1999-2000 Programs for First-year Students

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All Over the Place: Stories in A Multicentered Society Alternative Calendars American Community Applying Principles of Environmental Science Astonomy and Cosmologies Basic Botany: Plants and People Concepts of Computing Creativity in the 20th Century: Freud to Einstein to Brecht to Madonna Education: Beyond High School Education: Philosophy Education: Politics of Public Schooling Exploration Field School to Chile Forms in Nature; Studies in Art, Ecology and Human Development Music and Dance of Brazil and the Caribbean The Nature of America Performing Arts and Culture Politics and Ideologies From the Americas Sacred Places Shelter: Eco-Design in the Real World Staying Put: The Story As Home

All Over the Place: Stories in a Multicentered Society

Fall/Group Contract
Faculty: Craig Carlson, Frank Motley
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

A place is a story happening many times.... Over there? We say ‘blind woman steaming clover roots become ducks.’ We tell that story for you at place of meeting one another in winter. But now is our time for travel.We will name those stories as we pass them by.
—Kwakiutl, told by Franz Boas

In the absence of shared past experiences in a multicentered society, storytelling and old photography serve as our separate imagined communities. Narratives and images describe relationships between the teller and told, here and there, past and present. What’s up? The answer is story.
Stories once detailed shared experiences. Now it may be that only stories themselves offer us common ground. Once you start hearing certain stories and retelling them, you gain membership in a group and community. You become related, since the story is, as Terry Tempest Williams says, “...the umbilical cord between past, present, and future.”

When most governments and educational institutions are no longer trusted, authority shifts to the storytellers. Often the most valuable local cultural resources are the grandmothers or young people with tape recorders or the man by the creek on the outskirts of town who can spin tales about the old days. The sense of place often outlasts the place itself.

This group contract is concerned with stories as they are written or told in the landscape or place by the people who live or lived there. The intersections of culture, history, geography and nature form the ground on which we stand — our land, our home, our group, the local.

We will study writings on place by a diverse group. These writings will include: The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard; The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History, Dolores Hayden; The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places, Gary Paul Nabhanard and Stephen Trimble; Through Navaho Eyes, Sol Worth and John Adair; On The Road, Jack Kerouac; Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience; Yi-Fu Tuan; Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard. We will also look at an eclectic group of visual artists and film makers such as: Norval Morriseau, Ken Burns, Spike Lee, Olivia Gude, May Sun and Wim Wenders.

We will begin genealogies, explore symbolic and “real” land/cityscapes, and examine the role of the storyteller/writer/visual artist as social/cultural witness through workshops, seminars, readings, performances, research, writing and student-originated projects. We all need to get good at looking at, listening to and telling stories, our own and others. Stories are our homes. “Finding a fitting place for oneself in the world is finding a place for oneself in a story,” as Jo Carson explains.

Credit awarded in American studies, independent project, community studies, literature, narrative non-fiction writing and humanities.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in writing, media communications, cultural studies, community work, law, teaching and Native American studies.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Alternative Calendars

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Therese Saliba, Laurie Meeker, Gail Tremblay, Setsuko Tsutsumi
Enrollment: 92
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: $100 per quarter for arts and media production, and $100 for overnight field trips.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship possibilities: No
Travel Component: Two overnight field trips to Neah Bay (one during fall quarter and the other during spring quarter). Fall quarter field trip payment of $50 is due the end of the first week and spring quarter field trip payment $50 is due week seven (May 8-12, 2000) of spring quarter.

Not all cultures think that we are approaching a millennium. This program examines alternative concepts of time and history as culturally bound and tied to specific geographies. Focusing on a variety of cultures with nonlinear, cyclical calendars, such as Native North American, Mayan and Aztec, we will examine the complex, interlocking cycles of seasons, nature, ancestry and history. We will also look at the way time is constructed in indigenous religions of Asia, like Taoism and Shintoism. Chinese and Egyptian cultures, with their long and ancient histories, further provide alternative frameworks to study early people’s construction of time and history through numerology, astronomy and storytelling. We will look at how the rise of world religions, such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have affected our visions of time.

Over the centuries, trade, migration and colonization have brought people from diverse cultures into contact with one another. This has created further schisms between time and place. We will explore how migration of populations away from their native geographies have altered concepts of time and created new, hybrid forms of history and culture. Drawing on Marxist theory and the concept of “the end of history,” we will examine the materialist possibilities of the future, as well as the ways in which the rise of capitalism and industrialization have shaped our notions of work-time, value and pleasure. To dismantle our modern consciousness of time and explore notions of visionary time, we will participate in a variety of projects that foster patience and put us more in tune with the world around us.

Through close study of a variety of cultural forms, including storytelling, literature, art, calligraphy, photography and film, we will examine conceptions and representations of time and history that challenge our contemporary pace and rhythms. Through art criticism, cinema studies and literary analysis, we will look at a variety of works, many of which are not linear in the way they construct time, and we will analyze the way in which the authors, artists and filmmakers explore relationships and create meaning.

All students taking this program will study expository writing. In addition, students will take four five-week workshops over the course of fall and winter to build skills in a variety of media. These workshops include 1) photography and video production, 2) creative prose writing, 3) Chinese characters and calligraphy, and 4) mixed media art. Students will also participate in a number of field trips and one or two overnight stays to explore the cycles of natural life in our region. Students will further conduct research on their own ancestral history, as they explore the relationship between past, present and future in their own lives through writing and artistic production.

Credit awarded in Native American studies, Asian studies, Arab-Islamic studies, art, comparative literature, film studies, photography, video production and writing.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in cultural studies, art, literature and film.

American Community

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Sam Schrager, David Marr
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisite: None. This all-level program will accept up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Students should expect to spend $40 on a year-end retreat.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: Yes
Travel Component: Year-end, in-state, overnight retreat.

A public philosophy for the twenty-first century will have to give more weight to the community than to the right of private decision. It will have to emphasize responsibilities rather than rights. It will have to find a better expression of community than the welfare state. It will have to limit the scope of the market and the power of corporations without replacing them with a centralized state bureaucracy.

Historian Christopher Lasch’s words invoke a vital, complex debate about America’s past and future. At stake are competing visions of democracy. Do democratic ideals point toward a classless society where the good life flows from self-reliance, mutual respect and active citizenship? Or does democracy demand upward mobility, with great wealth and poverty, and elites leading all spheres of society? Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King embraced the first view, Lasch argues. But the second has proved ascendant. We’ve come to believe more in consumerism, in the state and in fulfillment of personal needs than in our capacity to live well in families and communities.

With Lasch’s concerns as a starting point, this program will explore the past course and present prospects of the democratic experiment. We will examine Americans’ changing consciousness about life in this country, focusing on the last hundred years, with some attention also given to the 19th century. At the center of this inquiry will be intensive reading of novels, history, documentary writing, social criticism and poetry — works that grapple imaginatively with widely felt tensions of experience. This reading will lead to sustained research projects: in fall, a library-based study on a historical issue; in winter, field-based oral history interviewing in the local community; in spring, more advanced ethnographic, historical or literary research and writing.

Our purpose is to work toward a public philosophy for citizenship in the new century. To this end, students and faculty will honestly face enduring dilemmas of self and community, matters involving equality, morality, diversity, faith, class, place and progress.

The program faculty will provide a stimulating intellectual context: guidance on writing, research methods and approaches to challenging texts and ideas. In turn, we will have high expectations. The work will be demanding. We welcome first-year students ready to be seriously engaged in their studies. We will also offer strong support to upper-division students.

Credit awarded in American history, American literature, cultural studies, community studies and sociology. Upper-division credit is available for those who earn it.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in humanities, social sciences, community service and law.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Applying Principles of Environmental Science

Fall/Coordinated Study
Faculty: James Stroh, Rob Cole, David Milne
Enrollment: 72
Prerequisites: This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students. Students must have high school algebra and strong math skills.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Travel and lodging for overnight field trip and expenses for maps and texts ($100-$300).
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Overnight field trip to the Long Beach Peninsula during the fifth or seventh week of the program.

The class will focus on selected fundamentals of marine biology, quantitative analysis, use of spatial data (particularly map information) and techniques for field studies. The students will use these principles and tools in a study of Willapa Bay, located in Southwest Washington. Several conflicting uses of the environment and invasions by exotic species make Willapa Bay a particularly interesting study site. Program participants will apply principles of geology, marine biology and modeling through simulation to the Willapa Bay estuary and associated uplands. While we will have guest speakers discuss policy issues, this is predominantly a science program.

This very intensive 10-week program of study will include lectures, seminars, labs (including extensive computer use), field trips, literature research seminars and workshops. This class will also require many hours of work outside the formal class schedule, especially field, lab and computer time.

Credit will be awarded in geographic information systems, quantitative methods, marine biology and earth science.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in environmental science and related fields.
This program is also listed in Environmental Studies.

Astronomy and Cosmologies

Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: E. J. Zita
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Facility with algebra and trigonometry. This all-level program will accept up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: $30 for equipment and $1,000 for optional one-month field trip to Mexico and/or Central America.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Optional one-month field trip to Mexico and/or Central America.

Learn beginning-to-intermediate astronomy through lectures, interactive workshops and observation. Use naked eyes, binoculars and large and small scopes. Build learning tools such as celestial spheres and spectrometers (to be kept by students). Observe with large telescopes via the Internet at professional sites. Research a topic of interest (in the library and through observations) with a small team of classmates.

We will also seminar on cosmologies: how people across cultures and throughout history have understood, modeled and ordered their universe. We will study creation stories and world views, especially of ancient peoples on this continent.

Archaeoastronomy investigations will include a one-month field trip to Mexico and/or other regions of Central America to study ancient archaeoastronomy sites. First-year students may register for this program, but are not eligible to attend the field trip. About half the students will stay in Olympia working on their observations while the other half travel with the instructor through the study-abroad option.

Credit awarded in astronomy, physical science and philosophy of science.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in astronomy, physical sciences, history and philosophy of science.
This program is also listed under Scientific Inquiry.

Basic Botany: Plants and People

Winter/Group Contract
Faculty: Frederica Bowcutt
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: Yes, consult with faculty for signature.
Internship Possibilities: Yes
Travel Component: None

Basic botany is an introductory group contract in plant science. We will work through a botany textbook learning about plant anatomy, morphology, systematics physiology, and ecology. Lectures based on the textbook readings will be supplemented with laboratory work getting hands-on experience with plants. Seminar readings will be on the general theme of plants and people. These readings will include, among others, the work of Gary Nabhan, who deals with indigenous peoples and their agricultural practices, Londa Schiebinger, who illustrates how human gender relations are reflected in the plant classification systems used in western science, Stephanie Mills, who discusses ecological restoration as it relates to people, and Mark Plotkin, who seeks to preserve indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants. Students will learn library research methods that they will apply to a research project of their choosing related to plants and people. Time will be spent helping students improve their ability to write a research paper. Students taking this program will be given first priority to a course on plant taxonomy and ecology that will be team taught in spring 2000 by Frederica Bowcutt and Al Wiedemann.

Credit awarded in introductory botany, plants and people and independent research in botany.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in conservation, ecoagriculture, ecological restoration, forestry, herbology, natural resource management, plant ecology or plant taxonomy.
This program is also listed under Environmental Studies.

Concepts of Computing

Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: George Dimitroff, TBA
Enrollment: 46
Prerequisites: This all-level program accepts up to 50 percent first-year students. Students must have taken high school-level algebra.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

This spring quarter offering will examine fundamental ideas in computing and mathematics that underlie today’s computing technology. There will be hands-on lab work together with an examination of the models, methods and abstract concepts behind software and hardware systems.

The program is intended for students who have an interest in computing but limited background. It will be useful for students who want some exposure to computing as a basis for future work in a variety of disciplines that use computing (especially the sciences). This program is also helpful, though not required, for students interested in additional course work in computer science or mathematics.

Topics may include programming, algebra and discrete mathematics, computational organization, the World Wide Web, logic or the historical, philosophical, social or ethical implications of computing.

Credit awarded in mathematics and introductory computing.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in science, mathematics and computing.
This program is also listed under Scientific Inquiry.

Creativity in the 20th Century: Freud to Einstein to Brecht to Madonna

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Neal Nelson, Heesoon Jun, Sandie Nisbet
Enrollment: 69
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

What do geniuses share in common? What drives one to channel creativity — in the sciences, the arts and humanities? In this program we will look at our own creativity, as well as the socialization, expectations and creative perception of several famous innovators. What is the relationship between creativity and pathology? To understand the confusion and elegance behind a genius at work, we will read autobiography, literature and philosophy. Our workshops in creativity will run the gamut from writing, problem solving and mathematical analysis to drawing, performing and programming.

Students will be expected to explore the development of early scientific thought, as well as the evolution of technology. In the 20th century convergence of the two, we ask, “can computers be creative?” In our diverse study, a reading list could include The Copernican Revolution by Thomas Kuhn and Howard Gardner’s Creating Minds, which features such genius as Einstein, Freud, T. S. Elliott, Martha Graham, Stravinsky, Picasso and Ghandi. Our aim is to experience, study and reflect on both scientific and artistic creativity.

Credit awarded in expressive arts and humanities, psychology, computing and mathematics.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in computing and mathematics, humanities and expressive arts, psychology, cultural studies and history.

Education: Beyond High School

Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Bill Arney, Emily Decker
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: Yes, four-credit course, Education: the Future of Higher Education Lecture Series.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

This program examines the history and future of U.S. college and universities. Topics may include:

• Debates about access and quality. Access to college and university education expanded significantly following World War II. Accompanying that change was the argument that the quality of education diminished. We are currently engaged in another period of expanded opportunity for students, and the questions about quality have again risen.

• Technology: Current technology challenges old assumptions about education — that education happens only on a campus, that a library is an essential ingredient of education, that education occurs around books, that professors are the source of all knowledge.

• The purpose of university education: Universities have served many purposes over time — conservation of culture, promotion of ethnic identity, protection of linguistic heritage, creation of gentlemen. What is the purpose of the modern university? To promote excellence? To train workers for the 21st century? Who gets to ask these questions? Who gets to judge the answers?

• Expertise and the state: Might not the university be just a source of cheap knowledge for the state? (And do students and society subsidize this relationship?)

• Community colleges: Washington ranks high in college attendance but exceptionally low in four-year college and university attendance. What is the history and present role of community colleges?

There are three offerings under the title Education. Each requires a separate registration.

Credit awarded in education, politics, philosophy, history and sociology.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in education, public policy, humanities, public service and sociology.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Education: Philosophy

Winter/Group Contract
Faculty: Bill Arney
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

What is education? What is the aim of education? How is it done? This program provides an overview of issues in educational philosophy by considering both the questions and the ways in which they have been answered over time.

Texts may include: Plato, Republic and Meno; Locke, On Education; Dewey, Democracy and Education; and works by Maria Montessori, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Paulo Freire, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Ivan Illich and Carol Gilligan. The program will include a quarterlong reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: Or On Education.

There are three offerings under the title Education. Each requires a separate registration.

Credit awarded in education, philosophy and sociology of education.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in education, humanities and public service.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Education: Politics of Public Schooling

Fall/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Bill Arney, York Wong
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

This program covers the history and politics of public schooling. Topics may include: origins and expansion of public schooling in the United States, school financing and vouchers, testing and national or state standards, race, class, gender and the schools, the deschooling-alternative schooling-home schooling-no schooling movement, the “dumbing down” of the curriculum, moral education/literacy education. Students will do a research project on the history of a contemporary political issue.

There are three offerings under the title Education. Each requires a separate registration.

Credit awarded in politics of education, history of education, current social issues and sociology of education.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in education, public service, sociology, journalism and humanities.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Exploration

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Martha Henderson, Jim Neitzel, Bill Ransom
Enrollment: 69
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Field trip expenses for boat, food and lodging, approximately $150 per quarter.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Overnight field trip.

This Core program will focus on the processes and impacts of exploring the surface of Earth. Exploration of Earth, especially the western hemisphere and polar regions, has created fundamental changes in environmental and in human/cultural conditions not only in the regions explored but in the natal states of the explorers. We will investigate the impetus for exploring new territory, the ideas and technologies that contributed to the success and failure of explorations and the impacts associated with exploration.

Explorations involve many academic disciplines. Our studies will focus on geography, chemistry, biology, writing and other representations. Geography offers both a technical and intellectual framework for understanding the process and product of exploration. Regions of the Old World and regions of the discovered or New World are complex entities. This program will offer an opportunity to investigate how Old World societies chose to participate in the process of exploration, what types of mapping technologies were available and how the process of social interaction transformed the New World. We will study the evolution of modern mapping skills, data recording and natural, social and cultural interactions between humans and the environment and between different social and cultural groups.

Explorers frequently pushed the limits of their understanding of physiology, diet and materials. In addition, the goal of exploration was to find or control new, useful materials or to examine the natural history of remote areas. We will use models from chemistry and biology to understand how human physiology, material goods and the environment interacted during exploration. These interactions will be examined in documents and texts, in the field and in the laboratory. Understanding these models, as well as the techniques used in cartography and navigation, will also require skills in numerical methods. Often, one result of exploration was biological change, as organisms and diseases were spread to new areas. Another aspect of change was the application of new crops and technologies in both the New and Old worlds. We will examine the many long-lasting effects of these biological and technical exchanges.

Knowledge gained during exploration would be of little use were it not for the ability to record and represent new data, ideas and technologies. Writing remains a fundamental component of the process of exploration; Old World governments and resource developers wrote out mandates, while journals, reports, poetry and letters by the explorers themselves documented their findings. The power of writing was equal to the actual exploration in creating a passion for and a fundamental transformation of Earth’s natural and social environments.

During the fall quarter we will survey some of the most significant explorations of the Western Hemisphere and polar regions. We will model the process of exploration by discussing the conditions that brought about the major expeditions in the 16th through 19th centuries. We will use early technologies of mapping, experiment with the deficiencies of food and energy exchanges and read the words of governments, entrepreneurs, explorers and those who responded to these events. We will also engage in conversations with current explorers through the use of the Internet and Web pages. Finally, we will become explorers ourselves by participating in field trips to local points of major explorations. We will try to recreate the conditions under which explorers operated. Reading and writing about explorations, including our own, will be a major component of the quarter.

Winter quarter will find us closer to home. We will look at the consequences of exploration, the development of chemical and energy exchanges to support the needs of exploring and living in the New World and consider the role of writing in constructing the New World as a place of social interactions with new peoples and places. We will interact with current explorers, develop survival and social interaction skills and study the impact of exploration of the Pacific Northwest on the native life forms and cultural groups.

During spring quarter, students will design, propose and execute their own explorations in small groups and present their results as a term project.
Students must be prepared to endure extremes of weather, physical exertion, occasional isolation and a wide range of potentially unusual foods. A swimming test will be mandatory and both a sense of direction and a sense of humor will be helpful.

Credit will be awarded in introductory chemistry, biology, geography (social sciences), natural history, literature and writing (academic/expository and creative.)
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers in science, environmental studies, nature writing and humanities.

Field School to Chile

Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Jorge Gilbert
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will accept up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: Yes, must have background knowledge of Latin American studies. Faculty will set up interviews. Transfer students may call Jorge at (360) 866-6000, ext. 6740 or
Email him at gilbertj@evergreen.edu. Students must apply before February 1, 2000. Decisions will be made by February 15.
Special Expenses: Approximately $2,300 for four weeks and approximately $2,700 for eight weeks in Chile (see included expenses below).
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Four or eight weeks in Chile.

This program’s interdisciplinary curriculum will allow students to study, research and experience firsthand political, cultural, artistic, economic, environmental and agricultural concerns affecting Chile and South America at the end of the 20th century.

This field school will provide practical opportunities to evaluate the neo-liberal model being applied in Chile at the recommendation of the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations. Workshops, conferences and discussions with political and community leaders and grassroots organizations will explore the direct impact this polemic model is having on various social sectors of the country.

Participants will immerse themselves in the sociopolitical and economic reality of a country struggling to overcome underdevelopment. They are expected to learn about the social, artistic, folkloric and intellectual life of Chile and the different expressions they assume according to class structure.

Background of Chile: One of the oldest Latin American democracies — democracy was abruptly interrupted by a military coup d’état between 1973 and 1990 — Chile is rapidly trying to insert itself into a new international world order under the leadership of an elected civilian government. International organizations proudly exhibit its economy as one of the most effective and successful in the Third World. Chilean exports reach all world markets and investments in Chile’s economy have grown significantly. At all levels, programs and projects are being developed by governmental, private, international and non-governmental organizations. For these reasons, the country is changing fast, not only economically but culturally and politically.

Though many Chileans are of European extraction, the indigenous traditions are strong in several parts of the country. The desert north, once part of the Inca Empire, preserves important archaeological remains, while Aymara Indians still farm Andean valleys and terraces. South of the heartland are Mapuche Indians communities whose symbolic importance in Chilean life greatly exceeds their political and economic significance. Until the end of the 19th century, the Mapuche maintained an effective and heroic resistance to the southward advance of Chilean rule. Chile’s tremendous geographic diversity and surprising cultural variety have made it an important destination in its own right.

Logistics: The first weeks of the quarter will introduce students to the culture, politics and geography of the country. Working groups will form to undertake research projects that reflect the interests of the participants. Once in Chile, the group will travel around the country visiting governmental, non-governmental, private and church development projects in urban and rural areas of the country. Trips to the Andes, rural, urban and mining sectors, the National Congress in the Port of Valparaíso, and meetings with governmental authorities, political leaders and grassroots organizations take place. Students will have the opportunity to interact with a wide range of the Chilean population to learn and evaluate the effects of the new economic and cultural changes. Classes, conferences and workshops about this and other topics will be available at University of Chile and other educational and research institutions.

Requirements: Students are expected to keep a journal about their experiences in the country and to work in a group research project (individual projects may be approved after discussion with the faculty). For research, students can travel around the country, consult with people, visit libraries and universities. Students must submit their research proposals by the third week of the spring quarter.

Although knowledge of the Spanish language is not required, it is highly recommended that students gain familiarity with this language. Most program activities will be enhanced by knowledge of Spanish; lectures and workshops will be in English.

Students can stay for four or eight weeks in Chile. Those who return earlier can complete their projects on campus using material gathered in Chile.

Participants of this field school are required to pay a deposit of $150 (refundable upon certain circumstances) by February 16, 1999.

Field School Cost: The base price of this field school is approximately $2,700 for those staying for eight weeks and $2,300 for four-week stays. The costs include: airfare (round trip Seattle to Santiago to Seattle), tuition and fees in Chile, room and board in the city of Santiago, on-site orientation, program-related expenses and transportation in the country. The field school costs do not include Evergreen tuition and fees.

Credit awarded in Latin American studies, cultural studies, conversational Spanish and individual study.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in social sciences, international studies, television production, art, folklore and education.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Forms in Nature: Studies in Art, Ecology and Human Development

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Oscar Soule, Terry Ford, Bob Haft, Sherry Walton
Enrollment: 70
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Three- to five-day field trip fall or winter quarter, approximately $150. Payment is due one month prior to the trip.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: Spring only, for continuing students.
Travel Component: Field trip.

What do you see when you walk through your front door? Through a vacant lot? Through a forest or by a stream? What do you know about the natural world you inhabit and humans’ (or your) relationships with it? How do you understand “art” in relationship to nature? This program will help you explore the interrelationships between art, ecology and human development through coordinated workshops, labs, lectures and field experiences. While work in the program will be at the introductory college level, the results of our explorations and investigations will be applied to the real world and presented in public forums.

The program is designed to provide practical skill development in nature studies and drawing, broaden perspectives on human development and the uses of language, and build team skills. Specific examples include life drawing, forest ecology, family studies and popular language patterns through media. We will design presentations about fall quarter studies to special interest groups in winter quarter. This will be complemented by going deeper into the themes stated in the fall. Students will work on team-developed field projects in the spring along with programatic work. There will be the opportunity for spring internships for students continuing in the program.

This program will provide an introduction to college work and life while being a natural conduit to almost all intermediate-level programs at Evergreen.

Credit awarded in ecology, drawing, composition, human development and independent research.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in natural sciences, arts, humanities and education.

Music and Dance of Brazil and the Caribbean

Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Sean Williams, TBA
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students; Core program or equivalent; previous work in music or dance.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: $50 for retreat. Students must pay by the second week of class.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Three-day retreat.

The Caribbean and Brazil have a rich and varied history of performing arts, set in a context of economic tension, colonialism and slavery. In this program we will use approaches from the fields of ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology (the study of culture through music and dance, respectively) to explore some of the dynamics of culture and power in the diaspora. We will also examine the historical events that led to the development of samba in Brazil; the spiritual and musical links between Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, Brazilian Candomblo and their sources; and important social and ritual connections in dance and movement. This program is not for the academically faint of heart; we expect students to commit to a significant reading load and to dedicate themselves to active, hands-on rehearsals of dance and music. In addition, each student will write a 10-page research essay on any aspect of the performing arts in the diaspora, and participate in a three-day intensive performance retreat.

Credit will be awarded in ethnomusicology, dance and culture, music and dance of the Caribbean and music and dance of Brazil.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in ethnomusicology, dance, anthropology and folklore.
This program is also listed under Expressive Arts.

The Nature of America

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Brian Price, Matt Smith, Chuck Pailthorp
Enrollment: 69
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: About $300 for overnight field trips.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Overnight field trips.

Can the essence of America derived from the relationship between people and the environment — the way the land has spoken to us and the way we have learned to manipulate nature for our our own ends? This is the question driving our program, which takes into account recent, influential ways of examining relations between Americans and nature. Richard White, for example, argues that we know nature through our work. The Environmental Justice movement states that the environment is where we live, work and play. William Cronon argues, “Environment may initially shape the range of choices available to a people at a given moment but then culture reshapes environment responding to these choices. The reshaped environment presents a new set of possibilities for cultural reproduction, thus setting up a new cycle of mutual determination. Changes in the way people create and re-create their livelihood must be analyzed in terms of changes not only in their social relations but in their ecological relations as well.”

Grounded in environmental history and political economy, our program will examine the interactions of diverse Americans and nature/environment as expressed in literature, art, and music. Our work will involve us in more than the analysis of relations of other Americans with nature and the environment; we will also develop our understandings of our own interactions with nature and the environment through drawing and field observation. Accordingly, while we will participate in reading seminars and in a great deal of research and writing, we will also participate in basic drawing workshops, field natural history workshops and considerable explorations of outdoors in urban, rural, and relatively undisturbed environments.

In fall, we look at human and nature interactions from the first Americans to the end of the 18th century. In winter we will focus on the 19th century. In spring, the 20th century will be the center of our attention.

Students participating in this program should be extremely motivated, hard working and willing to have the program work consistently at the center of their lives.

Credit will be awarded in environmental studies, political economy and drawing.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future study in environmental studies, political economy, social sciences, humanities and arts.

Performing Arts and Culture

Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Sean Williams, Meg Hunt, Doranne Crable
Enrollment: 69
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: $50 per quarter for attending performances.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

This program is designed to give the student a set of perspectives on how the performing arts (music, dance and theater) have expressed the concerns and values of people in particular times and places. We will examine social changes that gave rise to shifts in the arts, focusing in particular on eras or phenomena that are of specific cultural interest. Such eras might include the golden age of Greece, the power of Rome, the Middle Ages, the 19th century, and the early 20th century. In addition to examining European and American forms, we will look at several Asian performing arts and the contexts that gave rise to them. We expect to ask provocative questions, such as: What is the relationship between power, patronage and the performing arts? Does the artist predict the culture or does the culture call forth the artist? Is there a connection between ritual origins of the performing arts and their spiritual effects? What social contexts have given rise to the gender-based divisions in the performing arts? In addition to reading, viewing films and attending lectures, students will be asked to present individual research and collaborative project work.

This program generates 12 credits per quarter; students are encouraged to take the additional four credits in either skill-based performing arts or a foreign language. Faculty will be offering three Asian performing arts courses (four credits each) in Gamelan (Indonesia), Butoh (Japan) and Orissi dance (India); we will give program students priority in course enrollment. Other skill-based courses in the arts and languages are also available.

Credit will be awarded in European performing arts history and theory, performance theory, introductory performance skills and expository writing.
Total: 12 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in performing arts, cultural studies and humanities.

Politics and Ideologies From the Americas

Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Jorge Gilbert
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will accept up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

Rich and industrialized nations from the North assert that capitalism brought progress and welfare to many nations. People from Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean argue that capitalism was based on primitive accumulation rooted in the primitive violence, pillage and genocide of the inhabitants of the Third World. Accordingly, they claim that rich nations exist today because their ancestors plundered other nations for centuries. First Europe and then the U.S.A., after they expropriated Third World people of their right to life, have created and imposed structures and laws that allowed them to decide the destiny of these continents. These conditions have permitted historical oppressors to behave like creditors and judges who dictate sentences forcing Third World countries to continue funneling their wealth toward the developed economies, according to this interpretation. Through these mechanisms, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean were converted into secondary chapters of the European history, it is argued by the Third World. Besides the rules of European capitalist markets, their culture, religion and identity were imposed upon them. Peoples from these continents were forced to be ashamed of themselves because they were Indians or Blacks, to renegade their cultures and to accept living under eternal conditions of exile in their own lands.

This group contract will study the above processes in the Americas from pre-Columbian times until today from a multidisciplinary approach that includes history, politics, economics, religion, culture, folklore, literature, theater, media, art, etc. Within this context, the process of underdevelopment, which characterizes the region today, will be historically analyzed and evaluated in light of the formation and expansion of the capitalist system in Europe first and the United States later. This program will utilize Latin American approaches and interpretations, as opposed to Eurocentric studies and models from Europe and the U.S.A.
This group contract will also include a component that applies social research methods to study the subjects described here. Projects, including video production, cultural journalism, folklore, theater, alternative media and Spanish language, will be developed by students working in small groups. During winter quarter the program will offer interested students a chance to prepare for spring quarter travel to Chile. Participation in research projects and production of several short documentaries about relevant topics studied in this program will be the focus of the Field School to Chile, a separate program (see page 51).

Credit awarded in social sciences, communications, Latin American studies, political economy, arts, television production and writing.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in social sciences, media, social research, cultural studies and television production.
This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.

Sacred Places

Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Rita Pougiales, E. J. Zita, TBA
Enrollment: 69
Prerequisites: None
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: One three-day field trip each quarter, approximately $60 per quarter. Field trip fee to be paid in the second week of each quarter.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: Three-day field trip each quarter.

There are places in the world that are imbued with a feeling of sacredness. Throughout time people have inhabited these places and, by design and practice, made them into sites for cultural and spiritual activity. In this program we will focus on such places as a way to learn about the cultural origins of places, the sacred attributes and meanings associated with places, the systems of knowledge and thought reflected in these places, and the relationships between local knowledge systems and environment.

We will focus our study on sacred places — those places inhabited by people yet distinguished by their otherworldliness. The sacredness associated with these places — the attribution of holiness, spirits or energy — will help focus our study on the essential, often intangible, knowledge, insight and relationships peoples in the world have struggled to make known.

In our study we will explore the relationship between physical and cognitive structures. We will look closely at such sites as Chaco Canyon, Stonehenge and Delphi, as well as local Pacific Northwest peoples’ knowledge and beliefs and their physical structures. In so doing we will draw on material from anthropology, archaeoastronomy, archaeology, history, literature, algebra and geometry. Our texts will be both written and visual.

This is an introductory program. We will work closely on helping students develop academic skills and background to effectively study and interpret the material. We will emphasize reading, writing, study skills, computer and Internet use, research and a variety of computation skills. We will study algebra, geometry and order of magnitude estimates. Throughout the program we will pay close attention to the practices and assumptions of science as it shapes our study of sacred places.

Credit awarded in anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, algebra, geometry, history, literature and writing.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in science, humanities and social sciences.

Shelter: Eco-Design in the Real World

Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Rob Knapp, TBA, TBA
Enrollment: 72
Prerequisites: None.This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Three-day in-state field trips fall and winter, approximately $35 per trip, payable by week three of each quarter; four-day field trip to Oregon spring quarter, approximately $50, payable by week one.
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: With faculty signature.
Travel Component: Three field trips.

What are ecologically sound homes and work-places for real, present-day human beings? We will pursue this question by combining large visions with solid foundational knowledge.

The heart of the program is designing: homes and workplaces must be imagined before they can be built. A yearlong design studio will teach relevant skills and knowledge through a series of small and large projects.

For some students, this may mean helping design real-world buildings, such as the new Seminar II classroom building, an appropriate-technology house at the Organic Farm, a possible expansion of Housing or a youth hostel for downtown Olympia.

Other students may focus on off-grid living, Third World needs, waste management, energy, alternative materials such as straw, earth or recycled tires, the technological visions of people like Buckminister Fuller or Amory Lovins, the whole systems understanding of Lynn Margulis and others, or the social visions of Boston’s Dudley Street Project.

As vital background to designing, students and faculty will do readings, lectures, seminars, library research and site visits on two major themes: human needs, wants and hopes; and nature’s processes, within which human life must take place.

Students and faculty will develop their facility in graphics, structural and environmental analysis, modeling, literature searching on- and off-line, group problem solving and effective writing.

This program seeks students from a variety of levels, backgrounds and interests. Be ready to participate energetically, to learn from fellow students as well as faculty, to share skills and insights generously. Some program activities will be organized according to level; others will be shared by all.

Credit awarded in design studio, humanities, social science and natural science. Upper-division credits will depend on student background and performance.
Total: 16 credits each quarter.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in design professions, environmental studies, community development, social science, humanities and natural science.
Program is also listed under Environmental Studies, Expressive Arts and Scientific Inquiry.

Staying Put: The Story As Home

Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Craig Carlson
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program accepts up to 25 percent first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Part-Time Options: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None

Some have settled down. Some have fashioned a life firmly grounded — in a home, within a community, inside a long-term relationship. They use the same tools, have a deep know-ledge of place, and know their neighbors and neighborhood. Their lives are a radical rebuke to Western consumerist/throw-away culture. When vagabond winds blow, some bundle up and stay put.

What does it mean to be alive in an era when the earth is being devoured, and in the country that is mainly responsible for the process? What are we called to do? What are we up against, those of us who want to become grounded in one place? How strong, how old, is the impulse we resist? And if you stick in one place, won’t you become stuck? Won’t you become narrow, dull, backwards? The song of the open road is America’s song, after all; how can and why should anyone resist it? How can we harness our restlessness?

This group contract is concerned with the sense of staying put in one place and with storytelling as it is written or told in the landscape or place by the people who live or lived there over time.

We will study writings on place by a diverse group such as: Russell Sanders, whose book names our program and animates our approach; The Real Work: Interviews and Talks 1964-1979, Gary Snyder; A Year in the Country, Sue Hubbell; Dakota: A Spiritual Biography, Kathleen Norris; The Wooing of Earth, Rene Dubos; and writings by Wendell Berry, Henry David Thoreau and Anne Dillard. We will also look at the indigenous wisdom of American Indians and Australian Aborigines.

We will begin genealogies, write weekly and quarterly narrative nonfiction writings and stories, and examine the role of the storyteller/writer as social/cultural witness through workshops, seminars, research and writing. We all need to get good at looking at, listening to and telling stories, our own and others. Stories are our homes. “Finding a fitting place for ourselves in the world is finding a place for oneself in a story,” as Jo Carson explains.

Credit awarded in American studies, human-ities, independent project, narrative nonfiction writing, community studies and literature.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in community studies, law, community work, cultural studies, teaching, writing, media communication and Native American studies.
Program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.