Watauga Residential College

WRC 1010.101 INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS FOR WRC

•  Gen Ed. Attribute: Quantitative Literacy
• Instructor: Sarah Greenwald
• M: 4:00pm-4:50pm & TR 3:30pm-4:45pm 

Prerequisite:  passing the math placement test or MAT 0010.

Whether it is counting the number of stars, understanding why the Benjamin Franklin fund never earned its intended money, or managing the uncertainty inherent in polling and medical testing, many real-life situations require the critical and creative analysis of a variety of mathematical interpretations in order to fully consider the implications. This course focuses on local to global connections related to the application of geometry, algebra, probability, and statistics as you develop creative inquiry skills, research techniques, and communication skills. You’ll also explore what mathematics is, what it has to offer, and the diverse ways that people can be successful in mathematics and impact the world (including you!), as we study:  

• Geometry of our Earth and Universe: How we measure and view the world around us and decide what is the nature of reality.
• Personal Finance: How we apply algebra to interest formulas and decisions we make about our own lives.
• Consumer Statistics: How probability and statistical techniques allow us to recognize the misrepresentations of studies and make public and private policy decisions.
• What is Mathematics? To reflect more broadly about the course themes as we tie the segments together.  You can choose a topic you are interested in and research how mathematics relates to it or you can design a creative review of what we covered in class. You will communicate your expertise in a poster presentation session.  

WRC 1103.101 INVESTIGATIONS LOCAL: (BE)LONGING: IDENTITY FORMATIONS IN 19 th-CENTURY AMERICAN ARTS

• Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
• Instructor: Audrey Fessler
• Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm & TR 2:00pm-3:15pm

Historian David Shi identifies the "process of forging an American identity" as one of the "overarching themes of the early American republic [that] continues to resonate today." Late-18 th -century political writings such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution grounded this unitary (and therefore exclusionary) effort. In the early 1800s, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and others began to establish a canon of "American" literature; in 1828, Webster published the first American Dictionary of the English Language, which sought to identify and consolidate a specifically "American" language. How did subsequent writers and artists in other media appropriate, challenge, expand, redefine, and otherwise respond to foundational conceptions of "an American identity"? In answering this question, we will explore a wide range of 19 th -century short stories, novels, poems, slave narratives, dream narratives, speeches, paintings, cartoons, songs, and folk art productions, and will visit local museums and attend local artistic
performances together.

WRC 1103.102 INVESTIGATIONS LOCAL: FOOD CULTURE, FOOD POLITICS, FOOD JUSTICE

• Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
• Instructor: Julia Kark Callander
• Time: MW 2:00pm-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 involves 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: DEMOCRACY: AN OWNER'S MANUAL

• Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar (including Honors) and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
• Instructor: Joseph Gonzalez
• Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm & TR 2:00-3:15pm

Democracy is under attack. Both in the United States and Western Europe, substantial numbers of citizens express disillusion with or contempt for democratic governance. Perhaps most troubling of all, young people (by some measures) express the greatest degree of indifference, refusing to participate in important democratic and civic rituals, such as voting. This semester we will consider how we came to this point--and what we can do about it. In the best traditions of Watauga, we will explore the foundations upon which our republic was created, some of the crises it has endured, and its current state. Just as important, we will investigate democratic institutions locally and nationally, critically evaluating the U.S. Constitution and local organizations, such as schools, newspapers, and service clubs, that contribute to our civic life. Students will emerge from the course with an enhanced sense of how they can both participate in and care for the institutions that make our republic function.

WRC 1103.104 INVESTIGATIONS LOCAL: METAMORPHOSES IN LIFE: LOVE AND DEATH

• Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar (including Honors) and ENG/RC 1000 for Watauga College students.
• Instructor: Michael Dale
• Time: MW 2:00pm-3:15pm & TR 11:00am-1:45pm 

Love and death are oftentimes experienced as seismic upheavals in our lives; we are changed in puzzling, perhaps even mysterious ways by these two forces, sometimes delightfully and sometimes terrifyingly or painfully. In love, suddenly someone or something that perhaps we did not even know existed comes into our life and now is seen and felt as a presence we cannot imagine living without. In death, as the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins puts it, "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." How should we see and understand the experiences and transformations wrought by love and death? The question is especially important in a society that frequently trivializes love, and at times and in some circumstances, makes death something to either be avoided, not spoken of, or a spectacle of entertainment.

WRC 1103.105 INVESTIGATIONS LOCAL: STORIES CAN SAVE US

• Gen Ed. Attribute: Serves as First Year Seminar and ENG/RC 1000
• Instructor: Joseph Bathanti
• Time: TR 11:00am-1:45pm; TR 2:00-3:15pm

Words are all we have,” Samuel Beckett reminds us. All of us bear stories and they all matter, and I would hazard that sharing stories comes as naturally to humans of every stripe as breathing. Stories make us jointly human. They kindle intimacy. Stories can save us even when we don’t know we need saving – by returning us to who we are essentially, by underscoring what matters most to us, by taking us back home, wherever that home might reside – an abstract in all likelihood. Tim O’Brien writes, in his short story, “Spin,” from The Things They Carried: “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." This course will tackle story from a generous vantage. While the bulk of the reading will be short stories, some classic, some obscure, we’ll also read/view other kinds of stories: poems, memoirs, essays, interviews, film, even a play or two – and we’ll host a few guests who will share their spellbinding stories with us.  And, of course, you will write some stories too.

WRC 2001.101 28607: DAYS IN THE LIFE - ENVIRONMENT, SPACE, PLACE

• Gen Ed Attribute: Sophomore Writing, Fills ENG/RC 2001 requirements
• Instructor: Jessica Martell
• Time: TR 3:30pm-4:45pm

This course theme, "Environment, Space, Place," explores what it means to be living in Appalachia during the Anthropocene Era, a newly-coined geological period in which human activity disrupts, accelerates, or changes natural processes that we used to think of as purely non-human. The Anthropocene is an interdisciplinary concept designed to engage all three academic disciplines, none of which, on their own, can effectively address the environmental threats that humanity will face in the century to come. By honing our practices of reading, writing, and critical thinking in this course, we will investigate the outcomes of this new era as we consider our place in, and our responsibilities to, our own region, country, and planet in a time of great ecological upheaval. Along the way, we will take a deep dive into the energy policies that have taken their toll on the southern Appalachian Mountains so that we can study the threat of the global environmental crisis as it creeps within close range of our 28607 postal code. Our final projects will rely on credible research from all three disciplines to inspire academic and creative works that speak to our shared future as Appalachians.

WRC 2001.102 28607: DAYS IN THE LIFE - ENVIRONMENT, SPACE, PLACE

• Gen Ed Attribute: Sophomore Writing, Fills ENG/RC 2001 requirements
• Instructor: Jessica Martell
• Time: MWF 2:00pm-2:50pm

See above.

WRC 2201.101 HEARING VOICES: SCIENCE AND NATURE IN LITERATURE

• Gen Ed Attribute: Integrative Learning Experience Theme; Literary Studies Designation
• Instructor: Michael Dale
• Time: TR 9:30am-10:45am

Living in relationships with the natural world (land, oceans, and the larger universe of galaxies and star systems) 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 explore and examine the intellectual and emotional landscape of fictional and non-fiction beings as they are immersed in and navigate the world of science and nature. What happens when the sciences and humanities meet? What do we learn about science and the all-too-human human beings who pursue scientific knowledge and understanding when both are brought together on the landscapes of novels, short stories, poems, and essays? What do we hear from the voices of science and scientists in narrative literature and poetry?

Possible Books:
Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever
Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Annie Dillard, For The Time Being
J.M. Ledgard, Submergence
Richard Powers, The Echo Maker, The Overstory
Anthony Doerr, The Shell Collector

WRC 2202.101 WHAT IF? ASKING HISTORICAL QUESTIONS: "WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED?!" EXPLORING EARLY MODERN ENGLAND THROUGH NARRATIVE HISTORY AND HISTORICAL FICTION

• Gen Ed Attribute:  Integrated Learning Experience theme; Historical Studies designation
• Instructor: Marjon Ames
• Time: MWF 11:00am-11:50am (Section 101); MWF 9:00am-9:50am (Section 102)

How do we know what we think we know? What informs our understanding of the past? This course examines both historical nonfiction and fictionalized accounts of Tudor-Stuart England to help us shape the ways we think about this seminal period in history. Students read a variety of historical works in order to form a foundation of techniques and theories on which to build. Students read fiction in conjunction with nonfiction, and consider what makes for successful storytelling and why it has fascinated people throughout history. Students examine different storytelling techniques employed, question the quality of the portrayal of the historical backdrop, and observe how different approaches in narrative can result in different stories. The course's main foci are the stories told by the students themselves. By the end of the semester, each student is expected to produce a substantial piece of historical fiction. The class is structured around a series of workshops in which students lead the discussions and critique each other's work.

IDS 2204.101  CONTEMPLATIVE LEADERSHIP AND PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

• Gen Ed Attribute:  Liberal Studies Experience
• Instructor: Janet Gray
• Time: TR 12:30pm-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: Patience Perry
• Time: F 11:00am-1:45pm

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. Meeting once each week, participants should be prepared to dance, cook, taste, paint, and play; therefore, dress appropriately and bring your curiosity..

WRC 2403.101 THE PRACTICE OF POETRY: WHERE YOUR LIFE STILL MATTERS

• Instructor: Joseph Bathanti
• Time: TR 3:30pm-4:45pm

 "A creative-writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters," claims the great Northwest poet, Richard Hugo. This course introduces the basics of poetry writing. It tackles poetry through a “writerly eye” (reading like a writer) and pays careful attention to the kinds of craft (a protean word we’ll use regularly and seek to define contextually) choices that influence the emotional impact and meaning of a given poem. The class will also provide students with an overall context for poetry: its scope; trends; its development, especially during the mid-20^th and 21^st centuries, with a decided lean toward American poetry (of a narrative vein), but with a keen eye of diversity, multiculturalism; its leading practitioners; and various “kinds” of poetry, including formalism and free verse. An extremely important component of the course will be careful readings and analyses of poems from a number of realms and “schools.” Approximately half the class time will be spent workshopping student-generated poems, and each student will have the opportunity to workshop two poems. We’ll also engage occasionally in in-class writing assignments and hopefully do a bit of writing out of the classroom. Our ultimate aim, by the end of the semester, is to have an understanding of, and instinct for, various elements and strategies – all revolving around craft choices – employed by writers in building/composing poems, elements and strategies you can then employ in your own poetry. Regardless of whether you consider yourself primarily a poet, fiction writer, or creative nonfiction writer – and even if you’ve never attempted to write a poem before – this course is the right place for you.

WRC 2405.101 LIVING AND LEARNING IN COMMUNITY: A ROAD MAP TO SUCCESS 

• Instructor: Holly Ambler
• Time: MW 3:30pm-4:45pm 

“Self-Construction never stops. There’s no finish line. Life is an open-ended pursuit that constantly leads us to new truths, and those truths can only come from within ourselves.” This quote from Roadmap by Brian McAllister, Mike Mariner and Nathan Gebhard illustrates the concepts that will be explored in this class. In this course we will investigate personal development, community development, responsible citizenship and individual/community identity. In addition we will look at your strengths and skills combined with interests to examine or confirm your choice of academic major and career path. We will use the knowledge gained about individual and community development to examine what it means to be successful. Various books, media and readings will be resources as we investigate the concept of living and learning in community. 

WRC 3000: INTERROGATING POPULAR CULTURE: THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN MASS HYSTERIA

• Instructor: Dr. Kelly Ann Renwick

Mass hysteria occurs when a group of people exhibit overwhelming or unmanageable fear or behave with emotional excess. Traditionally, in medicine, mass hysteria has referred to the spontaneous manifestation of hysterical physical symptoms such as uncontrollable dancing among a group of people. Today, mass hysteria is more closely associated with a collective illusion of threats as a result of rumors or fear; a response commonly found after the overdramatization of events in the media. From the War of the Worlds in 1938 to the stigmatizing of disease, this class will explore the methods and events in which the media has instilled fear or driven the public to emotional excess. We will explore various social science methods (including textual content analysis, cross-cultural comparison, interview, and participant observation) for understanding the deeper meaning and social significance of the role of the media in popular culture.

WRC 3203.101 WHY ART? 

• Gen Ed Attribute: Integrative Learning Experience Theme; Fine Arts Designation
• Instructor: Mel Falck
• Time: T 5:00-7:30pm 

An integrative and creative encounter with multi-modal artistic processes as a means of exploring unique inquiries and responses to natural, social, and constructed environments. Artistic forms studied may include visual art, dance, drama, poetry, music, puppetry, and/or film.    

WRC 3401.101 MYTH AND MEANING; STORYTELLING, TELLING STORIES

• Gen Ed Attribute: Hist & Soc Theme-Culture in Social Practice and Liberal Studies Experience, Literary Studies Designation
• Instructor: Clark Maddux
• Time: MW 3:30pm-4:45pm 

"This class will explore how truth and meaning are created through telling stories. The literature we will read and discuss will explore how authors and characters use stories to create personal truth and apply meaning to the world around them. These stories will help students discuss ideas of why humans tell stories, what stories mean in our own culture, and how we can use our own stories to be heard. The class will also look at how stories are used to construct identity and how stories are used to manipulate how people, places, and ideas are perceived. We will discuss the circulation of stories and how stories can be used to create both myth and meaning."

WRC 4001.101 SEMINAR IN EXPERIENTIAL INTEGRATIVE LEARNING

• Instructor: Clark Maddux
• Time: MWF 9:00-9:50am

This is the culminating course for the Watauga minor. In this class, we'll compare the history and organization of Watauga Residential College with other residential colleges. Students will draft and revise a written reflection on their own experience in WRC; draft and revise a seminar paper on the history of WRC; compose an annotated bibliography related to residential colleges; develop an original policy or procedure designed to improve the work of the College and present research, findings, and recommendations to the faculty of the College. Students will also compile a final portfolio containing evidence of their work in the minor during this class and submit it on Aportfolio.