Fall 2018 ACE Courses

Americans have long understood their diverse identities through stories. This course analyzes familiar and less familiar narratives that have formed and re-formed identity in the context of American culture. Students examine literary works, histories, cultural artifacts, and media, paying attention to the forms and themes through which the American experience is constructed. They develop their own writing skills.

ACE Component: Students participate in voter and election engagement activities of their choosing, including voter registration, volunteering for League of Women Voter events, exit polling, and campaign volunteering.

Burgeoning cities and industrialism, an emerging market economy, changing opportunities for women, an influx of immigrants, and the migration of African Americans to urban centers — all opened questions of freedom of expression, distribution of resources, and American identity. Topics and texts range from the Statue of Liberty and the World’s Columbian Exposition to the Model T Ford and the Harlem Renaissance.

ACE Component: Students participate in voter and election engagement activities of their choosing, including voter registration, volunteering for League of Women Voter events, exit polling, and campaign volunteering.

Drawing the human form from life has been a mainstay in the training of artists since the Renaissance because of its unparalleled discipline in the training of the eye. Along with becoming better observers, students reach a personal understanding of the figure and an appreciation of its art-historical uses. Various media and techniques are explored as a means to understand the expressive possibilities of the figure.

ACE Component: Students will work with participants in Greenvale Park Community School’s Zumba class to create gestural drawings and portraits.

Class members participate in undergraduate research, including readings from the research literature, team development of project software, ethical analysis of their project applying CSCI 263 principles, documentation practices, and writing a research paper for public presentation.

This course addresses the reception of migrants in relationship to education and ethics. Students interrogate laws, policies, practices, and foundational belief systems involved in immigration while learning about normative perspectives in ethics. They interrogate best practices for teaching and interacting with refugees, immigrants and immigrant communities that reflect moral responsibility. Required for ESL licensure, and highly relevant for all educators and those interested in immigration.

ACE Component: 10-hour service component working with immigrants or refugees in an educational setting in the community.

Solving complex environmental problems and generating creative work requires the integration and application of multiple ways of knowing. Team projects connected to community needs bring the department’s three areas of emphasis into conversation within an experiential learning framework. The course attends to the nature of environmental inquiry and creativity, one’s own perspectives and values, and how to use one’s knowledge and skills to contribute in personal, civic and work related roles.

ACE Component: In cooperation with a community partner teams of students will participate in a project fulfilling an identified local need, such as research, planning and execute a community event, inventorying and documenting various features of natural environments, etc.

Students study in-depth the physiology of exercise, covering cardiovascular and muscular adaptions to exercise and factors affecting performance, including body composition, environmental influences, training implications across gender and age, and the assessment of fitness. The course includes a laboratory component. Offered annually. Counts toward neuroscience concentration. Prerequisite: junior standing and BIO 143 and BIO 243 or permission of instructor.

ACE Component: Students will offer free baseline measurements to the great St. Olaf community (faculty, staff, and students). During the process, participants will receive not only the measurements, but information about the measurement testing and suggestions for how to improve their health based on their individual measurements.

Students examine Germany’s successful sustainability initiatives and their roots in a long history of cultural values and scientific innovation. They study primary and secondary sources including interviews, journalistic articles, literary works, and films; these texts form the basis of students’ written and oral analyses. Drawing on diverse disciplinary perspectives, students gain transferable knowledge and skills for addressing complex international environmental concerns.

ACE Component: Students will work with the City of Northfield’s Climate Action Plan Advisory Board to research and present best practices in Germany that could be useful and adaptable to the creation and implementation of Northfield’s Climate Action Plan.

This course introduces the key elements of marketing principles. Topics include evaluating market opportunities; buyer behavior; market segmentation, targeting, and positioning; market strategy and planning; development of marketing mix; and marketing organization and control. Students are challenged to apply the principles learned in class to current and real world marketing issues.

ACE Component: Students will work in small groups to develop marketing plans for clients.

This studio course focuses on advanced techniques of acting and singing for the musical stage with emphasis on opera. Students explore voice, movement, improvisation, and characterization at an advanced level. Participants receive coaching in musical and dramatic style through solo and small ensemble literature and prepare scenes for class performance. The course culminates with public performances of a fully staged and costumed lyric theater work.

ACE Component: Students will create an “Intro to Opera” performance to tour to local schools.

This course introduces the philosophical and scientific foundations of professional nursing. Students examine historical foundations of the nursing profession and scientific processes and frameworks underlying nursing theory and practice. Exploration of concepts in the nursing discipline builds knowledge and understanding essential to the provision of holistic patient care across the lifespan. Emphasis is on development of professionalism, use of critical thinking, and evidence-based practice.

ACE Component: Students implement a one-time project/activity at the Northfield Head Start.

Public health nursing is informed by community needs and environmental factors focusing on health promotion and disease prevention. Through project management, students address the health needs of groups and communities utilizing group communication processes, teamwork, and collaboration. Students focus on utilizing community resources, identifying risk factors, and evaluating the impact on population health as related to current epidemiological trends.

ACE Component: Students prepare presentations on puberty and adolescent concerns for 5th and 6th graders at Medford Public Schools. In addition, students help coordinate and facilitate county employee health fairs in Rice and Steele Counties.

Political parties have traditionally served to organize the American electoral process but not to govern. Is their role changing? This course examines party organization, candidate recruitment, campaign strategies, the role of the media, election financing, and citizen participation.

ACE Component: Students will administer exit poll surveys on Election Day 2018 and analyze data to present at a mini-conference at St. Olaf College on December 6, 2018 (open to the public).

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the principles of American constitutional law as well as the political struggles that shaped them. The course focuses not only on constitutional doctrine, but also on competing interpretations and political effects of landmark decisions. This course emphasizes debates over civil rights and civil liberties that have been central to modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.

ACE Component: Students will facilitate Constitution Day activities on September 17 for the St. Olaf community, including “Constitution Day Conversations and Coffees” and a “Propose a 28th Amendment” table.

Political parties have traditionally served to organize the American electoral process but not to govern. Is their role changing? This course examines party organization, candidate recruitment, campaign strategies, the role of the media, election financing, and citizen participation.

ACE Component: Students will administer exit poll surveys on Election Day 2018 and analyze data to present at a mini-conference at St. Olaf College on December 6, 2018 (open to the public).

This course examines the basic principles and methods of psychological science from an evolutionary and cultural perspective. Students use critical thinking skills to examine fascinating topics: dreaming, cultural influences, identity, learning, thinking, and the biology of behavior. Applying basic research methods, students act as skeptical scientists. This course applies to almost any career choice in today’s world and provides insight into self and others.

ACE Component: Students will make a presentation about a topic in psychology to local youth in Northfield Public Schools.

Social work majors study the methods and skills of social work practice, particularly intercultural communication. They describe strengths and problems of diverse individuals and families; frame goals and plans for change utilizing the planned change process and the systems perspective; and use ethical decision-making, informed by the scientific method, grounded in the liberal arts, and concerned with social justice. Students demonstrate learning in recorded role playing and have an academic civic engagement experience.

ACE Component: The story-partners project pairs students with an older community member residing at the Northfield Retirement Center. Students meet with their partner 6-8 times throughout the course of the semester for the specific purpose of encouraging their partners to tell stories about their lives. Students practice what they have learned through role-playing in class such as active listening and asking clarifying questions, which helps to build their one-on-one conversation and interviewing skills. The volunteer participants gain an enthusiastic listener, validation for their experiences, and the opportunity to reflect upon their lives.

The course provides an overview of how structural oppression across cultural positions (e.g. race, sexuality, ability, class) may affect client systems. Students integrate awareness, knowledge, and skills for engaging in anti-oppressive, inclusive practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. This includes role plays assisting clients who are challenged by oppression as part of their presenting problems and brief immersions with diverse communities.