May Term Courses

On-campus, 4 week term

ECON 101: INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS (Thornton)

A survey of the basic concepts used to analyze economic questions. Prerequisite: none  

ECON 217: ECONOMICS OF SPORTS (Isaacs)
Economic analysis of individual, team, and league sports. This course focuses not only on the market structure and industrial organization of sports leagues, but also addresses the public finance issues of municipal stadium construction and the labor issues involved with free agency and salary caps. Prerequisite: Economics 101.

ECON 285: SPECIAL TOPICS IN ECONOMICS: Wealth and Health (Carson)
Why are some nations wealthy and healthy, while others are not? Does greater wealth lead to improvements in health? Does a focus on health hinder commercial activity? What can be done, if anything, to improve the wealth and health of a nation? This course will explore these questions and synthesize the economic and public health approaches to well-being. Whereas economists often explore the causes of wealth across time and place, they may ignore the causes of health; and while public health scholars often explore the causes of health across time and place, they may ignore the causes of wealth. Highlighting common ground, as well as tension, between these frameworks can help to better explain differences in wellbeing across countries.  

GLOBAL CULTURES 103: BEGINNING TO 1500 C.E. (Basham)
Introduces students to global processes across time. The course is thematically organized and contextually centered. It does not attempt to narrate a "history of the world;" rather, it compares hierarchal structures, cultural frameworks, and regional and global networks from the beginning of human history to 1500. It emphasizes how contingency and human agency have shaped the global past, how civilizations are mutable "works in progress," and how texts serve as examples of authors writing within specific historical contexts.  

HIST 207: MIDDLE EAST SURVEY (Hattox)
The Arab East, Turkey, and Iran in the Islamic age. This section covers the life and mission of Muhammad, Islam as a religion, and medieval Islamic history and culture to the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.    

HIST 240: FIELD METHODS AND PRACTICE IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY (Pearson)
This course offers a hands-on introduction to basic excavation, recording, and laboratory techniques employed on historical period archaeological sites throughout the United States. The various topics covered include survey and excavation strategies, as well as the interpretation of ceramics, faunal remains, plant phytoliths and pollen deposits, and interpreting the spatial distribution of artifacts across sites and larger landscapes. Prerequisite: none  

PSYC 209: PYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE (Mossler)

This course is designed to introduce students to adolescence, an important stage of human growth and development. Students begin by reviewing the major theories of adolescence, then cover some of the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes that occur during this stage of development.  Current research on problematic behaviors such as drug use, sexual beh  avior, risk taking, juvenile delinquency, and psychopathology help students explore the roles that neurological development, parents, and cultural forces play in the development of these behaviors. Finally, students develop ideas about how we might reduce or eliminate the occurrence of some of these problematic behaviors. Videotapes, web resources, and additional short readings are used to supplement the primary text in this course.  Prerequisite: Psychology 101, or permission of the instructor

PSYC 285: SPECIAL TOPICS IN PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Childhood and Adolescence (Mossler)
This course is designed to introduce students to a wide variety of mental disorders in childhood and adolescence including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorders (Autism), Fragile X Syndrome, Reactive Attachment Disorders, Down's Syndrome, Tourette's Syndrome, Conduct Disorders, Childhood Schizophrenia, Specific Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorders, Anorexia Nervosa, Substance Abuse, and Depression. We will spend some time focusing on the etiologies and the corresponding developmental outcomes for each of these disorders. We will also spend some time reviewing and evaluating various treatments and therapies (medication, holding therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy) that have been used with each of these disorders. Throughout the course, we will be building a risk/resiliency model to help us better understand the causes and consequences of childhood psychopathology.  Toward the end of the course, we will turn our attention to the evaluation and assessment of proactive measures including genetic counseling, prenatal medical care, early intervention, placement in foster care, adoption, and parental education. 

SPAN 201-202: INTERMEDIATE SPANISH I/II (Salinas/Afatsawo)
The first component of the course is a continuation of the 101-102 sequence. Continued development of the four basic skills: speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing. Emphasis on the use of Spanish in the classroom. In the second component of the course, the emphasis is on the productive skills of speaking and writing with a general grammar review. Continued practice in reading of authentic Hispanic texts, both popular and literary. Several oral presentations are required.

INDS 385: INDEPENDENT RESEARCH (Fischer)
This course will help on-campus summer research students to articulate and reflect on the impact of their research projects for their broader education and career goals. Students will report to the instructor on a regular basis and will participate in a public presentation of their research. Any student who has been selected for on-campus summer research is eligible to take part in this course, though it is not required for all research students.  

On-Campus

PHYS 185: SPECIAL TOPICS IN PHYSICS: The Physics of Everyday Things (Goodson)
The laws of physics are all around us, permeating every aspect of our daily lives.  We will investigate objects and experiences of our daily routine and decipher what laws of physics are at play.  Class time will be centered around hands-on group activities. We will build simple models of physical systems, such as circuits and engines. We will also deconstruct complex objects, such as a microwave and refrigerator, to identify essential components and analyze their operation. There will be ample opportunities for exploration - the lab will be our playground. The course will conclude with a project of the students' own choosing.

PSYC 285: SPECIAL TOPICS IN PSYCHOLOGY: Social Influence and Persuasion from Conformity to Marketing (Gyurovski)
What are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person? And what are the techniques that most effectively utilize these factors to elicit compliance and conformity? What distinguishes a successful advertisement influencing millions of consumers from a dud? To a large extent the answers to these questions depend on how people engage in social influence - a broad study of how people's individual thoughts, actions, and feelings are consciously or unconsciously changed by the deliberate or unintentional influence of others. Throughout this course, students will be introduced to the perspectives, research methods, and empirical findings in the field. In the first part of the course we will focus on conformity or how people change their behavior as the result of real or imagined group pressure. We will closely examine several varieties of conformity - compliance, obedience, and acceptance. We will pay particular attention to the conditions that turn good people into evil-doers capable of committing unspeakable acts of cruelty. In the second part of the course we will focus on persuasion, or influencing people when we cannot order them or tell them what to do. We will review what message, source, and target characteristics are most likely to result in persuasion. We will cover in-depth six principles of persuasion - authority, liking, social proof, scarcity, consistency, and reciprocity - and investigate how they can be masterfully applied in advertising and marketing.

SPAN 202: INTERMEDIATE SPANISH II (Sanchez)
Students will use the Spanish they'll be learning and have already learned in previous courses to create several biographies of Hispanic immigrants that are housed at the Farmville Detention Center.  This would combine classroom learning with experiential learning and service learning via volunteering at the center.  Students would be able to see the human face of people who have risked so much to come to this country and find out the reasons people immigrate to this country without documents. Students are not likely to knowingly encounter an undocumented immigrant and given the current climate of misinformation about immigrants and undocumented immigration there will be a great deal of opportunity to reflect on everything from our history of immigration and current ideas about immigration.

VISU 285: SPECIAL TOPICS IN VISUAL ARTS: Exploring our relationship with community (Fox)
This introductory experiential learning class will integrate photography, communication, and service. Student will work with digital photography, graphics, and text to explore and document Habitat for Humanity's work in the Farmville area. Students will participate in Habitat for Humanity projects such as builds and working in the ReStore, document Habitat's work photographically, reflect on their own involvement in the community, and design and execute an installation in gallery at Brinkley Hall that features creative work generated during the course. This aspect could also include a social media presence. 

Off-Campus

INDS 285: Nonprofits, Science, and Community on Hatteras Island (Clabough)
This experiential learning course examines the intersections between conservation, history, science education, business, and tourism on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Students will live for 10 weeks on Hatteras Island. During that time, they will have the opportunities to experience how a non-profit is run, work with the National Park Service as a sea turtle nest watcher, and investigate issues important to the island's economy and history. Students will be responsible for their own summer-long project that will benefit the local community, and will also intern at the Hatteras Island Ocean Center doing programming and outreach to locals and visitors. Open/Print PDF

RHET 370 / VISU 200: Rhetoric and Culture/ Art in the Contemporary World (Deal/Rhoads)
In this "study away" experience, faculty and students will travel to the SC Lowcountry and the GA Sea Islands and engage in both classroom-based and field-based research in the humanities (rhetoric and fine arts). Throughout the course, students will study aspects of the region's identity, including its cultural expressions (primarily visual art and craft, but also other elements), natural and built environments, histories, and economies in order to understand and articulate the region's distinctiveness. A critical course component for students is the travel experience itself. While our trip has elements in common with many study abroad trips (visiting museums and other cultural/historic sites), by limiting our focus to the lowcountry and sea islands, in particular the National Park Service's "Gullah-Geechee Corridor," we offer a truly immersive domestic study experience. Our partners include scholars, business and community leaders, National Park Service and GA Department of Natural Resources educators, long-term residents, and artists (storytellers, musicians, visual artists, and artisans). Too, students will explore both the natural environs and historic/cultural sites under their own power. For example, in order to explore sites inaccessible by car (one reference to the theme of "isolation"), students will hike, bike, camp, kayak, and travel by ferry; in a previous iteration of the course, we kayaked from Tybee Island to Little Tybee (where we camped for two nights) and Wassaw islands, paddled in the rice paddies in the ACE Basin of SC, backpacked on Cumberland Island National Seashore, took a ferry to Sapelo Island, explored the Jekyll Island sound aboard a shrimp boat, biked around St. Simons Island, and explored Savannah, Charleston, and Beaufort on foot - among other adventures. Open/Print PDF

SPAN 201-202: Intermediate Spanish I & II Immersion Class (DeJong)
Students will receive instruction in Spanish five hours a day, four days of week at the Franklin Institute, located in the University of Alcalá de Henares. The course is team taught with an instructor from the Franklin Institute. In addition, students will live with a host family in Alcalá de Henares.

BIOLOGY 108: ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY (Goodman)
A consideration, based on basic biological concepts, of the processes leading to the degradation of our environment. The course includes discussions of such topics as environmental pollution by pesticides, industrial by-products, and radioactive materials; the historical background and future prospects of the population explosion; and the need for preservation of our natural resources. Prerequisite: none. Corequisite: none.

GLOBAL CULTURES 103: BEGINNING TO 1500 C.E (Rockelmann)
Introduces students to global processes across time. The course is thematically organized and contextually centered. It does not attempt to narrate a "history of the world;" rather, it compares hierarchal structures, cultural frameworks, and regional and global networks from the beginning of human history to 1500. It emphasizes how contingency and human agency have shaped the global past, how civilizations are mutable "works in progress," and how texts serve as examples of authors writing within specific historical contexts.

GLOBAL CULTURES 104: 1500 C.E. TO PRESENT (Rocklemann)
Introduces students to global processes across time. The course is thematically organized and contextually centered. It does not attempt to narrate a "history of the world;" rather, it compares hierarchal structures, cultural frameworks, and regional and global networks from 1500 to the present. It emphasizes how contingency and human agency have shaped the global past, how civilizations are mutable "works in progress," and how texts serve as examples of authors writing within specific historical contexts.

MUSI 185: SPECIAL TOPICS IN MUSIC: History of Rock and Roll (Toth)
This course will focus on the roots of rock 'n' roll dating back to the beginning of recorded blues music in the early twentieth century through the heyday of the music industry in the 1970s. Course texts will include both recordings and readings that help to contextualize the music: some selections include recordings by Mamie Smith, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles, and historical/critical readings by Ralph Ellison, Amiri Baraka, and Jack Hamilton.