Interdisciplinary Studies

Interdisciplinary Studies
Course Offerings for Freshmen
2014 Fall Semester
About Interdisciplinary Courses
for Freshmen
Welcome to Mercyhurst University!
Your introduction to college study will include a unique
course designed exclusively for first year students. Each
course is team-taught by our faculty—usually two or
three of them teaching in tandem. The course is called
Interdisciplinary Studies—“IDST” for short—and, here at
this stage in preparing for your Summer Orientation,
you have the opportunity to choose which IDST course
sounds most appealing to you.
Special Considerations
Learning Differences Program
Honors Preparation Year
Please be aware that we will do our best to place you in one of your
top IDST choices, but for some students, IDST placement might
depend on major selection (Dance, Music, Athletic Training and
Sports Medicine majors might have restrictions) and student-athlete
schedules might also need to be taken into consideration.
Learning Differences Program:
If you are planning to enroll in the Learning Differences Program,
please be aware that your choices may be reviewed by the Learning
Differences staff. If you have any questions regarding the Learning
Differences Program, please contact Ms. Dianne Rogers at
[email protected] (814) 824-2450.
Honors:
You will be asked to rank the courses in order of your
preference as space is limited in each IDST course.
There is more information about how to rank the
courses on the New Student Orientation site at
www.orienation.mercyhurst.edu.
If you have been accepted to participate in the Freshman
Preparation Year for the Honors Program, you MUST choose the
following IDST course:
If you have any questions or concerns about the IDST
courses, please contact Mr. Tom McKinnon at
[email protected] or 814-824-2475.
If you have any questions regarding being an HPY
(Honors Preparation Year) participant please contact
Dr. Natasha Duncan (Honors Director) at
[email protected] (814) 824-2449.
Cold War
Tuesdays & Thursdays
1:30 pm to 3:10 pm
American Culture in the 1930s
MWF or TTH
MWF 9:15 am to 10:20 am OR MW 7:05 pm to 8:45 pm
The 1930s represent one of the most fascinating and
controversial periods in modern U.S. History. A decade
of economic hardship permanently altered the American
landscape politically, economically, socially, and
culturally.
The purpose of American Life in the 1930s is to explore
the era of the Great Depression from the vantage point
of ordinary citizens. This class will help students draw
parallels and differences between today’s culture and
that of the 1930s when elegance and style contrasted
with bread lines and Hoovervilles. The instructors use
classic films plus primary source
readings, lectures, and discussion
to explore the topics of class, race,
gender, lifestyle, literature, and
the arts.
Dr. Marnie Sullivan
Mr. Brian Sheridan
Ms. Stephanie Heher
English
Communication
Interior Design
Bigfoot or Big Lie?
Science as a Candle in the Dark
Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays
11:45 am to 12:50 pm
Is Big Foot real? Do horoscopes really predict your future? Are aliens
responsible for crop circles? Is it true that we never went to the
Moon? Teaching students to critically evaluate new information is a
keystone of the liberal arts education. This course focuses on
teaching students to use the scientific method and critical thinking
skills in order to differentiate between science and pseudoscience.
Students will learn to evaluate the accuracy of literary and web
resources and identify common logical fallacies used to support
many pseudoscience claims. Group discussions will encourage
students to use critical thinking skills to debate the validity of
pseudoscience arguments and explore alternate explanations.
Written assignments will be used to strengthen students’ abilities to
synthesize the supporting evidence
and their thoughts into an organized
and convincing argument. Topics
covered will include crypto-zoology,
paranormal activities, extraterrestrial
life, urban legends, conspiracy
theories, and natural mysteries.
Dr. Heather Garvin
Dr. Lyman Persico
Dr. Matt Weaver
Anthropology/Archaeology
Geology
Psychology
Breaking Down Breaking Bad
Cold War—Honors Only
Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays
1:00 pm to 2:05 pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays
1:30 pm to 3:10 pm
This course is an interdisciplinary examination of the
award-winning television series “Breaking Bad.” It will
include an analysis of plot, character, dialogue, theme,
and other narrative elements to determine whether the
series can legitimately be considered a work of art.
The scientific principles of the series will be revealed
through the fundamental understanding of drug
chemistry and the various analytical methods used for
illicit drug investigations. The course will also include an
analysis of the legal issues and criminological and sociological theories and themes presented in the series.
Dr. Ken Schiff
Dr. Clint Jones
Attorney Tina Fryling
English
Chemistry
Criminal Justice
2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
symbolic end of the Cold War. For nearly 50 years the United States
and the Soviet Union built up massive arsenals, traded insults,
infiltrated spies, promoted ideologies, competed for allies, broadcast propaganda, and stood poised at the edge of mutual annihilation. Then it was over. What was the Cold War about? What caused
this conflict and why did it end? What lessons can be learned and
what legacies remain for contemporary international politics?
In this course we will examine the Cold War chronologically
and thematically, focusing on the geopolitical, social, cultural, and
ethical aspects of the conflict. Students will be introduced to the
study of Cold War through an interdisciplinary approach combining
International Relations, Comparative Politics, and Ethics. The course
will focus on the International Relations approach to the bipolar
world of nuclear super powers, Comparative Politics approach to
socio-political and institutional arrangements of totalitarian
communist state and capitalist republican democracy, and the
complex ethical choices faced by individuals and institutions. The
legacies and lessons of the Cold War will be addressed.
Dr. Lena Surzhko-Harned
Dr. Brian Ripley
Dr. Daniel McFee
Political Science
Political Science
Religious Studies
What is Happiness?
Tuesdays & Thursdays
8:00 am to 9:40 am OR 9:50 am to 11:30 am
Humankind has always wrestled with the question of
happiness and our continual search for it is one of the
defining features of our existence. This is attested to by
the fact that the world’s great narratives, whether
religious, literary, philosophical or scientific, inevitably
address its nature and sources and inform our
individual, social, political, and economic discourses and
practices.
But what is happiness?
Out of This World:
Space, Science and Culture
Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays
10:30 am to 11:35 am
Out of This World! Space may
be the ultimate destiny of
civilization. Discover the future
of space in this unique interdisciplinary course. Discover
the true story of the American
buried on the Moon.
Topics will include the origin of the universe, Stradivarius
and the Sun, the space race, how to find meteorites, space
in our culture, Ancient solar power, science fiction, and
alien biology!
This course invites students to explore the many
different aspects of happiness from the perspectives of
ancient and contemporary philosophy, psychology, and
literature.
Dr. Jim Snyder
Dr. Gerry Tobin
Dr. Brian Reed
Philosophy
Psychology
English
Dr. Joanne McGurk
Dr. John Campbell
Dr. Scott McKenzie
English
Biology
Geology
The Business of Health
Young Adult Literature
Tuesdays & Thursdays
9:50 am to 11:30 am
Tuesdays & Thursdays
9:50 am to 11:30 am
Americans currently spend more on health than any civilization in
the history of our planet. How do the dollars that we spend
impact people’s health and the health of business in the United
States and the world? How do agricultural, pharmaceutical,
legal, political, media, and medical considerations impact the
viability of businesses and the health of populations? How should
businesses balance profit with the well-being of people? Public
health issues such as the regulation of tobacco, legalization of
marijuana, mass incarceration, politicization of high fructose corn
syrup, inordinate prevalence of homelessness, and treatment of
undocumented workers impact business and the health of
people. The course will explore these and similar topics from
various perspectives and using multiple methods such as realtime class polling, lectures, point-counterpoint debate among
experts, guest speakers, videos, observations, and reflections.
Dr. Kris Gossett
Dr. James Teufel
Business
Public Health
“YA” is a popular term to describe fiction
written for readers who are between 10
and 22 years of age. In this course, we
will read YA lit, including award-winning
fiction, a graphic novel, and dystopian
sci-fi texts. While we will read for critical
literary analysis, we will also use the YA
fiction as a vehicle to explore the biological, cognitive, and
social development associated with coming-of-age. In
short, the texts will act as a springboard to understand the
challenges and excitement associated with the phase of life
between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood.
Our discussions will unfold within the context of
understanding how biological changes in brain
development, as well as personal expectations based on
social networks, influence complex forms of thinking and
decision-making at this period of a person's life.
Throughout the class, we’ll explore how this knowledge can
be applied for good-decision making as students begin
their first year in the college setting.
Dr. Melissa Heerboth
Dr. Christina Riley-Brown
Psychology
English

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