Learning Communities

Instructors

Don Robbins – MAT 223, Statistics
Greg Smith – MAT 135, College Algebra

Description/Rationale

“God does not play dice with the universe” – Albert Einstein
Einstein believed that the universe should be predictable through physical laws rather than being somewhat random.
This Learning Community cluster will compare and contrast models which describe relationships that can be determined precisely and those models that have a random component. Students will also satisfy all General Education mathematics requirements in one semester…one and done!

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category A: Math, Sub-category A: College Algebra (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category A: Math, Sub-category B: Statistics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Allan Marcil – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)
Yvan Kelly – ECO 201, Principles of Macroeconomics

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will integrate the fundamentals of college writing with the principles of economics under the theme of the entertainment business. The courses will explore film, TV, music, and the dynamics of turning creativity a profitable business endeavor. We will explore the economic underpinnings of an industry that holds high risk but is considered by society to be glamorous. These courses will discuss the history, revenue streams, risks, failures, and future of various segments of the entertainment industry.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Lynn Brueske-Walton – PSY 201, Child Psychology
Bariaa Shatila – MAT 223, Statistics

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will explore the naturally occurring descriptive statistics involved in the development of children. The course will utilize surveys, graphs, correlations, frequency distribution measures and variations, outliers, and the uses and misuses of statistics when describing a child’s growth and development. Critical thinking, in both the mathematical and psychological perspectives, will be emphasized.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category A: Math, Sub-category B: Statistics(3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Emily Splane – PSY 101, Introduction to Psychology
Sally McGhee – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will facilitate students’ understanding of themselves through the study of psychology and literature. Students make connections between the major theories, perspectives, and individual contributors in the field of modern psychology and the elements of literature in short stories, poems, and essays to create thematic topics for the writing process, ultimately exploring and revealing what it means to be human.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Judith Burdan – SOC 243 WI, Selected Topics--Gender and Its Influence (Writing Intensive)
Alex Asbille – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck”

This Learning Community is designed to provide an introduction to some of the gender issues that affect each of us personally, socially, culturally, economically, and politically. We will explore the origins of our current views of gender, consider gender as a social construct, and learn about feminism and feminist analysis, its history and its current status. We will also look at the ways that gender influences families, work, law, popular culture, and self-image. We will work from the inside out, from private concerns to public issues. We will move from personal writing and reflection to research, argument, and analysis. To do this, we will study diverse texts, such as literature, film, advertising, and social media as well as feminist scholarship. This Learning Community will also seek to place our academic exploration within a real world context through guest speakers, volunteer opportunities, and field trips.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Ward Shaffer – MAT 138, Essentials of Mathematics
James Makowski – BUS 106, Personal Finance

Description/Rationale

In previous generations, lifetime financial planning was fairly simple: a checking account, a savings account, maybe a mortgage, and some insurance policies (life, auto, and home). The recent financial collapse exposed a staggering number of people to the disastrous results of poor financial planning decisions. Many college students do not recognize the financial responsibilities of adulthood, nor do they understand the basic principles underlying these responsibilities: therefore they are unprepared to tackle these concerns in a meaningful, organized way. This learning community, which is designed for the non-mathematical student, will focus on measuring, planning, protecting, and maximizing one’s wealth throughout an entire lifetime using various financial and mathematical tools.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category A: Math, Sub-Category B: Essentials of Mathematics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Douglas McFarland – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics (Writing Intensive)
Catherine McFarland – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This course will explore the cultural responses of Europeans to the horrors of World War I, the extreme economic upheavals, and the rapid technological change that occurred between 1914 and 1939. Our topics for the visual arts will include German Expressionist art and cinema, the Dada movement, Surrealism, the “Call to Order”, and “le Jazz Hot”. We will also look at propaganda films and posters from the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. Literary works may include those by Proust, Joyce, Freud, and Musil.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Jay Szczepanski – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)
Kristine Warrenburg – COM 101, Speech Communications

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community joins together two General Education courses—COM 101 and ENG 152—to pursue collaboratively, through civic engagement, the rhetorical impact of spoken and written messages in and around St. Augustine. Students will form groups and partner with local nonprofit organizations in an effort (a) to hone their critical thinking, listening, speaking, writing, and research skills; (b) to work with the community partner approximately three hours per week to help advance its institutional mission through observation and participation in a variety of tasks, events, or projects; and (c) to advocate—via the spoken and written word—for social justice issues important in both local and global contexts. By forming and expressing their own voices—as well as by engaging in dialogue with classmates, community members, faculty members, and themselves—students will demonstrate civic responsibility and democratic commitment by participating in the building of an ethically engaged St. Augustine.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category C: Speech Communication (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Michael Insalaca – MAT 135, College Algebra
Sherry Jensen – ECO 202 WI, Principles of Microeconomics (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will integrate the fundamentals of college algebra with the principles of microeconomics. Economics and mathematics are natural complements. As noted by the Council for Economics Education, "Economics is, after all, the study of peoples' attempts to make good decisions in an uncertain world endowed with limited resources. The tools economists use--for example, those related to optimization and informed decision-making--gain power, elegance, and visual appeal as they are represented mathematically in models."

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category A: Mathematics, Sub-Category A: College Algebra (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Rachel Cremona – POS 221 WI, Politics in the United States (Writing Intensive)
Leslee Keys – HIS 205 WI, American History to 1877

Description/Rationale

From the time of European settlement forward, the development of American Identity in the United States has been influenced perhaps most fundamentally by race and religion. This course will explore the historical and political development of ‘what it means to be an American’ through the lens of race and religion from the point of first settlement in 1565, when Spanish Conquistadors, driven by religious fervor, sought out a ‘new Eden’, through the Civil War when the conflict over slavery came close to destroying the Nation.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Wayne Riggs – HIS 102 WI, Western Civilization II (Writing Intensive)
Barbara Blonder – NAS 107, Environmental Science

Description/Rationale

This learning community explores the relationship between western civilization and the environment during the modern era. We will examine the impact that economic, agricultural, and social developments had on the natural environment. Furthermore, we will explore how the environment has shaped modern civilization. Students will discover that environmental issues that are relevant today were in many cases relevant during the last several hundred years -- or had their origins in past human activity. From an environmental perspective, the learning community will study the limits to human population growth as influenced by natural resources availability, the technologies developed to obtain those resources, and the consequences of these actions. One of the primary historical and scientific questions we will ask include “Are western development and the attempts to control resources leading to the collapse of the natural environment?” As a learning community, we will seek answers in history and through science, and also by exploring developments in St. Augustine itself. As a result of studying these relationships, students will be able to project how contemporary Western civilization will meet the environmental challenges of today and the future.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category B: Natural Scientific Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Jim Rowell – REL 211, World Religions
Andrea McCook – THA 206, Oral Interpretation of Literature

Description/Rationale

An examination of the different perspectives created by life experiences (saint, survivor, outcast, reformer). World Religions will examine an individual representing a particular perspective in the various religions. In Oral Interpretation students will perform prose and poetic material illuminating the human experience of each perspective.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Culture (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category B: Creative Production (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

John Young – HIS 101 WI, History of Western Civilization (Writing Intensive)
Roger Bradley – ECO 201, Principles of Macroeconomics

Description/Rationale

This learning community will integrate the early history of western civilization and macroeconomics by 1) exposing students to basic macroeconomic principles through historical example, and 2) asking students to examine and evaluate the historical record through the application of these economic principles. The course will be organized into six segments, each of which focuses on a major historical event. For each segment, students will read original source material pertaining to that event, and attempt to evaluate the motives and morality of the individuals involved in that event. This evaluation will focus primarily on economic motives, and students will be given the opportunity to develop reasoned and evidence-based opinions about the moral quality of the motives involved.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Chris Balaschak – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)
Bill Locascio – ANT 201 WI, Cultural Anthropology (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community examines the ways that visual media have been employed in the study of cultures and how representations of other cultures reflect attitudes toward and perceptions of other groups.  Methods and movements in the disciplines of Cultural Anthropology, Visual Culture, Art History, and Film Studies, are discussed and students are encouraged to reflect on the visual communication of the diversity of human culture in order to gain a critical awareness of what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Cultures (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Steve Voguit – HIS 205 WI, United States History to 1877 (Writing Intensive)
Laura Mongiovi – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This learning community exposes the influences visual images had on a particular period of American history. Ambiguous and equivocal aspects behind the cultural meaning of a work of art are explored from Colonization to Reconstruction.  The customs, arts, social institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or social group are reflected in visual forms of expression.  The saga of American history from Christopher Columbus to Homer Plessy will unfold and imagery will be explored with in depth analysis. Class work encourages and supports students to make informed opinions as well as thoughtful and insightful personal responses to subject matter that is both factual and perceived.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

John Diviney – LAS 201 WI/HIS 201 WI, Intro to Mexico, Central America and the West Indies (Writing Intensive)
Maria Jose Maguire – SPA 101, Elementary Spanish I

Description/Rationale

This learning community will be a total integration of the Spanish language combined with the history, culture and ethnic studies of Mexico, Central America and the West Indies. Particular stress is applied to the ethnograhic portions of the course as these three areas represent a cross section of the most diverse elements of Latin American culture and civilization. Both of the instructors are able to teach each other’s courses which we have done in the past and this brings a very strong element of integration to the class room. During the course the students have a written project which further integrates both of the classes. The Latin American Studies portion requires an 8-10 page paper with the individual student assuming a role as a famous Latin American figure we study or a follower of such a figure. For Mexico it might be Benito Juarez or Porfirio Diaz, for Central America it might be Anastacio Somoza or Augusto Sandino. From the West Indies it could be Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. They then write journal entries as if they were there. The entries have to eb historically accurate. The students have to write two letters in the paper in Spanish. These are letters home to their families about their roles with the Latin American leaders and can be fictitious but with elements of historical accuracy. We both grade the finished works together and give separate grades for this portion of their courses.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Cultures (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Language Acquisition (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Art Vanden Houten – INT 200 WI, Intro to International Studies (Writing Intensive)
Wayne Riggs – HIS 102 WI, Western Civilization II (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will give students an opportunity to study key developments in modern western history in the broad context of International Studies. Since Western Civilization II offers a broad sweep of history from the 18th century to the present, and International Studies stresses an interdisciplinary approach to the study of world events, first year students who participate in this LC will gain a deeper understanding of the interrelated nature of many major world events. Furthermore, they will develop a greater appreciation for how western culture has shaped, and been shaped, by other civilizations.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Bill Locascio – ANT 220, Intro to Archaeology
Kelly Enright – HIS 205 WI, US History to 1877 (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

The complementary fields of history and archaeology are combined in this learning community to examine encounters and cultural exchanges between groups that have influenced and, at times, shaped the development of the United States. Important periods in U.S. history – extending from late pre-European contact to the late nineteenth century – are considered using written records and archaeological evidence to understand the events and processes that unfolded during colonization of the New World, the founding of the United States, and the development of this country during its first one hundred years. Students will be able to identify the ways that archaeological data and methods can be paired with those of history to illuminate the past and bring details of the cultural contexts of different periods into focus. Particular attention will be given to cross-cultural contact between groups, such as interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, associations of African-American slaves to non-slave populations prior to the 1860s, and relations between various regional and ethnic groups in United States during the first one-hundred years of the Republic.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Craig Woelfel – ENG 212 WI, Intro to English Literature II (Writing Intensive)
Veronica Marconi – ANT 201 WI, Cultural Anthropology (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This learning community examines modern culture and identity formation from the 19th century to the present through the dual lenses of literary studies and cultural anthropology. The courses will focus on an introduction to foundational elements of modern identity such as culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, belief, and language. Students will track engagement with these concepts and issues in key works of British literature, while also learning how cultural anthropology — a study with roots in the period covered in the course — approaches these same concepts in its investigations into the diversity of human social behavior and cultural adaptation. The course will cover the effects of colonization on identity and cultural formation in Britain and around the world, and move forward into the 20th century (and beyond) to investigate the impact of post-colonialism and globalization. Students will develop an understanding of how and why anthropologists approach modern culture and identity, while simultaneously seeing how and why the same issues central to anthropological understandings of culture and identity are likewise central to some of the most profound literary explorations of the past two centuries.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Cultures (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Tamara Wilson – ENG 211 WI, Introduction to British Literature I (Writing Intensive)
Hugh Marlowe – PHI 103 WI, Introduction to Philosophy I (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

Drs. Marlowe and Wilson are intrigued by the challenges for, and opportunities presented to, individuals as they negotiate the complexities of pleasure, pain, and self-knowledge – especially, the roles desires, virtues and vices play in living an authentic life. These are fundamental entanglements upon which many thinkers have pondered and offered their thoughts. By pairing the philosophic writings of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche with works of Early British literature such as Beowulf, The Defense of Poesie, and Measure for Measure, students will have an opportunity to engage in the vigorous discussion between Philosophy and Literature, working towards determining their place in our bewilderingly multi-faceted culture.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Connie St. Clair-Andrews – ENG 242 WI, Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Film (Writing Intensive)
Lisa Baird – CRW 206 WI, Introduction to Short Story Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

How does it all end? How will the last humans on earth survive? Artists of literary and visual works have imagined answers to these questions. The Learning Community cluster "The End of the World: Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Imaginings" examines dystopian ideas depicted in literature and film. Students will also share their own dystopian visions by writing short stories linked to the Learning Community theme. The courses CRW 206 Introduction to Short Story Writing and ENG 242 Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Film, two classes that fall under the General Education category of Writing Intensive and Creative Expression: Creative Production and Creative Aesthetics, will consider dystopian texts like E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" and watch films like The Road that depict the decline of society in the aftermath of apocalypse.

The courses will use writing to facilitate student learning of the subject matter and promote the development of critical thinking and writing skills. Students will do so by becoming familiar with film terminology, evaluating and writing critically, and exploring the impact and cultural influence of dystopian and post-apocalyptic film on society. The goal of the Learning Community is to encourage students to examine films as cultural artifacts, share their own creative visions, and consider their own values in order to explore what it means to be human. The courses encourage students to think about how they can become engaged in social issues to promote a better world—a just world.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category B: Creative Production (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Jim Rowell – REL 211, World Religions
Andrea McCook – THA 206, Oral Interpretation of Literature

Description/Rationale

An examination of the different perspectives created by life experiences (saint, survivor, outcast, reformer). World Religions will examine an individual representing a particular perspective in the various religions. In Oral Interpretation students will perform prose and poetic material illuminating the human experience of each perspective.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Culture (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category B: Creative Production (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Don Martin – ART 240, Book Arts
Darien Andreu – CRW 206 WI, Introduction to Short Story Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will explore the relationship among three fundamental and related art forms: the written word, the image, and the object. In ENG 206 Introduction to the Short Story, students will write short fiction, read and critique short stories, and present their final drafts in book form. In ART 240 Book Arts, students will be exposed to creative book construction as a historic and contemporary form of visual expression. Students will create hand-made unique books that will accompany and expand upon their creative writing projects, and they will explore book forms, illustration, typography and a variety of image-making processes.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category B: Creative Production (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Wesley King – ENG 242 WI,  General Education Creative Aesthetics (Writing Intensive)
Rachel Cremona – POS 200 WI, Introduction to Political Science (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This course will explore the themes of criminality, justice, and punishment through the lens of political science and literary study. The course will serve as an introduction to the study of politics and will trace its themes in novel, short story, poetry, and film.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Jim Wilson – CRW 206 WI, Introduction to Short Story Writing (Writing Intensive)
Chris Smith – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This cluster will focus on Identity — how people, literary characters, corporations, and societies create, manipulate, and transform their own identities. These courses will incorporate studying and creating artistic and literary pieces focused on advertising, writing, photography, and video. Through this journey into identity, both yours and others, we hope that you will move toward understanding your own identity with more clarity as well as understanding identities being expressed in culture, society, and in the corporate world.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category B: Creative Production (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Chris Balaschak – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)
Bill Locascio – ANT 201 WI, Cultural Anthropology (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community examines the ways that visual media have been employed in the study of cultures and how representations of other cultures reflect attitudes toward and perceptions of other groups.  Methods and movements in the disciplines of Cultural Anthropology, Visual Culture, Art History, and Film Studies, are discussed and students are encouraged to reflect on the visual communication of the diversity of human culture in order to gain a critical awareness of what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Cultures (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Steve Voguit – HIS 205 WI, United States History to 1877 (Writing Intensive)
Laura Mongiovi – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This learning community exposes the influences visual images had on a particular period of American history. Ambiguous and equivocal aspects behind the cultural meaning of a work of art are explored from Colonization to Reconstruction.  The customs, arts, social institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or social group are reflected in visual forms of expression.  The saga of American history from Christopher Columbus to Homer Plessy will unfold and imagery will be explored with in depth analysis. Class work encourages and supports students to make informed opinions as well as thoughtful and insightful personal responses to subject matter that is both factual and perceived.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Steve Willard – PSY 210, Psychology of Personality
Raphael Saliba – MUS 101, Music Appreciation

Description/Rationale

Music is a uniquely human communication from one psyche (variously translated as “mind”, “soul”, or “self”) to another and is therefore a fascinating subject to explore for both psychologists and musicologists. The Flagler College course in music appreciation and the course in the psychology of personality form an excellent pairing for a “learning community” at Flagler College, because:

Listening to music is a very salient component of most students’ lives.

• Students are inherently interested in the central issues discussed in this cluster: their personalities and their musical activities and pleasures.
• There are many possibilities for the “common project(s)” for the “cluster” of the two courses, e.g., relationships between personality and music preferences, personalities of composers and musicians, and factors in music that may be responded to differently by people differing in personality.
• There have been empirical studies of some of the connections between personality and music, and the reported results constitute an important resource for our own explorations.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Catherine McFarland – ART 218 WI/COM 218 WI, Visual Culture (Writing Intensive)
Douglas McFarland – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This course will explore the cultural responses of Europeans to the horrors of World War I, the extreme economic upheavals, and the rapid technological change that occurred between 1914 and 1939. Our topics for the visual arts will include German Expressionist art and cinema, the Dada movement, Surrealism, the “Call to Order”, and “le Jazz Hot”. We will also look at propaganda films and posters from the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. Literary works may include those by Proust, Joyce, Freud, and Musil.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)
Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Craig Woelfel – ENG 212 WI, Intro to English Literature II (Writing Intensive)
Veronica Marconi – ANT 201 WI, Cultural Anthropology (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This learning community examines modern culture and identity formation from the 19th century to the present through the dual lenses of literary studies and cultural anthropology. The courses will focus on an introduction to foundational elements of modern identity such as culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, belief, and language. Students will track engagement with these concepts and issues in key works of British literature, while also learning how cultural anthropology — a study with roots in the period covered in the course — approaches these same concepts in its investigations into the diversity of human social behavior and cultural adaptation. The course will cover the effects of colonization on identity and cultural formation in Britain and around the world, and move forward into the 20th century (and beyond) to investigate the impact of post-colonialism and globalization. Students will develop an understanding of how and why anthropologists approach modern culture and identity, while simultaneously seeing how and why the same issues central to anthropological understandings of culture and identity are likewise central to some of the most profound literary explorations of the past two centuries.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category B: Studies of Cultures (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Tamara Wilson – ENG 211 WI, Introduction to British Literature I (Writing Intensive)
Hugh Marlowe – PHI 103 WI, Introduction to Philosophy I (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

Drs. Marlowe and Wilson are intrigued by the challenges for, and opportunities presented to, individuals as they negotiate the complexities of pleasure, pain, and self-knowledge – especially, the roles desires, virtues and vices play in living an authentic life. These are fundamental entanglements upon which many thinkers have pondered and offered their thoughts. By pairing the philosophic writings of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche with works of Early British literature such as Beowulf, The Defense of Poesie, and Measure for Measure, students will have an opportunity to engage in the vigorous discussion between Philosophy and Literature, working towards determining their place in our bewilderingly multi-faceted culture.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Allan Marcil – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing, (Writing Intensive)
Yvan Kelly – ECO 201, Principles of Macroeconomics

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will integrate the fundamentals of college writing with the principles of economics under the theme of the entertainment business. The courses will explore film, TV, music, and the dynamics of turning creativity a profitable business endeavor. We will explore the economic underpinnings of an industry that holds high risk but is considered by society to be glamorous. These courses will discuss the history, revenue streams, risks, failures, and future of various segments of the entertainment industry.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Rachel Cremona – POS 221 WI, Politics in the United States (Writing Intensive)
Leslee Keys – HIS 205 WI, American History to 1877 (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

From the time of European settlement forward, the development of American Identity in the United States has been influenced perhaps most fundamentally by race and religion. This course will explore the historical and political development of ‘what it means to be an American’ through the lens of race and religion from the point of first settlement in 1565, when Spanish Conquistadors, driven by religious fervor, sought out a ‘new Eden’, through the Civil War when the conflict over slavery came close to destroying the Nation.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Wayne Riggs – HIS 102 WI, Western Civilization II (Writing Intensive)
Barbara Blonder – NAS 107, Environmental Science

Description/Rationale

This learning community explores the relationship between western civilization and the environment during the modern era. We will examine the impact that economic, agricultural, and social developments had on the natural environment. Furthermore, we will explore how the environment has shaped modern civilization. Students will discover that environmental issues that are relevant today were in many cases relevant during the last several hundred years -- or had their origins in past human activity. From an environmental perspective, the learning community will study the limits to human population growth as influenced by natural resources availability, the technologies developed to obtain those resources, and the consequences of these actions. One of the primary historical and scientific questions we will ask include “Are western development and the attempts to control resources leading to the collapse of the natural environment?” As a learning community, we will seek answers in history and through science, and also by exploring developments in St. Augustine itself. As a result of studying these relationships, students will be able to project how contemporary Western civilization will meet the environmental challenges of today and the future.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category B: Natural Scientific Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Lynn Brueske-Walton – PSY 201, Child Psychology
Bariaa Shatila – MAT 223, Statistics

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will explore the naturally occurring descriptive statistics involved in the development of children. The course will utilize surveys, graphs, correlations, frequency distribution measures and variations, outliers, and the uses and misuses of statistics when describing a child’s growth and development. Critical thinking, in both the mathematical and psychological perspectives, will be emphasized.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category A: Math, Sub-category B: Statistics (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: None

Instructors

Emily Splane – PSY 101, Introduction to Psychology
Sally McGhee – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will facilitate students’ understanding of themselves through the study of psychology and literature. Students make connections between the major theories, perspectives, and individual contributors in the field of modern psychology and the elements of literature in short stories, poems, and essays to create thematic topics for the writing process, ultimately exploring and revealing what it means to be human.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Judith Burdan – SOC 243 WI, Selected Topics--Gender and Its Influence (Writing Intensive)
Alex Asbille – ENG 152 WI, Research Topics in College Writing (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck”

This Learning Community is designed to provide an introduction to some of the gender issues that affect each of us personally, socially, culturally, economically, and politically. We will explore the origins of our current views of gender, consider gender as a social construct, and learn about feminism and feminist analysis, its history and its current status. We will also look at the ways that gender influences families, work, law, popular culture, and self-image. We will work from the inside out, from private concerns to public issues. We will move from personal writing and reflection to research, argument, and analysis. To do this, we will study diverse texts, such as literature, film, advertising, and social media as well as feminist scholarship. This Learning Community will also seek to place our academic exploration within a real world context through guest speakers, volunteer opportunities, and field trips.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Core Experience, Category B: English Composition (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Courses

Instructors

Wesley King – ENG 242 WI,  General Education Creative Aesthetics (Writing Intensive)
Rachel Cremona – POS 200 WI, Introduction to Political Science (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This course will explore the themes of criminality, justice, and punishment through the lens of political science and literary study. The course will serve as an introduction to the study of politics and will trace its themes in novel, short story, poetry, and film.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Creative Expression, Category A: Creative Aesthetics (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

John Young – HIS 101 WI, History of Western Civilization (Writing Intensive)
Roger Bradley – ECO 201, Principles of Macroeconomics

Description/Rationale

This learning community will integrate the early history of western civilization and macroeconomics by 1) exposing students to basic macroeconomic principles through historical example, and 2) asking students to examine and evaluate the historical record through the application of these economic principles. The course will be organized into six segments, each of which focuses on a major historical event. For each segment, students will read original source material pertaining to that event, and attempt to evaluate the motives and morality of the individuals involved in that event. This evaluation will focus primarily on economic motives, and students will be given the opportunity to develop reasoned and evidence-based opinions about the moral quality of the motives involved.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Brenda Kauffman – POS 200 WI, Intro to Political Science (Writing Intensive)
Felix R. Livingston – ENT 201, Foundations of Honorable Entrepreneurship

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community provides a cultural, historical, philosophical and social scientific overview of the concept and importance of honor in politics and business. Ideas from the humanities and the social sciences from across the centuries are explored and connected to the evolution of American social life. By examining the words and ideas of poets and philosophers who have written about intellectual and social forces that have influenced development of America’s political economy we will see that contemporary challenges affecting business and government have deep roots.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Jeremy Krause – PSY 101, Introduction to Psychology
Sally Blake – EDU 202 WI, Introduction to Teaching and Learning (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This community will investigate the intersection between psychology and education, including how developmental factors, behavioral practices and environment influence perceptions of the educational environment and learning. Students will work in investigative teams to explore questions and issues related to psychological principles and practices in education; promoting the development of observational and research skills through the analysis of teaching and learning practices within the classroom and in other educational settings. Outcomes will include participation in an on-campus conference style poster session where students will have the opportunity to present their findings to one another and the broader campus community.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (6 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Melissa Southwell – NAS 107, Environmental Science
Art Vanden Houten – INT 200 WI, Introduction to International Studies (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

In 1968, Garrett Hardin published the “Tragedy of the Commons” in which he described how resource degradation often results when people make decisions based on individual self-interest, even when those decisions are perfectly rational. This learning community explores the implications of this principle in the international sphere. How do sovereign nations handle issues like water rights, pollution, and wildlife protection given that wind, water, and organisms refuse to respect international boundaries? We will investigate this question, drawing upon case studies illustrating the most urgent environmental issues of today and the challenges of navigating policy solutions among many nations.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category B: Natural Scientific Inquiry (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Timothy J. Johnson - REL 101, Introduction to the Old Testament
Arthur Vanden Houten - POS 203 WI, Introduction to Political Thought I (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

The peoples of Israel and Ancient Greece have left a deep religious, political and philosophical legacy for Western Civilization. Both peoples struggled mightily with some of the gravest questions that face any society: What is God? What is justice? What is the nature of the good life? What is community, and what does it mean to be a member of a particular community. By confronting original texts from the ancient world, for example, the epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics and Augustine’s City of God, this cluster examines many of the profound and enduring answers the people of Greece and Israel offered as they grappled with these timeless questions. As such, the cluster asks students to reflect on some of the deepest questions and yearnings animating the human experience.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (6 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Brenda Kauffman - INT 200 WI, Introduction to International Studies (Writing Intensive)
Mikael Sandberg - ECO 201, Principles of Macroeconomics

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community provides students with an interdisciplinary view of the U.S. economy and how it relates to the overall global economy. We are living in an increasingly globalized environment and national economies are more interdependent than ever before. Given this interdependence, events in one economy usually have ripple effects throughout the world. Economic phenomena, such as the global financial crisis of 2008-2010, often trigger policy responses. Much debate over economic policy, may it be in Washington D.C., London, Beijing, or Tokyo, centers around the appropriate role of government in the economy. In this Learning Community, students will learn to analyze the motivations behind economic policies and they will critically evaluate their effects, domestically as well as internationally. Ultimately, this course serves to make students better global citizens by integrating the principles of economics, politics, international relations, history, and geography into a coherent narrative about the global economy and the linkages that exist among countries.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (6 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Art Vanden Houten – INT 200 WI, Intro to International Studies (Writing Intensive)
Wayne Riggs – HIS 102 WI, Western Civilization II (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will give students an opportunity to study key developments in modern western history in the broad context of International Studies. Since Western Civilization II offers a broad sweep of history from the 18th century to the present, and International Studies stresses an interdisciplinary approach to the study of world events, first year students who participate in this LC will gain a deeper understanding of the interrelated nature of many major world events. Furthermore, they will develop a greater appreciation for how western culture has shaped, and been shaped, by other civilizations.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Bill Locascio – ANT 220, Intro to Archaeology
Kelly Enright – HIS 205 WI, US History to 1877 (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

The complementary fields of history and archaeology are combined in this learning community to examine encounters and cultural exchanges between groups that have influenced and, at times, shaped the development of the United States. Important periods in U.S. history – extending from late pre-European contact to the late nineteenth century – are considered using written records and archaeological evidence to understand the events and processes that unfolded during colonization of the New World, the founding of the United States, and the development of this country during its first one hundred years. Students will be able to identify the ways that archaeological data and methods can be paired with those of history to illuminate the past and bring details of the cultural contexts of different periods into focus. Particular attention will be given to cross-cultural contact between groups, such as interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, associations of African-American slaves to non-slave populations prior to the 1860s, and relations between various regional and ethnic groups in United States during the first one-hundred years of the Republic.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)
Foundations of Knowledge, Category A: Western History (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Will Miller – POS 200 WI, Intro to Political Science (Writing Intensive)
Doug Keaton – PHI 103 WI, Intro to Philosophy I (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

The twentieth century saw the rise and near-victory of totalitarianism, political systems in which the state has total control over every aspect of society. Most famously, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin presided over fascist and state communist totalitarian regimes. This learning community will explore the nature of totalitarianism, its historical and philosophical roots as well as its current-day influence. Questions we will ask include: what are the psychological, political, and philosophical attractions of totalitarianism? How do societies fall into it? Why, exactly, is totalitarianism bad? Can any case be made for it? What makes democracy seemingly better in the minds of Americans? Can there be such a thing as “totalitarian democracy” or “democratic totalitarianism”? Is our own society susceptible to the same drives that have seduced others? Books we will read include Plato’s Republic and Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. We will watch films about totalitarian societies, including potentially Other People’s Lives, Brazil, and The Hunger Games. Contemporary issues and rulers explored will include Isalmofascism, drones, genocide, Hugo Chavez, and Kim Jong-un.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (6 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 2 Course

Instructors

Alison DeBelder – SOC 240, Sociology of Criminal Law
Lewis Buzzell – PLA 241 WI, Ethical Issues and the Judiciary (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will provide students with a solid foundation in the way that the U.S. legal system has developed and how it functions. There will be a particular emphasis upon the criminal justice system, the death penalty, and application of the death penalty in Florida since it was reinstituted in 1972. This offering will develop students’ understanding of notions of justice, criminality, and punishment with focused contemplation upon capital punishment, especially as imposed in the modern United States.

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course

Instructors

Michael Insalaca – MAT 135, College Algebra
Sherry Jensen – ECO 202 WI, Principles of Microeconomics (Writing Intensive)

Description/Rationale

This Learning Community will integrate the fundamentals of college algebra with the principles of microeconomics. Economics and mathematics are natural complements. As noted by the Council for Economics Education, "Economics is, after all, the study of peoples' attempts to make good decisions in an uncertain world endowed with limited resources. The tools economists use--for example, those related to optimization and informed decision-making--gain power, elegance, and visual appeal as they are represented mathematically in models."

General Education Requirements Fulfilled

Core Experience, Category A: Mathematics, Sub-Category A: College Algebra (3 Credits)
Ways of Knowing, Category A: Social, Behavioral and Philosophical Inquiry (3 Credits)

Writing Intensive Requirements Met: 1 Course