2010-11 Undergraduate Index A-Z
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Physiology [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days of Week | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters |
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Approaches to Healing
Cindy Beck |
Course | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 2 | 02 | Evening | SSpring | Approaches to Healing is a guest lecture series designed to help students explore the theory and practice of the many types of healing arts that our regional wealth of outstanding practitioners provide. Throughout the quarter, students will be asked to look at broad health care questions and policy, as well as personal healing practices, stress management, and the importance of thoughtful critical analysis at all levels of approaches and outcomes. Guest speakers representing body work , complementary medicine, Chinese medicine, bacteriophages as antibiotics, and plant medicine will be featured. Students will also spend time each week outside of class exploring new activities that could contribute to their own health, as well as reading current literature to help expand their understanding of health and wellness. | Cindy Beck | Mon | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | ||||
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Healing the Mind-Body: Biology and Beyond
Carolyn Prouty biology consciousness studies health physiology psychology Signature Required: Winter |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | Western science has traditionally considered the mind and body as separate entities. Recent research indicates that the relationship and interactions between the mind and the body are much more complex and intimate than previously imagined. Considered as a single holistic entity, the human mind-body has an innate capacity for healing that involves complex interactions between the nervous system, immune system, endocrine system, and other physiologic systems. We all know of seemingly miraculous cures that appear inexplicable. How do mental activities and practices transform our experiences of the body? How do they manifest on a physiological level? Research from the last 30 years has revealed abundant details about the remarkable nature of the mind-body, the biological underpinnings of its connections to our past, our social circumstances and our environment, and its capacity for miraculous, seemingly unfathomable change. In this program, we will explore mind-body medicine from several disciplines and viewpoints. We will begin with a biological approach, investigating the components of the network comprised of the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. We will then explore healing as an underlying intelligence of the body, and as a pathway to wholeness. Students will examine how alternative medicine modalities practiced in the US, including acupuncture, naturopathy, vibrational medicine, and others, as well as other determinants of mind-body health affect our well being. Throughout fall quarter, we’ll study the strengths and shortcomings of approaches such as the scientific method and evidence-based medicine that allow us to assess the foundation for what we believe. During winter quarter, students will work independently and in small groups to investigate a particular aspect of mind-body healing, which may involve interviews, observations, and practice, as well as research. We’ll also continue our journey by investigating mind-body medicine of non-Western cultures, such as African/Caribbean medicine, Chinese medicine, and Amerindian medicine. The program will be conducted so as to allow students to study, assimilate, and synthesize their learning though their minds and their bodies. The format will include lectures, seminars, workshops, films, guest lectures, writing exercises, as well as opportunities for practicing mind-body connections through physical experiences including meditation and singing. Students will be expected to incorporate personal observations of their mind-body health as a vehicle for integrating their learning. | alternative and complementary medicine, health sciences, holistic health practices, psychology, physiology, nurobiology, and consciousness studies. | Carolyn Prouty | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Health and Human Development
Nancy Anderson and George Freeman biology community studies cultural studies gender and women's studies health physiology psychology queer studies somatic studies |
Program | JR - SRJunior - Senior | 8, 16 | 08 16 | Day, Evening and Weekend | FFall | WWinter | SSpring | This thematically-based program explores the intersection of human development, health and society. Each quarter examines this relationship through content-related themes and experiences to better understand the fundamentals of health and human development. This program is designed between Evening and Weekend Studies and full-time offerings. The core of the program meets as a whole community using an evening/weekend format. Twelve credit students may register (with faculty signature) to complete an in-program internship. Full time students will meet additional hours during the week. Our learning community will grapple with the age-old questions regarding the nature/nurture controversy. We will use the themes of our program to engage questions like: “How do we navigate our way through the world to build a healthy sense of self? What myths and beliefs guide our decision-making regarding health? What barriers prevent us from achieving a more wholesome lifestyle? How can we acquire the skills necessary to successfully be and create a health-based community? Along with these questions we will study the particulars of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, the ability/disability spectrum and religious affiliation/identity as predictors of achieving health and well-being. We'll also examine these characteristics in terms of their social construction and the creation of a multicultural, democratic society. Each quarter focuses on human development and the psychological, biological and social constructs that guide the stages of development. Fall quarter begins with adolescent and young adult development, the social and genetic construction of identity, the question of what makes for a healthy stage of development and the barriers to achieving optimal states of health and well being. Winter quarter deepens our study of developmental theory through the study of birth, early and late childhood developmental themes, and community-based health and social services. During spring quarter we’ll turn our attention to later adulthood and aging and the health-based concerns that arise. The program will progress from a faculty-directed course of study toward a more student-originated design. Students completing this program will come to a stronger understanding of their personal lives as situated in a variety of contexts. They will develop strategies for engaging in a range of settings to promote social change, in-depth personal development, increased self-awareness, critical commentary and analyses, and practices that promote health and well-being. They will learn basic tools and strategies for analysis of community health needs. They will come to understand themselves as a member of multiple communities and as having a responsibility to these communities. | education, abnormal psychology and personality theory, community psychology, human development, diversity and multicultural studies, community health, anti-oppression studies, quantitative research theory and design, systems theory and group process/change, writing, and health-related fields. | Nancy Anderson George Freeman | Tue Thu Sat | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |
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The Human Element
Charles Pailthorp, Trevor Speller and Nancy Koppelman American studies history literature philosophy physiology writing Signature Required: Winter |
Program | FR - SOFreshmen - Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | In the early seventeenth century, the philosopher René Descartes chronicled his reflections on how little he actually knew, when he looked closely. He found he even had to ask, “How do I know I myself exist?” His answer, “I think, therefore I am,” became a keystone of Western philosophy. When he asked further, “What then am I?”, he answered, “A thing that thinks,” not just a body, but an . To be human, he concluded, is to be a compound of two elements: mind and body. His contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, argued this was wrong, that we humans, however mind-ful, are entirely material. The debate continues to this day. In concluding that the human element is our immaterial mind, Descartes reasoned that non-human animals differ from us by being only material, that they are completely mindless. Are animals then, only machines, without thought, even without feeling? (This was Descartes’ conclusion!). What about machines that mimic rational conversation (surely a very strong indicator of thought)? Couldn’t they be as mind-ful, and therefore as human, as we? Or from Hobbes’s materialist point of view, if we humans are only machines, how can we justify, for example, punishing a human who has caused some harm? Would we punish a car that has broken down and gone out of control? These questions remain with us today: consider the force of arguments concerning animal rights by organizations such as PETA, or the tangle of human-machine interactions evident in programs such as Second Life. What makes us different from other animals? What makes people different from the machines we create, or envision? To ask the question more broadly: what are the qualities that make humans different and unique – if there are any at all? Is there a “human element,” or are we just made up of those found on the periodic table? Questions about the ‘unique’ nature of humanity will be this program’s driving force. We will consider what makes us different from our animal, vegetable, mineral, mechanical and spiritual peers on planet earth, and how we might or might not live in symbiosis with them. We will consider shifts in our understanding of human nature, shifts that have been shaped by developments in science, from mechanics to evolution, and by developments in how we lead our daily lives, from hunting and gathering to browsing the internet. Fields of study may include the history of technology, epistemology, and the traveler’s tales of the Romantic period. Texts may include Descartes: Hobbes: Shakespeare: John Milton: Mary Shelley: Jonathan Swift: ; and works by Kant and by historians of science and technology. The program will include significant attention to writing and reading well. | American studies, humanities, literature, philosophy, social sciences, and the sciences. | Charles Pailthorp Trevor Speller Nancy Koppelman | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Fall | |||
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Making Dances: Creative Process in Motion
Robert Esposito aesthetics art history consciousness studies dance linguistics physiology somatic studies theater |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | This focused one-quarter program centers on progressive study in Laban-based modern dance composition/choreography. Activities include technique, theory/improvisation/seminar, and composition classes. Technique is based in basic anatomy and principles of dance kinesiology, not style, period or ethnicity. Students learn how to make dances from their own sensory, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experience by developing skills in modern dance technique, theory/improvisation, composition, performance, and critical analysis. This multidimensional approach to creative dance develops a kinesthetic vocabulary drawing on linguistics, poetics, architecture, visual arts, art history, anatomy, and choreography. The course includes units on diet, injury prevention, and somatic therapy. Strength, range, poise, and depth are developed though Pilates-based floor barre and Hanna/Feldenkrais-based Somatics. Seminar will focus on building verbal and non-verbal skills aimed at critical analysis of the history of art, choreography, and their socio-cultural contexts. Writing will focus on the development of a journal using action language, visual art, and poetics. The program culminates with a Week Ten concert of student and faculty and/or guest choreography. | criticism, dance, expressive arts, movement therapy, and somatic studies. | Robert Esposito | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Undergraduate Research in Scientific Inquiry with M. Bastaki
Maria Bastaki environmental studies health physiology Signature Required: Fall Winter Spring |
Research | JR - SRJunior - Senior | V | V | Day | FFall | WWinter | SSpring | Maria Bastaki | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall |