Courses
HNRS-100 The Public Intellectual (3)
In this course, students trace the history and role of the Public Intellectual in America and elsewhere through extensive reading, research, and critical writing. Students produce multi-modal work that addresses, and enhances, the scholarly community that is St. John Fisher College. Our explorations and discussions cross creativity, science, economics, philosophy, and more, because we know that ideas, like the people who share them, are multifaceted and not limited to one category of thought.
Attributes: YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Class: Freshman -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-150 Indecision (2)
Students in this 2-credit course will immerse themselves in an area of immediate political and social importance. Students will study the issue from a variety of angles, including media, theory, history and statistics. They will then seek practical resolutions which they will implement in our community, whether at Fisher or in the Rochester community. The course will meet either 2 hours a week of for 9 weeks depending on the presiding instructor. A recent topic was the selection of 2016, for which students ran a voter registration drive and presented a policy forum to publicize the stances of each major candidate.
Attributes: YLIB ZEXL ZRES
Pre-requisites: HNRS-100 D-
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-214 P4 The Theory of Games (3)
The course will focus on combinatorial games. We?ll figure out what that means together as a class. You, as students, will build a robust theory from scratch, including theories of partizan games, impartial games, nimbers versus numbers, the “mex” function, and basic Sprague-Grundy theory. This will be done via carefully guided exercises, presentations, and rich in-class discussions. And we?ll play a lot of games! Some of them include Nim, Hackenbush, Kayles, White Knight, and Chomp. Using logical reasoning, critical analysis, and working together we?ll be able to explore an idea to the cusp of what is known — and hopefully have some fun while doing it.
Attributes: P4 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-265 Honors Extension (4)
This course is offered during the spring semester. It has a significant online component during the semester, with the majority of the work falling in two weeks in May, following graduation. During this time, students live and sometimes travel together with an intensive focus on one particular interdisciplinary topic through hands on work, and interaction with the community, and will complete a self-directed project. It will have a different focus each time it is taught. Examples include:. Pigments, Particles, Documenting Natural History; Immigrant/Refugee; Politics; Law and Order in Rochester. Spring 2018 This course has a small online component and a significant field experience. Students in Documenting the Natural History of the Northeast will work in groups of 3 or 4 where each group will work as a team to deeply learn about and conduct a study of one aspect of the natural history of the area while producing a documentary film. While all students will address both natural history and video production student learning outcomes, students taking HNRS 265 will have primary responsibility for the film design and editing. Students will complete 13-18 hours of online work during the semester, which will included reading, viewing, and lectures regarding documentary film aesthetics and production. Students will meet with Dr. Sodano on Thursday, 5/10 and Friday, 5/11. The field experience will last from Sunday night, 5/13 through the following Friday 5/25. Students will be traveling through New York State and New England visiting wildlife refuge, biological field stations, and other facilities, performing observations while journaling their experience in word and film.
Attributes: YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-275 P1 Tpc:Understanding Arts (3)
Creative expressions are found in all times and in all areas of the globe. The arts — music, television, literature, street art, photography, and creative expression in other media — are also embedded within the culture, beliefs, and practices of an intended public audience. This course will explore the historical and political as well as the formal aspects of art, and might focus on any of a number of topics, including cable TV, Caribbean food and music, the impact of chocolate on world cultures, and representations of criminals. A critical aspect of the class will be clear and critical communication, through writing but also through composition within visual and other creative media.
Fall 2018 Topic: STEAM and Human Experience The arts are an important expressive element often forgotten in the mania for STEM fields, but scientists are creative people in a full range of ways. Who are the people of the STEM disciplines? We live in a world of their creation but what do we know about them as people? How do they express themselves in ways other than theory development, problem solutions, and invention? What do the artifacts of their expression and the historical record tell us about them as people? We will answer these questions by examining a broad range of literature, art, film, music, and history related to the human experience of scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
Attributes: P1 YLIB
Pre-requisites: HNRS-100 D-
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-280 P2 Tpc:Global Thght/Belief (3)
This course might explore the Contemporary Islamic World or the Ethics of Money or the Good Life. It will lead students to consider and examine one or more religious, philosophical, and/or ethical traditions, as well as the socio-cultural, political, and economic circumstances within which they emerged. Students will gain a better understanding of how these traditions provided needed answers and guidance for individuals in particular times and places, and how those traditions have changed over time to meet the emotional, spiritual, and/or intellectual needs of individuals in various cultural settings.
Fall 2018 Topic: Why are You? Human evolution is not just something that happened in the past. In this course students will discuss the scientific and ethical issues surrounding recent human evolution and the age of genomics. We will engage in evidence-based discourse about ethics of DNA testing, DNA ownership, emerging DNA manipulation technologies, and impacts of human evolution on the human species while learning about and using common molecular techniques for DNA sequencing, examining evidence of recent human evolution, and participating in crowd-sourced microbial genome annotation
Attributes: P2 YLIB
Pre-requisites: HNRS-100 D-
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-285 P3 Tpc:Paradigms Behavior (3)
Paradigms of Behavior may be taught by faculty from a variety of fields; however, the course will always focus on a social science analysis of human behavior, and will be deeply engaged with the actions of our community. The course may have a sociocultural emphasis or may be based in data and data analysis. Whether its central topic is Alexander Hamilton, Prisons in New York, the Economics of Charity, or something else, it will be writing intensive, stressing clear and critical communication through a variety of means relevant to the field.
Fall 2017 Topic: Hamilton: Then and Now In this Honors course, we will explore the life of Alexander Hamilton and the Broadway musical Hamilton through a variety of historical and theoretical perspectives (i.e. critical theory, critical race theory, feminist theory). We will seek to better understand the past, present, and future of American government and politics, and what it means to be an “American citizen”. Specific topics will be the creation of American government, the foundations of modern American political parties, taxation, banking, the international/Colonial American slave trade and abolition movement, Colonial and Revolutionary War history, New York history, and health issues of that time, as well as hip hop and American musical theater. The course will in part be a colloquium in which professors from other disciplines teach parts of the course connected to their respective areas of expertise.
Just as historians offer competing interpretations of the life and accomplishments of Alexander Hamilton, cultural theorists and theater critics offer competing perspectives on Lin Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit, Hamilton. By sorting through and carefully examining these historical interpretations and theoretical perspectives, our goals are to 1) broaden and deepen our knowledge and understanding of the foundations of American government and politics, 2) conceptualizations of American “citizenship” over time, particularly questions of who was/is a citizen and who was/is not, and 3) our roles and responsibilities as American citizens in the reproduction and transformation of individual and institutional ideas and practices that impact our lives as well as the lives of others.
Attributes: P3 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-290 P4 Topic: Laws of Nature (3)
This course will be taught by faculty from a variety of fields. However, the course will always explore specific scientific, mathematical, and technical topics and relate them to contemporary developments. Students will apply and analyze a discipline-specific process to solve a problem. Students in this course will investigate the interdisciplinary nature of science, mathematics, and/or technology and use and apply the understanding of these relationships to address problems in the world around them.
Spring 2017 P4 Topic: Complexity This course focuses on the interdisciplinary field, known as complexity or complexity science, which studies the evolution and development of systems in ways that are different from the traditional sciences. The course will examine what makes a system complex and how such systems are different from the traditional linear systems studied in school science classes, the behavior of complex adaptive systems, the influence of network structure and relationships in systems, and how complexity is used as a framework for biological and social sciences. The course will make use of (pre-programmed) computer simulations, and students will explore a variety of real-world phenomena from the perspective of complexity.
Attributes: P4 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-295 P5 Topic in Global Studies (3)
The specific topic of this Honors course will change each time it is offered. However, all topics will approach questions that are international in scope via deep cultural engagement. It will include attention to communities, including those in Rochester, and will involve public dissemination of student work. Some titles might include France through Food, Whole World Studies, The Year 1100, and Understanding Syria.
Spring 2018 Topics
HNRS 295 Section 01 P5 Topic: Nazis on Film This seminar shall examine and contrast cinematic/televisual portrayals of Adolf Hitler in Europe and the United States before and after 1945. Through a cross-cultural perspective we will examine the extent to which portrayals of Hitler reflected contemporaneous German culture. Topics covered will include the nature of Hitler’s rule, his influence on European and global developments, his personality and the question of whether he was uniquely German, and the reasons for the enduring interest in his person and vision. The course will improve students’ analytical skills, writing proficiency, historical consciousness, and cultural awareness. Matriculation in the course shall entail the viewing of films/documentaries by students outside of class as well as discussion, lecture, and partial screenings in class.
HNRS 295 Section 02 P5 Topic: Latin America: Lived Culture This colloquium will feature a series of different faculty members, each assigning some reading (or other preparatory assignment) and leading a discussion on a different topic, according to that faculty member’s interest. Topics may include medical conditions in Mexico, Cuban film, migration throughout the region, and food cultures, and may involve outreach to the Rochester Latinx community, possibly including recent migrants from Puerto Rico.
Attributes: P5 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-375 P1 Tpc:Studies in the Arts (3)
Studies in this topics course will explore an area of the imaginative arts (visual, textual, aural) and how it creates empathetic, absorptive critical and provocative responses.Students will deepen their understanding of a sub-area of their own choosing in research and engagement with the community. The specific topic will change each time the course is offered. One semester might focus on community-based graphic arts, representations of criminals in literature or the role of music in film, for example.
Attributes: P1 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Class: Junior, Senior -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-380 P2 Topic: Systems of Value (3)
This course might explore the Contemporary Islamic World or the Ethics of Money or the Good Life. It will lead students to consider and examine one or more religious, philosophical, and/or ethical traditions, as well as the socio-cultural, political, and economic circumstances within which they emerged. Students will gain a better understanding of how these traditions provided needed answers and guidance for individuals in particular times and places, and how those traditions have changed over time to meet the emotional, spiritual, and/or intellectual needs of individuals in various cultural settings.
Spring 2017 P2 Topic: Brave Conversations Ask good questions. Collaborate. Communicate. These are essential skills in today?s job market. In this class, we practice skills to further your global citizenship. A main challenge today is to work with others in order to effectively solve local or national problems. You will learn effective and responsible leadership, by engaging in courageous conversations about challenging topics. This class examines different models of dialogue, such as political peace-making strategies, social justice conversations, and dialogue-centered teaching methods. Students develop an action plan that addresses a local or campus problem and write a research paper exploring areas of individual curiosity on these topics.
Attributes: P2 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: Freshman, SophomoreHNRS-385 P3 Topic: Human Sci Studies (3)
Studies in this topics course will follow an in-depth exploration of the Human Sciences, particularly areas invested in the methods and structures of interpersonal interactions. Students will deepen their knowledge of a sub-area of their own choosing in research and engagement with the community. The specific topic will change each time the course is offered. One semester might focus on the history of healthcare in America, the psychology of dogs or the economics of sport, for example.
Fall 2018 Topic: American Healthcare: Past to Present Through historical analysis, this course will broaden and then refine the student?s understanding of the forces that shaped the current healthcare system and the challenges that remain. Major areas are explored include: (1) the role that historical inquiry and analysis play in understanding the development of today?s healthcare system, (2) the interplay among the intellectual, social, economic, technological and political events that shaped society and the profession, (3) the development of an interaction between the various health care institutions and the professions including, but not limited to, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, and the roles that social class, gender, ethnicity, culture, and race play in our understanding of these issues.
Attributes: P3 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Class: Junior, Senior -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-390 P4 Topic:Hypothesis Proof (3)
This topics course will explore an aspect of our physical reality, whether biological,environmental or theoretical. Students will formulate an inquiry of their own choice and design, using research methods from math and the sciences to reach a new understanding. No science background is required for this course. In some cases the course will involve lab work, which will be done during the regular course time. Topics might include fungi, botanical conservation, or the role of prediction in weather and politics for example.
Attributes: P4 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Class: Junior, Senior -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-395 P5 Adv Topics:Global Studies (3)
Students in this topics course have the opportunity to explore aspects of a non-US culture in great depth. Through research and engagement with the international community of Rochester, students will shape their own global identity. The specific topic will change each time the course is offered. One semester might focus on the civilizations of Persia, Japan, and Europe in the year 1,000 while another might address questions of democracy, identity, and equality in India and Israel.
Fall 2017 Topic: The Year 1000 The Tale of Genji, One Thousand and One Nights, and Beowulf were all written or published around the year 1000 (in Japan, Iraq, and England). What cultural forces were giving rise to these epic-length works in the three different continents? Students will examine three medieval cultures from the starting point of these novels, but follow threads of these texts to explore other expressions of art and culture from the 1YK era.
Attributes: HONR P5 YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Class: Junior, Senior -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-425 Undergraduate Review (3)
This course focuses on the value of research in the undergraduate education, for both students who are and who are not going on to graduate school. We will learn the differences in standards and expectations across fields, will canvas institutions similar to Fisher to explore the range of undergraduate research publications currently available, and will research possible platforms, budgets, and audiences. Students will create a publicity campaign both to encourage submissions to the Undergraduate Review and to make the work in the published review visible on and off campus. The work we do will be practical, creative, statistical, theoretical, financial, and active, and will culminate in the publication of the Undergraduate Review in the spring. Regular grading (no longer S/U).
Attributes: YLIB ZEXL
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-450 Capstone (3)
This course prioritizes synthesis of knowledge obtained in the Core Curriculum and in the students? major area of study, and is organized around a big, cross-cutting topic that is especially well suited to examination through multiple lenses. The course is designed collaboratively by faculty members from the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Physical Sciences, and is taught in three classes simultaneously. All three sections share the same syllabus and the same assignments. Students will bring their own expertise as well as their familiarity with viewing scholarly issues through multiple perspectives, and will collaborate to create and present a solution or clearer understanding of a real world problem. Topics may include Love, Beauty, Mental illness, Conflict/violence/war, God, Poverty, Food, and others. Spring 16 Topic: Sustainability.
Attributes: YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-496 Independent Study (1 TO 3)
The student’s independent study is under the direction of the Honors Program Director. An opportunity to explore an area not regularly offered in the program. Completion of the Independent Study Authorization form is required.
Attributes: YLIB ZEXL ZRES
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student