perspective course requirement in the Bachelor of Arts in Individualized Studies Degree program

SOCI 2244 3 credits

Society: Disaster and Disease

This course will explore the differences and similarities in communication styles by gender, analyzing communication situations and the effect that culture and socialization play on the development of communications styles, behaviors and attitudes.

Basic Concepts of stratification analysis, including theories of class structure, factors determining class membership, differential class behavior and social mobility are reviewed.

Training in the organization of ideas and effective delivery through practice in speaking before an audience

Fairleigh Dickinson University requires all students to complete a common University Core curriculum consisting of four integrated courses with a strong emphasis on the liberal arts. Transfer

students receiving transfer credit for 30-59 credits are exempt from

one of the core courses; students transferring 60 or more credits are exempt from a second core course.

The Global Challenge demonstrates that global dimensions of several crucial contemporary issues, including the problem of global

environment, health and population concerns. It also underlines the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding these

issues. The course will run for 12 weeks. Students will attend a series of master lecture given by Fairleigh Dickinson University

faculty via a video teleconferencing system. In addition to the VTC meetings, much of the course will be conducted in an on-line available on-line.
CORE 2007 3 credits

Perspectives on the Individual

Within the Western World, we traditionally begin with the self in antithetical relationship to all others. The study involves readings of

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaiden’s Tale”, Plato’s “Crito” and “Apology”, selections from Pico Della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and “Ode on Intimations of Mortality”, Freud and Tillie Olsen’s “Tell Me a Riddle”

amongst others. The course concludes with the autobiography of Malcolm X and deals with such topics as the lifelong search for self and the transformation of the self through catharsis. Specific readings may change from time to time.

This course begins with a text, such as Chinua Achebe’e Things Fall Apart, which includes the theme of cross-cultural conflict. Four geographical regions will serve as the focus of the course: China,

Latin America, Sub-Sahara Africa and Egypt. These regions may vary from time to time. The course will not attempt an in-depth study of the cultural values of these regions but, rather, will seek to introduce students to the concept of cultural diversity through

illustration. The course will center around four organizing subjects or themes: 1) livelihood, 2) family, 3) social organization and 4) world view.

Starting with close readings of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream”, the course will explore the concept of the promise of freedom. Through the examination of central texts and issues in American culture, we also explore to what degree the promise has been fulfilled. Texts will include novels, plays, poems, essays and autobiographical writings representing such authors as Benjamin Franklin, Thoreau, Upton Sinclair, Frederick Douglas, Dudley Randall and Langston Hughes.