Fall 2020 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.

ACE Component: Students will be partaking in the biennial Elections Engagement project, helping to register voters, volunteer for political campaigns, serve as election judges, and participate in other election related activities of their choosing.

The dynamic, multidimensional character of American culture originates in the journeys and encounters of groups defined by race/ethnicity and factors such as gender, religion, sexual orientation, and social class. As they respond to opportunities, challenges, and conflicts, groups construct meaning and produce art and literature. Using the tools of social science and artistic and literary studies, students examine resulting changes and how institutions, ideas, and policies shape (and are shaped by) these processes.

ACE Component: Students will be partaking in the biennial Elections Engagement project, helping to register voters, volunteer for political campaigns, serve as election judges, and participate in other election related activities of their choosing.

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.

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. This term’s partners include the City of Northfield, the Environmental Studies department, and St. Olaf Facilities.

A capstone seminar for seniors in the major, this course involves intensive study of special topics through reflective writing, student generated research projects, presentations, and a grant proposal. Topics relate to local or regional environmental issues of interest to the students, and it provides participants with opportunities to interact with alumni, government and regulatory agencies, and community groups. The work culminates in a grant proposal where students rely on the expertise gained from their environmental studies courses and work in other majors as applicable.

ACE Component: Students will have the option to work in small groups and write a grant proposal on behalf of a local organization. This term’s partners include the City of Northfield and the Community Action Center.

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.

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.

ACE Component: Students will be trained to facilitate the Matter of Balance program, an evidence based health promotion, at FiftyNorth.

In an age of information overload, stories can rise above the noise. Effective organizational storytelling helps to engage an intended community on a meaningful and emotional level. Students will explore the craft of storytelling and study a variety of media (analogue and digital) on which the story can be delivered. The course will include case study analysis, group work and client-based projects.

ACE Component: Students will work in small groups to develop storytelling materials (print and digital) for clients.

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.

ACE Component: Students will work on collecting a musical time capsule around protest music in the lead-up to the 2020 Election and/or writing their own protest songs to share with the wider public.

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 a public health project for Steele County Public Health.

Physics 232, the third course in the three-semester calculus-based sequence, explores special relativity, waves and oscillations, and the quantum mechanics of light and matter. Students attend lectures and one 2.5-hour laboratory per week.

ACE Component: Students will create take-and-go STEM kits for local youth around physics concepts discussed in the course that will be distributed through the Northfield Public Library.

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 help lead voter mobilization efforts on campus or serve as election judges during the general election.

Individuals, communities, and organizations have found ways to address even the most egregious state abuses of human rights and other injustices. Using comparative analysis, this course considers cases and theories of nonviolent personal and political resistance and the factors that appear to contribute to people taking action and to successful responses. Students research and analyze cases of their choosing in light of the literature.

ACE Component: Students work on social action projects that address an injustice with various community partners or for the general public good.

This course prepares students with tools for understanding how research studies in psychology are conceptualized, designed, and ethically conducted, and how data is analyzed, interpreted, and disseminated. Students apply this understanding in independent and small group research projects. In the process, students develop critical reading, thinking, and scientific writing skills.

ACE Component: Students will be conducting various surveys whose results and recommendations will be shared with various stakeholders in the St. Olaf community.

This seminar examines the amazing, transformational journey from birth to age three. Topics include prenatal development, birth and the newborn, physical and motor development, caregiver relationships, infant mental health, cognition, and language development. Students explore questions such as: how long-lasting are the effects of early experiences? How is early development similar and how is it different across diverse cultural contexts? How do nature and nurture interact to influence development? How can research findings help infants?

ACE Component: Students will create interactive kits and educational videos to be used in the Growing Up Healthy program.

This course introduces first-year students to the dialogue between Biblical traditions and the cultures and communities related to them. Students study major Biblical texts and their interaction with, for example, theology, religious practice, ethics, and social values, while considering methods and fields in the study of religion in a liberal arts setting.

ACE Component: Students will work on describing and analyzing biblical references in election campaigns that will then be shared with others in the St. Olaf community.

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.

This course provides a comprehensive research opportunity, including an introduction to relevant background material, technical instruction, identification of a meaningful project, and data collection.

ACE Component: Students will conduct a mixed-methods research project on various NGOs nationwide and their responses to the pandemic. Results will be shared back with various NGOs and associations for use in their work.

Required for the women’s and gender studies major and concentration, this course introduces students to the concept of gender as a category of analysis. It is designed for students who seek a fuller understanding of themselves as women and men and a wider knowledge of the experiences and achievements of women.

ACE Component: Students will work in small groups to create and facilitate a Living Room Conversation dialogue and deliberation with peers at St. Olaf College around a theme related to Women and Gender Studies.