We have seven classes available for alumni to join on Friday, October 18th. Sit alongside current students and learn what they're learning! Register today if you're interested!
LAR 101-1 — Taking a Stance
2:00 – 2:50 p.m.
Instructor: JL Vertin
This seminar will focus on developing habits and skills to improve argumentation by examining several contemporary and historical controversies in order to build compelling written and oral arguments for a specific stance. Students will engage in two intensive Reacting to the Past role playing games that place them in moments of historical controversy. In order to win these games, students will write position papers and participate in informal debates and negotiations. Students will also examine the current controversial social issues of immigration, death penalty, and marijuana legalization. The course will conclude with students working in teams in a mock trial debate of one of these current social issues.
LAR 101-2 — Embracing Challenges with Change
10:00 – 10:50 a.m.
Instructor: Kris Williams
Cars, computers, and vaccinations are all hailed as scientific innovations that have a large impact on human life. However, each of these breakthroughs faced pushback from their beginning and still face criticism. In this course we will study how historical scientific discoveries have impacted our world and how we can use those lessons as new scientific breakthroughs are made. This course will emphasize collaborative learning, interdisciplinary study, and appreciation of multiple perspectives in order to understand how we can approach change in a constructive way. Students will explore these ideas in intensive Reacting to the Past role-playing games where they will take on historically inspired roles, deliver persuasive speeches, and debate controversial ideas.
LAR 101-4 — Ethics of the Human Body
11:00am - 11:50am
Instructor: Brad Johnson
Students in this course will examine many of the diverse ethical issues related to the human body. Topics such as body modification (tattooing, piercing, etc.), pandemics, organ transplant lists, and artificial bodies/body parts will serve as material for our reading and writing about how we make ethical decisions. Moreover, in the spirit of the Liberal Arts Seminar, we will examine the human body as an interdisciplinary subject, applying concepts from art, biology, religion, philosophy, literature, economics, etc., in an effort to understand how we approach ethical choices from a wide range of perspectives.
LAR 101-5 — Rejected Rebels
3:00pm - 3:50pm
Instructor: Mark Meysenburg
Why are some people “before their time?” Some pioneering thinkers are accepted and hailed in their time, while others are mocked and marginalized. Why have some ideas, which we recognize today as obviously correct, been rejected by experts in the past? What factors led to right ideas being rejected, and what can we learn from history so that we do not repeat it? In this course, we will explore these questions through two specific historic events: Galileo Galilei’s idea of a sun-centered universe in the 1630s, and Charles Babbage’s design of a working computer in the 1830s.
We will attempt to answer these questions through intense Reacting to the Past role-playing games. You will take on historically-based roles, work with your faction, delve deeply into very important historical texts, write and make speeches, debate controversial issues (while staying in character!), participate in laboratory sessions, and try to win the game. Your performance in the game could change the course of history!
LAR 101-6 — Know Thyself
10:00am - 10:50am
Instructor: Lucas Kellison
"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose, a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." – Mary Shelley
What is the purpose of a liberal arts education? What does it mean to be free? A wide range of topics will be covered in this course using the lenses of literature, philosophy, history, religion, science, and politics. At Doane, it is our stated mission to create leaders, but what needs to be in place in one’s life before one can responsibly lead others? With help from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Plato, Campbell, and many more great minds, these questions will be explored further in order to equip students with a more refined understanding of self in order to move forward with an open, alert, and truth-seeking mind.
LAR 101-7 — Know Thyself
11:00am - 11:50am
Instructor: Lucas Kellison
"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose, a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." – Mary Shelley
What is the purpose of a liberal arts education? What does it mean to be free? A wide range of topics will be covered in this course using the lenses of literature, philosophy, history, religion, science, and politics. At Doane, it is our stated mission to create leaders, but what needs to be in place in one’s life before one can responsibly lead others? With help from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Plato, Campbell, and many more great minds, these questions will be explored further in order to equip students with a more refined understanding of self in order to move forward with an open, alert, and truth-seeking mind.
LAR 101-12 — Journeys
9:00 – 9:50 a.m.
Kimberly Jarvis
People’s perceptions of the world around them are influenced and affected by their environment and experiences. In this course students will read memoirs and novels that explore their authors’ experiences with and reflections on such issues as identity and political oppression in China, Russia, Argentina, and Iran. In addition, students will examine and reflect upon their own transition from high school to college and develop the skills they need for a successful college experience.