This year's program will explore colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial issues as they are unfolding on local, national and global stages. Colonialism, under which generations of peoples were oppressed and forced to submit to exploitation and state and/or corporate sponsored tyrannies, has resurfaced in new forms of neocolonialism that we encounter in our daily lives and work. How to recognize them, how to acquire mental resistance to their hegemony, how to assert individual, family and community values and identities, how to decipher and reframe meanings from information channeled through mass media, how to analyze the powers at play in societal structures, how to empower oneself and community, and how to understand the ways in which these structures of power and control impact the quality of life for ordinary people, at home and abroad, are some of the skills you will learn from "Power Play(ers)."
This upper division program will examine local, national and foreign policy issues of the postcolonial and neocolonial world in education, health care, social welfare and the environment through interdisciplinary studies of law, bioethics, biomedical sciences, environmental science, legislative process, organizational management, mathematics modeling, sociology, psychology, American and world history, media literacy, world literature and cultures. Research methods in social and natural sciences and statistics emphasized in this program will present you with a systematic approach and analytical tools to address real life issues through constant research practice throughout the activities of the program. Information and multimedia technology and biomedical laboratory technology will be employed in hands-on laboratory practice to enhance your academic capacity and power.