Humans are spectacularly complex. An average adult’s body contains roughly 10 trillion cells, each cell complex enough to be an organism unto itself. The human nervous system alone contains hundreds of billions of cells, forming trillions of electrical connections. And this biological complexity is only the beginning. We live in highly complex social units—families, tribes, political, ethnic and religious communities, etc. —each with its own history and structure. In this yearlong interdisciplinary program, we will study how these complexities develop over time and interact in healthy human lives.

In investigating what “health” and “development” mean in different historical and cultural contexts, we will consider our evolutionary origins as a species, as well as issues of physiological, neurological, emotional, cognitive, social and moral development. We will pay close attention to our own development as a learning community, with students practicing personal development activities as a way of integrating what they are learning into their own lives. We will learn to recognize and nurture the wide range of skills and strategies that can support human flourishing with an eye toward providing care that is preventative rather than reactive and integrative rather than symptomatic. Students will have opportunities to apply their learning through internships and individual research projects.

We generally think of disease from a medical point of view-the clinical aspects, how it affects the body and how to cure or control it. But disease often has more far-reaching effects than the individual, affecting whole cultures and times, and it is often affected by both culture and historical events. We will explore the idea of disease-its metaphoric and symbolic value-as well as examples of both the biological and cultural evolution of disease. Using specific diseases, we will see their role in the particular era in which they had the most influence-the plague in the Middle Ages, influenza during World War I, syphilis and whether it started in the New or Old World, the effect of AIDS on African culture, and the current epidemic of Alzheimer's in America. Labs, workshops, seminars, group work and projects will involve the student actively in this exploration. Students should expect to do quite a bit of quantitative reasoning and analytical investigation. Library and lab research, participation, papers and exams will be the basis of evaluation.

In what ways can the theory and practice of human rights enrich our understanding of literature, and how can literary studies broaden our understanding of human rights? We will think about literature as an ethical and political project, and consider what relation, if any, literature has to conventional forms of human rights work. We'll question the emotional impact literature can have on readers, and whether emotions such as empathy have a necessary relation to justice. Finally, we will consider how narrative enables or disables memory, truth telling, and justice in the aftermath of atrocity. Among our selected human rights topics, we will study torture, disappearance, sexual and gender rights, and poverty.

Water plays a critical role in the physical, chemical and biological processes of ecosystems. It is a dominant factor in landscape development and is a valuable resource, even in the water-rich Pacific Northwest. This program will focus on the groundwater and surface water components of the hydrologic cycle. Students will learn quantitative methods of assessing the distribution and movement of water in these environments and have the opportunity to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to display and assess spatial data. Local field trips will provide an opportunity for students to observe hydrologic systems.

Students have the opportunity to study surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology and GIS. In addition, students have the option of taking 4 credits of lab and field studies or to participate in a 16-day dory trip in Grand Canyon National Park with a focus on fluvial processes in an arid environment.