Dual Enrollment Course Offerings (Fall 2022)
In-Classroom Courses
ARTH 111 – Ancient to Medieval Art. This course is an introduction to Western art before the Renaissance, to CE 1423. The topics covered in this course include prehistoric art in Europe; art of the Near East and Egypt; Aegean art; Greek and Roman art; Early Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Byzantine art; and Medieval art including Romanesque and Gothic developments.
Days: T/TH Time: 10:35AM–11:50AM
Instructor: Jonathan Pineno
ASTRO 1 – Astronomical Universe. Overview of modern understanding of the astronomical universe. ASTRO 1 is an introductory course for non-science majors. It provides a broad introduction to Astronomy with qualitative descriptions of the dazzling and varied contents of the universe including planets, the Sun and other stars, exoplanets, red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, supernovae, galaxies, dark matter, and more. The course will explore how these objects form and change and interact, how the whole whole universe formed and changes (cosmology), and where Earth fits in the vast scheme of things.
Days:; M/W/F Time: 10:10AM–11:00AM
Instructor: Violet Mager
BIOL 144 – Climate Change: Biological Impact. A study of the interactions of organisms with their environment through exploration of the biological impacts of climate change on individuals, populations, ecological communities, and ecosystems. Students will develop skills to make informed judgments about the implications of climate change using scientific information and expand their understanding of how and why science works to generate knowledge to address biological issues relative to climate change. Students will construct evidence-based explanations of the impacts of climate change on biological processes such as disease transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem functioning.
Days: M/W/F Time: 10:10AM–11:00AM
Instructor: Luciana Caporaletti
CAS 100A – Effective Speech. This course explores how people use techniques of oral communication to address practical, professional and civic problems. It is designed to introduce students to principles of effective public speaking, implemented through the design and presentation of individual speeches. Class size is limited to ensure that scheduled meetings can support students in focusing on the development of public speaking skills through in-class activities, collaborative learning, peer critiques, and examinations of various communication practices.
Days: M/W/F Time: 10:10AM–11:00AM – Section 1
Days: M/W/F Time: 11:15AM–12:05PM – Section 2
Instructor: Natalya Vodopyanova
CMPSC 101 – Introduction to Programming. This course introduces the fundamental concepts and processes of solving computational problems through the design, implementation, testing, and evaluation of basic computer programs. The concepts include basic computational constructs such as calculation, iteration, conditions, functions, and data types. These provide the basic building blocks found in virtually all programming languages. The processes include the step-by-step refinement of a problem description into individual components that can be implemented, tested, and integrated into an effective solution.
Days: T/TH Time: 3:05PM–4:20PM
Instructor: Jeffrey Chiampi
COMM 100N – The Mass Media and Society. This course is an overview of the interaction between mass media and society. Mass communications in the United States: organization, role, content, and effects of newspapers, magazines, television, radio, books, and films. By drawing from selected topics, the course pays particular attention to the social influences (e.g., economics, politics, technology, law and culture) that shape media messages. Among others, the course examines the nature of media controllers as well as the character of users and consumers of media products. By so doing, students are informed about the overall structure and scope of the mass media and led to understand the power and influences associated with media messages and practices. By the end of the semester, each student should have a better understanding of the dynamic nature of the mass media in an information society.
Days: M/W Time: 2:30PM–3:45PM
Instructor: Natalya Vodopyanova
CRIMJ 100 – Introduction to Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice 100 is an overview of the United States criminal justice system and the major components of police, courts and corrections. Students will engage in reviews of, evaluate and consider legal foundations, types and causes of crime, the development of policing, the influence and evolution of the court process, and rehabilitative and reintegrative components of corrections. Specific topics can include, but are not limited to, the extent of crime in the United States; competing and complementary goals within the criminal justice system; sources of criminal law; interactions between various agencies within the criminal justice system; and the impact of crime on victims. Students will have various opportunities to examine how age, gender, race and ethnicity impact, and are impacted by, the criminal justice system at critical phases.
Days: T/Th Time: 9:05AM–10:20AM
Instructor: Jeremy Olson
EDSGN 100 – Cornerstone Engineering Design. This course provides students with a foundation for engineering design through hands-on team projects that address specified design opportunities. Through this course, students will recognize the role that engineering and design have in improving the health, safety, and welfare of the global community, as well as identifying when a solution is technically feasible, economically viable, and desirable. Students will use a range of design tools and techniques to carry out and communicate their design processes as applied to their projects. Additionally, students will develop and practice professional skills, such as communication, teamwork, and ethical decision making. Course delivery will be via faculty-led lessons, hands-on activities, and discussions.
Days: T/Th Time: 4:35PM–7:35PM
Instructor: Andrew Bloom
ENGL 15 – Rhetoric and Composition. ENGL 15 is an intensive, rhetorically based experience in reading and writing that will prepare you both to understand the communications that surround you and to succeed in your own communication efforts. Thus, in this course, we will focus specifically on analyzing verbal and visual texts (our reading) as well as on producing such texts (our writing)—always in terms of rhetorical principles. Even if the term “rhetoric” isn’t familiar to you, you bring a good deal of rhetorical skill to this class: you already know something about how to gauge the way you perceive and produce language according to the speaker, the intended audience, and the purpose. The goal of ENGL 15, then, is to help you build on what you already know as you become a more confident reader and writer. You will become more attuned to your goals as a writer, more aware of the ongoing conversation surrounding the topic, and more resourceful in terms of the appropriate delivery of your information, the rhetorical appeals at your disposal, and the needs and expectations of your audience. You will also learn to research and synthesize multiple outside sources in order to support your arguments effectively and ethically. In the process, you'll learn how to read more critically as well.
Days: M/W/F Time: 10:10AM–11:00AM
Instructor: Ann Brennan
ENGL 191 – Science Fiction. As a genre of literature, science fiction enables human beings to model themselves as a cosmic species, a life form that imagines and inhabits an entirely new scale of being. Not confined to a tribe, nation or tradition, science fiction narrates and explores the galactic magnitudes of both the external world of astronomical exploration (billions and billions of stars) and the inner world of subjective reality and imagination (billions and billions of neurons). This course introduces students to the surprisingly long history of science fiction as a way of exploring both the microcosm and the macrocosm, mapping a species imagining themselves into the future.
Days: M/W/F Time: 2:30PM–3:20PM
Instructor: Christyne Berzsenyi
FRNSC 100 – Introduction to Forensic Science. This course is designed for students to step into the role of a criminalist—one who performs the scientific examination of evidence—as they process a case from start to finish over the semester. Students begin by learning a scientific approach to crime scene investigation, evidence collection, and transport. They then follow the collected evidence as it is disseminated throughout the crime lab for examination and analysis. Disciplines such as forensic serology, trace evidence, impression evidence, drug chemistry, toxicology, and DNA will be discussed. Students will learn about the examinations performed by crime lab professionals; the application of scientific principles from disciplines such biology, chemistry, physics, and math to those exams; and the instrumentation commonly used in the lab to complete those examinations and analyses. Once the evidence has been processed, students will use critical thinking skills to interpret the evidence within the context of the case. They will reconstruct the crime as it could have occurred guided by the results and conclusions generated from their analyses. Students will also explore the role of various scientific disciplines outside of criminalistics (anthropology, entomology, pathology, etc.) as they are used in modern forensics, as well as the role of forensic science in society and the criminal justice system.
Days: T/Th Time: 3:05PM–4:20PM
Instructor: Robert Jolley
GAME 160N – Introduction to Video Game Culture. This course is a comparative introduction to the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pong to online role-playing. It introduces students to academic discussion on and creative work in new digital forms including hypertexts, video games, cell phone novels, machinima, and more. Students will survey major debates over the meaning and value of video games, and study some of the major theoretical terms and perspectives developed to elaborate the cultural and sociological value of video games. The course extends students’ skills in literary interpretation to a variety of new objects, and makes them aware of the role medium plays in aesthetic development and production. Students will leave with a far sharper understanding of how the interpretive tools used in the humanities can be extended to include new media, and with a sense of the historical role video games have played and will continue to play in global cultural production. Because the course is historically focused, it will spend significant time looking at the differential development of video games in three major regions: the United States, Europe, and East Asia (especially Japan).
Days: M/W/F Time: 1:25PM–2:15PM
Instructor: Jeffrey Chiampi
INART 226N – Critical Approaches to Hip-Hop. This course will examine the politics of hip-hop art and culture. To do this, we will place hip-hop in broad historical context and trace its aesthetic and cultural roots from Africa to Jamaica to 1970s New York City and then forward to 1980s gangsta rap and former President Barack Obama’s iPod. We will think through the implications of hip-hop’s addiction to Italian-American mobsters, bling, and all things keepin’ it real. We will also search for hip-hop’s political foundations in funk records, 1960s community organizing, and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. All the while, we will analyze the varieties of hip-hop politics by paying close attention to how hip-hoppers vie for authenticity, recognition, and power through cultural practices (e.g., b-boying/girling, graffiti art, emceeing, deejaying) at odds with the State, inequality, and injustice. We will also situate hip-hop politics within the ongoing history of American social movements.
Days: T/Th Time: 9:05AM–10:20AM
Instructor: Jonathan Pine
IST 110 – Information, People and Technology. This course will address major questions such as: How can we use technology to organize and integrate human enterprises? How can technology help people and organizations adapt rapidly and creatively? What can we do about information overload? Three perspectives (or facets) address the core issues: information or the basic science of data encoding, transmission and storage; people or the interactions among technologies, institutions, regulations and users; and technology or the design and operation of basic information technology devices. Students completing the course will be confident users and consumers of information technology. Students will develop research and analytical skills to evaluate specific devices and understand how those devices function in larger socio-technical systems. Students will be able to predict and anticipate the impact of new technologies on human institutions as well as understand the potential impact of institutions on the use and design of information technologies.
Days: T/Th Time: 3:05PM–4:20PM
Instructor: Brian Reese
RHS 100 – Introduction to Disability Culture. This course is designed to increase student awareness of personal, interpersonal, and societal aspects of disability, including how disability can be defined and understood differently in varied individual, institutional, and cultural contexts. Students will learn models of disability that will help them to (a) clearly distinguish different ways of conceptualizing disability and (b) critically think about how disability is represented and understood in varied cultural contexts, including in the U.S. and in other countries. Through discussion of class readings and completion of class assignments, students will examine the ethical, economic, and social implications of disability and the dynamics of group and individual behavior that impact social interactions among people with and without disabilities. A strong emphasis will also be placed on understanding disability from a variety of cultural perspectives and assessing the impact of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, and socio-political factors, both domestically and internationally, on disability status.
Days: M/W/F Time: 10:10 AM–11:00 AM
Instructor: Melisa Littleton
SC 60N – Art in the Natural World. This course will foster appreciation of art in the natural world through exploration of flora, fauna, geology, and water systems. Students will use scientific and artistic observation skills to understand, relate, and respond to connections in nature. Students will learn how to identify species in the field and gain a base knowledge of natural history. Students will develop observational skills and a deeper awareness of their natural surroundings through scientific observation, visual expressions, and writing responses. Using a common visual language, utilizing the elements and principles of design, students will begin to develop an aesthetic awareness through observational collecting. Nature presents an installation ready to analyze, deepening the students’ natural curiosity and ability to make connections. Most course work will be in the field and will include use of tools such as binoculars, microscopes, cameras, and sketchbooks.
Days: M/W Time: 2:30PM–3:45PM
Instructor: Luciana Caporaletti
SOC 1 - Introductory Sociology. The nature and characteristics of human societies and social life.
Days: T/Th Time: 1:35PM–2:50PM
Instructor: Deyu Pan
SOC 20N/COMM 20N – Critical Media Literacy. We are surrounded with media messages that influence how we think and act. Since we are so immersed in media culture, it is important that we know how to analyze media content, production and reception, so that media can become tools for liberation and creativity, not control. In this course, we will learn to critically analyze work produced in different forms of mass communication. The course focuses on power, ideology and social inequality, analyzing relationships between media producers and audiences, and between information, the politics of representation, and power, including a focus on the crucial areas of gender, sexuality, class, and race. The course takes a dialectical perspective that focuses on both theory and practice, providing students with the opportunity and knowledge necessary to produce their own short film using the resources of Penn State’s Media Commons.
Days: M/W/F Time: 11:15AM–12:05PM
Instructor: Ann Brennan
THEA 100 – The Art of the Theatre. This course is a survey of all aspects of the living art of the theatre. Throughout the semester, the in-class analysis of written scripts, performance contexts, dramatic structure, and theatrical genres will give insights into the imaginative impulses of theatre artists and their audiences. As a variety of individual texts are explored, scenes are used to illustrate the various topics under consideration. The course is concerned with the universality of the theatrical impulse, and includes a selection of international and multi-ethnic voices and performance techniques. Students will experience American theatre history as a conversation that parallels the country's struggle for identity in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Students learn about Western performance traditions alongside traditions happening elsewhere in the world in the same time period within political contexts, to create a global perspective of theatre.
Days: T/Th Time: 1:35PM–2:50PM
Instructor: Jonathan Pineno