The New Student Seminar Program, a required experience for new students entering the college with fewer than one full-time semester of college credit, is designed to facilitate a successful transition to college. Grading System: S-U only.
This course is designed for students who are uncertain of their major or career. Activities are designed to accommodate students with different degrees of decidedness. Assignments involve self-exploration, occupational research, and an informational interview. Lectures, small group activities, guest speakers, off-campus employer visits, multi-media, individual consultation, self-assessments, and use of career theories constitute some of the techniques used to deliver instruction in the course. The course concludes with an introduction to the job search process and the development of an action plan to achieve one’s goals.
This course includes an overview of career decision-making that assist students with the exploration of life goals, educational planning, and career development. Activities are designed to accommodate students with different degrees of decidedness. Assignments involve self-assessment, occupational research, and resume writing. Students may not take both GENL 100 and GENL 100A.
Students participating in an approved interim, summer or semester-long study abroad experience register for this course.
An intensive opportunity for students to learn to adopt methods to promote their success in college. Participants will explore specific strategies for managing time commitments, improving memory, taking notes and studying for tests.
Art for Social Change: Intersections of Art, Identity, and Advocacy. Explore the ways in which artistic expression defines, preserves, and transforms cultural identity. This class is taught in partnership with Pillsbury House + Theatre, an innovative center for creativity and community. Students meet and intern with PH+T staff, resident artists, and a myriad of leaders from the City Council, neighborhood associations, and local businesses. Students receive mentorship from public artists to create their own community-engaged art projects, allowing them to explore their personal identity, power, and perspective.
Inequality in America: Policy, Community, and the Politics of Empowerment. This course delves deeply into the complex causes and impacts of the unprecedented gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. Students engage in a hands-on examination of the social systems that feed increases in poverty and inequality. In a simultaneous internship with a local nonprofit, students begin to test and implement their own change-making skills. Everyone leaves the classroom with increased confidence in their own abilities to effect change in their communities.
This is an interdisciplinary course, which includes an international travel experience during spring break. This course is seen as a fundamental expression of what a liberal arts education is all about: moving beyond the immediate into the larger world, developing a resiliency and capacity to serve a changing world. Students are pushed to critically examine their own and other points of view. This course is by invitation only. No Audits. Grading system: S/U only
Students examine the legacy of violent conflict, and experience the powerful role citizens can play as agents of social transformation. Students travel through Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as part of integrated learning experiences that connect classroom with community. During a seven-week internship, students get hands-on experience with organizations working for social change.
In less than fifty years, Norway moved from being one of the poorest and most homogenous countries in Europe to one of the richest in the world with a multicultural population. Coursework and an internship provide unique perspectives on how the Norwegian social democracy and Scandinavian welfare states are working to address the challenges posed by immigration and cultural and ethnic diversity. Students choose an independent study project or Norwegian language courses.
Based in Quito, Ecuador. Hands-on internship means deep involvement in a community-based organization and study of the community development process. A home-stay also develops Spanish and real-world skills. Topics include globalization, the environment, oil politics, and key local and international issues.
Conducted in English. Examines socioeconomic issues in Ecuador, especially the country’s growing inequality and the new social movements to address this crisis. Topics: indigenous rights, gender equality, the protection and management of natural resources, Ecuador’s new constitution, comparison with other parts of Latin America. Fieldwork and NGO site visits in capital city of Quito and rural communities in the Amazon and the mountains of Imbabura province. Spanish helpful but not necessary: homestay host families contain at least one English speaker, and translators provided in the field.
Trace the history of the civil rights movement through the South. See how America’s present is inextricably linked to its past. Field experiences, readings, videos, and class discussions center the past and present of racial oppression and movements for racial equality in America. Offered in partnership with the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute in Jackson Mississippi, with trips to Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana.
Environmental Sustainability: Ecology, Policy, and Social Transformation. Four linked courses reveal the dynamic interplay between ecological and social change. This program builds hands-on knowledge of key processes of ecosystem degradation and recovery, the social and economic underpinnings of conflict over environmental change, and public policy and community-based strategies that strive towards sustainability. An integrated approach to environmental issues addresses the linkages between ecological, economic, and social systems. Professional internships provide access to the vibrant environmental movement in the Twin Cities.
New Zealand Culture and the Environment: A Shared Future. Over the course of this semester-long program students get to know the people, places, and ideas that have driven developments such as truth and reconciliation processes between government and the indigenous Māori peoples, and sustainable environmental and governance reforms. Students spend the first months traveling by bus to key biodiversity and cultural sites, learning, cooking, and discussing together. The next three months are based in Wellington, where students attend class, complete an independent study project, and are placed in an internship with a local NGO.
Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and Justice in Italy. Students live and study on a working farm estate 12 miles outside of Florence. They explore the historical, economic, and political contexts of food and sustainability as they meet and work with vendors, producers, farmers and theorists. All students complete a brief course in Italian Language; the program itself is taught in English. Internship placement sites include the farmers’ market in the village of Montespertoli, local farms, artisanal producers of cheese and gelato in nearby Florence, and the Castello Sonnino estate itself.
This class provides the first phase of training in the career of an Emergency Medical Technician. The class consists of 120 hours of instruction including didactic, practical labs, and hospital trauma center observation. The course work emphasizes the development of the student's skill in recognition of the signs and symptoms of illnesses and injuries, and the proper performance of emergency care procedures. CPR Healthcare Provider is a prerequisite or co-requisite (may be taken during class for a fee). Upon completion of the course, the student is eligible for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technician-Basic practical and written examinations conducted by the SD Department of Public Safety EMS Division. Additional fees apply. Grading: S/U
This study course travels Northern India. Students study the Ramayana and the Bhavagad Gita as foundation texts. Students are introduced to Indian music, performing artists, and the tradition of yoga. Students study Hinduism on the banks of the Ganges and Buddhism under the branches of the Bodhi Tree. The course begins in Delhi, India’s capital city, and continues to Agra, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Jaipur, Kolkata, and Haridwar. At each site students explore literature, history, culture, and music that express the truths of the religious traditions.
Internships permit students the opportunity to explore and obtain practical experience in a professional area of interest. Permission of Advisor and Department Chairperson is required.
Internships permit students the opportunity to explore and obtain practical experience in a professional area of interest. Permission of Advisor and Department Chairperson is required.