For most academic and professional fields, data provides a basis for confirming hypotheses or making (or rationalizing) decisions and predictions. In fact, most scientists face issues every day involving collecting, validating, organizing, and analyzing data, and many sciences today, including ecology, are data-driven. Typical scientists spend much time searching for information on the Web or in data archives, collecting data by hand in the field, or with specialized instruments, analyzing and visualizing data, and comparing their own data with data collected by others.

Similarly, many computer scientists and mathematicians work on "real world" problems that cannot easily be solved using off-the-shelf software or by formulaic statistical scripts. The scientific domains hold many interesting examples of these problems.

This program will bring together students in ecology, computer science, and mathematics around a real world case study-a 1000-year chronosequence (1kcs) of Pacific Northwest forests. During the past five years, canopy researchers at Evergreen and elsewhere have collected data at eight forested sites that range in age from 90 to 1000 years to learn how individual trees and forests develop over time. Students will study statistics and programming, and put that knowledge to work to analyze the 1kcs data sets. Students will also work in interdisciplinary teams on a data analysis, visualization, computational, or "synthesis" problem of their own choosing.

The program will provide a thorough introduction to the practice, history and process of using data, in ways applicable to the further study of ecology or other sciences, or of the computer and mathematical sciences.

This yearlong Core program explores William Shakespeare’s work through a focused study of his female characters. A main aim of the program is to enter into dialogue with Shakespeare’s women. What do they have to say to us that informs our understanding of who “women” have been, are now and might be? How are gender, race and class read differently now through their lives and voices? What of the Elizabethan world continues to shape and influence our own? Through close analysis of the plays and the women who people them, we will begin to formulate additional questions and answers to explore in class, in writing and on stage.

Fall quarter, we will build skills in reading, writing and research as we obtain a thorough grounding in the plays themselves and the context that inspired them. In addition, we will acquire a rudimentary introduction to stagecraft and performance. During Winter quarter, we will deepen our acquaintance with Shakespeare’s women through conversations enacted in a student-originated performance/readers’ theater. No previous acting experience is necessary; our work is interdisciplinary and uses performance as one of several ways to understand texts, ideas and people. Spring quarter we will mount another, more ambitious performance and conclude our studies by attending several plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Our intensive inquiry will warrant full, alert and disciplined attention. Students can expect to read critically, write comprehensively, conduct research and think imaginatively. Our work will include performance, stage production, lighting, costume and set design. Students should plan on at least 50 hours of work each week. Activities will include lectures, seminar discussions, workshops, critiques and lectures or presentations by guest speakers or artists. We will attend performances of plays in Seattle, Olympia, Portland and Ashland. Students will work closely with each other and will develop highly collaborative, always respectful, models for scholarship and performance.