Nothing is more frustrating than getting to your last semester or two of college and learning that you have six (or more) hours of electives yet to take.
Summer classes are a great way to get these out of the way so that your semesters can be focused on classes required for your degree or program. Here is a list of several fun classes being offered this summer that could satisfy your elective requirements. Note: some of these classes may require some gen-ed prerequisites.
ART & DESIGN
ARTA 2957-010
Rendering Tools & Techniques for Drawing — If you are interested in colorful hyperrealism or just trying to get smoother gradated transitions with graphite, this drawing course will hone your skills in rendering. This summer session, students will be instructed in the use of colored and aquarelle pencil, silver point, powdered graphite and other drawing implements. The class will be drawing in the studio and in the landscape on projects with fine artist’s paper. Each project will push the student’s ability with traditional medium application, detail, gradation, proportion, use of light and composition. This course is useful for students with intermediate through advanced skill levels in drawing.
ARTA 2957-011
Fantasy & Sci-Fi Illustration — Prerequisites: ARTA 2401, ARTA 1101, ARTA 1204 or permission of instructor. An advanced studio course in contemporary Fantasy & Sci-Fi illustration techniques for solving visual and thematic design problems. Projects develop conceptual thinking, research and drawing in both traditional and digital mediums.
ENGLISH
ENGL 3956-901
Faith, Mystery and the Pious Detective — This online course provides an opportunity to study popular fiction that explores the ways in which people of faith — clerical and non-clerical, female and male, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Protestant — confront the darker sides of humanity and society. Topics under investigation include cultural perceptions of crime and criminals, the mystery of crime and the mystery of faith, artistic representations of different faith systems and faithful people in response to criminality.
ENGL 4956-050
Footfalls & Excursions: Walking, Literature, and Landscape — This course will explore the connections between the physical act of walking and the creative process of writing. The course will consider how walking functions in works of literature and how characters use walking to understand landscape and to amplify their worlds. In addition to classroom meetings, students will join the instructor on rambles through local landscapes in an effort to foster a stronger relationship between themselves and landscapes of south.
HISTORY
APST 3510 / HIST 3510
Coal Mining in Appalachia: History and Current Issues — This three week class will explore coal mining in Appalachia, investigating the technological and legal developments within the region’s coal industry, the social life associated with the coal towns, and labor struggles. Combining field trips to key sites associated with coal mining (including a coal mining museum, a restored coal town and a present-day coal mine operation) with readings from significant books, documentary films and still photography, this course will explore the complex roles — past, present and future — of coal mining in Appalachia. This class will be held during the first three weeks of the summer term, so act quickly to ensure your spot for this experiential class.
HIST 3956
Downton Abbey: The Final Years—This course will show how the popular mini-series, “Downton Abbey,” correlates with English History. This course provides the opportunity to examine the political, social and economic changes that helped shape modern England. The goal is to assist students in developing an ability to read, contextualize and analyze historical themes and arguments while offering unique insights into English History. The class will be employing season five and six as a basis and lens into England during the 1920s. Some of the topics include: the importance of the 1924 Labour Government, the British Empire Exhibition, changing cultural, social, and gender norms as well as the role of class in modern Britain.
