, special relativity, and elementary particles. A solid foundation in high school algebra is required for entry into this course. This text provides a historical context for the development of physics. Scientific concepts are tied to the intellectual climate of the time from which they arise, and to the personal characteristics and methods of inquiry of the scientists who develop them.
LSTD 3503 - Interdisciplinary Inquiry
This course serves as the primary orientation for all undergraduate programs in the College of Liberal Studies. The students will be introduced to the concept of interdisciplinary inquiry, which is the foundation of the Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree.
LSTD 3613 - Leadership in Organizations
The general purpose of this course is to learn about contemporary thinking regarding leadership in organizations and the applications of these insights for growth as a leader.
LSTD 3623 - Conflict Resolution
This course is designed to give students the opportunity to understand human needs, behavior of self and others. In this course, you will explore how conflict originates, processes by which it escalates, and alternative methods for dealing with it.
LSTD 3633 - Integrated Marketing Communications
This course focuses on innovative strategy planning that helps businesses survive in our increasingly competitive markets; an analysis of the individual consumer as a problem solver who is influenced by psychological variables, social influences, and the purchase situation; the number, size, location, and buying behavior of various types of organizational customers; and logistics activities and how they provide time and place utility to improve value to the customer.
LSTD 3643 - The Changing Marketing Environment
This course is intended to introduce learners to several theories on human motivation which can be applied across several contexts, including both learning and leadership. A common misunderstanding is that leading and managing are one and the same. The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management is focused on maintaining systems and processes.This course will be equally helpful to athletes, students, business men and women, those in the military, as well as individuals in leadership positions. Not all tasks that are required of us are inherently interesting. When this is the case, it may be necessary to find ways to motivate ourselves and others.
LSTD 3653 - Global Strategies
This course focuses on marketing and marketing strategies--specifically pricing and the integrative nature of marketing management.
LSTD 3663 - Ethics in Leadership
This course provides an overview of applied ethics as it relates to leadership situations in organizations. An emphasis will be placed on the individual in the "new workplace," and students will be encouraged to make connections between the course content or personal lives.
LSTD 3673 - Motivation in Learning and Leadership
This course focuses on innovative strategy planning that helps businesses survive in our increasingly competitive markets, an analysis of the individual consumer as a problem solver who is influenced by psychological variables, social influences, and the purchase situation, the number, size, location, and buying behavior of various types of organizational customers, and logistics activities and how they provide time and place utility to improve value to the customer.
LSTD 3953 - Study in Depth Prospectus
This is a preparatory course assisting students in searching for quality literature, critiquing literature, identifying and developing research topics, and improving the quality of academic writing. This class will help you write your Study In Depth, the capstone writing project all Liberal Studies students must successfully complete to satisfy the requirements for graduation.
LSTD 4213 - The Bible as Literature
This is a course in the Bible as literature--that is, we will study the Bible as we would any other work of literature, even though it is in my opinion the greatest work of literature ever written. To study the Bible as literature means to approach it without concern for the doctrines of any particular religion. For instance, we will not assume that the Bible cannot contradict itself; we will see if it does or not. If this approach makes you uncomfortable, this is not the course for you.
We will use the King James Bible in this course. More modern versions may be more accurate translations of the Hebrew and Greek in a few instances, but that does make up for what is lost in the beauty of the language. The Kings James Version was compiled at one of the greatest moments in English literary history--the time of Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, and Donne--(in fact, Shakespeare made an important contribution as we shall see when we get to the Psalms) and is not only beautiful in its own right, but it has inspired a great deal of later literature, and has been very widely quoted.
LSTD 4233 - Personal and Family Narratives
This course offers students ways of exploring their own and their family's past and, if they wish, with larger cultural and historical contexts.
The process of writing memoir is complex, but it need not be difficult. A memoir is what you can remember, and in the course of completing these units, you will find that one memory of an event, location, or person will trigger many others. This is a crucial step, and even as an end in itself it can be enormously satisfying.
Of course, it need not be the end of the process. Put into narrative form, memoirs are not only a way of passing information to others--children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends--but of understanding the story of one's life and of one's place in the context of local and even national history.
LSTD 4243 - Road Trip of the Mind
This course has as its primary objective the development of an understanding of various points of views and mindsets in the global community, with an end to developing writing skills, enhancing creative problem-solving abilities, improving an understanding of cultural diversity and conflict resolution, and enhancing one's awareness of how values, ethical positions, perspectives manifest themselves and how they evolve over time.
Road Trip of the Mind contains an analysis of how images, archetypal narratives, and various types of "authority" exert a deterministic influence on readers and audiences, and contribute to the "managing" of meaning. These processes can occur in overt ways, as in propaganda, or in more subtle ones, as is the case in films and advertisements.
At the end of the course, the student will have had several opportunities to examine perspectives that may be very different than his or her own "framework," and will have analyzed the process by which conclusions were reached and knowledge generated.
LSTD 4253 - Culture and Science
This course will investigate the relations between science and culture as it has developed in the modern world, from the time of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, early in the nineteenth century, to the present day. Among the historical topics we will investigate will be the rise of modern science, skeptical rationalism, and empiricism since the Enlightenment, and their conflict with the faith-based knowledge and inquiry that had dominated in Europe in preceding centuries; the perceived conflict between scientific reason and feelings in the Romantic period; and the attack on scientific "social engineering" from Modernist culture in the early twentieth century.
Our more contemporary concerns will include issues of science literacy and where people get their information about science, the nature of science as a process, and the nature and importance of evidence in science, the public perception of science, and the ways science and culture clash in modern society. Is it possible for science and culture to be compatible in today's world?
LSTD 4263 - Environment and Philosophy
The purpose of this course is to help students understand the application of ethical thinking to environmental issues. Taking the course will help students grasp and evaluate ethical justifications given for environmental policy proposals.
LSTD 4273 - Jazz and the Global Community
A course about jazz, its social history, and its relationship to world cultures and the international community. Although jazz is no longer the most popular music in the United States, as it once was, its history and the issues surrounding its nature stand at the heart of a diverse America that has borrowed from cultures and traditions all over the world. Not only is jazz multicultural but it is also international; it has spread everywhere and has contributed to a developing global psyche.
LSTD 4283 - Socrates and Society
Socrates lived between 470 and 399 BC. He stands alone as the first thinker in the Western tradition to focus upon Reason as the cornerstone of human understanding. Although there are sketches of his character in scant other writings, we only know Socrates’ thoughts through the writings of his student, Plato (427-348 BC). The bulk of Plato’s writings are “dialogues” in which Socrates is a character who is intent upon examining the deeper issues of humanity. In these dialogues, Socrates’ unique approach to solving problems, understanding the world, and evaluating truth is considered unanimously to be the cornerstone of Western culture. This course will examine how Socrates approached problem-solving, the role of rational inquiry and critical thinking, and the value of philosophical wisdom, especially in the current world of conflicting ideologies and cultures.
LSTD 4293 - Art and Medicine
As a human being, you are surrounded by images and emotion. Health or wellness may be viewed from physical and spiritual aspects, each its own drama in life. How is medicine portrayed in art? What is your image of health? Can you draw, illustrate, paint, cartoon, sculpt, stain, or photograph? Can art heal? These are but a few of the questions you will contemplate in this course where art and medicine come together to expose your talent and possibly enrich your spirit. Or you can simply appreciate art and do not have to be an artist! This course will allow you to discover some of the greatest artists of history as they subjected medicine to the pen and brush. You will consider the human face (your own and others in portrait). Lectures alternate with fun and practical assignments to release your muse. Art materials are listed for student purchase and basic instruction in art principals will be provided to get you started. Enjoy, learn, and create!
LSTD 4313 - Global Security and Justice
This course is designed to help the student understand how governments deal with the problem of securing the "homeland." After the tragic events of 9/11, for example, the US government created the Department of Homeland Security to deal with this problem on a national scope. This might suggest that the government had not dealt with homeland security in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth. The US, like all societies, has engaged in homeland security since its inception. The advent of DHS was merely the first time that the efforts had been coordinated under one centralized agency. This class will examine what terrorism is, how America has traditionally dealt with homeland security, and how that perspective is evolving. Once we understand what terrorism is, the focus of the class will be on how law enforcement and the courts have taken on the challenge of providing global security while ensuring justice.
LSTD 4323 - The History of Slavery
The main goal of the course is to increase your familiarity with the brutal history of bondage and to build the students skills in analyzing past events, especially through writing. Other goals include: To introduce students to a variety of slavery materials; To teach students the basic methods employed in historical research; To explore the possibilities for research and publishing on the Internet. Your grade will be based on writing assignments and a research project published on the Internet.
LSTD 4333 - Global Strategies
This course focuses on marketing and marketing strategies--specifically pricing and the integrative nature of marketing management.
LSTD 4413 - The Great American Prairie
Grasslands cloak central North America with prairie and plains extending across the U.S. and into southern Canada and northern Mexico, but scattered grasslands occur across the continent. Other native grasslands occur in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America, typically between 30° and 45° latitude. Grasses are, however, cosmopolitan--they occur in all terrestrial biomes, including forests and deserts, and on all the continents. The history and evolution of humans and grasses and humans and grasslands are closely intertwined. Three domesticated grasses (wheat, maize, and rice) provide about 70% of our species calories and rye and barley along with the above three cereals are important in brewing and distilling spirits. Our livestock consume grains and graze on grasslands. Grasses are also used to bind soils, as construction materials, and to soften the landscape. Many grasses, in turn, are dependent on human society for their propagation.
In this course, we will explore (1) the features of the grass family that permitted the origin and continuance of grasslands and the co-evolution of grazing animals and grasslands; (2) the ecology and geography of grasslands, especially the prairie and great plains of North America; (3) the relationships of early humans and the prairie and plains of North America; and (4) modern agriculture on the prairies of the U.S., its promises and perils. Another goal of the course is to provide a primer on ecology, environmental science, and evolution using grasses and grasslands as examples.
LSTD 4423 - The Role of Genetic Engineering: Past, Present, and Future
It is likely that no other single issue will affect the future of your grandchildren than genetic engineering. This course will examine the role of gene manipulation in the past, present, and future. It will begin with descriptions of genes, evolution and fitness. Unit One will conclude with your own exploration of mate choice and how that relates to gene manipulation. Unit Two will address the history of genetic engineering, its impact on, and the ultimate fate of civilizations. You will conclude unit two with an exploration of the fate of your state in the absence of genetic engineering. In the Third Unit you will explore modern genetic engineering and its role in crops, livestock, and humans. This section will conclude with your locating a genetically engineered object (food or human) in your community and explore the role of this object. Unit Four will address the scientific and political future of genetic engineering. You will conclude this section with a discussion of "Major Nelson's" syndrome and its consequences for genetic engineering.
LSTD 4433 - Satellite Imagery
To introduce students to remote sensing systems and illustrate their utility in a diverse range of applications. Students will become equipped to understand and apply the appropriate aspects of remote sensing technology to a variety of disciplines.
LSTD 4443 - Weather and Climate
An introduction to energy balance, temperature, atmospheric moisture, cloud formation, static stability, precipitation mechanisms, winds, mid-latitude and severe storms, weather forecasting and climate. The course is designed for students who are not scientists.
LSTD 4453 - Stellar Evolution
This course is appropriate for natural science focused undergraduate students or for anyone with an interest in astronomy and astrophysics. This course will cover aspects of physics, chemistry, and astronomy. This course will study the entire life cycle of stars through a descriptive point of view. Students in the course will also study the classification system used to sort stars by type and how relevant parameters such as a star’s mass, surface temperature, radius, and evolutionary phase are determined. The cultural impact of stars, shaping mythology, and ritual will be examined in each unit.
LSTD 4613 - Goal Setting and Attainment
This course introduces students to the importance of establishing goals and the goal attainment process in business and in everyday life. These include perspectives of goal attainment in industry as they apply to production and to overcoming personal challenges.
LSTD 4623 - Corporate Environmental Strategies
This course examines the growing importance of environmental science and technology for business and industry. As government and corporate leaders have become more aware of the Earth’s limits to support a growing population with current technology, interest has grown rapidly in the private sector to better define the role that environmental science and technology can play in the design and development of a sustainable future. In the past decade, for example, the pace of societal, institutional, and technological change has been so rapid in the U.S. and elsewhere that several new academic fields, including Industrial Ecology, have been launched.
LSTD 4633 - Cultural Diversity
Managers, supervisors, training professionals, and educators must be able to effectively recruit, train, manage and promote a culturally diverse work force. However, few have been trained to do so. Throughout his book, Dr. Henderson presents ways to manage and value diversity in the workplace.
According to projected demographic changes in the United States, America's workplace will experience a dramatic change within the next decade. These changes will include increases in women, immigrants, and minorities within the workplace, as well as higher proportions of individuals between the ages of thirty five and fifty four in the working force. This course is designed to promote a better understanding of diversity, as well as prepare you for managing culturally diverse employees.
LSTD 4643 - Quality Initiatives
This course will strive to improve the student's understanding of quality and how it affects the organization as well as their own lives. Each unit will discuss specific tools that can be used in order to build teams and a good workplace environment.
The objective for this course is to describe when and how to use check sheets, criteria rating forms, matrix diagrams, affinity diagrams, cause and effect diagrams, pareto charts, process flow charts, histograms, run charts, and control charts.
LSTD 4663 - Non-profit Management
This course will provide an overview of nonprofit management, operations, and leadership as well as the problems and environment unique to the various nonprofit entities functioning in society.
LSTD 4673 - Mediation
This course provides an overview of the history of mediation as well as an introduction to substantive meditation theories and models. The practice of mediation will be introduced by examining its origins in both the court and community-focused movements.
LSTD 4950 - Internship
This course provides the student with an opportunity to gain experience by working with a company or series of companies in an internship conducted via distance methods, primarily via the Internet. The intern will perform tasks such as online research, market research, demographics analysis, analysis of competition and competing brands, trade conditions and financial transactions. The focus will be on the integrated process - from the inception of the idea to the completion of a final report.
LSTD 4953 - Study in Depth
This course is designed to assist you in the completion of your study in depth paper, the capstone experience in the Bachelor of Liberal Studies Program. The course will focus on developing your thesis statement, locating and evaluating references, writing and organizing your paper, and putting your paper into its final form, including the list of references cited. This course is faculty driven with full flexibility for the director of the study in depth to manage the task in accordance with the subject undertaken.
LSTD 5003 - Introduction to Graduate Interdisciplinary Studies
The present introductory seminar is designed to orient you to being a graduate student in a university. This, of course, is an extension of your previous college work as an undergraduate but there are significant differences. As a graduate student you will be expected to be more independent in your scholarship and to do work that shows more originality than was required as an undergraduate. You will learn to pursue knowledge on your own and to critically evaluate information as you discover it. In short, you will learn how to learn, how to think, and how to create. Some parts of this course will provide you with information. Other parts will help you develop skills. At the end, you will be prepared to make the most of the other courses and activities that are involved in the program.
LSTD 5013 - Interdisciplinary Foundations
All MALS students read and write reports on a series of interdisciplinary texts as common background for the MALS program.
The readings in this enrollment are designed to reinforce an interdisciplinary approach to graduate studies as well as lay the foundation for your interdisciplinary enrollments and future thesis or project research.
This course also serves to introduce paradigms, the underlying formulations which provide the structure for understanding and interpreting information.
LSTD 5523 - The World of a Museum
A museum is a very special place, a complex organization that may include almost as many connections with its community as a university or other major educational or private organization. Larger museums, whether free-standing or placed within a larger parent organization such as a university, may include: collection preservation centers; a research institute; K-12 and adult educational programs; formal university classes; public outreach with a very high profile in the immediate community or state; political interactions with the legislature or local government; staff management challenges; questions relating to the protection, handling, and legal considerations of sacred objects, endangered species, or human remains; parking lot management; park or reserve management; commercial activities such as gift shops, traveling exhibit rental, or space rental for special events; physical plant management; architectural and engineering considerations if a new building is being constructed or if building expansion occurs; fund raising at local, state, national and international levels, including contacting and cultivating major donors; budgetary management that may involve millions of dollars annually; various legal and ethical challenges related to the museums personnel, objects, programs, or research activities; and many other duties, obligations, and considerations that will challenge museum personnel during the course of their career.
This class is designed to prepare the students to meet the many challenges involved in operating a museum or in being an employee of a museum, and to understand how and why museum managers may act as they do as museums meet the daily challenges of the world of a museum. By successfully completing the course, the student will have a much better understanding of the complexity of the museum world and their place in that world. Moreover, they will be among the better-informed employees of any museum that hires them and will be able to adapt to new challenges and opportunities that may arise during their museum career.
LSTD 5553 - History and Architecture of the Museum
The course will explore the history and architecture of public museums, from the late eighteenth century to the present. First, we will focus on the founding of the Louvre museum, and then examine the classical model for the museum and museum building established in Europe and America in the nineteenth century and surviving into the twentieth with institutions such as National Gallery of Art. The course will then look at assaults on and the evolution of the classical model by, for instance, the Museum of Modern Art and the art museums of Louis I. Kahn. We will then survey the numerous building projects of recent decades. The course will conclude with an examination of the major issues involved when a museum plans an expansion, selects an architect, and determines the building program. The emphasis will be on art museums.
LSTD 5560 - Museum Project
(no folder)
LSTD 5563 - Museum Management and Leadership
Leading and managing museums is a real challenge. Museums are complex and multifaceted institutions. Among our oldest public enterprises, museums are the most popular, trusted, visible, and occasionally controversial. Based on collections of all types, their mission has evolved to include research, teaching, informal education, exhibition and dissemination of information. A wide variety of other benefits or "social capital" can be by-products of museums, including recreation, tourism, and community connection, safety, and stability. Typically, museums also are not-for-profit institutions with unique financial structures and diverse revenue streams. In a highly competitive, changing, and politically charged environment, museums have many different roles, responsibilities and expectations. To be successful, museum leaders and managers to must work together to create a shared vision, form a team of trusted staff and develop a management culture that shares an enthusiasm, energy and passion for the museum's mission. They also must create a strategic business plan that keeps the museum financially sound and vigorous. They must show that their museums significantly increase the quality of life.
This course is designed for students to understand top quality museum administration and management and to meet the challenges of directing and operating successful museums.
LSTD 5570 - Special Problems in Museology
(no folder)
LSTD 5573 - Museum Culture
Museums and their collections no longer stand apart from the communities where they reside and serve. Increasingly, museums are called upon to interact with society in new and sometimes unexpected ways. This evolving role has revised the traditional mission of museums and has called for new approaches and partnerships designed to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and often demanding audience. Successful interaction with the public through exhibitions, educational programming, board development and volunteer associations, not only strengthens the museum's position of leadership within the community but also is key to gaining and maintaining the financial and moral support required for its very survival.
LSTD 5583 - Collection Management
In this course we will consider the place of collections in the life of the museum. Just as the types of museums are varied so is the nature of their collections. It is essential that the collections mesh with the goals and aspirations of the museum. For example, a science museum might have as its major purpose the active demonstration of scientific principles. An art museum might stress an aesthetic experience in which the object was paramount and the interpretation individual. A natural history museum might be a research institution as well as a place for educating and entertaining the public, so it would have a greater archival emphasis. As the general purposes of museums have changed throughout time, collections have taken on a different function, but one no less significant. In modern museums the interaction between the public and the collections is becoming increasingly important. Although in some quarters there is pressure to make the museum a sort of theme park, museums and galleries are still based in large part on their collections. Just as the numbers of museums have grown exponentially, so have the sizes of their collections. The increase in numbers underscores the necessity of developing appropriate accession and de-accession policies. Stewardship, that is the proper care of collections, involves record keeping as well as preservation and conservation.
We will relate theoretical ideas on collection development and maintenance to the actualities of museum situations. Although we recognize that different kinds of collections have unique requirements, most of the readings will be general, and will include principles common to all kinds of collections. However, the semester project will be specific to a museum selected by the student and will apply the general principles to a specific situation.
LSTD 5623 - Leadership Theories
The Master of Liberal Studies - Administrative Leadership program educates you for success in the 21st century by combining the broad elements of interdisciplinary study with an in-depth understanding of leadership. The very qualities that today's employers seek are those of leadership within the context of creative and flexible thinking.
Employees who not only understand concepts but can also expand upon them in a variety of new and exciting ways are the ones who will advance in their careers. Combining the knowledge of specific, work-related principles with the mind-set of a liberal education allows you to approach new ideas, projects, and challenges by drawing upon multiple perspectives.
Change is a constant in today's world, and the rewards will go to those individuals who are poised to meet new situations and career opportunities with speed, mental dexterity, and excellence.
LSTD 5633 - Cultures of Organizations
How you understand or explain a phenomenon -- whether it be a static thing like a painting, or a set of dynamic events, such as group behavior in an organization -- determines how you act. Your actions are then interpreted by many different people, and each will attach to it a unique explanation or interpretation.
In a group, perceptions and ways of seeing will tend to coalesce. Why? It certain is one way that nature makes order from chaos. But, there are other factors.
This course will help you understand these processes, and what implications they have for leadership.
LSTD 5643 - The Individual and Leadership
This course examines positive and negative aspects of leadership in terms of traits, behaviors, styles, personality function, situational variables, motivational factors, values, and self-understanding. Students will explore theories and research on others who function in leadership roles, as well as engage in their own self-analysis of key variables related to leadership. The coursework will facilitate the student's ability to be a more effective leader through greater self-awareness and through strategies to promote constructive relationships in groups or organizations.
LSTD 5654 - The Ethics of Leadership
In this course students will examine ethical dimensions of leadership from many perspectives and create case studies and a final project that apply the concepts learned in the course. Ethics, in the broadest sense, refers to how we relate to other people, animals, the environment, and ourselves in terms of what we should do. The study of ethics is more than just memorizing a moral code or religious doctrine, it enables the student to examine ethical problems from several important perspectives, adequately frame problems for optimal understanding, and practice ethical reasoning in developing practical solutions. These skills are essential in human life. The more honed an individual becomes in making good and ethically sound judgments, the more valuable they become in the decision-making process of any organization.
Leaders, by their nature, have great influence over groups of people and most often make decisions that determine the course of action of that group. The imperative for making sound ethical judgments and being able to read the ethical implications of a situation and possible outcomes accurately is a critical skill for the leader. Furthermore, leadership presents the individual with serious challenges in wielding power judiciously and without undue self-interest, maintaining more integrity in both public and private life, understanding the duties of leadership and of followers, trying to aim for the greatest good, and grasping the cultural limitation of their own upbringing. All of these characteristics, and more, coalesce into an effective and morally upstanding leader. Far from idealistic dogmatism, this form of understanding is dynamic, secular, and can be applied to different cultures with equal success, making allowances for differences in religion, cultural practices, and maintaining sensitivity to basic human rights and equality of opportunity. Ethics, taken in the way, is the cornerstone of leadership.
LSTD 5663 - Perspectives on Leadership
This course explores women leaders and their influence on their societies, as well as their contributions on a broader spectrum. Special attention is focused on how women leaders become change agents from different eras and what particular issues made them transformational leaders. The number of women leaders who have climbed to high level positions as heads of state, governmental bodies, administrators, and leaders of political parties and major organizations is limited. Successful women leaders are a diverse group and research shows they represent a wide range of varied and interesting personal, social, and political backgrounds. We are interested in studying their leadership patterns, finding out what they accomplished, and how their society was changed as a result of their transformational contributions.
Students are required to research information online and apply critical interdisciplinary perspectives to the topics in this course. Students are also expected to become familiar with transformational leadership principles in order to form a common base from which to launch their study of women leaders.
LSTD 5673 - Decision Making
This course is an interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature and attributes of poor management and leadership (also referred to as 'stupidity,' by author R. Sternberg and others in his anthology), consideration of a proposed theory of the attributes of 'stupidity, and how 'stupidity' relates to human decisions and behavior. We explore from a cognitive psychology perspective the attributes of 'stupidity' and from an economist's perspective the attributes of social decision-making and the unintended consequences of those decisions.
LSTD 5903 - Research Methods
This class develops and expands the concepts introduced in Interdisciplinary Foundations. We will underscore the conceptual frames for thinking about inquiry and research. It will do this by exploring recent issues, theoretical approaches, and professional concerns specific to the area of study in which you will be doing research.
LSTD 5960 - Project Management
The course focuses on a project for which a client wishes to find a solution. The client is a manager with responsibility for the problem area. The student selects the project and the client to use in this course. Typical projects might include: prepare a training, operation or maintenance manual for an activity of interest to the client; determine and evaluate several alternative solutions to a problem - increase readiness, improve response time, decrease cost, etc., or select an automated system for a task to improve the performance of a task. The class attempts to simulate as closely as possible the real-world experience of managing a project for a client. The client participates in the grading for the course.
Topics covered in the material include project planning, project evaluation, project control, project communication, client relations, performance oriented design, collecting information in the field, current operations analysis, specification for a proposed solution, devising and evaluating alternatives, implementation plans, report writing and presentation of the results.
LSTD 5970 - Organizational Communication for Decision-Making
Information management systems are a significant issue in today's organizational settings, both in military and private organizations. The significance of this issue can be seen in the success and/or failure of many organizations in their ability to adapt to external conditions. Organizations adapt to their external environment, or failing that, become ineffective and potentially dissolve. Organizations can no longer presume they will last forever, particularly when environmental changes occur at high speed. This course discusses the fundamental issues in the management of information, the ways people in organizations exchange information, and ultimately, how effective sharing of information leads to effective problem-solving.
The mission of the College of Liberal Studies is to provide the highest quality interdisciplinary education to non-traditional students. The College utilizes its setting within a comprehensive research university to enhance students' skills as life-long learners, thereby enriching their lives at the personal and professional levels and encouraging them to participate in the work of active citizenship.
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