The College Studies Program

The College Studies Program

College Studies sequences were 15-credit sequences of related general education courses. These sequences provided opportunities for non-majors to explore disciplines that are an essential part of a coIlege education, in courses designed to show how the disciplines and fields of study are organized, how they develop and change, and how they are related to other disciplines and the culture at large.

Fulfilling general education with College Studies sequences

Under the old distribution requirement, students were not allowed to count courses in their major department toward distribution. Students who satisfied all three distribution areas (Areas of Knowledge) with College Studies sequences were allowed to count College Studies sequences that included courses in the student's major department, with no credit restriction. In other words, such students were allowed to overlap College Studies sequences with their major.

Under the current Areas of Knowledge policies, an eligible student who satisfies one or two Areas with College Studies sequences is allowed a total of 15 credits of overlap with his/her major. As in the past, an eligible student who satisfies all three Areas with College Studies sequences is allowed any amount of overlap with the major.

Eligibility for College Studies

• The student must have been matriculated in UW's College of Arts and Sciences at some time during the period from autumn quarter 1988 through summer quarter 1997.
• The student must have completed with a passing grade at least one of the courses from the College Studies sequence during this period.
• A College Studies sequence completed after summer 1997 can still be counted, as long as it was started when the program was active. If the courses needed to complete the sequence are no longer offered, the student can propose one or more substitutions in a petition to the Arts and Sciences Graduation Committee.
• During the period when the College Studies program was available, sequences were both added to and removed from the program.
  • If a sequence was added to the program after the student enrolled in one or more of the courses, the student may count the sequence.
  • If a sequence was removed from the program before the student enrolled in any course in the sequence, the student may not count the sequence.

Humanities/Fine Arts (Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts)

Interpretation, Community, and Culture

This sequence focuses on the interpretive nature of all activity and inquiry, not only at the university, but in an increasingly complicated world where cultures and interpretations clash in dramatic ways. The courses are structured to direct attention to written texts, to visual messags, and to books, artistic works, and social, political, and cultural events, as well as scientific experiment. The sequence also studies the situation of interpretive acts in interpretive communities distinguishable by their cultural, disciplinary, and institutional contingencies, interests, demands, and constraints.

Required courses:

• C LIT 260   Interpretation as a Human Activity (5)
• C LIT 360   Interpretation in Culture and Community (5)
• C LIT 460   Interpretation in Humanistic Disciplines in the University (5)

Literature, Imagination, and Culture

This is a set of courses devoted to ways of thinking about literature and its relation to culture. Each course explores literature from a different point of view and provides exercise in critical and reflective thought.

Required, three of the following courses:

• ENGL 205   Method, Imagination, and Inquiry (5)
• ENGL 302   Critical Practice (5) (formerly 346)
• ENGL 307   Cultural Studies: Literature and the Age (5)
  The following topics were offered in different quarters:
  • Renaissance Culture
  • Men and Women in Eighteenth-Century Culture
  • Romanticism
  • Modernism
• ENGL 363   Literature and the Other Arts and Disciplines (5) (formerly 408)
• ENGL 470   Literature, Literary Study, and Society (5) (formerly 306)

The Arts and Aesthetics

An exploration of historically changing concepts of the visual arts, music, and aesthetic history through an examination of art and music from various periods, as well as philosophical writing on the arts. Emphasis is on the flux in which artistic and aesthetic endeavors operate, so that it may be seen that current views of the function or purpose of the arts do not necessarily represent the views held in earlier periods.

Required, two of the following courses:

• ART H 300   Ideas in Art (5) (formerly ART H 200)
• ART H 382   Theory and Practice of Art Criticism (3)-Concurrently with 2 credits of ART H 499
• MUSIC 384   Ideas in Music (5)

Plus one of the following courses.

• PHIL 445   Philosophy of Art (5)
• PHIL 446   Development of Aesthetic Theory (5)

How to Think about Moral Problems

This sequence is intended to improve the understanding of moral decision making, in the belief that a basic knowledge of what others have advised can make a real difference to us when we come to make our own decisions. The courses consider specific contemporary moral problems and the kinds of reasoning available for dealing with them.

Required, one course from:

• PHIL 102   Contemporary Moral Problems (5)
• PHIL 240   Introduction to Ethics (5)

Plus two courses from:

• PHIL 241   Topics in Ethics (5)
• PHIL 340   History of Ancient Ethics (5)
• PHIL 342   History of Modern Ethics (5)
• PHIL 344   History of Recent Ethics (5)
• PHIL 345   Moral Issues of Life and Death (5)
• MHE 474/PHIL 411   Justice in Health Care (5)

The Classics in Literature and Life

Classics as a scholarly discipline, treating the classical world from a number of vantage points: political and social, intellectual, literary, and artistic.

Required, three of the following:

• CLAS 210   Greek and Roman Classics in English (5) (added 1991)
• CLAS 320   Greek and Roman Private and Public Life (5)
• CLAS 322   Intellectual History of Classical Greece (5)
• CLAS 410   The Classical Tradition (5) (through 1992 only)
• CLAS 427   Greek and Roman Tragedy in English (5)

The Spectrum of Literature

An introduction to the nature of literary and critical studies and an explanation of the discipline of literature in a comparative framework, these courses ask a number of fundamental questions. What is literature? What forms does it take in different social and historical contexts? What functions does it serve? What are its relationships with other arts and disciplines? What approaches are required to analyze and enjoy it? What does it mean to study literature as one studies philosophy, the other arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences?

Required, three of the following:

• C LIT 200   Introduction to Comparative Literature (5)
• C LIT 300   The Scope of Literary History (5) (formerly 370)
• C LIT 371   Literature and the Visual Arts (5) (added 1995)
• C LIT 400   Introduction to the Theory of Literature (5)

Argumentation in Society

An exploration of the forms of argument used by speakers and writers when they seek to persuade audiences to accept actions and beliefs. A study in the essentials of argument, types of arguments, ways of making arguments, strategies for criticizing and responding to arguments, argument as it is practiced in society, and theoretical approaches to the study of argument.

Required:

• SP CMU 334   Essentials of Argument (5)

Plus two courses from:

• SP CMU 424   Rhetorical Perspective in Revolutionary Documents (5)
• SP CMU 426   American Public Address (5)
• SP CMU 428   British Public Address (5)
• SP CMU 434   Argumentation Theory (5)

Art in Public Places

This sequence looks at art in the public domain in a variety of ways: with respect to history, with respect to aesthetic and conceptual issues, and with respect to the processes and roles of artists, art administrators, communities, public officials, tradesmen, and industries. It also involves actual experience in the challenge of making art in a public place.

Required courses:

• ART 275   A World History of Art in Public Places (5)
• ART 276   Contemporary Directions, Art in Public Places (5)
• ART 332   Intermediate Sculpture Composition (5, max 15)

Social Sciences (Individuals and Societies)

Science in Civilization

This sequence studies the role of the natural sciences in the development of Western culture from the time of ancient Greece to the present. It investigates how scientists have organized knowledge of the natural world and how they have organized themselves in order to pursue that knowledge. Examines how the categories of modern science do not match those of earlier times and how the evolution of Western scientific thought has developed.

Required:

• HIST 311/MHE 419   Science in Civilization: Antiquity to 1600 (5)
• HIST 312   Science in Civilization: Science in Modern Society (5)

Plus one from:

• HIST/ASTR 313   Science in Civilization: Physics and Astrophysics Since 1850 (5)
• MHE 424   Modern Biology in Historical Perspective (5)

Western Civilization

This sequence studies the history of Western civilization with special attention given to problems faced by the historian, especially those problems of evidence and causation, and the relationship of the discipline of history to other disciplines. There will be special discussion sections for students in the College Studies Program.

Required courses:

• HIST 121   The Ancient World: Special Problems (5)
• HIST 122   The Medieval World: Special Problems (5)
• HIST 123   The Modern World: Special Problems (5)

Students were allowed to substitute HIST 111 for 121, HIST 112 for 122, and HIST 113 for 123.

American Ethnic Studies

This sequence is a study of sociological, political, and humanistic approaches to the study of ethnicity in America, with emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach and an examination of American race and ethnic relations.

Required courses:

• AES/SOC 362   American Race and Ethnic Relations (5)
• AES 363   Foundations of Ethnic Studies (5)
• AES 364   American Ethnicity in the Twenty-first Century (5)

Political Economy

The sequence explores the perspectives of political science as a discipline and emphasizes the theories, methods, and concerns that it shares with other social sciences. Thus, students taking this sequence are exposed to economics, psychology, and anthropology as well as political science; and, thereby, they should emerge with a greater capacity to understand and evaluate our political process.

Required courses:

• POL S 270   Introduction to Political Economy (5)
• POL S 474   Government and the Economy (5) (formerly 370)
• POL S 475   Public Choice (5)

The Evolution of Political Power

The aim of this sequence is to bring together the insights of several disciplines into the problems of institutional development and change, particularly the development of the state.

Required courses:

• POL S 273   The Concept of Political Power (5)
• ANTH 373   Stateless Societies: An Ethnographic Approach (5)
• POL S 411   Theories of the State (5)

People as Scientists of Themselves

This sequence endeavors to study metacognition, wherein people act as scientists of the self. It is especially targeted for students with a strong interest in science who would like to know about a body of research in behavioral science.

Required:

• PHIL 460   Philosophy of Science (5)
• PSYCH 464   Metacognition (5)

Plus one course from:

• PSYCH 462   Human Memory (5)
• PSYCH 466   Psychological Aspects of Judgment and Decision (5)

American Political Culture

This sequence examines the political content and character of both elite and popular cultural forms in America. By "political culture" is meant the language, symbols, icons, ideas, and ideals that have governed American public life.

Required:

• ENGL 251/POL S 281   Introduction to American Political Culture (5) (formerly ENGL 281/POL S 281)

Plus two of the following courses:

• ENGL 360   American Literature and Political Culture: Origins to 1865 (5)(formerly ENGL 282)
• ENGL 361   American Literature and Political Culture: After1865 (5) (formerly ENGL 283)
• POL S 318   American Political Thought (5)
• HSTAA 410   American Social History: The Modern Era (5)

Language and Society

This sequence examines the underlying relationships between language and society from a multidisciplinary perspective. It considers the historical processes by which language and language policies shape social relationships, principally through education; the impact of language policy on migration and the education of the labor force; and the use of language to control access to resources and institutions. It focuses in particular on the role of English as a world language and upon the impact of geography, class, gender, and ethnicity on language variation in North America.

Required courses:

• ANTH 203   Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (5)
• ENGL 478   Language and Social Policy (5) (formerly ENGL 465)
• ENGL 479   Language Variation and Language Policy in North America (5) (formerly ENGL 466)

Peace and War

The sequence approaches the study of society through a broad examination of issues of peace and war.

Required, three of the following courses, including at least one of the * courses:

• *HIST 345   War and society (5)
• HIST 346   Images of War (5)
• *PSYCH 207   Psychology.of Peace (5)
• SIS 421   National Security and International Affairs (5)
• WOMEN 250   Gender, War, and Peace (5)

Medicine, Self, and Society

A multidisciplinary inquiry into the relation of medical theory and practice to society through the disciplines of literary interpretation, anthropology, philosophy, and medical history and ethics.

Required:

• ENGL 364   Literature and Medicine (5) (formerly ENGL 409 or 408)

Plus one course from:

• ANTH 475   Comparative Systems of Healing (5) (1990-91 only)
• ANTH 476   Culture, Medicine and the Body (5)
• MHE 401   Disease and Medicine in History (5)

Plus one course from:

• MHE 440/PHIL 459   Philosophy of Medicine (5)
• MHE 481   The Pursuit of Health in American Society (5)

Creativity, Technology, and Innovation

Provides a framework for the critical understanding of relations between creativity and technology, for individuals and in the broader historical context of society. Considers "technology" very broadly; technology is itself a human product, deriving from creative activity and social, material organization, which then becomes a factor in further inquiry, production, and social change.

Required, three of the following courses:

• ART H 232   Photography: Theory and Criticism (3)/ART H 499   Individual Projects (2)
• ENGL 305   Theories of the Imagination (5) (formerly ENGL 350)
• HIST 315   Introduction to the History of Technology (5)
• T C 420   Introduction to Technology as a Social and Political Phenomenon (5)

Natural Sciences (The Natural World)

The Universe

This sequence is designed to provide an understanding and appreciation of the way by which physicists and astronomers explore the scale of the universe. It seeks to make familiar the nature of quantitative reasoning and to develop an appreciation of the successes of this mode of thought in revealing and manipulating order in the physical universe.

Required courses:

• ASTR 210   Distance and Time: Size and Age in the Universe (5)
• ASTR 211   The Universe and Change (5)
• ASTR 212   Life in the Universe (5)

The Physical World

This is a comprehensive sequence designed to guide the nonscience student's thinking about the physical world. By studying familiar structures that appear in nature, including their motions and transformations, students are introduced to many of the successful ideas of classical and modem physics. The emphasis is on the approaches found most useful (e.g., symmetry, quantification, and scaling) and the history of the major ideas. High school mathematics, especially geometry, is a prerequisite.

Required courses:

• PHYS 214   Light and Color (5)
• PHYS 215   Order and Disorder (5)
• PHYS 216   Time and Change (5)

Natural Science and the Environment

Global environmental change resulting from human industrial activity is an increasingly important issue facing everyone. This sequence gives nonscience majors an understanding of the basic concepts of natural sciences as they apply to the study of the effects of industrial and agricultural practices on the atmosphere, ocean, lithosphere, and biosphere.

Required courses:

• ENV S 203/GEOG 205   Introduction to Physical Sciences and the Environment (5)
• ENV S 204   Introduction to the Biological Sciences and the Environment (5)
• ENV S 307   Introduction to Global Environmental Issues (5) (formerly 207)

Biological Perspectives

Three major points of view from which to examine a host of questions addressed by the biological sciences: the individual, the cell, and the environment. The biologist's approach to living systems, and how we know, why we know, and what we know. Laboratory experience including living material and computer simulation exercises that develop and test hypotheses.

Required courses:

• BIOL 100   Biology: The Organism (5) autumn quarter (formerly BIOL 150)
• BIOL 100   Biology: The Cell (5) winter quarter (formerly BIOL 151)
• BIOL 100   Biology: Ecology and Evolution of Organisms (5) spring quarter (formerly BIOL 152)

Cognitive Science

Philosophers think about what thought means, psychologists study how "people in general" think, anthropologists examine the interaction between culture and individual cognition, and linguists study that most unique of all human cognitive abilities, language. In addition, there is a mechanistic aspect to thought. The creation of artificial intelligence systems using modern computers has been a goal of research in computer science. Finally, neuroscientists are interested in the relationship between the organization of the brain and the capabilities of the mind. This sequence examines thinking from these different points of view.

Required:

• PSYCH 354   Introduction to Cognitive Science (5)

Plus two courses from:

• ANTH 358   Culture and Cognition (5)
• CSE 415   Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (5)
• LING 442   Introduction to Semantics (4) and LING 499   Undergraduate Research (1)
• PHIL 464   Philosophical issues in the Cognitive Sciences (5)

Human Biology and Behavior

Explorations of human behavior at the species level. Historical summary of views of the human species as they have developed over time and modem views of the species. Throughout the sequence, the organizing paradigm is human evolution.

Required, three of the following:

• ANTH 220   Biological and Cultural Bases of Human Behavior (5)
• PHY A 372   Uses and Abuses of Evolutionary Views of Human Behavior (5) and PHY A 499   Undergraduate Research (1)
• WOMEN 453/ANTH 483   Women in Evolutionary Perspective (5)
• ZOOL 409   Sociobiology (4)

Listed as a social science sequence in 1988-89 brochure; changed to natural science in July 1988.

Our Chemical World

The purpose of this sequence is to give nonscience majors an understanding of the chemical basis of our world and to help prepare them to be educated citizens of an increasingly technological society.

Required, one course from:

• CHEM 120   Chemical Science (5) (formerly CHEM 100)
• CHEM 140/141   General Chemistry and Laboratory (4, 1)

Plus sequence 1, 2, or 3:

1. CHEM 203   Chemistry and the Environment (5) (formerly CHEM 303)
   CHEM 205   Chemistry of Life (5) (formerly CHEM 305)
2. CHEM 203   Chemistry and the Environment (5) (formerly CHEM 305)
   CHEM 220   General and Organic Chemistry (5) (formerly CHEM 102)
3. CHEM 205   Chemistry of Life (5) (formerly CHEM 305)
   CHEM 150/151   General Chemistry and Laboratory (4, 1)