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-101 Honors Seminar I (1)
Each year the seminar is organized around a broad theme (for example The Seven Deadly Sins, Human Creativity, Freedom). Within this structure, Honors students will be introduced to the Honors principles of interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and intellectual responsibility. Through student-initiated projects, invited faculty, a summer read, and occasional off-campus experiences, students will consider their own role in and effect on our campus (and larger) community.
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-190 SQ Truth (?) in Numbers (3)
In today?s society, it is increasingly important to learn how to critically analyze data and to consider how others may have distorted data to tell their ?truth.? In this class, students will develop quantitative skills to enable them to critically analyze data. Students will first learn about different types of data and data sources as well as ethical treatment of data. They will learn to manage data in Excel, and they will learn how to describe data using summary statistics, tables, and graphs. Students will analyze real-world scenarios by interpreting and using data to draw conclusions and describe limitations.
Attributes: SQ YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-201 Honors Seminar II (1)
This course provides division-specific guidance to Honors students regarding research pathways, and guides them as they explore summer opportunities, internship opportunities, conference and publication opportunities, mentoring and other leadership opportunities, and foreign study programs, in the context of the Honors Program. In this course, students articulate academic and personal goals for the second half of their college experience and reflect upon their progress through the Honors Core.
Attributes: YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-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 2019 Topic Global Humanitarianism You see the injustice, poverty, and disaster zones in your own community and around the world?and you want to do something about human suffering. But how to go about it? The course is an interdisciplinary exploration of theories and practices of humanitarian actions around the world. It is also a critical investigation into issues generated by humanitarian interventions. Most specifically, it seeks to analyze how individual, organizational, and governmental actors, domestic and or international, attempt to redress the consequences of social suffering, trauma and insecurities resulting from man-made and or natural violence. Key research questions include: How do individual and institutional humanitarian actors grapple successfully with conditions of ongoing insecurity without resorting to the very predatory practices that create such conditions?
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 2019 Topic: P1 Science Fiction Science fiction (SF) films, novels and television shows provide authors an opportunity to push the boundaries of what is currently possible and explore the implications of these developments for society. In this course, we will look at examples from recent SF that explore topics ranging from telepathy to robots, from energy weapons to terraforming other planets. Then, we will examine the reasonableness of these using scientific literature and experiments to evaluate the ideas.
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 2019 Topic: P2 Race,Bias,Action This honors course will provide an in-depth exploration of the theory and practice of learning and living in a diverse and pluralistic society. Students will actively explore the ways socio-cultural practices simultaneously support and marginalize different groups of people. As a foundation for building an understanding of contemporary issues of diversity, students will explore the ways in which language, literacy, culture, and experience influence the construction and deconstruction of knowledge at the societal, institutional, and individual level. Furthermore, we will discuss issues of intentional and inadvertent discrimination as it occurs societally, institutionally, and individually. Such interconnected exploration seeks to problematize our role in the construction and maintenance of a hegemonic `landscape? for learning. Throughout the course students will discuss and interrogate issues related to social justice, with particular emphasis on the investigation of the discourses that create inequity in society. In addition to readings and film, students will be involved in off campus activities and will plan and propose a campus wide action plan to deal with racial inequities on campus.
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 2019 Topic P3 Managing Change In today?s global environment, individuals and organizations must change in order to survive and be effective. Thus, change is a constant in home, school, and work life and, therefore, future leaders need to have the ability to effectively manage and lead change initiatives. This course develops your understanding of change processes and provides you with practical skills for managing and leading change.
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 2019 Topic:The Science of Food This colloquium course will feature a range of scholars and food professionals each presenting their unique perspective on the questions raised by the foods we grow, sell, buy, and eat. The course instructors will guide students as they chart their own interdisciplinary path through the course, do some work in the lab (though no previous lab experience is required), and collaborate with guest lecturers.
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 2019 Topic: Performing Gender This course will examine the formation of queer gender identity and trace its portrayal throughout popular culture. How do we invent our gender identities? How does performance affect the way we construct masculinity and femininity? How does queer gender identity disrupt this binary? We will approach gender as ongoing performances and thus, illuminate its artificial nature. Units will include theorists Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, and Susan Stryker, gender performance in film (Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Paris is Burning), and the traumatized queer body in performance art.
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.
Spring 2019 Topic: Archives and Access Working with both physical and online archives, students will engage in archival research, considering both the artifacts found within particular archives (photographs, manuscripts, etc.) and the concept of “the archive” itself as a space that structures cultural knowledge.
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-470 Keystone Experience I (1)
This course functions as an Honors enhancement to an experience outside of the Honors curriculum. It can be used as: an Honors contract added to a 300-level course in the major; a leadership role in an Honors academic experience (such as The Review; an independent Honors project associated with a semester abroad; an Honors project associated with an internship; researching and preparing a proposal for senior-level scholarship; research performed outside of the requirements of the major. Requires permission of the Honors Program Director.
Attributes: HONR YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-480 Keystone Experience II (1)
This course functions as an Honors enhancement to an experience outside of the Honors curriculum. It can be used as: an Honors contract added to a 300-level course in the major; a leadership role in an Honors academic experience (such as The Review); an independent Honors project associated with a semester abroad; an Honors project associated with an Internship; researching and preparing a proposal for senior-level scholarship; research performed outside of the requirements of the major. Requires the permission of the Honors Program Director.
Attributes: HONR YLIB
Restrictions: Including: -Attribute: Honors Student; Excluding: -Class: FreshmanHNRS-490 Keystone Experience III (1)
This course functions as an Honors enhancement to an experience outside of the Honors curriculum. It can be used as: an Honors contract added to a 300-level course in the major; a leadership role in an Honors academic experience (such as The Review); an independent Honors project associated with a semester abroad; an Honors project associated with an internship; researching and preparing a proposal for senior-level scholarship; research performed outside of the requirements of the major. Requires the permission of the Honors Program Director.
Attributes: HONR YLIB
Restrictions: Excluding: -Class: Freshman -Attribute: Honors StudentHNRS-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