Spring 2015 Windows Course Selection

Spring 2015 Windows Course Selection

Students at SNU are required to take a certain number of General Education courses. Some of these are called Windows courses. For students wondering what classes they’re going to take next semester, those trying to complete their general education credits, or those confused by all of these “windows” requirements, here is a breakdown of all the Windows courses being offered in the spring, along with a brief description of each one and which windows category it counts for.

Take a look so that you know what to tell your advisor to enroll you in!

CRITICAL THINKING & PROBLEM SOLVING WINDOW

At 9:25 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Dr. Broyles will be teaching Persuasion. This course provides students with a solid grounding in theories, principles and strategies of social influence as they apply to everyday contexts in which influence attempts take place. Students should gain familiarity with findings from empirical investigations of persuasion, social influence and compliance gaining and will learn about strategies and techniques of persuasion relating to a wide variety of real-life communication contexts, situations and settings.

Microeconomics will be taught on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m. The main objectives of this course are: analyzing consumer behavior from an economic perspective, developing insight into demand, supply, and cost, volume and profit relationships, understanding the market structures (perfect competition, monopolistic competition, monopoly, oligopoly) and their implications, developing a working knowledge of microeconomic theory and how it relates to business,  and developing a more enlightened approach to microeconomic issues, thus becoming a more responsible voting citizen.

Also at 9:25 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Dr. Clemmer will be teaching Historical Methods. This course is an introduction to history as a discipline and a profession.  The main emphasis of the course is on the methodologies utilized in historical research and analysis; the ways in which historians approach their subject matter, examine various types of evidence, and analyze the conclusions of other historians.

Science, Technology, and Society will be taking place on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. This course is not about learning facts.  It’s not even about finding answers.  It is about understanding the questions, realizing that reality is complicated.  Propositions to be investigated: Science is the art of evidence-based reasoning, invoking explanations that operate only within nature; We—and others—pay a stiff price for our devotion to the gods of convenience and consumerism; We depend on technologies that we take for granted but do not understand; Sometimes we own our technology, sometimes it owns us; The human race is part of Nature, not detached from it; The Earth does not need us, but we need the Earth; Certainty should not be purchased at the price of honesty; The present moment is the only one we really have; It’s not just about the destination, but also about the journey…

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at noon is Introduction to Health Psychology, which will be a study of psychological principles, behavioral medicine, and behavioral health theories and application of theories, particularly in relation to individual approach and treatment strategies. Focus will be on how and why individual health behavior affects the formation and/or management of: stress, pain, chronic disease, and overall health or wellness.

CIVICS, ETHICS, & STEWARDSHIP

Ethics is a course that extends the centuries-old debate about “How does one determine the morality of any action?” and “How can one resolve ethical dilemmas?” Dr. Montgomery will be teaching it on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

Professor Bowie and Dr. Eskridge are co-teaching Special Studies in Literature: Technology, Ethics, and the Future on Thursday afternoons from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Bruce Sterling said, “What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us are only wallpaper to our children.” Technological advances are rapidly changing society and our idea of normalcy. With these changes come a variety of ethical dilemmas. Unfortunately, given the unpredictable and disruptive nature of technology, it is difficult to predict its future effects on society, and, therefore, difficult to anticipate one’s ethical responses to these changes. However, science fiction media and literature, specifically those related to the cyberpunk genre, can provide a conceptual foundation upon which discussions regarding the possible effects of technology can be built. In this course, students will watch some science fiction movies. They will read some science fiction books. Most importantly, they will think about how technology affects how we treat the unknown and each other.

Oklahoma History will be on Thursdays at 6. This course will include a study of Oklahoma history from its prehistoric origins to the present. There will be special emphasis on 19th Century developments among Indian and white cultures and the effect of the late pioneer heritage on Oklahoma in the twentieth century. It is required by Social Studies-Education majors for the secondary teaching certificate in Oklahoma.

The course Civil War/Gilded Age is a survey of the political, military, constitutional, economic and social impact of the Civil War as well as the consequences of Reconstruction. The course concludes with an examination of the significant changes occurring in the United States during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It will be taught by Dr. Clemmer after Chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Another class before chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 9:25 a.m., is Intro to Politics. This course is an introduction to the discipline of Political Science and to the art of politics. The purpose of this class is to help students learn: the outline and particulars of the discipline of Political Science and its major sub-disciplines, the process of political thinking and the nature of political concepts, clarity and effectiveness of written and spoken communication, and the variety of Christian perspectives on political life.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m. is Personal Finance. This course will cover the successful management of personal financial planning in the American economy by developing a Personal Financial Plan, including: careers, job employment, financial planning, savings, and spending,  including marriage, home and automobile. Also, it will involve credit, including student loans, insurance, including life, property, casualty and health insurance, accumulating wealth through investments, developing a portfolio, retirement planning and estate planning.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Dr. Hackler how to write grants in her Grantwriting class, taught on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m. The course introduces students to the grantwriting process and provides experience in writing grant applications for local non-profit organizations. It emphasizes skills for writing in professional and public contexts and in collaborative and virtual environments.

Professor O’Bannon will be teaching two Marketing classes, both of them in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The class will be a study of the marketing mix elements, trends, and the competitive, social, economic, environmental, and technological influence, which affect these factors.  This class will provide the student the opportunity to study communications skills in both written and verbal formats.  The communication process will be primarily focused on consumer behavior both from the buyers and sellers prospective. The understanding of this communication process is vital to all students across all disciplines.

At 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Professor Bowie will be teaching Technical Communications, which will offer practical experience with major forms of technical communication used in professional fields related to science, business, English, mass communication, sport management, and religion. It will introduce students to the rhetorical principles and documentation practices necessary for writing effective professional communications, such as letters, reports, instructions, and proposals.

Taught on Mondays and Wednesdays at 1 p.m., Elementary Literature and Language Arts  is for undergraduate elementary and early childhood education majors preparing for their student teaching assignment. All aspects of the language arts will be reviewed: listening skills, oral language arts skills, written skill, and reading. Emphasis will be placed on developing classrooms where young children discover the richness and power of written and oral communication. Candidates will be required to teach a Junior Achievement unit to an elementary class in a low SES setting.

Dr. Weaver is teaching Academic Writing: Research & Argument on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. This is not a basic composition class, but a class that begins with the assumption that enrolled students are competent writers at the college level. Instead, this course is designed to help these competent writers stretch their research and written argumentative abilities, as well as increasing students’ basic understanding of logic and the pitfalls of real-life argumentation. ENGL 2213 is designed to be particularly beneficial to students declaring majors with significant research/writing requirements, pursuing off-campus study semester during time at SNU, or going on to graduate or professional school in a program requiring writing (seminary, law school, etc.).

Special Studies: Survey of African American Literature will be taught by Dr. Poteet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12 p.m. This special studies course is an overview of African American Literature from colonial times to the present and is a blend of the disciplinary perspectives of English and Sociology. The course examines literary works written by/for/about African Americans and is at once a study of literature, race and ethnicity. Using a seminar format, the class will examine the unique history, culture and struggles of the people(s) of African descent in the United States. The study focuses on African American poetry, short fiction, novels, drama, autobiography, journals and letters, as well as the compelling vernacular contributions of African American music, stories, speeches, testimonies, folktales and sermons. As students and faculty at Southern Nazarene University, the study will be guided by a distinctly Christian perspective, considering the privileges and responsibilities of educated persons of faith as we confront the critical race/ethnicity concerns of our time. NOTE: Completed Composition I, II and preferable Aesthetics.

Another option to obtain the Effective Communication windows credit is to attend an OSLEP seminar located at OU-Norman called Public Philosophy: Sharing Your Ideas in an Anti-Intellectual Age from February 18-22. We live in an age in which the world is accessible through friends, or friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends. Yet it sometimes seems like cat videos, Buzzfeed polls, and “click-bait” eclipse the more thoughtful aspects of the internet. This class provides an opportunity for you to accept the web as it is, but translate your philosophical thoughts into more accessible media without sacrificing sophistication, integrity, or critical thinking. In the class, you will evaluate existing public philosophy and use your new insights to create original work that will reach well beyond your own university. Whether your concerns are political, moral, social, or just musings, this class will help you develop the skills to package them for the new media that connects us all.

To take an OSLEP course, students must have Sophomore standing and a 3.0 GPA.  To enroll in an OSLEP course, students must first apply at oslep.org.  Once the OSLEP director has approved the application, our General Education Director will enroll the student in the course here at SNU.  The course counts toward block tuition even though it is taught off campus.

AESTHETIC ANALYSIS

Fans of Shakespeare should consider taking the course offered at 6 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. The course will include a study of both famous and lesser-known plays and selections from the poems with supplementary consideration of Shakespeare’s language, text, sources, characterization, and dramatic structure; Shakespeare in the Elizabethan and modern theater and on film; and Shakespeare criticism.

Another Aesthetics Analysis option is Acrylic Painting, offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m. This course is an introduction to the materials and technical aspects of painting with acrylic media. Students will work from direct observation and reference material, exploring use of media through representational and expressive paintings. The process of painting, as well as composition (balance, unity, emphasis and manipulation of space) will be explored through the use of color, value, line, texture, opacity and shape. Students will learn color mixing and glazing techniques, and experiment with various brushwork and knife techniques. Throughout the course, students will collect works to create a portfolio to be evaluated at the end of each semester.

Professor Smith will teach Digital Photography on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12 p.m. This course is a survey of the art of photography with practical hands-on experience learning how to craft a photographic image. The course includes critical analysis of composition, lighting and gesture. Students learn how a camera functions, how light interacts with the camera and the photographer can control light and composition.

At 9:25 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays is Intro to Fine Arts, a General Education course designed to introduce the student to a variety of masterpieces in art, sculpture, architecture and music. The course emphasizes various periods of artistic expression from Western civilization and how art and music are reflections of the social, intellectual, spiritual, political and economic lives of a given people. The course also will introduce students to arts and music outside the Western culture.

Foundations for English Studies is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:30 p.m. This course serves as a brief introduction to the historical and contemporary schools of criticism used to evaluate and analyze literature, film, and cultural narrative within the field of English. NOTE: Successful completion of the comp sequence is mandatory.

On Monday evenings at 4 p.m. is History of Art & Design. This survey course provides the student with a basic understanding of art and design history. It focuses on the discipline’s contextual and chronological development.  After completing this course students will be able to: compare and contrast historical design and art movements, evaluate characteristics of various design movements, compare and contrast design movements, styles, artists and designers and criticize and evaluate the work of artists, designers and typographers.

Genre Studies: Intro to Film Studies will be at 9:25 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This class provides an introduction to the basic tools of film analysis. We will examine how filmic elements like mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing and sound work together to create meaning. We will examine how these elements are used differently across film genres. – Along with the creation of films, the course will provide you with an overview of American film, in particular the Hollywood tradition. Intro to Film Studies will provide you with the skills to analyze film aesthetics, as well as the tremendously important role movies play in our culture by circulating ideas and ideologies.  NOTE: A C+ or better in Composition II. Aesthetics-completion preferred.

At 10 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday is Introduction to Literature, a course designed to introduce students to the processes of critically reading written texts (fiction and nonfiction), visual texts (film and other forms of media), and oral texts (performance and oratory). It will provide a variety of tools with which to analyze and evaluate these materials within the context of ethnic, cultural, and personal identity. The focus will be on global literatures as well as literacies appropriate to their various histories, cultures, and themes.  NOTE: Must have passed Composition I & II

Survey of British Literature II will be after chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The course will include an overview of significant authors, works of literature and literary forms and trends from the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, Postmodern, and 21st century eras. The course includes writers such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, George Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Larkin, Lessing, and Rushdie, in the context of important historical and cultural forces.

NOTE: Best advised for students with junior or senior standing or permission of the professor.                                 

OSLEP Seminar: Digital Storytelling, located at OU-Norman and taking place March 4-8, is another option to obtain this windows credit. This class provides the opportunity to explore the making, moving, and meanings of Indigenous films.  The University of Oklahoma’s third Native Crossroads Film Festival will constitute half of the class time.  The class will also study with individual filmmakers in town for the festival.  The filmmakers will focus on film production and the process of creating digital stories.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Calculus I will be taught on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12 p.m., with a lab on Wednesday afternoons. The prerequisite for the course is high school math through Algebra II and Trigonometry or Pre-Calculus. It will be an intuitive introduction to the basic concepts of Calculus: limits, derivatives, and integrals, usin graphical, numerical, and symbolic points of view. The course will include development of the Calculus of algebraic and elementary transcendental function, and emphasis will be placed on using Calculus in problem solving.

Calculus II will be on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m. with a lab on Tuesday afternoons. The prerequisite for it is having credit for Calculus I. It is a continuation of Calculus I (MATH 2324), with a rigorous development of differential and integral Calculus. It includes advanced topics on limits, continuity, differentials and integration theory, applications of derivatives and integrals, infinite series and functions as power series.

Dr. Winslow will be teaching Origins on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:45 a.m. This course is an exploration and Christian understanding of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution.

Abnormal Psychology will be taught at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This course is a presentation of the biological, psychological, and sociological factors which are correlated with maladaptive behavior.  NOTE: Need to have taken General Psychology I (PSY 1113) or have the permission of instructor.

Intro to Biological Science will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:25 a.m. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a variety of current issues in the field of biology. The scientific method will be demonstrated through hands on activities as well as case studies will be used to help students learn to evaluate biological events they may encounter in their everyday lives.

Intro to Astronomy is being offered as an online course during the spring semester. The course is an exploration of the night sky, seasons, stellar evolution, cosmology, etc.

Design Technology is being offered Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:45 a.m. the course is a studio‐based introduction to the design software, Adobe Creative Suite; projects will implement the creative problem-solving process, which emphasizes observation, evaluation, communication and implementation while learning the Adobe programs: Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 a.m., General Chemistry is being offered. As you will discover, general chemistry has broad implications. Concepts introduced in general chemistry have bearing on how scientific knowledge is gained and how it applies to society, the history of science, the modern concept of matter, energy sources, medicine, pollution, plastics, and a host of other issues. A Christian worldview assures us that the world is governed by an orderly Creator. Although the many topics we study may at first seem unrelated or confusing, the patterns and underlying principles we discover allow us to understand and make predictions about the natural world.  NOTE:  A prerequisite of a 21 Math ACT or prior completion/concurrent enrollment in College Algebra is required.

Another option for the Science and Technology window is the OSLEP Seminar: Evolution Road Trip: Past and Present in Oklahoma and Texas. It’s based from the OU Biological Station at Lake Texoma and will be March 16-20. Oklahoma and Texas are renowned for a lot of things, but two of them are creationism and the abundance of evidence for evolution. That is, the very places where creationism is strongest are the places with some of the best field evidence of evolution. This class, based at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station at Lake Texoma, will explore the outdoors of southern Oklahoma and north-central Texas for evidence of evolution in living creatures, geology, and fossils. The class will also visit museums to learn about natural history, as well as ideologically-driven views of natural history. On this trip, let’s go learn and talk about both creationism and the field evidence for evolution.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Cultural Anthropology is at 9:25 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The course is a study of the beliefs, practices and major institutions of selected groups around the world, with attention to how the physical and social environment has helped shape the history and culture. The impact of cross-cultural contact, planned change and missionary effort is considered.

Professor Rhodes will be teaching World Civilization I on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 a.m. This course offers an overview of the development of human civilization from our prehistoric roots to 1500.  It will analyze political, social, economic, moral and ideological foundations important in the development of today’s global society.  Students will explore important concepts through lecture, discussion, collaborative publishing, historical geography, and primary document analysis.

An online class that could fulfill the Global Perspective window is Intercultural Communication. An introduction to the communication that takes place when people of different cultures interact. This course surveys differences in cultures which can create obstacles to understanding and communication and offers suggestions for dealing with these obstacles.

Another online course being offered is Mythology. This three- (3) credit-hour upper-division online course provides an introductory exploration of classical and comparative mythology and an examination of the role of myth in society, the relation of myth to other disciplines, and the relationship between myth and Christianity. NOTE:  The prerequisite for this class is sophomore standing (24 college hours) or permission of the instructor.                                                                                                                                                                    

International Economic Development is a hybrid course, occurring online and on Mondays and Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m. This course will be a detailed look into the international world of poverty and poverty alleviation. The course will start at the 20,000 feet level by looking at the historical causes of poverty and then explore the current pervasiveness of poverty throughout the world. We will begin to focus on the underlying economic, political and sociological causes of poverty, both historically and currently, including the devastating effect of war, disease, corruption and tribalism, and will end the course by looking at the church’s response to the microenterprise revolution. Throughout the course we will give consideration and evaluation of implementing the Morningstar Model of linking microfinance and vocational training. NOTE: Juniors and Seniors

Another option is the OSLEP Seminar: Slavery since Emancipation, located at OU-Norman on Jan. 5-9. A common misconception is that slavery is a problem of the past, abolished in the 19th century. However, legal slavery existed in a few countries into the 21st century and up to thirty million people remain victims of slavery today, despite the laws that supposedly prevent it. This seminar, led by Kevin Bales, the founder of the international anti-slavery organization Free the Slaves, will concentrate on slavery from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Of particular foci will be the relationship between slavery and the supply chains of multinational trade; human trafficking and sex trade; debt slavery; and the lived experiences of contemporary slaves. Students will have the opportunity to learn about social action and organizing for justice from a world renowned anti-slavery scholar and activist.