Other Courses

These additional courses are taught on a recurring basis.  The most recent semester and the professor are noted, in case students are interested in particular topics and want to contact the instructor.

AMERICAN STUDIES 302: Workshop in Field Methods (Fall 2007)
Prof. Cary Cordova
The coursework was designed to give students an understanding of the social and economic history of Downtown Carlisle while teaching them methods in conducting fieldwork. Reading material compared suburban economies, like those promulgated by “big box” stores such as Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, with more centralized downtown economies which thrive on small businesses. Students conducted fieldwork in downtown Carlisle by participant-observation, neighborhood canvassing, and oral history interviews. How has the success of Wal-Mart been connected to notions of work, capitalism, and desire? What happened to the vitality of small towns in the United States? What would local business owners have to say about the movement of economic energy away from the center of town?

The class partnered with the Downtown Carlisle Association, the High I Project, and the Cumberland County Historical Society to produce a web-based project dedicated to the history of downtown Carlisle. Drawing on themes both the students and these three partner programs value, such as the effect of a store like Wal-Mart on the economy of downtown Carlisle business, students conducted field interviews and gathered stories which were presented to leaders of these partner programs and the interviewees, and digitized for the web-based museum.

ANTHROPOLOGY 240: Qualitative Research Methods  

Professor Kjell Enge 

This course introduces students to the theory and methods of social science research, beginning with an examination of the philosophies underlying various research methodologies. The course then focuses on ethnographic field methods, introducing students to the techniques of participant observation, structured and informal interviewing, oral histories, sociometrics, and content analysis. Students will undertake community-based research projects.

COMMUNITY STUDIES 225: Community and Environment (Spring 2006)
Professor Jim Ellison and Lauren Imgrund 
This course provided students with knowledge and skills to be active participants in solving environmental problems. Students in this course learned an array of social science fieldwork methods, an appreciation of how such methods are applied to ascertain community knowledge and needs, and the means to negotiate the interests and needs of local communities and local government to produce a positive environmental outcome. Students examined the intersections of community lived experience, appropriate environmental practice, and the interests, abilities, and constraints of local government. In the Spring 2006 semester, the course focused on the issue of stormwater management, using the Borough of Carlisle as a unifying theme. Students worked together to develop a multidisciplinary project that provided direct community benefit.

ECONOMICS 314: Economic Policy and Recreation (Spring 2008)
Professor Bill Bellinger 

This course introduces the economic techniques used in the analysis of public policy and applies these techniques to a variety of social problems and policies.  The economic techniques taught include the analysis of market failure, benefit-cost analysis, and economic impact analysis.  This semester’s extended case study was the economics of recreation in South-Central Pennsylvania.

Students focused on such subtopics as hunting, hiking, fishing, state parks, and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.  How do you value a natural resource, a National Park, or a fishing trip?  The class developed a report to provide information for the community on the recreation capabilities of South-Central Pennsylvania.

ECONOMICS 496D: Urban Policy in Central Pennsylvania (Spring 2006)
Professor William Bellinger 
There are two general goals for this course. The first goal is to learn some basic concepts from urban and regional economics and apply them to local and regional problems and policies . The second is to gain experience as economic analysts through a professionally supervised “real world” study of an economic topic in the Carlisle or Harrisburg areas. Past class research topics have included the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, a survey of citizen satisfaction with Carlisle public services, and an analysis of the economic and social conditions of the Hope Station neighborhood in Carlisle. Class research activities are likely to include data collection and analysis, interviews with local leaders, local or regional field trips, and a presentation of our results in a public forum.

ENGLISH 214B: Writing in the Schools (Spring 2006)
Professor Sha’an Chilson
The coursework will prepare students to teach the elements of poetry to grade school children. Students will study contemporary American poetry and learning and determine what makes a poem before focusing on methods of teaching poetry and poetic elements that are specifically designed for grade school students. Students will spend time preparing creative lesson plans for fourth and fifth grade students.

Student service will be based on field placements in which teams of students go into local elementary schools and lead poetry workshops with grade school students.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 310: Estuarine Management, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 330: Environmental Disruption and Policy Analysis, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 335: Analysis and Management of the Aquatic Environment (Fall 2007)
Professors Candie Wilderman, Michael Heiman, Katherine McGurn Centellas
These courses are part of the LUCE semester. During the LUCE semester, students enroll in a single interdisciplinary, integrated course, for the equivalent of a student's normal 4-course load. The course combines classroom activities, community-based fieldwork research, independent study, and extensive travel and immersion. During the LUCE semester, students develop an understanding of the deep connections between natural resources and humans from multiple perspectives and within an immersion experience while gaining training in ecosystem analysis field techniques and being exposed to the cultural contexts in which environmental problems are created and in which solutions are conceived and implemented.

Student service is provided through community-based fieldwork research, independent study, and extensive travel and immersion in two comparative watershed regions: the Chesapeake Bay and the lower Mississippi River Basin. Students spend a week in September in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast and three weeks in November in southern coastal Louisiana, studying the ecosystems and learning from the local residents. The remaining nine weeks of the semester are spent closer to campus, in the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin. All students will also complete an independent research project in consultation and collaboration with a community group.

(Note: Student work from the LUCE Semester can be found on Dickinson's Blog. Student photographic work has also been posted. Detailed information about the integrated coursework and fieldwork is available at the Environmental Studies web site, with extensive links.)

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Will the Poor Always Be With Us? (Fall 2006)
Professor Kjell Enge, Anthropology
The course will examine poverty and related issues regarding education, healthcare, and ways to improve the quality of life in countries all over the world, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua and Spain. Students will examine ongoing activities to address the issues of poverty in order to develop an understand what is happening, why the poor are getting poorer and why their numbers appear to be increasing. Discussion topics will include HIV/AIDS in Africa; dangerous forms of child labor in Latin America, Africa, and Asia; the lack of basic education, especially for girls; and what people are doing for themselves to make their lives better.

Student service will force students to ask difficult questions: What are our responsibilities or duties to do something about poverty? Do we have any responsibilities at all, and is it up to the less fortunate to work hard to improve their own situation? Students will meet people who are devoting their lives to this work and will see videos and pictures to develop a true understanding of what is happening around the world and in America.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Discourse and the Social Poet (Fall 2006)
Professor Ashley Finley, Sociology
The coursework is designed to engage students in a critical discussion surrounding poetry as a form of social commentary. This will be done through the examination of a number of works by social-political poets, such as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Marge Piercy, Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, Chrystos, Maya Angelou, and Yehuda Amichai. Students will critically analyze, evaluate, and respond to themes of political and religious oppression, feminism, sexism, homophobia, and racism. Furthermore, discussion will be informed by complimentary readings and material that examines the reality of social inequality in the United States today. By reading the words of others, the aim is to begin to listen.

Student service will enhance discussions that focus on hearing voices that are often silenced, and understanding the social consequences that underlie their words. Students will work with the Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland and Perry Counties to increase community awareness by staffing an information booth at community events and festivals. Furthermore, students will provide office support and general assistance with special projects.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Education and Democracy (Fall 2006)
Professor Lance Landauer, Education
The coursework will examine the philosophical and political debates which have been a part of America’s evolving educational system from its founding. From the one-room school house to today’s large and complex schools, students will explore the links between theory and practice, philosophy and implementation, and politics and pedagogy. Students will examine the historical and philosophical underpinnings of education in relation to contemporary philosophy, research, and political thought. Significant reading, writing, research, and discussion comprise the work for this course.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: Profiles in Courage: Nobel Peace Prize Laureates (Fall 2010)

 Professor Jeremy Ball 

For over a century, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has bestowed an annual Peace Prize to an organization or individual who, in the words of Alfred Nobel, “has done the most and best work for the brotherhood of nations and the abolishment or reduction of standing armies as well as for the establishment and spread of peace congresses.”

In the years after the Second World War, the judges’ definition of peace expanded to include humanitarian concerns, producing laureates such as Wangari Maathai, Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, and Muhammad Yunus. This seminar will examine the transformation of the award and its political ramifications over the course of its history. We will discuss the selection process and consider whether the choice has always been, as a former chairman of the judging committee wrote in 2001, “to put it bluntly, a political act.” The course will be organized into four broad categories corresponding to the work of past laureates: arms control, peace making, advocacy for human rights, and the environment. 

Student service will rely on fieldwork done at Hamilton Elementary School, one of Carlisle Area School District’s most economically diverse grade schools. Students will engage in 15 hours of one-on-one tutoring in reading and math under the supervision of classroom teachers. While in the school, students will observe their surroundings, which will provide depth to classroom discussions regarding the role of scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens in shaping schools and the pride and controversy that surrounds our nation’s education system.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Shared Futures (Fall 2007)
Joyce Bylander , Special Assistant to the President
The course was divided into three themes: food, water, and health.  The coursework was designed to invite students into a discussion of the environmental, economic, and social powers that affect how people get food, water, and disease.  What goes into food production?  Why isn’t there enough food for everyone?  How does water get polluted and who doesn’t have clean water?  What diseases are caused by hunger, malnutrition, and polluted water?  How can we live lives that assist people who cannot access adequate food and water?  How do our lives at Dickinson affect other people in Carlisle and the world?  Reading materials explored the connections between lifestyle choices with issues like hunger, poverty and disease.

Students spent a day working with Project SHARE, where they were educated on how this program networks with farms to obtain food and the challenges an organization like this faces in trying to feed the hungry.  Students also spent a day working at the Dickinson College Farm, learning about sustainable agriculture and organic farming, and devoted one day of class to a clean up of the Letort Spring Run.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Transforming Lives: Social Justice Leaders in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Fall 2007)
Professor Amy Farrell, American Studies
The coursework explored the lives, writings, and activism of a range of 19th and 20th century social justice leaders in the United States. Drawing from autobiographies, personal narratives, and biographies, the class focused on 19th century activists such as Maria Stewart, a free Black who argued for women's suffrage; Frederick Douglass, an activist who fought for both the end of slavery and for women's rights; Dorothy Day, a socialist who started the Catholic Worker Movement; and Gloria Steinem, a feminist activist who fought for women's rights. Students explored what propelled these leaders to become social justice activists, the ways that ideas and tactics changed over the course of lives, and the influence that the work of these activists has had on the lives of others.

Student service was based on field trips to local social justice organizations, including Project SHARE and Catholic Worker House. Students observed the problems facing these organizations today and formulated their own response to social injustice. The service work permited students to study the work of contemporary activists and compare it to that of the 19th and 20th century American activists.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Art and Memory (Fall 2008) 

Professor Elizabeth Lee     

HISTORY 311/ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 311: Food and Sustainability 

Professor Jeremy Vetter 

This course is a historical reading and research seminar on food and sustainability. Using quantitative evidence and geographic information systems along with traditional written sources, we analyze the development of the modern food system on multiple scales from the local to the global, with a focus on North America. Topics for collective study and research may include: what is sustainability, especially for the food system; global exchange of plant and animal species; population and food supply; changes in food consumption patterns, health, diet, and nutrition; historical shifts in agricultural production and land use; the rise of the industrial food system; the origins and development of sustainable and alternative agriculture; energy systems and agriculture; shifting land uses; the effects of climate change on agriculture; water use--irrigation, aquifers, reclamation projects; historical changes in international food trade and policy; depletion of soils over time; pest control and pollution from agriculture; changing farm size and consolidation; changes in rural life and the countryside, including gender roles; technological changes on the farm; and the rise of new agrarian thinking and the local food movement. Students will have first-hand experiences with local farmers and systems of food distribution.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT 300-05 (Spring 2009)  

Professor Helen Takacs  

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT 300-04: Fundamentals of Nonprofit Management
Professor David Sarcone
The major course components will include the following: a historical review of management theory to include a discussion on the similarities and differences between for profit management and nonprofit and public management; the governance of nonprofit organizations; nonprofit strategic management; nonprofit operational management; and the management of newly emerging models of nonprofit collaboration – the development of inter -organizational networks created to more effectively address complex and recurring community problems. The course will be taught utilizing Carlisle area community health care task force as the context for the course material. Students will be actively engaged in working with local organizations associated with the community health care task force.

   INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT 300/POLICY AND MANAGEMENT 390: Applied Empirical Analysis of Middle School Obesity 

 Professor Steve Erfle 

Obesity and chronic diseases associated with obesity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Fully one-third of school-aged children in Pennsylvania are overweight or obese.  The Pennsylvania Department of Health instituted the "Active Schools" program during the 20090-2010 school year with 40 middle schools to require vigorous daily physical activity and to assess the results.  This course will analyze the data obtained from this program.  Pre- and Post-acticity and stature measures as well as academic information (such as PSSA scores and attendance information) on 10,000-15,000 middle schoolers will be available for analysis.  Students will work in teams on various aspects of the project using regression analysis.  Students will work in teams on various aspects of the project using regression analysis as well as other stuatistical methods to examine the efficacy of the active schools program.  At the end of the course, students will brief senior staff in the PA Department of Health on their findings.  

INTERCULTURAL SEMINAR, Dickinson's Program in Malaga, Spain (Spring 2008)
Professor Mark Aldrich 

This intercultural seminar discusses ways that Malagans form community.  The community based research and learning component will focus on helping a group of Malagans restore and preserve a rural chapel on a mountain above the city.  This little chapel is very important to the community of people involved in 'verdiales', a kind of music that is 'native' to the countryside surrounding Malaga. The research component will involve researching the history of the chapel and trying to help the community document this treasure.  The students will spend three Saturdays on site at the chapel where they will get direct experience understanding how Malagans form community.

MINI-MOSAIC: Oral History and Jewish Immigration to Argentina 

Sociology 313 Oral History and Jewish Immigration to Latin America, Prof. Susan Rose and Professor Shalom Staub, with Winter 2010 research trip to Argentina 

½ credit in Fall 2009, Winterim in Buenos Aires with ½ credit in Spring 2010
This course will focus on Jewish immigration to Argentina, engaging students in the collection and analysis of oral histories with members of Jewish communities in and around Buenos Aires.  We will begin the course by focusing on oral history methodology, drawing upon relevant oral histories and ethnographies of Jewish immigration to and experience in Latin America.  Students who take this course must be concurrently enrolled in Religion 260/Sociology 230-03, and participate in the Winterim research trip to Buenos Aires. This trip involves home stays and an additional program fee and airfare. While in Buenos Aires, students will work in research teams with Argentine students to collect oral histories.  Upon return, students will process, transcribe, translate, analyze, and present their research.

(Fall 2009: Religion 260/Sociology 230 Ethnography of Jewish Experience, Professor Shalom Staub) 

Drawing upon ethnographies of Jewish communities around the world, this course focuses on such questions as what is Jewish culture.  What is common to Jewish cultural experiences across time and place?  How might we understand the variability and local adaptations of Jewish life? These are the guiding questions and issues for this course, all to be considered within multiple contexts-- from pastoral and agricultural roots to modern urban experience, from Middle Eastern origins to a Diaspora experience stretching across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.   

POLICY MANAGEMENT 401: Policy Management Senior Seminar (Spring 2007)
Professor James Hoefler
The coursework will echo the key principles covered in the Policy Foundations class with an additional focus on developing critical thinking skills in a series of case studies. The constraints and demands of social justice, the politics of public sector decision making, the economics of private choice, and the problems associated with reconciling competing values will be examined. Students will be encouraged to continue to inform their thinking as they hone and polish their abilities to dissect policy problems and evaluate viable sets of recommendations.

Student service will be based on the compilation of an informational DVD for a local nonprofit organization. The DVD, made using iDVD software, will aid a community partner in communicating their mission, launching a capital campaign or securing volunteers. Emphasis will be placed on acclimating students to the processes of complex problem solving that exist in the nonprofit sector. At the conclusion of the semester, the short 3-5 minute videos will be screened in various campus and community locations as public service announcements.

PSYCHOLOGY 380-01: Research Methods in Health Psychology (Fall 2007)
Professor Jennifer Devlen
The coursework applied psychological research and methods to examine the interaction between psychological, biological, social and cultural factors that affect health and illness.  Students covered a variety of methods employed by health psychologists to understand methods for conducting research and fieldwork in the community.  Why do certain people seek medical care while others do not?  What social and economic factors are contributing to decisions about health care providers?

Students worked with the Sadler Health Center in Carlisle volunteering in the office and assisting in the collection of data and education classes.  The primary goal of the partnership with Sadler was for students to conduct interviews with staff, patients, and Carlisle residents to provide Sadler with information about why people come or do not come to Sadler for medical care.  Students also worked with the chaplain at the Hospice of Central Pennsylvania designing a questionnaire about the understanding of death and dying among local clergypersons, which in turn will assist the Hospice chaplain to better educate local clergy about issues surrounding death.

RELIGION 201: Buddhism in Tibet (Fall 2006)
Professor Daniel Cozort
The coursework will include studies of Buddhist philosophy and practices in Tibet. The esoteric tantric tradition, particularly its use in mandalas, will be examined, as will Tibetan Madhyamika philosophy. Additionally, students may examine how these philosophies apply to meditation theory and practice and explore the material expression of Tibetan Buddhism.

Student service will be in coordination with the Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick, Maryland. The Tibetan Meditation Center is a community of ordained and lay practitioners dedicated to offering Dharma classes and various meditation practices for people of all levels of experience. Students will conduct a survey research project on the attitudes and understandings of people in the United States who are drawn to Tibetan Buddhism and the Center.

RELIGION 260: Religion and Non-Violence (Spring 2007)
Professor Mara Donaldson 

The coursework will explore how Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr, and other Nobel Peace Prize winners used their religion to change the world. Students will study Gandhi’s philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence), Martin Luther King, Jr.’s rhetoric of nonviolence and his strategies for passive resistance, Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of mindfulness as a strategy for dealing with anger, and Dorthy Day’s philosophy of knowing your community and its needs.

Student service will follow Ghandi’s premise: “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. Students will primarily work with Elaine Livas, the director of Project SHARE. This local leader uses Dorothy Day as a model for her community work and to explore these ideas in action. Additionally, the class will glean in the Dickinson College Student Garden and write reaction papers on how these experiences relate to class.

SOCIOLOGY 214: Venezuela: Democracy, Development, and the Bolivarian Process (Fall 2006/Spring 2007)
Professor Susan Rose
The coursework will provide both an historical background and a first-hand exposure to the new model of participatory democracy, endogenous development, and regional integration that is evolving in contemporary Venezuela. With a focus on current issues, the course offers a brief history of Venezuela in the context of Latin and North American history, and then focuses on the Bolivarian process. Background readings, lectures, and film on the history and contemporary social, economic, and political realities of Venezuela will be included.

The service aspect of the course takes place during the January 2007 Winterim in Venezuela. Students will spend the Fall 2006 semester preparing to do their own research in Venezuela where they will have the opportunity to do service-learning projects, interviews, and video documentary projects. Students will be working in coordination with established non-governmental organizations in Venezuela.

(Note: The student work in this course can be seen at dedicated Venezuela course web page.)

SOCIOLOGY 230: Conflict and Conflict Resolution Studies (Spring 2007)
Professor Shalom Staub
The course will examine conflict as an inescapable aspect of social life.  It often seems that conflict is a chronic aspect of the human experience, and yet, as social beings living in mutually dependent social groups, we have developed various simple and complex strategies for managing and resolving conflicts.  Students will explore these mechanisms to manage or resolve conflicts of different kinds—inter-personally, in families, workplace-based, among ethnic, racial, and religious groups, and internationally. The course will examine the growing literature on conflict studies, and will draw on inter-disciplinary perspectives to examine conflict and conflict resolution processes and strategies.

This course will provide students the opportunity to engage in research with direct public benefit.  Recently, the PA Legislature approved Senate Resolution 160 which directed the Joint State Government Commission (JSGC) to establish a bipartisan task force with an advisory committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the current status of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and to identify best practices and recommend ways to improve conflict resolution in the Commonwealth.  Students in this course will research best practices in ADR locally and nationally in various settings within the public and private sectors to contribute to the work of the JSGC Task Force on ADR. 

SOCIOLOGY 240: Qualitative Research Methods (Spring 2007)
Professor Pauline Cullen
This course introduces students to the theory and methods of social science research, beginning with an examination of the philosophies underlying various research methodologies. The course then focuses on ethnographic field methods, introducing students to the techniques of participant observation, structured and informal interviewing, oral histories, sociometrics, and content analysis.

Students in this course worked in collaboration with the Sadler Health Center in Carlisle to assess the Center's services from the patients' perspectives.