Fall 2016 Honors Colloquia
Last Updated: 3/28/16
Notes
American Studies Honors Students:
Beyond any major credit indicated in this document, certain courses may count for credit in American Studies.
Determination is made on a case-by-case basis. Consult your academic advisor for details.
Anthropology Honors Students: Beyond any major credit indicated in this document, certain courses may count
for credit in Anthropology. Determination is made on a case-by-case basis. Consult your academic advisor for
details.
KSB Honors Students: Colloquia designated as “major credit” will count toward “free electives” and/or the
12-credits required for “University Honors in Business.” Colloquia may not be substituted for Kogod core courses.
SIS Honors Students:
You are encouraged to speak with your SIS academic advisor to determine whether a colloquium might be
considered for another functional area or regional field.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Honors Students:
WGSS majors should contact the WGSS program director with inquiries about any other Colloquia potentially
counting toward their major requirements.
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HNRS-302-001H Future and Foresight
Dean Erran Carmel and Professor John Mahaffie
TH 2:30 pm – 5:20 pm
You have learned about the past and the present, but what about the future? Students use the
tools of foresight to explore the future that is 10 to 30 years from the present. Course objectives:
to futurize students and then equip them with a toolbox of future methods. Future methods are
qualitative methods, including techniques to create future scenarios. Course is based on learningby-doing with local clients around whose interests we will explore change, build scenarios, and
look for preferred/aspirational future outcomes. The class is co-taught by an AU professor and a
professional futurist.
MAJOR CREDIT: EDUCATION; HEALTH PROMOTION; KSB (Business Elective Credit); SIS (Identity, Race, Gender,
Culture); SOCIOLOGY.
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HNRS-302-002H Peru: Where Two Worlds Meet
Ambassador Anthony Quainton
T 2:30 pm – 5:20 pm
This course, taught by the U.S. Ambassador to Peru from 1989 to 1992, is designed to examine
the encounter in Peru of two great cultures: the indigenous Indian civilizations and that of the
Spanish conquest that succeeded them. The course will look at this encounter of two worlds in a
historical, economic and political framework. Students will not only explore the original
historical narrative of that encounter through the account of Prescott, but in more contemporary
terms in the writings of the great Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, the economist Hernando
de Soto and others. The course will concentrate on the period after the independence of Peru in
1821 and will examine the role of the military, the private sector, democratic political parties,
and the church on the evolution of modern Peru. Students will explore the challenges of
economic development, the impact of demographic migration from the Andes to the coast, and
the growth and economic significance of a substantial informal sector.
MAJOR CREDIT: ANTHROPOLOGY; GOVERNMENT (Major Related Social Science Requirement); HISTORY; SIS
(Identity, Race, Gender, Culture; Global Inequality and Development; Latin America); SOCIOLOGY; WORLD LANGUAGES
AND CULTURES.
HNRS-302-005H Environment and Development
Professor Robin Broad
W 2:30 pm – 5:20 pm
This course is an overview of the multi-disciplinary field of environment and development. It
focuses on debates concerning various human-made or development-related root causes of
natural-resource degradation in the South. Special attention is paid to the relationship between
the rural poor and the environment. The course also looks critically at current innovative policy
initiatives—from local to global levels—attempting to resolve the linked problems of
environment and development. Students learn “root-cause analysis” to assess both the debates
and the policy initiatives.
Note: This course is not for students who have taken Professor Broad’s SIS-338 course.
MAJOR CREDIT: ANTHROPOLOGY; ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES (BA in Environmental Studies only; credit is not
granted for the BS in Environmental Science or for the Environmental Studies minor); POLITICAL SCIENCE (Major Related
Social Science Requirement); SIS (Environmental Sustainability and Global Health; Global Inequality and Development)
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HNRS-396-003H Presidential Campaign 2016: Inside the War Room and the News Room
Professor Lenny Steinhorn
W 2:30 pm – 5:20 pm and TH 8:10 am – 11 am
The 2016 presidential election is studied up close and personal in this intensive current affairs
course on the campaign. The course analyzes how the candidates, campaigns, and consultants are
reaching voters, cultivating constituencies, creating images, spinning the press, and shaping
ideas, and how both mainstream and digital media outlets are filtering it all for the public. The
class focuses on media, message, public opinion, advertising, staging, social media, and overall
political strategy. It also examines how the election will shape American politics and the next
four years.
The course was first taught back in 2000 when CNN covered it weekly, and in every presidential
election since we have secured media partners that followed the class on TV and online -- in
2004 it was NBC-4 and in both 2008 and 2012 FOX-5 covered it.
The course meets twice a week during the fall election, once when students provide in-depth
briefings on various campaign developments -- from polls to ads to social media to issues -- and
then the next morning when we hold our roundtable discussion and analysis of the campaign. It's
the latter session that CNN and the others have covered, typically cutting it into 2-5 minute news
stories, and this is also the session that has been streamed online during the past two cycles.
What we do in that session is analyze trends, coverage, breaking news, issues, debates, ads, faux
pas, and any other campaign developments.
This is a 4-credit course that meets twice per week through the election, once per week after.
There is a $75 course fee attached to the course for use of new facilities in McKinley.
MAJOR CREDIT: AMERICAN STUDIES; CLEG (Communication Component); GOVERNMENT (Major Related Social
Science Requirement); SOCIOLOGY; SOC (Communication electives only).
Note: ‘Reproductive Rights and Religious Rights: Can They Coexist?’ has been canceled.
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