Interim 2021 ACE Courses

This seminar integrates the liberal arts with the experience of work and the search for a vocation or career. Course content will include both an off-campus internship and on- campus class sessions that connect academic theories/analyses of work with their particular internship experience. Students will also consider and articulate the value of the liberal arts for their pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life.

ACE Component: Students will complete internships in a variety of nonprofit and for-profit settings and reflect upon how the work they are doing–within the organization and beyond–impacts different communities.

Students study how music can engage and advocate for those on the margins of society, inspiring social justice movements. Analyzing historical and current events, class members design a musical project that can empower a people, group or organization in addressing moral and social problems such as racial inequality, rural or urban violence, or prison reform. A Christian normative framework, along with religious and secular alternatives, help guide the ethics implications pertaining to this subject.

ACE Component: Two student musicians performed in Chapel on MLK Day (January 18, 2021). Four students share their reflections for the web story about St. Olaf’s MLK Day. The whole class worked on development of a Music and Social Justice web site for the campus community with an annotated playlist, student reflections, and five group projects that address social justice issues in music. In addition, the group worked on mock grant proposal to fund the group projects.

Participants prepare for performance of a one-act opera or opera scenes. Students receive coaching and performance experience through individual and group singing/acting exercises. The course culminates with staged and costumed public performances.

ACE Component: Students will conduct advocacy work on anti-racist curricula with Opera America, the National Opera Association and the Minnesota Opera, and, using ACE funding, purchase permanent acquisitions for the Halverson Music Library of operatic repertoire by BIPOC composers.  

In this course, students will develop a bibliography of editorials written in response to Greta Thunberg and the school strikes movement in news outlets from both the United States and Scandinavia. Using the method of rhetorical analysis, they will identify the major arguments put forth in these editorials and work together to compare the modes of argumentation common in each region. Students will also gain background knowledge about Thunberg, Scandinavian feminism and Scandinavian concepts of youth and youth rights.

ACE Component: Students will work with youth at Arcadia Charter School on creating and sharing information about Thunberg and the school strikes movement.

This course gives students the opportunity to work on real world physics and engineering problems. Companies, non-profits, and other organizations provide projects relevant and important to the organizations’ goals. Students work in teams to approach these projects from an engineering design perspective that emphasizes hands-on work, prototyping, and organizational skills.

ACE Component: Students work with two businesses to develop solutions to engineering problems that they face.

The product of the political process is public policy. This course surveys the major areas of domestic public policy in the United States: education, welfare, health, housing, the environment, and the economy with special attention to the impact of public policies on women and minorities.

ACE Component: Students work with public and private policy makers on policy research and development projects.

ACE Component: Students work on complete a Racial Equity Profile for the City of Northfield.

This course examines theological and ethical aspects of Christian social responsibility. It examines the meaning and normative import of Christian faith for justice and love in relational spheres (politics, economics, marriage and family, gender relations). It also explores the ethical implications of central Christian doctrines (vocation, sin, grace, two kingdoms, creation). Issues raised include civil disobedience, use of lethal force, distributive justice, love and self-sacrifice, and gender roles.

ACE Component: Students will conduct deliberative dialogues with peers on topics of justice and social change on MLK Day and during the final week of Interim.

Students explore service to human beings as a profession, both vocation and avocation. Who needs help? Who helps? Where? How? What motivates people to help? Using the liberal arts as a foundation for helping people, students study opportunities in areas such as health care, social services, ministry, youth work, and the arts. The class includes lectures, discussions, speakers, and field visits.

ACE Component: More info coming soon!