WRC 1010.101 Introduction to Mathematics for WRC
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Quantitative Literacy
- Instructor: Sarah Greenwald
- Time: M 5:00-5:50pm; TR 3:30-4:45pm
Prerequisite: passing the math placement test or MAT 0010.
You’ll receive full general education quantitative literacy credit while developing a liberal arts appreciation of mathematics. While much of the class is similar to MAT 1010, it differs via an interdisciplinary and thematically linked format and a focus on local to global connections as you develop creative inquiry skills, research techniques, and communication skills. You’ll also develop an appreciation of what mathematics is, what it has to offer, why it is useful, how it contributes to an understanding of truth and consequences, and the diverse ways that people can be successful and impact mathematics (including you!), as we study:
- Geometry of our Earth and Universe: How we view the world around us and what it actually looks like.
- Personal Finance: Interest formulas as they apply to the real world and decisions we make about our own lives - credit cards, student loans, savings accounts, car and house purchases, taxes, retirement.
- Consumer Statistics: To recognize misrepresentations of studies and statistical data in the real world by applying statistical techniques and understanding the role of probability.
- What is Mathematics? To reflect more broadly about the course themes as we tie the segments together. You’ll become a mathematician with a topic you are interested in as your field of study. You will communicate your expertise in a research session that is modeled after poster presentations at science fairs and research day at Appalachian.
From our text: “When our own future is at stake, most of us want to use every effective approach we can find. The mathematical mode of thought is not the only way to approach decisions, but the reasoned strategies that mathematics illustrates are powerful tools that give us surprising strength for analyzing and conquering life’s issues.”
WRC 1103.101 Investigations Local--The Sacred and The Profane
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
- Instructor: Patience Perry
- Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm; TR 2:00-3:15pm
This course navigates two related questions: what is the sacred, and what is the profane? Each of these questions inspires others, among them whether or not the idea of the sacred entails a particular religious belief, and how do course concepts manifest in an examined life. Students raise questions as they explore a variety of sacred texts, mystic poetry, and documentary film from diverse cultural origins. Students will produce a portfolio of writings related to course content, drawn from inquiry they conduct as part of the class. Unlike a lecture class, or even a book-centered seminar, learning will require active participation, critical thinking, and, occasionally, creative improvisation. Class structure encompasses ritual immersion, expressive arts, peer-generated discussion, reflection, and service-learning as we pay particular attention to the applications of stewardship for creation as a mode of transformation. Thus, we utilize the Edible Schoolyard as a living laboratory and engage with the Hospitality House as a partner in an exploration of how sacredness coalesces with food, faith, and community. An optional three day Monastic retreat at Mepkin Abby in South Carolina entails an accompanying $200 course fee.
WRC 1103.102 Investigations Local--Food, Community, and Place
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
- Instructor: Julia Kark Callander
- Time: MW 2:00-3:15pm; TR 11:00am-1:45pm
By looking carefully at how and what we eat, we can gain insight into our place in the world. In this seminar we will consider a variety of food-related questions, such as: how do certain foods come to be identified with particular regions or groups of people? Why do people care about whether food is “authentic” or not? How does a growing interest in “foodieism” affect social and economic inequality? How do people use food to negotiate, confirm, and/or appropriate cultural identity? Our inquiry will span a wide variety of materials, from poetry and TV, to 19th-century cookbooks and family recipes, to local events, politics, and public policy. Our immediate focus will be on food in western North Carolina, but—as we’ll discover firsthand—even the most local of food experiences imbricates us in complex historical, cultural, and ecological networks.
As with other Watauga classes, your work in this seminar will require active participation, critical thinking, and an openness to having your preconceptions challenged by new people and ideas. Over the course of the term you’ll complete a number of traditional writing assignments that build on each other, and you’ll also do creative presentations, archival research, community service learning, and cooking.
WRC 1103.103 Investigations Local--Me and You, Us and Them: A Historical Take on Community and Otherness
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and English 1000 for Watauga College students.
- Instructor: Marjon Ames
- Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm; TR 2:00-3:15pm
How do we define the parameters of our communities? Who do we consider to be insiders and those who are denied access? Everyone falls on both sides of these divides at some points in their lives, so we should aspire to understand and emphasize with both those who create boundaries as well as those who are excluded by them. In this course, we will examine various historical scenarios to explore these and many other questions. Students will assess scholarly historical texts, works of fiction, films, and works of art that illustrate different approaches to better understand these issues.
WRC 1103.104 Investigations Local--Metamorphoses Through Living, Loving, and Be(com)ing Lost
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar (including Honors) and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
- Instructor: Michael Dale
- Time: MW 2:00-3:15pm; TR 11:00-1:45pm
Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that a prelude to philosophy is the admission that "I have lost my way." James Baldwin writes, "Inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched. And if you can't be touched, you can't be changed. And if you can't be changed, you can't be alive." In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit claims, "The question then is how to get lost. Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery."
No doubt for many people and in a number of circumstances being lost is experienced as an unsettling, perhaps even terrifying phenomenon. At the same time we speak delightfully about being "lost in thought," "lost in a book," even "lost in love." We are also aware, on some level and in some way(s), that our lives are characterized or marked by recurrent changes or metamorphoses. We are beings who are inexorably "be(com)ing." Love changes us. How? Be(com)ing lost changes us as well. We will examine the potentially fearful aspects of being lost and we will explore and examine the virtues of "be(com)ing lost," consider the possibility that there's an "art of being at home in the unknown, so that being in its midst isn't a cause for panic or suffering, [but] of being at home with being lost" (Rebecca Solnit). Students enrolled in both Honors and Watauga Residential College will either need to take this class or that of Clark Maddux.
WRC 1103.105 Investigations Local--College: What Is It and Why?
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar (including Honors) and ENG/RC 1000
- Instructor: Clark Maddux
- Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm; TR 2:00-3:15pm
What is the purpose of college? How is a college related to a university, and how do colleges and universities emerge historically? How can literature of college life inform our own experiences as students and teachers? What, exactly, is a residential college and how is it different from other collegiate institutions? How is Watauga Residential College like or unlike Black Mountain College and other experiments in higher education? This Investigations Local class will tackle these and other questions. We will read James Axtell's Wisdom's Workshop: The Rise of the Modern University , Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy, John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University and several novels and poems, as well as shorter non-fiction works, related to modern universities. Among the novels we will read are: John Williams Stoner, Zadie Smith's On Beauty, and Elif Batuman's The Idiot. Students who are dual enrolled in the Honors College and Watauga will either need to take this investigations class or that of Michael Dale.
WRC 2001.101 28607: Days in the Life
- Gen Ed Attribute: Sophomore Writing, Fills ENG/RC 2001 requirements
- Instructor: Julia Kark Callander
- Time: TR 3:30-4:45pm
How might a tweet, an op-ed in the local paper, and a peer-reviewed article all approach the same subject differently? In this section of sophomore writing, we will look at a variety of issues facing Boone through the lens of “Experts and Amateurs.” In order to hone your skills in writing across disciplines, we will read and generate a variety of texts with careful attention to those texts’ assumptions and conventions: what is the reader already supposed to know? How is expertise (or lack thereof) communicated rhetorically, and what effect does this have on a text’s persuasiveness? Approaching local issues from this perspective will provide ample opportunity to a) analyze the effects of different rhetorical or generic choices and b) interrogate the meaning of our own work both in Watauga and in specific majors/disciplines. You will have the opportunity to choose some readings and assignment topics based on your own interests, but likely shared topics will include public health, education, and sustainability in Boone.
WRC 2201.101 Hearing Voices: Inquiry in Literature--Science and Nature in Literature
- Gen Ed Attribute: Integrative Learning Experience Theme; Literary Studies Designation
- Instructor: Michael Dale
- Time: TR 9:30-10:45 am
Living in relationships with the natural world and reaching for an understanding of nature provides fertile ground for novelists, short-story writers, and writers of narrative non-fiction. In this seminar we will delve into and explore the intellectual and emotional landscape of fictional and non-fictional beings as they are immersed in and navigate the worlds of science and nature. What happens when the sciences and humanities meet? Our narrative journey will also include selections of poetry.
We will read short stories by Andrea Barrett and Anthony Doerr and essays by Alison Hawthorne Deming and the physicist Carlo Rovelli. Amongst the longer works of fiction and narrative non-fiction that we possibly will read are:
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams
Amy Leach, Things That Are
Richard Powers, The Echo Maker
Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm
WRC 2202.101 What If? Asking Historical Questions--History of the Book
- Gen Ed Attribute: Integrative Learning Experience Theme; Historical Studies Designation
- Instructor: Marjon Ames
- Time: MWF 11:00-11:50am
This course will explore the evolution of book production from manuscripts to print, the materiality of book production, and the ways that books ushered in the early modern period. In this class we will work extensively with rare books and examine the ways literacy and book ownership shape our culture.
WRC 2204.101 Contemplative Leadership and Personal Transformation
- Gen Ed Attribute: Liberal Studies Experience
- Instructor: Elaine Gray
- Time: TR 12:30-1:45pm
This course explores contemplative theory, practice, and leadership. Learners will engage in the experience of basic mindfulness training and meditation practices. Using phenomenological research methods and introspection students will reflect on methods of personal transformation intended to support well-being, personal growth, stress reduction, meaning making, insight, and leadership skills. Selected course readings and student research will address the philosophies, practices, cultural influences, critical theory, and leadership attributes of historical and contemporary contemplative leaders. The course culminates in the student's development of a personal leadership philosophy based in contemplative ideals or practices.
WRC 2400.101 Masterpieces in Latin American Art
- Gen Ed. Attribute: Aesthetic-Creat Exp of Culture; Fine Arts; ILE-Las Americas
- Instructor: Josie Bortz
- Time: MWF 10:00-10:50am
In this multi-sensory course, students explore academic, conceptual, and experiential expressions of distinct cultures in Latin America. Students build a foundation of knowledge upon basic geography and (his)tories then deepening multi-cultural understanding through immersion in oral stories, cuisine, religion, music, dance, film, and cultural arts. Students discover how particular masterpieces "work" intellectually, functionally, and aesthetically within the belief system of the individual or community that created them. Likewise, student gain insight about how art expresses social, political, and cultural convictions. Analysis of accomplished artists and representative masterpieces of Latin America will provide insight into diverse cultures, spirituality, people, their successes and their struggles. Participants should be prepared to dance, cook, taste, paint, and play; therefore, dress appropriately and bring your curiosity.
WRC 3203.101 Why Art? Responding to the World Around Us--Conversations with the Natural World
- Gen Ed Attribute: Integrative Learning Experience Theme; Fine Arts Designation
- Instructor: Patience Perry
- Time: MWF 1:00-1:50pm
This course engages students in an examination of human relationships with nature. In it, students have an opportunity to ask questions, examine ecological ideals, societal realities, and assorted intangible factors which influence human and planetary happiness. Assorted myths ranging from Gaia to Pachamama provide historical and cultural perspective while essays from Deep Ecologists, Ecofeminists, and Environmentalists voice an evolution of western thought. Of course, the most pertinent contemporary question asks, “How do humans reconcile the omnipresence of technology in our relationship with the natural world?” Specifically, students grapple with the paradox of digital media usefulness capturing ephemeral art. Students are exposed to well-known visual Ecoartists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Jordan then seek to identify artists exploring other genres in conversation with the natural world. As a result, assignments and in-class praxis may include visual art, dance, drama, poetry, music, puppetry, film, outdoor exploration of place, or play with natural objects. The semester culminates with individually designed projects, synthesizing art-based research, phenomenological wilderness immersion, field observation, the creative process, and traditional empirical studies.
WRC 3401.101 Myth and Meaning
- Gen Ed Attribute: Hist & Soc Theme-Culture in Social Practice and Liberal Studies Experience, Literary Studies Designation
- Instructor: Ralph Lentz
- Time: TR 3:30-4:45 p.m.
In this reading seminar we will consider the meaning and experience of myth from ancient to modern times in light of what has been called "the disenchantment of the world"—the de-mystifying of the universe and human beings' place in it occasioned by the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Capitalism. Throughout the course we will examine the myths that first enchanted the world, from Homer, to Christ, to a Thousand and One Arabian Nights. We will read modern enchanters like C. S. Lewis; we will dialogue with ancient "dis-enchanters" like Plato; we will examine the modern disenchanted myths of Nazism and ISIS. Class meetings will be conducted via seminar—student centered dialogue and discussion of mythic texts based on students' written analysis of the texts. All discussions and writing assignments will engage students on the central question behind our studies: "Might it be time for a re-enchantment of the world?"
WRC 3402.101 Work as Art and Creative Expression
- Gen Ed Attribute: Liberal Studies Experience
- Instructor: Derek Stanovsky
- Time: TR 2:00-3:15pm
Course Description Forthcoming