Courses
ACCT - Courses
ACCT-213: Financial Accounting (Credits: 3)
An introductory course in fundamental accounting concepts that provides students with an understanding of how accounting is utilized by management, investors, creditors and other organization stakeholders. The primary learning objective is to develop an understanding of how economic events and transactions affect the financial position of an organization.
ACCT-313: Managerial Accounting (Credits: 3)
A study of concepts, techniques, and uses of accounting in managerial decision-making and problem solving. Develops skills in the use of job-order costing, activity-based costing, budgeting, cost control using standard costing, identifying relevant costs when making decisions and capital investments.
ACCT-350: Intermediate Accounting I (Credits: 4)
Provides in-depth coverage of financial accounting and numerous recent developments in accounting valuation and reporting practices. Includes theory, practices, and pronouncements of authoritative professional accounting bodies.
ACCT-356: Careers in Accounting & Finance Lecture (Credits: 1 to 2)
This course provides students the unique opportunity to hear from professionals in both the accounting industry following traditional accounting or finance paths as well as those who have used their accounting/finance education in unique ways. Through a series of guest speakers, the class explores the various paths students may take in their careers. This series may include speakers from audit, tax, law, forensics, government, data analytics, investment banking, valuation experts, and corporate executives.
ACCT-360: Intermediate Accounting II (Credits: 4)
Provides in-depth coverage of financial accounting and numerous recent developments in accounting valuation and reporting practices. Includes theory, practices, and pronouncements of authoritative professional accounting bodies.
ACCT-374: Cost Accounting (Credits: 4)
Prepares students to understand and manage cost accounting systems and solve problems encountered in the business world. Covers cost planning, accumulation, procedures, controls and reports, and analysis.
ACCT-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Accounting Program. This course is repeatable for credit.
ACCT-405: Accounting Analytics Project (Credit: 1)
This course will require students to create a project, in consultation with an account professional, that applies data analysics tools used prevalently in the accounting profession. This project will apply skills and tools learned in BUSI 400.
ACCT-412: Special Topics in Accounting (Credits: 1 to 4)
Topics relevant to accounting students will be offered periodically under this title.
ACCT-441: Tax Clinic Practicum (VITA) (Credits: 2 to 4)
This course is designed to teach students how to prepare 1040 federal returns and related schedules, state returns andrelated schedules, and assist taxpayers with accessing many financial resources. Students will be certified by the IRS and trained as financial advocates. Tax training includes basic tax laws, advanced tax laws, taxation of nonresident aliens, international income taxation and taxation of military tax payers and families. Students also receive ethics training related to tax preparation, cultural sensitivity training and learn client-interviewing and tax software skills. Students are required to complete the in-class training and achieve a minimum score of 80% on all related certifications prior to participating in the practicum for approximately 8-10 hours per week over the course of the semester.
ACCT-454: Auditing (Credits: 4)
A study of the principles, techniques, and procedures in auditing. Includes professional ethics, legal responsibility, theory of audit evidence, conducting audits through use of audit programs, working papers, and report writing.
ACCT-467: Accounting Information Systems (Credits: 4)
An introduction to systems analysis and design with a strong emphasis toward accounting information systems. Conceptual foundations of accounting information systems; database and file- oriented systems; the systems life cycle; control and audit of accounting information systems; and accounting information systems applications are reviewed. A relational database software package is introduced and used to prepare a term project. (WCore: SC)
ACCT-471: Individual Income Tax I (Credits: 3)
This course provides comprehensice coverage of the Federal income tax structure and application of tax principles for preparation of individual tax returns.
ACCT-472: Individual Income Tax II (Credit: 1)
This course is designed to teach students how to prepare 1040 federal returns and related schedules, prepare multi-state returns and related schedules and process taxpayers for various financial services administered by the VITA clinic. Students will be certified by the IRS and trained as financial advocates. IRS certification must be completer before commencing their fieldwork. Students will also receive ethics training related to tax preparation, cultural sensitivity training and learn client-interviewling skills.
ACCT-495: Advanced Accounting (Credits: 3)
Provides in-depth coverage of financial accounting and numerous recent developments in accounting valuation and reporting practices. The course includes theory, practices, and pronouncements of authoritative professional accounting bodies. Prerequisites: ACCT 360.
ART - Courses
ART-106: Drawing, Inquiry, and Expression (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to the art of drawing and visual communication. It covers fundamental techniques, materials, vocabulary, and modes of communication inherent to the medium. Students will also learn basic terms and techniques pertaining to creation and critique of drawings, and the presentation and storage of finished artworks. This course will also challenge students to hone their visual literacy, encouraging them to analyze and understand works of art through both historical and contemporary lenses. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-111: Paint, Perception, and Alchemy (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to the art of painting and visual communication. It covers fundamental techniques, materials, vocabulary, and modes of communication inherent to the medium. Students will also learn basic terms and techniques pertaining to creation and critique of painting, and the presentation and storage of finished artworks. This course will also challenge students to hone their visual literacy, encouraging them to analyze and understand works of art through both historical and contemporary lenses. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-128: Maker's Lab (Credits: 4)
We live in a designed world. Our lived experience is the result of decisions made in the creative process, and says as much about aesthetics as it does about effective design. This class engages students in discussions, written responses, hands-on studio workshops, and innovative problem-solving as a way to consider the aesthetics and design in our world. Using fundamental concepts from drawing and painting, sculpture and 3D construction, digital tools, and design, we will apply design-based thinking to solve problems, revise and evaluate existing solutions, and personally redefine the creative process. Work across several disciplines will allow us to see the interconnection and relationships between traditionally disparate fields of study. Simultaneously, this course will provide students the opportunity to expand and integrate their creative skills, gain experience with specialized technology, and develop a portfolio of interdisciplinary objects and ideas that demonstrates creative flexibility and a multifaceted understanding of complex issues. Alongside individual projects, we will identify and analyze real world problems, as a way to connect what we do in the classroom to our community. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-148: Ceramics I: Material Studies (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to the fundamental nature, practices, techniques, and culture of working in clay. Students will receive an introduction into the four basic building techniques of ceramics. It is a course that will familiarize the student with a utilitarian and artistic material that has been used for millennia and continues to be found useful in new technological and industrial manners. Students will be given an understanding of the practice of time management, a key component to the success of working in clay and a necessity in daily life. Students will learn ceramic hand-building, pottery, glazing, and firing methods as a means of self-expression and communication. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-180: Photography (Credits: 4)
Photography is the visual language of our time. With the introduction of contemporary technology, vision itself has become our most immediate form of communication and expression. Although we will look at and discuss the work of others, this course is primarily about each student making her/his own personal images. In this course, students will learn basic technical skills for the beginning photographer. These include camera operation, developing and scanning black and white film, basic grayscale digital image processing, making prints from negatives, making inkjet prints and presentation. Students will also learn the grammar of this language; use of the frame, time, vantage, and detail. Students will investigate the relationship of form to content. Most importantly, students will use these skills to explore their own vision and ideas. Through discussions and group critiques, they will share this work with each other and receive feedback to help them refine it. They will produce affective images that examine their personal perception and concepts. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-201: Wheel Throwing (Credits: 4)
This course provides focused study for the student interested primarily in wheel throwing. Students will hone their skills for working on the wheel through a series of both functional and non-functional projects. Students will also work on their ability to develop a series. Notably, the development of a personal aesthetic that distinguishes each student will be assessed.
ART-202: Intermediate Drawing (Credits: 4)
This course builds on technical approaches to drawing by introducing conceptual approaches to image making with various drawing media. Projects will explore ideas from the history of contemporary art and drawing practices with an emphasis on making clearer and more nuanced works.
ART-203: Ceramic Sculpture (Credits: 4)
This course provides focused study for the student interested in generating sculpture through the ceramic medium. Students can expect to explore a variety of projects that will explore working in a multitude of scales, styles, surfaces, and firing processes.
ART-205: Figure Drawing (Credits: 4)
Using the live model as subject matter, this class explores the figure in a variety of contexts through drawing and other media. Topics include functional anatomy and kinesiology, spatial awareness and scale, the drawn figure throughout history, and discussion and assignments exploring use of the figure in contemporary drawing and visual art.
ART-206: Figure Painting (Credits: 4)
Using the nude model as subject, this class explores the figure in a variety of contexts through paint and other media. Topics include functional anatomy and kinesiology, color paint theory, spatial awareness and scale, the painted figure throughout history, and discussion and assignments exploring use of the figure in contemporary painting and visual art.
ART-209: Composition and Design (Credits: 4)
Aesthetic organization of color, line, space, and texture in two- and three-dimensional design.
ART-210: Traditional Photography (Credits: 4)
More photographs are uploaded to Facebook every two minutes than were made during the first 60 years of the history of photography. With the shift to digital technology and the convenience it affords, electronic photography has replaced traditional, silver-based photography as our mainstream method of visual expression and communication. Traditional photography, however, continues to be practiced with a strong and passionate following. Most serious photographers consider it necessary to learn these skills to truly understand the medium, and many practice it for its immediacy and hands-on intimacy. This course will introduce skills, techniques, and materials of traditional, silver-based black and white photography. These skills include use of camera types, including view cameras and hand-held cameras, lenses, light metering techniques, lighting techniques, and refined development and traditional printing techniques. We will examine how different technologies have introduced different methods, and how these methods have shaped, and been shaped by, cultural aesthetics and priorities. We will discuss and examine artistic and photographic concerns, and deal with the advancement of personal visual and conceptual skills needed to produce affective images. Students in this course will experiment with a variety of materials, techniques, and philosophical approaches to traditional photography, and ultimately produce a body of work that exhibits their own personal investigations and creative expression. (WCore: WCFAH)
ART-215: Drawing Lines in the Sand (Credits: 4)
This hybrid studio-seminar course examines art about landscape, space, and environments, while challenging students to build on these ideas in their own creative work. Students will research artworks and writings that explore topics such as landscape, "wild" and urban space, public and private spaces, land(scapes) and power, using this context to inform their creative works that address these same topics. This course simultaneously introduces students to fundamental drawing techniques, with a special focus on drawings and images made using landscape, nature, and hybridized modes of visual communication. No previous experience with drawing is required. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
ART-300: Special Topics in Art (Credits: 1 to 4)
Special classes in the arts not offered on an annual basis. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
ART-302: Intermediate Painting (Credits: 4)
This class builds on technical and conceptual aspects presented in Beginning Painting through conceptually driven projects that explore concepts in contemporary painting and additional techniques and practical concerns related to paint.
ART-303: Advanced Painting (Credits: 4)
Explores advanced painting techniques and problems, emphasizing color and design concepts. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-305: Raku Pottery (Credits: 4)
Raku originated as part of the tea ceremonies in 16th century Japan. It has evolved into a technique of rapid firing, pulling pieces out of a hot kiln to be reduced with combustible materials such as paper, sawdust, pine needles, producing a smoking atmosphere. Using both wheel and hand building techniques we will focus on forms (such as tea bowls, sculpture and wearable art) that work well with the raku firing process. Different surface designs and firing techniques will be explored and may include: traditional; horse hair; resist erosion; terra sigillata; naked slip firing; pit and sager firings.
ART-306: Advanced Figure Painting (Credits: 4)
Extension of Figure Painting with greater emphasis on student experimentation, guided exploration, and personal expression. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-308: Advanced Figure Drawing (Credits: 4)
Extension of Figure Drawing with a greater emphasis on student experimentation, guided exploration, and personal expression. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-310: Art History: Emergence to Renaissance (Credits: 4)
Examines works of art from the time of Prehistory through the Renaissance. We will examine major monuments and artworks in a chronological sequence, focusing on those from each period that give the essence of their time, place, function, intent, and the aspirations of the culture and artist.
ART-311: Art History: Renaissance to Modern Art (Credits: 4)
Explores the development of art beginning with the High Renaissance, moving to the advent of Contemporary Art. Students learn through lecture, discussion, reading and writing, and visiting local museums and galleries.
ART-312: History of Contemporary Art (Credits: 4)
This class will review the myriad of developments found in contemporary art from the mid-1960s to today. Painting, sculpture, mixed media works, performance art, installation, photography, and video/film will be covered. We will discuss the shift from modernism to the postmodern era with an emphasis on global art. Throughout the semester we will pay special attention to the unique artistic developments that originated from the Land Arts movement of the 1960s: earthworks, environmental art, and ecological art will be explored.
ART-313: Environmental Art (Credits: 4)
This course shall trace the history of Land based, Environmental and Ecological Art, as well as explore its major concepts, concerns and trends. Students will examine important art that has been made in these disciplines, as well as develop ideas and refine proposals for making art of their own that address these issues.
ART-318: History of Photography (Credits: 4)
This course will trace the young history of human desire to capture the image of light, and then figure out what to do with it. From cultural conditions that led to the invention of photography to the role it plays in the contemporary world, we will investigate the technical inventions as well as the artistic movements that have made photography such an important part of current creative expression.
ART-320: Digital Imaging (Credits: 4)
This course covers technical skills for the digital photographer. These include image capture, image processing, retouching, manipulation and printing. This course also deals with visual and conceptual skills needed to produce effective images. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-321: Digital Media Survey (Credits: 4)
This course will introduce its students to the possibilities for making art on a computer. It explores techniques in several popular software programs. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-322: Digital Drawing (Credits: 4)
This studio course introduces students to the techniques and technology of digital drawing. Building on foundation drawing skills and ideas, this course expands the conceptual potential of drawing by incorporating digital tools and processes. Students will gain experience with drawing hardware and software, digital drawing and mark-making, digital manipulation and formal intersections with traditional drawings and techniques, and development of conceptual crossover between traditional and digital drawn languages. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-325: Figure Sculpture in Clay (Credits: 4)
Through this concentrated course on the human form, students will render the figure through a variety of quick studies and longer, more detailed works. The nude figure will be used heavily as reference for assignments and projects.
ART-330: Intermediate Ceramics: the Ceramic Surfa (Credits: 4)
Advanced wheelwork, more emphasis on sculptural work, and experimentation with glazing. Individual assignments. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-335: Advanced Ceramics (Credits: 4)
Advanced ceramics is your chance to make the work you want, and to choose the line of research that interests you. In this course there will be a strong emphasis on self-directed research. We will discuss the kind of work you want to make, why you want to make it and I will do my best to facilitate you in doing so. Students are expected to mix their own glazes and fire their own kilns. We will discuss an array of contemporary makers, ideas, and issues from which to draw in the development of your work and career. Feedback from one another is highly important and everyone is expected to contribute to critique and discussion.
ART-345: Video Production (Credits: 4)
This course covers the basics of video production and editing. Topics include storyboarding, camera operation, sound, lighting and editing, as well as a wide variety of film and video genres including narrative, documentary and experimental.
ART-360: Advanced Drawing (Credits: 4)
Explores advanced topics in drawing and related media through personal research, as well as group critique and discussion. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-379: Traditional Photography II (Credits: 4)
With an emphasis on traditional photography, this course will introduce new technical skills for those who have a functional understanding of basic photographic skills. This new information includes use of lenses, camera types, exposure techniques, and refined developing and printing techniques, as well as discussion of current artistic and photographic concerns. This course will also deal with the advancement of personal visual and conceptual skills needed to produce effective images. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-380: Advanced Photography (Credits: 4)
This course is for advanced photographers, both traditional and digital, who are interested in creating a strong body of work. We will discuss historical and contemporary issues in photography as well as professional development. Through a process of detailed analysis, students will gain greater understanding of their own work, leading to more effective expression. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-383: Color Photography (Credits: 4)
This course covers the basic techniques of traditional color photographic processes. The aim of this course is to further develop the photographic skills learned in the basic photography course, including color theory and the reaction of photographic materials to the quality of light in different situations, how to develop color negative film and make prints from color negatives, and explore the language and aesthetics of color photography. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student-initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Art Program. Prerequisite: consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
ART-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
ART-475: Studio Seminar (Credits: 4)
Designed to help students create a strong, unified body of work. Students of all disciplines work on their own time, with weekly meetings devoted to critiques, discussions, guest speakers and professional development issues. Studios are available to most students. This is the Art Program's capstone course, and should be taken by all Art majors during Spring Semester of student's last year of study. (WCore: SC)
BBA - Courses
BBA-PRJ1.1: My Project and Program Plan (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop a Gantt chart which will provide a timeline for completion of Project Sequence One and develop a planning map for completion of all of the project sequences. Competencies Evaluated: - Demonstrate effective written communications. - Illustrate professional planning techniques.
BBA-PRJ1.2: My Ethical Perspective (Credits: 2)
Student learners will understand the most important concepts and ideas regarding business ethics, to recognize both the need and the complexity of ethical reasoning, to learn how to deal with business ethical dilemmas, and finally, to provide intellectual tools for more profound self-reflection and critical assessment of personal moral conviction. Competencies Evaluated: - Explain values and beliefs, relative to diversity and decision making. - Explain values and beliefs, relative to ethics and decision making.
BBA-PRJ1.3: My Organization (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop critical understanding of organizations, the markets they serve and process of adding value. This project will involve consideration of the internal workings and management of organizations and, in particular, the process of decision-making in a dynamic environment. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret an organizational structure and environment and provide a written analysis using professional communication and planning techniques. - Choose appropriate analytical tools (quantitative and qualitative) to evaluate problems and recommend solutions.
BBA-PRJ1.4: Balanced Scorecard Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners will understand how a balanced scorecard developed for an organization can be used to link the vision and mission of the organization and key stakeholders, including: shareholders, customers, employees and strategic partners. Competencies Evaluated: - Analyze the effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals. - Evaluate the organization's strategic process in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals.
BBA-PRJ1.5: External Environment (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop the capacity to think strategically about a company: its present business position, its long-term direction, its resources and competitive capabilities, the caliber of its strategy, and its opportunities for gaining sustainable competitive advantage. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret an organization's competitive advantage. - Analyze the effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals.
BBA-PRJ1.F: CEO for a Day (Credits: 2)
Student learners will explore why good strategic management leads to good business performance, understanding the basic concepts and tools of strategic analysis. Competencies Evaluated: - Explain how a firm creates value for its stakeholders. - Evaluate the effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals.
BBA-PRJ2.1: Consumer Profile (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop consumer profiles for a company and assess the environmental factors in the market that can influence consumer behaviors. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify, evaluate, and quantify consumer needs and wants to access market opportunities and create value propositions. - Evaluate, compare, and contrast consumers and consumer behaviors in different market situations.
BBA-PRJ2.2: Product and Price (Credits: 2)
Student learners will examine a company's product mix and develop strategic pricing tactics. Competencies Evaluated: - Analyze a company's product mix and make strategic recommendations. - Identify pricing decisions and strategic choices.
BBA-PRJ2.3: Market Research (Credits: 2)
Student learners will conduct a small research project to assess consumer brand perceptions and understand implications of the results. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret quantitative information to evaluate relevance, implications, and magnitude. - Identify data that can be used to provide context and support for problem-solving and decision-making.
BBA-PRJ2.4: Targeting and Segmentation (Credits: 2)
Student learners will discuss how markets can be segmented and positioned to fulfill unmet consumer needs. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify and recommend appropriate market segments. - Select positioning statements appropriate for a particular segment or target.
BBA-PRJ2.5: Tactical Execution (Credits: 2)
Student learners will create a timeline for a new product launch and deliver a professional presentation and a press release for the new product. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify actions and processes that can be implemented to achieve goals. - Select measurable outcomes to determine if the firm has achieved its purpose.
BBA-PRJ2.F: Global Consciousness (Credits: 2)
Student learners will examine how external forces can result in strategic opportunities or threats to the company when moving to international markets. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret findings from a SLEPT analysis to determine overall relevance and impact to the firm's operations. - Identify the relevant global "sphere" for the firm, based on where up-and down-stream members of the value chain are located, where final consumers are located, or where corporate assets are located.
BBA-PRJ3.1: Organizational Performance (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop a balanced scorecard for an organization that provides a linkage between the vision and mission of the organization and the development of key metrics that determine a value proposition for key organization stakeholders, including: shareholders, customers, employees and strategic partners. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify performance measures that address organizational vision and mission. - Evaluate organizational performance using performance metrics, industry standards and/or organizational goals.
BBA-PRJ3.2: Systems Analysis and Design (Credits: 2)
Student learners will understand the key elements of information systems and apply decision-making to evaluate how the systems development life cycle can be used to develop solutions to organizational business problems and opportunities. Competencies Evaluated: - Differentiate among different components, applications and uses of information systems in an organization. - Apply decision making processes that address organizational problems or opportunities.
BBA-PRJ3.3: Preparing a Feasibility Study (Credits: 2)
Student learners will use appropriate analytical tools to evaluate an organizational opportunity and formulate an information or business systems solution by completing a feasibility analysis that leads to a recommendation. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify appropriate analytical tools (quantitative and qualitative) to evaluate problems and recommend solutions. - Evaluate an organizational opportunity and formulate an information or business systems solution.
BBA-PRJ3.4: Company Financial Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners will demonstrate understanding of critical financial concepts of literacy, reporting, analysis, performance and forecasting and apply these concepts as part of a financial evaluation of an organization. Competencies Evaluated: - Understand the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement of an organization. - Explain how a firm creates value for its stakeholders based on financial performance.
BBA-PRJ3.5: Industry Financial Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners will conduct a comparative analysis of competitors in a selected industry and evaluate financial performance for purposes of identifying an organization's competitive advantage and effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret an organizations performance utilzing financial and comparative analysis. - Differentiate the effectiveness of leadership and management among competitors based on financial performance.
BBA-PRJ3.F: Financial Forecast and Plan (Credits: 2)
Student learners will prepare a financial forecast and plan for an entrepreneurial endeavor or idea. Financial planning is a continuous process of directing and allocating financial resources to meet strategic goals and objectives. The project deliverable is to develop budgeted financial statements and cash flow forecasts based on key assumptions and risks.
BBA-PRJ4.1: The Mission Statement (Credits: 2)
Student learners will evaluate the mission, vision, values and goals of a company of their choice and determine the degree of influence the mission statement has on organizational strategy and performance. Competencies Evaluated: - Demonstrate by example how organization strategy supports the mission, vision, values and goals of the organization. - Evaluate an organization's strategic performance in the context of organizational mission, vision, values and goals.
BBA-PRJ4.2: Industry Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners analyze an industry utilizing two tools: SLEPT analysis and Porter's six forces analysis as part of a competitive analysis. Competitor performance relative to each other will be evaluated and compared. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret appropriate analytical tools (quantitative and qualitative) to evaluate problems and recommend solutions. - Differentiate strategic and global positioning among firms within a particular industry.
BBA-PRJ4.3: Internal Company Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners must analyze the internal functions of a company. Strengths and weaknesses are identified as well as distinctive competencies in the areas of quality, efficiency, customer responsiveness, and innovation. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret the internal environment of the firm utilizing a SWOT analysis. - Apply appropriate analytical tools (quantitative and qualitative to evaluate problems and recommend solutions).
BBA-PRJ4.4: External Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners must draw on their analyses of an industry and a company to indentify possible opportunities and threats to the company and develop recommendations for strategic improvement. Competencies Evaluated: - Interpret the external environment of a firm and/or industry and identify threats and/or opportunities for strategic improvement. - Select strategies for an organization that address opportunities that support the vision and mission.
BBA-PRJ4.5: Executive Leadership and Teams (Credits: 2)
Student learners must evaluate a selected executive's leadership style, communication and effectiveness as applied to organizational structure and culture. Managing effective teams within an organizational context will be addressed. Competencies Evaluated: - Identify measures of leadership and performance that contribute to organizational goals and outcomes. - Evaluate skills and processes for managing teams.
BBA-PRJ4.F: Business Strategy and Sustainability (Credits: 2)
Student learners will identify and compare companies with two different business level strategies: low cost producer and differentiation. In addition, one company CEO will be analyzed for their effectiveness at leading change in their organization. Competencies Evaluated: - Compare and contrast the strategic plan of different organizations based on business strategy. - Evaluate how change and innovation is implemented within an organization.
BBA-PRJ5.1: Industry & Company Analysis (Credits: 2)
Student learners will develop a concise proposal for a new business (or a substantial expansion of a current enterprise). The proposal will include a project timeline and will outline: key sources of competitive advantage, unique qualifications, and company mission, vision, values and goals. Industry analysis includes market size and potential, relevant trends, and profiles of related industries. Competencies Evaluated: - Select appropriate data to support internal and/or external analysis. - Interpret how macroeconomic conditions and policies impact a firm's strategic position.
BBA-PRJ5.2: Marketing Analysis and Plan (Credits: 2)
Student learners will analyze, define and profile the target customer at different levels (ideal customer and total addressable market). Learners will also create marketing strategies and outline step-by-step implementation plans for attracting and retaining these customers. Competencies Evaluated: - Demonstrate how a firm creates value for stakeholders by providing examples or illustrations. - Develop a marketing strategy for a new or existing firm.
BBA-PRJ5.3: Competitor Analysis & Strategy (Credits: 2)
Student learners will analyze, define and profile the competitive landscape (direct competition). Learners create strategies and outline step-by-step implementation plans for responding to these competitive pressures. Students analyze stated mission, vision, values and goals in relation to the competitive landscape. Competencies Evaluated: - Design an organization structure in the context of mission, vision, values and goals. - Develop recommendations to address issues that impact organizational strategy and performance.
BBA-PRJ5.4: Company Operations Plan (Credits: 2)
Student learners will demonstrate understanding of key processes and operational inputs and outputs, business milestones and operational priorities. Learners outline specific steps to achieve operational efficiency. Competencies Evaluated: - Select appropriate analytical tools (quantitative and qualitative) to evaluate problems and recommend solutions. - Develop recommendations to improve organizational performance by understanding, prioritizing and selecting performance metrics, industry standards and contributing to organizational goals.
BBA-PRJ5.5: Financial Plan (Credits: 2)
Student learners will apply critical financial concepts of literacy, reporting, analysis and forecasting and apply these concepts in planning the financial operations of an organization. Underlying assumptions and financial data in support of a sales forecast, cash budget and pro forma financial statements will be developed. Competencies Evaluated: - Create the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow or cash budget for an entity. - Demonstrate responsible financial decision-making in the best interests of self, organization, community and society. (WCore: SC)
BBA-PRJ5.F: Final Bus Plan Presentation (Credits: 2)
Student learners will create professionally organized final business plan customized for potential investors or decision-makers; learners will present key aspects of the business plan to stakeholders in order to incorporate feedback into a final deliverable. Competencies Evaluated: - Develop a professional, written business plan that addresses all required elements of a comprehensive business plan. - Demonstrate effective oral communication techniques, in either synchronous or asynchronous mode, a final business plan presentation to stakeholders. (WCore: SC)
BIOL - Courses
BIOL-103: Human Anatomy and Lab (Credits: 4)
This course focuses on the study of the structures of the human body in an integrated lecture/lab setting. The course approaches anatomy from both the microscopic and macroscopic perspectives and includes developmental and comparative aspects of each organ system. A human cadaver is used in the lab. BIOL 103 does not fulfill biology major requirements and registration priority is given to declared Nursing and Health Science majors.
BIOL-104: Human Physiology and Lab (Credits: 4)
The mechanisms of human biological function are the basis of this course in an integrated lecture/lab class. Normal processes within cells, organs, and systems form the foundation for understanding disease and subsequent medical treatment. The study of physiology requires some familiarity with the basic concepts of chemistry. BIOL 104 does not fulfill biology major requirements. Prerequisite: BIOL 103 or instructors' permission. Offered Spring semester.
BIOL-111: Clinical Microbiology and Lab (Credits: 4)
This course is designed for pre-nursing and allied health majors and does not count toward the biology major or minor. The techniques and principles of microbiology, especially as they relate to human disease, are examined in this course.
BIOL-202: Organisms and Evolution (Credits: 4)
In this course, students will be exposed to the process and pattern of evolution, as it applies to animal and plant communities. An evolutionary perspective will be taken throughout, as the course underscores how the environment and biological laws shape the adaptations in diverse animal and plant groups. Classification and phylogenetics will highlight the functional and structural relationships among living organisms. Students will also explore the relationships between humans and biological diversity. Students will apply the scientific method through experimental design as well as data analysis and interpretation as it relates to the diversity of life on Earth.
BIOL-203: Introduction to Ecology (Credits: 4)
This course covers evolutionary biology and ecology, with the goal of exposing you to a broad range of topics and ideas in both disciplines and as an integrated whole. We will examine how organisms interact with their environment at the individual, population, and community levels, while also looking at the current state of many important ecosystems on Earth. Additionally, we will explore the mechanisms of evolution that have resulted in the diversity of life on Earth. This course is designed to help you develop skills of science, including observation, written and oral communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving, in a collaborative environment. Pre- or co-requisite: MATH 240 or DATA 220.
BIOL-204: Principles of Genetics (Credits: 4)
Genetics, the study of inheritance, relates to all aspects of Biology since all living organisms must possess, maintain, and pass on their genetic material. Traditionally this discipline is separated into classical concepts (e.g. Mendelian) and modern concepts (e.g. Molecular). However, this division is historical and unnecessary. Our course will intentionally meld these components to build an authentic understanding of the current field. Also, since genetics is the basis of variation in biology and a source of modern technology, social issues involving diversity and bioethics are interwoven to enhance the understanding of the application of this science. Prerequisites: CHEM 112. (4)
BIOL-205: Introduction to Cell Biology (Credits: 4)
This course is an introduction to molecular and cellular biology in an integrated lecture, discussion, and lab format. Course topics include the basic synthesis, structure and processing of biological molecules, enzyme function, cellular structure, signaling, as well as cell types and differentiation. In lab, you will also learn to perform basic cell and molecular biology lab techniques, such as micro-scale measurement, microscopy, and sterile technique and learn to design experiments to test hypotheses, and collect and analyze data to test their hypotheses. Prerequisites: CHEM 112. (4)
BIOL-300: Special Topics in Biology (Credits: 1 to 4)
Covers special topics normally not offered in the regular biology curriculum. A maximum of four hours of BIOL 300 may be used toward the biology major or minor.
BIOL-301: Comparative Anatomy and Lab (Credits: 4)
An integrated lecture/lab covering the anatomic relationships of all chordates. It includes aspects of embryology and evolution as they pertain to chordates. Lamprey, shark, cat, and human anatomy are emphasized. Offered Fall semester. Prerequisites: BIOL 202, 203, 205 (pre-2011: BIOL 105, 106); CHEM 111, 112. (4)
BIOL-303: Microbiology and Lab (Credits: 4)
An introduction to general and medical microbiology. Topics will include the fields of bacteriology, virology, and mycology. Special attention will be given to human pathogens and their host-parasite relationships. Immunological and other host defense systems will also be introduced in the course. Historical developments and investigators will be discussed. The laboratory portion of the course will include a research project. Prerequisites: BIOL 204, 205; CHEM 111, 112. (4)
BIOL-304: Stem Cells and Development Lab (Credits: 4)
Interested in stem cell therapy, regeneration, or growing organs in the lab for transplant? In this course we will dig deeper into recent developments in research on stem cell maintenance and differentiation as well as how stem cells are involved in tissue organization and organ development. We will investigate how signal transduction pathways, gene regulation, and epigenetic mechanisms influence stem cells and differentiation in detail by examining model systems as well as medical applications. We will read and present the primary literature throughout the class and the laboratory will include research projects that are designed and carried out by the students.
BIOL-306: Aquatic Ecology and Lab (Credits: 4)
This field course will introduce students to the freshwater aquatic ecosystems of the western U.S., including lakes, streams, rivers, and wetlands. We will explore the ecological processes that dominate these systems, the organisms that inhabit them, and the ecological techniques central to their study. Field exercises will include trips to many aquatic ecosystems in the region; experience with sampling techniques for measurement of physical, chemical, and biological features; and experimental design for answering questions about the relationships among species and between species and their environment.
BIOL-307: Comparative Physiology and Lab (Credits: 4)
The general physiological processes in major groups of animals will be addressed. From the most primitive to the most complex, the physiology of animals will be studied through evolutionary and embryological approaches.
BIOL-309: Global Change Biology (Credits: 4)
Global climate change has altered the natural environment processes and their functionality in unprecedented ways. This leave biological systems to cope with the consequences. From molecular to ecosystem level, the responses of biological systems to these changes are the subject of active scientific research. Students in this course will become familiar with general concepts and mechanisms of Global Change as well as advanced biological research topics in the area of Global Change Biology.
BIOL-310: Plant Biology and Lab (Credits: 4)
This course will take a cellular, molecular and genetic approach to unravel the complex biology of plants from the microscopic cell level to the structure and function of higher plant systems. Topics will include evolutionary developmental biology (evo/devo), plant anatomy, plant-microbe and plant-environment interactions, abiotic stress physiology, soil-water relations, and molecular genetics. Weekly lab experiences will deal with the microscopic organization of plant bodies, local field trips, plant cell and tissue culture, and plant biotechnology. A functional knowledge of basic cell biology and genetics as well as lab and microscope skills will be needed. Prerequisites: BIOL 202, 204, 205; CHEM 111,112.
BIOL-311: Scientific Writing (Credits: 2)
Writing is a crucial skill in practicing science; the communication of data to other scientists in written form creates a reliable body of peer-reviewed literature that propels discovery. Students will practice good writing techniques and science-specific fundamentals in the format of a variety of outlets, including primary research reports, secondary literature reviews, and grant proposals. They will learn scientific citation and referencing skills that credit primary discoveries and recent innovations. This foundation will not only give students better communication skills, but it will also give them new insight into reading scientific studies. The course will also consider methods for effective communication of science to the public.
BIOL-313: Astrobiology and Lab (Credits: 4)
Astrobiology is the interdisciplinary study of the origin of life on Earth and the search for life beyond our planet. Drawing on current research in disparate fields, such as planetary science and biochemistry, students will use Utah's unique environmental features as a backdrop for engaging in discussions about conditions that push the limits of life. Students will explore topics such as life in extreme environments, life in space, and the molecular origin of life. They will participate in field trips and lab work, as well as read current primary literature in the field. Prerequisite: BIOL 203, 204 (pre-2011: BIOL 105). (4)
BIOL-315: Principles of Paleontology (Credits: 4)
This course introduces the organisms that compose the fossil record as well as the methods that paleontologists use to reconstruct the life of the past. Topics include modes of preservation, classification and the species problem, biases of the fossil record, phylogenetic reconstructions, functional morphology, paleoecology, morphometric analyses, evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary trends, and critical intervals in the history of life.
BIOL-350: Biochemistry (Credits: 3)
A study of the chemistry of living organisms. Begins with a review of basic biology and organic chemistry as it applies to the biological systems, the structure and function of the cell, water and its importance in the biological system and energy considerations. Detailed discussions of protein chemistry, enzymology, carbohydrate structure, cellular metabolism, and lipid chemistry.
BIOL-370: Scientific Computing (Credits: 4)
This course provides students with experience applying programming techniques in Python to a wide range of scientific problems. Topics include a brief review of basic programming principles, and applications in equation solving, data analysis, and model simulation.
BIOL-387: Undergraduate Teaching (Credits: 1 to 2)
For teaching assistants in the biology classes. Practical experience in teaching and grading undergraduate biology courses. A maximum of two credit hours of BIOL 387 may be applied toward the major or minor. This course is repeatable for credit.
BIOL-400: Advanced Topics in Biology (Credits: 2 to 4)
Topical courses that are not currently a part of the regular curriculum. For junior and senior biology majors only.
BIOL-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A student-initiated in-house study of some biological topic or project. A maximum of four credit hours of BIOL 401 can be credited toward the Biology major or minor. Prerequisite: consent of instructor and school dean.
BIOL-402: Immunology and Lab (Credits: 4)
An introduction to the complex interaction of cellular signals and events that constitute the human immune response. Humoral and cellular mechanisms of immunity, histocompatibility, hypersensitivities, cytokine signaling, and the complement system will be examined in some detail. The laboratory will introduce the elemental methods of immunology and the immunological diagnosis of diseases.
BIOL-403: Cellular Neuroscience and Lab (Credits: 4)
The focus of this course is molecular and cellular neurobiology, including neuronal differentiation, cell structure, function, and connectivity. We will focus on how neurons are made, communicate, and are connected into circuits. Model systems used to study neuroscience will be introduced and we will use primary literature throughout. The laboratory will include research projects that are designed and carried out by the students.
BIOL-404: Advanced Ecology and Lab (Credits: 4)
A discussion of the basic principals of plant and animal ecology and the processes that maintain the structure and function of ecosystems. The course examines connections between ecology and some pressing environmental problems, and includes ecological phenomena that require background understanding of chemical and physical processes. Class and lab projects involve reading of primary literature, experimental design, data analysis, and independent research. This is a senior level course that builds on other course information and skills. Prerequisites: BIOL 202, 203 (pre-2011: BIOL 105, 106); CHEM 112; MATH 240.
BIOL-405: Cell Biology of Cancer and Lab (Credits: 4)
Nearly every structure and process in healthy cells is affected in cancer cells. This course is an exploration of cell structure and function with a molecular focus, including in-depth discussions of cell polarity, migration, division, and death, and how these processes are affected in cancer. We will read and present the primary literature throughout the class. The laboratory emphasizes current techniques in cellular biology and includes research projects that are designed and carried out by the students. Offered even Spring semesters.
BIOL-420: Senior Seminar (Credits: 2)
This course is designed as a senior level capstone in the Biology curriculum. Students will develop a sense of significance of communication of data in fields of science. They will learn how to use the current databases, journals, and internet to access scientific literature. They will also build a proficiency in writing and communication skills with regards to sharing scientific information. (WCore: SC)
BIOL-430: Undergraduate Research (Credits: 1 to 4)
Students undertake a portion of a research project and learn all aspects of scientific inquiry. One credit hour equates to three hours per week in the laboratory. This course may be taken one credit at a time. This course is repeatable for credit.
BIOL-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 4)
A maximum of 4 hours of BIOL 440 may be applied toward the major or minor. Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
BUSI - Courses
BUSI-101A: Business Fundamentals I: Communicating (Credits: 3)
This course, in conjunction with BUSI 101B, will help students experience business communication, development, analysis, and decision making in terms of real world applications. While also offering students an awareness of the various majors offered through the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, this course aids in building important enterprise skill sets sufficient to view business from the perspective of investor, decision maker, employee, supplier or customer. BUSI 101A will allow students to develop analytical, presentation, and writing skills needed to be successful in a professional environment. Students will explore the approaches and formats necessary for communicating effectively in business and other organizational settings.
BUSI-101B: Business Fundamentals I: Calculating (Credits: 3)
This course, in conjunction with BUSI 101A, will help students experience business communication, development, analysis, and decision making in terms of real world applications. While also offering students an awareness of the various majors offered through the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, this course aids in building important enterprise skill sets sufficient to view business from the perspective of investor, decision maker, employee, supplier or customer. Students will be introduced to mathematical concepts as they relate to a business situation. Students will then be asked to make business decisions based on their computations and analysis.
BUSI-101C: Business Fundamentals I: Company Lab (Credits: 0)
This course is the lab component associated with Business Fundamentals I, Communicating (BUSI 101A) and Business Fundamentals I, Calculating (BUSI 101B). Students will use lab time to complete company work associated with the class.
BUSI-200: Applied Business Math and Modeling (Credits: 3)
This course will build upon the quantitative skills taught in BUSI 101B. The main focus will be business math and modeling skills. Using discipline-specific scenarios, students will learn to review and work with raw data, create models, as well as analyze and interpret business information.
BUSI-225: Business Law and Ethics (Credits: 3)
This course discusses current legal problems confronting businesses, its agents and the legal considerations of decision-making. The course helps students understand legal principles and the processes of legal reasoning and proceedings, particularly as they pertain to businesses and its agents. The course also provides a basic understanding of three legal areas: (1) introduction to the U.S. legal system, (2) deep dive into agency law (3) survey of the various business organizations (sole proprietorship, partnerships, corporations and limited liability companies), (4) corporate governance and securities (5) employment law and (6) contract law. This course will also include the ethical implications of business decisions and how to make them.
BUSI-300: Information Technology (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to prepare students to understand the principles of information technology in a business and the role of information technology in the management of an organization. Students will develop an understanding and enhanced competency of database and programming tools utilized to address a wide range of business problem solving and data analysis. Students will apply data modeling and analysis concepts to improve their proficiency in the use of analytical and technical skills for business problem solving. Students will study the use of information technology as a source of competitive advantage using modern-day technology companies as examples.
BUSI-350: Business Fund II: Integrative Core (Credits: 2)
This course is capstone course for the core undergraduate business classes. It pulls together the concepts learned in all the functional areas of business. Students will complete a cross-functional, integrated project that will demonstrate their business core knowledge as well as showcase their communication and quantitative skills. There is a fee associated with this course. The ETS exam (a graduation requirement) is administered in BUSI 350.
BUSI-400: Business Analytics (Credits: 4)
This course gives you the opportunity to apply what you have learned to create and deploy business products that incorporate data architecture, predictive analytics, visualizations and dashboards to help businesses make better data-driven decisions like optimizing marketing strategies and operations, route minimization, revenue or profit maximization, cost minimization, making hiring and management decisions and analyzing policy effects. Upon completing this class, you will have the applied knowledge and intuition to build an original business product in BUSI 405.
BUSI-405: Business Analytics Project (Credit: 1)
The purpose of this course is to create an original Python, R, Tableau, PowerBI or other business product using business and IT theory, tools and skills that were acquired in the business courses you have taken. Ideally, this business product is the foundation for the project you will create in the Business Computer Information Systems capstone course (CMPT 390).
BUSI-440: BUSI Fund III: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Students receive credit for meeting pre-arranged objectives while working for a company or non-profit organization. Internships give students the opportunity to compare their understanding of classroom material with current best practices in their field. A minimum of 2 total internship credits are required for graduation but they may be completed in separate semesters. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
BUSI-441: Business Practicum (Credits: 4)
The Business Practicum is a student team- based, company consultation project. The project addresses a real issue of concern to a client company (or non-profit organization), requires extensive research, and results in a formal oral presentation and written report to the company. Students work in teams of 3-6 students under the supervision of a Gore School of Business faculty member.
BUSI-442: Professional Portfolio (Credits: 2)
The Professional Portfolio is designed for mid-career professionals. The class gives students the opportunity to assess their interests and skills, design a career plan, and create a portfolio, which documents what they have to offer to an organization in an appropriate field. Students must have at least five years of professional or managerial experience to enroll in this class. BUSI 442 is offered primarily as a directed studies option. For further information and 442 approval, see the Practice Experience Coordinator.
CHEM - Courses
CHEM-105: Introductory Chemistry for Nursing (Credits: 4)
A general introductory chemistry course that covers the fundamental principles of general chemistry specific to pre-nursing students. Topics include atomic structure, states of matter, the periodic table, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, solubility, solutions, ideal gasses, IUPAC rules for naming organic compounds, structure, functional groups, organic reactions, followed by a survey of biochemical topics, including proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids.
CHEM-105L: Introductory Chemistry for Nursing Lab (Credits: 0)
Lab for CHEM 105 Introductory Chemistry Nursing
CHEM-111: Principles of Chemistry I and Lab (Credits: 4)
A course in inorganic chemistry designed for students majoring in chemistry, biology, pre-professional programs in the sciences, and other science fields. Emphasis is placed on a detailed analysis of the fundamental principles of chemistry on both a theoretical and descriptive level.
CHEM-111R: Chemistry III: Recitation (Credits: 0)
An add on to the Chemistry 111 course aimed at bolstering students' math, problem-solving and deductive reasoning skills.
CHEM-112: Principles of Chemistry II and Lab (Credits: 4)
A course in inorganic chemistry designed for students majoring in chemistry, biology, pre-professional programs in the sciences, and other science fields. Emphasis is placed on a detailed analysis of the fundamental principles of chemistry on both a theoretical and descriptive level.
CHEM-300: Special Topics in Chemistry (Credits: 2 to 4)
Topics of interest and importance to students majoring in chemistry, biology, and physics will be offered as needed. Special Topics may be used as elective hours in the Chemistry majors or minors.
CHEM-303: Organic Chemistry I (Credits: 3)
A detailed study of the chemistry of aliphatic and aromatic organic compounds. Topics covered include structure and nomenclature, the basic reactions of organic functional groups, reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry, organic synthesis and spectroscopy. The class is designed for chemistry, biology and pre-professional science majors. Prerequisites: CHEM 111, 112. CHEM 303 is a prerequisite for CHEM 304. (4-4)
CHEM-304: Organic Chemistry II (Credits: 3)
A detailed study of the chemistry of aliphatic and aromatic organic compounds. Topics covered include structure and nomenclature, the basic reactions of organic functional groups, reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry, organic synthesis and spectroscopy. The class is designed for chemistry, biology and pre-professional science majors. Prerequisites: CHEM 111, 112. CHEM 303 is a prerequisite for CHEM 304. (4-4)
CHEM-306: Quantitative Analysis and Lab (Credits: 4)
A study of the theory and practice of quantitative analytical chemistry. Topics include kinetics, chemical equilibrium, acid-base chemistry, complex formation, ionic strength effects, and oxidation-reduction reactions. The lab involves an in-depth study of gravimetric and volumetric methods, as well as a range of instrumental analyses with a focus on quality assurance/quality control. Students will gain experience with multiple modes of scientific communication, and will learn to apply statistics to data collected in the lab, with statistical tests covered including one-sample t-test, two sample t-test, paired t-test, linear regression, and ANOVA. The course includes a multi-week community based lab and science global learning outreach component which requires attendance at least one evening during the term outside normal class or lab time. (WCore: EWRLD)
CHEM-307: Instrumental Analysis and Lab (Credits: 4)
Theory and laboratory work in absorption and emission spectroscopy (AA, UV-vis, IR and fluorometry); electroanalytical chemistry and chromatography as they apply to analytical chemistry. Offered spring of even years. Prerequisites: CHEM 111, 112; PHYS 151 or 211. (4)
CHEM-320: Inorganic Chemistry (Credits: 4)
Inorganic chemistry is concerned with the chemistry of all of the elements except carbon. Selected topics that give the student broad exposure to the modern applications of inorganic chemistry are presented, as well as the underlying theories on which the subject is based. Topics include symmetry and group theory, bonding in inorganic compounds, the solid state, chemical forces, and coordination chemistry. Interesting aspects of the chemistry of selected elements are covered.
CHEM-350: Biochemistry (Credits: 3)
A study of the chemistry of living organisms. Begins with a review of basic biology and organic chemistry as it applies to the biological system, the structure and function of the cell, water and its importance in the biological system and energy considerations. Detailed discussion of the structure and function of proteins, enzymology, carbohydrate structure and metabolism by both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism, and the structure and function of lipids and biological membranes.
CHEM-370: Scientific Computing (Credits: 4)
This course provides students with experience applying programming techniques in Python to a wide range of?scientific?problems. Topics include a brief review of basic programming principles, and applications in equation solving, data analysis, and model simulation.
CHEM-400: Advanced Topics in Chemistry (Credits: 1 to 5)
A class designed to meet the special course needs of chemistry majors. Subject offerings include: (a) Organic Reaction Mechanisms, (b) Organic Qualitative Analysis, (c) Organic Synthesis, and (d) Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. The specific course offerings depend upon student need and interest.
CHEM-401: Directed Studies in Chemistry (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in Chemistry Program. Prerequisites: senior standing and consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
CHEM-421: Quantum Chemistry and Lab (Credits: 4)
A study of the basic principles of quantum mechanics and its application to atomic structure, molecular structure and spectroscopy. A laboratory section accompanies the lecture. Offered fall semester.
CHEM-422: Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics (Credits: 4)
A study of the theoretical macroscopic properties of matter. An introduction to statistical mechanics and chemical thermodynamics with applications to gases, solutions, and phase and chemical equilibria. A laboratory section accompanies the lecture.
CHEM-430: Undergraduate Research (Credits: 1 to 4)
Students undertake a portion of a research project and learn all aspects of scientific inquiry. One credit hour equates to three hours per week in the laboratory. This course may be taken one credit at a time. This course is repeatable for credit.
CHEM-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
CHEM-487: Undergraduate Teaching (Credits: 1 to 2)
Provides an opportunity for teaching experience in lower-division laboratories by junior- and senior-level chemistry majors and minors. CHEM 487 may not be used as elective hours in the chemistry majors or minors. This course is graded on a credit/no credit basis. Permission of program director required. This course is repeatable for credit.
CHIN - Courses
CHIN-110: Basic Chinese I (Credits: 4)
A beginning level course to help students develop basic skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese. The emphasis of this course is on vocabulary conversation skill, and culture appreciation.
CHIN-111: Basic Chinese II (Credits: 4)
A continuation of language skill development in listening, speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese. The emphasis of this course is on conversation in various social situations.
CHIN-220: Basic Chinese III (Credits: 4)
The emphasis of this course is on spoken Mandarin Chinese. Includes a review of pin-yin, introducing the specifics of this language, the speech sounds (pronunciation and intonation), basic grammar rules, and sentence structure.
CHIN-221: Basic Chinese IV (Credits: 4)
A continuation of the study of Mandarin Chinese, with an emphasis on advanced language skills, including conversation, characters, grammar rules, and basic Chinese translations. Includes a study of Chinese culture, philosophy, and politics.
CHIN-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered. Requires consent of the instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
CHN - Courses
CHN-225: Chinese Language Basic A1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This introductory level course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of Chinese. Through a combination of interactive classroom activities, audiovisual materials, and practical exercises, students will acquire basic vocabulary and grammar, and develop essential skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to engage in simple everyday conversations, comprehend basic written texts, and write short messages and descriptions.
CHN-226: Chinese Language Basic+ A2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
Building upon the foundation laid in the A1 level, this course aims to strengthen student's proficiency in Chinese. Emphasizing communicative competence, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more complex grammatical structures and enhance their listening and speaking skills through role-plays, discussions and presentations. Reading comprehension and writing abilities will also be further developed, enabling students to handle a wider range of topics and express themselves more fluently.
CHN-325: Chinese Intermediate B1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
Building upon the foundation laid in the A1 level, this course aims to strengthen student's proficiency in Chinese. Emphasizing communicative competence, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more complex grammatical structures and enhance their listening and speaking skills through role-plays, discussions and presentations. Reading comprehension and writing abilities will also be further developed, enabling students to handle a wider range of topics and express themselves more fluently.
CHN-326: Chinese Intermediate B2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This advanced level course is designed for students who have already acquired a solid foundation in Chinese. It aims to further polish their language skills to a near-native level. Students will delve into more complex linguistic structures, idiomatic expressions, and cultural nuances. Through authentic materials, such as literature, newspapers, and films, students will deepen their reading and listening comprehension abilities. Speaking and writing skills will be refined through in-depth discussions, debates, and composition tasks, enabling students to express themselves accurately and fluently in a variety of contexts.
CMPT - Courses
CMPT-140: Computer Science Principles (Credits: 3)
This course is an introduction to the history, social implications, great principles, and future of computing. Relevance of computing to students and society will be emphasized. Students will learn the joy of programming a computer using a friendly, graphical language, and will discuss how computing empowers discovery and progress in other fields. (WCore: WCSAM)
CMPT-150: Math and Tech of Entertainment Arts (Credits: 3)
Explore the math and technology behind computer animation and video game design. Ever wonder while watching a movie: "How did they do that?" Students will learn the mathematical and computational theory behind image processing, 2D and 3D computer graphics and special effects. This seminar will discuss the progress of computer graphics research over the last fifty years. (WCore: WCSAM, QE)
CMPT-190: Learning to Code (Credits: 2)
A gentle introduction to programming fundamentals including coding, testing, and debugging using the Python programming language. This course is appropriate for students with no programming experience and will introduce basic variables, functions, conditionals, loops, and problem-solving skills through programming. This class meets four hours per week for half semester.
CMPT-201: Introduction to Computer Science (Credits: 4)
Introduction to programming fundamentals, including problem-solving skills, program design, object-oriented programming, coding, testing, and debugging using the Java programming language. This class meets for five hours and includes an integrated lab.
CMPT-202: Introduction to Data Structures (Credits: 4)
An exploration of data structures including stacks, queues, trees, and dictionaries, and a comparison of the algorithmic efficiencies based upon their implementations. This class meets for five hours and includes an integrated lab.
CMPT-210: Just Enough Java (Credits: 2)
An overview of introductory principles of programming in Java. This 7-week course is intended for those who have taken CMPT 190 Learning to Code or have had prior programming experience and prepares the student with enough Java skills for taking CMPT 202 Introduction to Data Structures, a course taught entirely in Java.
CMPT-215: Emerging Scholars (Credits: 0 to 1)
A peer-led, seminar-style course for students enrolled in CMPT 201. Students will work through challenging, non-textbook activities that reinforce the computer science concepts that are keys to success in CMPT 201. This course is highly recommended for all CMPT 201 students and may be taken for 0 credits if students are already registered for 16 credits.
CMPT-251: Computer Systems and Programming (Credits: 4)
An examination of a computer system from the programmer's perspective. Examines how your programs interact with the compiler, the assembler, the operating system, and hardware, enabling students to write software that is efficient, modular, and versatile. Introduces the C programming language, the Linux operating system, and assembly programming.
CMPT-300: Special Topics in Computer Science (Credits: 1 to 4)
A special topics course covering new or specialized courses in Computer Science.
CMPT-301: Artificial Intelligence (Credits: 4)
Introduces the principles and techniques of modern artificial intelligence, including problem solving paradigms and intelligent agents for solving real world problems. Topics include search techniques, games, machine learning, logic, and constraint satisfaction problems.
CMPT-306: Algorithms (Credits: 4)
A study of balanced search trees, algorithms, and complexity analysis. This class meets for five hours and includes an integrated lab.
CMPT-307: Databases (Credits: 4)
A study of relational databases from theory through practical design, implementation, and application programming using SQL. The course also examines other topics such as alternative database models, relational algebra, and web application frameworks.
CMPT-311: Machine Learning (Credits: 4)
An introduction to the discipline of machine learning intended for students with Python programing experience. Students will learn the skills necessary to implement model algorithms from scratch using Python, as well as to familiarize them with libraries for more advanced algorithms that are beyond the scope of this course.
CMPT-322: Software Engineering (Credits: 4)
An overview of constructing software using an Agile approach to software development and design. Topics include software planning and design, scheduling, testing and reliability, and software maintenance. A semester-long project developed in a group setting.
CMPT-328: Computer Architecture (Credits: 4)
An overview of computer hardware and the processing of instructions including processor and memory system organization, bus structures, I/O, and secondary storage devices. A RISC assembly language is used extensively.
CMPT-335: Computer Security (Credits: 4)
An introduction to the fundamentals of computer security as it relates to several areas of computer science including networking, operating systems, and databases. Topics range from cryptography to less technical areas such as user policies and legal issues. Alternative pre-requisite instead of CMPT 251: CMPT 202 and UNIX/Linux command line experience
CMPT-341: Programming Languages (Credits: 4)
The study of language paradigms, data types, and structure. Coverage includes procedural, functional, and interpreted languages.
CMPT-351: Operating Systems (Credits: 4)
A study of the design of contemporary operating systems. Topics include process and thread management, CPU scheduling, concurrency, memory management and I/O device management. Ongoing case studies include UNIX/Linux, Windows, and OS X.
CMPT-352: Computer Networks (Credits: 4)
A study of hardware and software components and protocols in local and wide area networks. Emphasizes TCP/IP networks and the Internet. Alternative pre-requisite instead of CMPT 251: CMPT 202 and UNIX/Linux command line experience
CMPT-355: Compilers (Credits: 4)
Syntax analysis, semantics, code generation, optimization, and run time systems. A complete compiler for a programming language will be implemented.
CMPT-360: Computer Graphics (Credits: 4)
Fundamental computer graphics algorithms, including two- and three-dimensional transformations, viewing projections, lighting models, texture mapping, and ray-tracing. Recommended: basic linear algebra skills.
CMPT-375: Web Applications (Credits: 4)
An introduction to designing and developing web applications using a variety of programming languages and frameworks. Topics include front-end and back-end web app architecture, e-commerce websites, and object-relational mapping.
CMPT-385: Senior Project Proposal Writing (Credit: 1)
Students will write a detailed proposal describing their capstone project to be completed in CMPT 390. Prerequisites: computer science or computer information systems major in the last Fall semester of his or her course of study.
CMPT-387: Undergraduate Teaching (Credit: 1)
For teaching assistants in lower division computer science science problem solving courses. A maximum of two credit hours of CMPT 387 may be applied toward the major or minor. Program chair permission required. This course is repeatable for credit.
CMPT-390: Senior Capstone,Computer Science (Credits: 2)
A required capstone course for senior Computer Science and Computer Information Systems majors. The purpose is to develop a significant independent software project. In addition, students are expected to submit portfolios of their coursework at Westminster. (WCore: SC)
CMPT-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Computer Science Program. Instructor and school dean permissions required. This course is repeatable for credit.
CMPT-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
A maximum of 4 hours of CMPT 440 may be applied toward the major or minor. Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
COMM - Courses
COMM-101: Disinformation in the USA (Credits: 4)
Disinformation is the intentional spread of false, inaccurate, distracting, and/or distorted information for the purpose of gaining power. In this class, we'll explore the history of disinformation-from early propaganda to more recent manipulation of facts-to examine how we as consumers can better identify and fight media exploitation. Emphasis will be on evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing primary and secondary sources to promote healthier media landscapes through information literacy. (WCore: RE)
COMM-210: Media Writing I (Credits: 4)
Introduces students to the basics of newswriting in preparation for further study in journalism, public relations, marketing, and business and technical writing. The framework of the basic news story is used to help students process complex information and write about it clearly and concisely. The course also includes basic editing and consideration of legal and ethical questions.
COMM-211: Media Writing II (Credits: 4)
Develops interviewing and other research skills essential to gathering relevant information and crafting original stories suitable for publication in various media.
COMM-240: Media and Society (Credits: 4)
Analyzes the history, nature, effects, responsibilities, influence, and power of the mass media. Media history leads into instruction about ethical principles and legal accountability.
COMM-250: Introduction to Human Communication (Credits: 4)
Helps students develop a more precise appreciation of the complexity of human communication and further develops their abilities and skills to communicate with competence in various situations. Students will develop their awareness of basic communication processes and skills and explore how these basic skills and processes work in different types and contexts of communication.
COMM-299: Forum Editorial Staff (Credits: 0 to 1)
Students learn best practices for running a student media organization, set performance goals, and evaluate progress throughout the semester. Students evaluate published content and plan strategies for creating and distributing content, reaching advertisers, maintaining operations, and managing staff reporters.
COMM-300: Special Topics in Communication (Credits: 1 to 4)
Presents special topics not offered in the regular Communication curriculum.
COMM-302: Forum Student Media (Credits: 4)
Provides practical experience producing print and online content for the college's student media organization.
COMM-305: Forum Staff Contributor (Credits: 1 to 2)
Students work independently with The Forum editors and faculty adviser to produce content, including written stories, photos, videos, audio, and social media projects. This course is repeatable for credit.
COMM-310: Business & Professional Communication (Credits: 4)
Strengthens professional writing skills in the workplace and in the community. Specifically, students will work on becoming adept at making critical writing decisions based on audience expectations, context and timing, organizational constraints, analysis of research, and the students' professional values and objectives. Projects will include business letters and memos; proposals; reports; and educational, persuasive, and/or informative articles for publication (digital and traditional). Emphasis is on research, writing style, and the revision process.
COMM-322: Multimedia Image Production (Credits: 4)
Emphasizes the aesthetic and technical skills necessary to produce multimedia images. This course explores multimedia image creation within a variety of formats including digital photography, video, and animation. The course emphasizes the artistic tradition within multimedia imaging, but projects will be applicable to fields ranging from advertising to game design.
COMM-325: Designing Dynamic Images (Credits: 4)
This course focuses on learning the visual tools, concepts, and production of dynamic still images and motion graphics for persuasive visual communication and storytelling. We will look at the application of photo manipulation and animation through a graphic design lens. The core software used will be Adobe Photoshop along with other software such as After Effects to produce original design projects for multimedia such as web and social media content, film and podcast, print and advertising, and other current media.
COMM-326: Introduction to Web Writing and Design (Credits: 4)
This course explores the emerging conventions of website development from a communication, design and content strategy perspective. Students will create a complete, original website using a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress. Through the development of this website, students will plan, create, and implement web design best practices and digital content development. Students can expect to learn some or all of the following website development principles, practices, and theories: web hosting and domain name establishment; usability; accessibility; user experience design; digital content strategy; website analytics; search engine optimization; visual asset management; intellectual property for the web; and basic coding in HTML and CSS.
COMM-336: Public Relations Principles (Credits: 4)
Presents methods of establishing and maintaining two-way communication between an institution and its publics. The course focuses on publicity and placement with the media, program planning and management, lobbying, administration, and public affairs. It also covers writing and editing, small-group communication, research procedures, and legal-ethical considerations.
COMM-345: Video Production (Credits: 4)
Covers the basics of video production and editing. Topics include storyboarding, camera operation, sound, lighting and editing, as well as a wide variety of film and video genres including narrative, documentary and experimental.
COMM-350: Leadership & Decision Making (Credits: 4)
Provides a broad survey of communication-based perspectives on leadership traits, skills, behaviors, and practices. Specific topics include change management, conflict management, creativity and innovation, crisis leadership, influence, power, and ethics. This course explores a variety of perspectives, problems, and practices that students will face in their future workplaces. Emphasis will be on both analyzing leadership in various contexts and on developing the skills necessary for effective leadership.
COMM-360: Race, Gender, Class, and Media (Credits: 4)
This course explores and challenges how issues and individuals, groups, and populations are presented in the media. Students will analyze the portrayals of race, ethnicity, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, age, ability and socioeconomic class in entertainment and news media. (WCORE: DE)
COMM-365: Intercultural and Global Communication (Credits: 4)
The major focus on this course is the exploration of the significance of culture in everyday life and how culture interrelates with and influences communication processes. Students will explore the ways in which attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors affect communication among people of different backgrounds. This course will address topics that challenge intercultural interactions, ranging from issues of privilege and power in society and representation of cultures and identities in popular media to the relationship between language, power, and culture. (WCore: EWRLD)
COMM-370: Design Foundations (Credits: 4)
Introduces students to foundational principles of visual communication and design. Students learn theories related to typography, color, layout, organization, photography, iconography, visual rhetoric, and related concepts in information design. Students learn to evaluate and apply these theories in emergent media both in print and in digital formats.
COMM-371: Multimedia Tools and Production (Credits: 4)
This course builds upon theories of design through the production of various projects that may combine text, photography, graphic images, video, animation, audio, and interactivity. Students learn to apply theories and technical application in design by using emerging and industry-standard tools and procedures for web and print. Possible projects include design for print media, file assets for web, layout design, personal branding, and multimedia presentations.
COMM-372: Design and the User Experience (Credits: 4)
This course applies principles of design and emergent media to the interface between the user and the designed product, focusing on studying how design choices engage the user. Topics covered include design thinking, interface design, usability, accessibility, inclusivity, user experience design, emotional design, and interactive design. Projects include analysis and development of various user interfaces including kiosks, websites, app prototypes, wayfinding systems and physical environments. The User Experience capstone project will be a compilation of design projects completed for a client.
COMM-380: Communication & Nonprofit Organizations (Credits: 4)
Nonprofit organizations often operate on a shoestring budget and require their employees to wear multiple hats. To be an effective communicator in a nonprofit organization, you will need a broad set of skills. This class may include aspects of public relations, including crisis response and brand identity development and management; event and cause marketing; grant-writing; and public education, including opinion management.
COMM-387: Undergraduate Teaching (Credits: 1 to 2)
Student enrolled will function as a Teaching Assistant for a particular undergraduate class. Student may be responsible for grading smaller assignments (quizzes, discussion posts, and/or short process writing) based on rubrics established by the professor. Student may also provide written feedback on drafts and meet one-on-one (remotely or in-person) to discuss student writing. Student may be responsible for reading content as assigned by the professor and attending frequent check-in meetings with the professor to discuss pedagogy strategies. Repeatable for credit.
COMM-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
Allows students to initiate proposals for intensive tutorial-based study of topics not otherwise offered in the Communication Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
COMM-425: Communication Law and Ethics (Credits: 4)
Provides an in-depth study of legal and ethical issues in communication. The course focuses on developing a basic understanding of the American legal system and how it applies to the communication industries. Students also study principles and concepts of ethical theory to develop expertise in moral reasoning with regard to ethical problem solving.
COMM-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 6)
One internship is required for the major. A second internship is strongly recommended. Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
COMM-490: Portfolio Workshop (Credits: 2)
Gives students an opportunity to create portfolios from samples of their work that reflects skills acquired in the Communication Program. Students learn to produce professional-quality portfolios displaying artifacts completed in courses, internships, and professional work experience. Course should be taken in one of the last two semesters before graduation, preferably in the final semester. (WCore: SC)
DANCE - Courses
DANCE-110: Creative Process in Movement and Dance (Credits: 3)
This course is an interdisciplinary and playful exploration of the creative process in dance for anyone - no previous dance experience required. Students participate in theoretical and practical content to develop an understanding of our moving bodies, movement potential, personal voice, and collaboration via tools of improvisation, composition, and communication through movement. (WCore: WCFAH and DE)
DANCE-130: Begining Modern/Contemporary Dance (Credits: 2)
This course addresses the principles of modern contemporary dance: body alignment, flexibility, coordination, terminology, and improvisation. No previous dance experience is necessary.
DANCE-135: Beginning Ballet/Jazz Dance (Credits: 2)
This course addresses the principles of ballet and jazz dance styles: body alignment, flexibility, coordination, terminology, and musicality/rhythm analysis. No previous dance experience is required.
DANCE-180: Dance in Culture and History (Credits: 2)
This course examines human movement as an identifier and descriptor of culture through history. The class will focus on universal functions of human movement and the diverse ways in which those functions are expressed across aesthetic systems and cultural practices of selected dance traditions.
DANCE-190: Dance in Global Context (Credits: 3)
This course introduces students to a broad range of dance forms from around the world. Through theoretical and experiential study, students investigate both traditions found in specific dance forms as well as the cross-cultural nature of dance and art in society, examining where divergent cultures have points of intersection. Along with close movement analysis, students will look through historical, social/cultural, and political lenses to explore the diversity of movement forms from around the globe.
DANCE-200A: Ballet Technique for BFA Dance (Credits: 2)
This course is designed to further prepare and condition students to strengthen and excel in dance technique through ballet. In this course, the expansion of artistry and musical sensitivity is advanced and movement vocabulary is expanded. Students will further their proficiency and develop stability in a variety of turns and jumps, increasing repetitions and revelations from varying approaches. Students will work on developing power and elevation through increasingly intricate forms of grand adagio and grand allegro that include varying approaches, steps, and lengthened combinations. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-210: Somatic Landscapes (Credits: 2)
This course surveys the field of somatic practices through scholarship, embodiment, creativity, and application. Somatic practices as a supplement to dance training, as well as a mode of inquiry are addressed.
DANCE-230: Dance Technique: Modern II (Credits: 3)
This course addresses the principles of modern dance styles with an increased competency in body alignment, flexibility, coordination, terminology, and improvisation. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-232: Dance Technique: Contemporary (Credits: 3)
This course addresses the principles of contemporary dance styles with an increased competency in body alignment, flexibility, coordination, terminology, and improvisation. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-235: Dance Technique: Ballet II (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to build upon the fundamentals of classical ballet technique with increased competency of its principles. Memorization of ballet terminology is expected. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-237: Dance Technique: Jazz II (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to build upon the fundamentals of jazz technique with increased competency of its principles. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-280: Dance History II (Credits: 3)
This course examines the development of Western concert dance within a global perspective, and analyzes its important figures and movement theories from the beginning of the twentieth century through the present. Emphases includes analysis of movement through historical, social/cultural, and political lenses and as an illuminator of culture.
DANCE-310: Dance Performance/Company Workshop (Credits: 1 to 4)
This course is a practical application of technique training, engaging students in various professional models of creating, rehearsing, and performing in choreographic works by faculty, guest artists, and community partners for a dance company concert in the dance season. This classis repeatable for credit.
DANCE-330: Dance Technique: Modern III (Credits: 3)
This course is a further implementation of the principles found in Modern II with an increased expectation of consistency in the physicality and mental process of the student. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-332: Dance Technique: Contemporary (Credits: 3)
This course is a further implementation of the principles found in Contemporary II with an increased expectation of consistency in the physicality and mental process of the student. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-335: Dance Technique: Ballet III (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to build upon the fundamentals of classical ballet technique taught in Ballet II. This level is dedicated to strengthening balance on demi-pointe both at barre and center practice. In this course a more extensive movement vocabulary is introduced, and readiness for pointe work is determined by each student's strength and physical development and will be decided upon by the assessment of the instructor. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-337: Dance Technique: Jazz III (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to build upon the principles of jazz technique established in level II, with increased competency of its principles and opportunities for expression of artistry in performance choices. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-350: Dance Pedagogy (Credits: 4)
This course provides students with the skills for teaching all age levels of dance by understanding developmental ability, preparing concise and effective lesson plans, selecting age appropriate music and activities, and setting goals and communicating with clarity in the classroom.
DANCE-351: Applied Anatomy/Kinesiology (Credits: 4)
This course investigates human anatomy and kinesiology in relationship to dance. Course content and tasks will emphasize the skeletal and muscular systems, injury prevention and treatment, conditioning, and the role of individual differences.
DANCE-370: Composition and Choreography (Credits: 4)
This course provides exploration of self-generated movement that departs from codified styles of dance. It examines dance-making tools and compositional structures through which students can communicate their ideas. Open to dancers of any styles and builds upon movement principles, choreographic devices, production elements explored in previous studio work. Improvisation, Choreographic tools, interdisciplinary projects, site specific work, and mentoring opportunities guide students through the creative process at an increasingly complex level.
DANCE-380: Dance Forms (Credits: 3)
This studio-based course explores a variety of vernacular dance forms and will rotate through topics including, but not limited to tap, hip-hop, salsa, flamenco, and various social dance forms. Historical, social/cultural, and political considerations of each form will also be addressed.
DANCE-381: Ballet Studies (Credits: 4)
This studio-based course explores various facets of ballet study and will rotate through topics including, but not limited to, pointe/variations, partnering, and character dance. Emphasis is placed on building upon a solid ballet foundation and enhancing coordination, stability, and clarity of expression through the classical style. Some topics may require instructor approval.
DANCE-382: Moving Images: Dance for Film (Credits: 3)
In this course students explore the use of different perspectives of dance composition specifically for film and construct digital dance projects while receiving guidance and feedback on composition, editing, and use of technology.
DANCE-401: Directed Study in Dance (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student-initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Dance Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-430: Dance Technique: Modern IV (Credits: 3)
This course builds upon year III with increased emphasis on performance-level quality and technique in modern dance. Work will explore complex movement sequences, rhythmic structures, and spatial relationships. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-432: Dance Technique: Contemporary IV (Credits: 3)
This course builds upon year III with increased emphasis on performance-level quality and technique in contemporary dance. Work will explore complex movement sequences, rhythmic structures, and spatial relationships. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-435: Dance Technique: Ballet IV (Credits: 3)
This course emphasizes a mastery of the principles presented in earlier ballet courses as well as requiring strong technical standards, style application, and performance techniques. this class will enhance the student's power and elevation in grand allegro and speed of petit allegro as well as potentially addressing pointe work for the advanced student, based upon the assessment of the instructor. Development of musical sensitivity and overall artistry as expected as it relates to the ballet canon. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-437: Dance Technique: Jazz IV (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to explore the principles of jazz dance at an advanced level, with increased competency of its principles and opportunities for expression of artistry in performance choices. This course is repeatable for credit.
DANCE-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 4)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
DANCE-480: Production (Credits: 2)
This course explores the skills necessary to manage and produce formal dance concerts (e.g., costumes, scenery, lighting, sound, and stage management).
DANCE-490: Senior Seminar (Credits: 2)
The capstone course in the Dance Program, this course looks beyond studio practice to prepare students for success in their professional careers. Through a range of supplemental skill sets, students hone the abilities necessary to navigate and succeed in a wide range of professional aspects of dance and the arts. These skill sets include but are not limited to portfolio development, administration, marketing, and technological literacy. (WCore: SC)
DANCE-491: Senior Showcase (Credits: 2)
This semester course gives students a forum to demonstrate their mastery of choreographic ideas, audition and rehearsal processes, and performance design - culminating in a high quality production.
DATA - Courses
DATA-110: Explorations in Data Science (Credits: 4)
Data Science is on the forefront of the Big Data Revolution. Governments, companies, nonprofits, and health care providers are collecting, storing, and analyzing vast amounts of data to extract information about us and make predictions about our lives. The mathematical and technological aspects of data science have been central to its success, yet they cannot exist in isolation. The context in which data is collected and used, and potentially misused, shape the impact on individuals and society as a whole. Therefore, the study of issues involving data collection, analysis, and its communication from multiple contexts involving different disciplines-including but not limited to economics, psychology, sociology, biology, medicine and chemistry-will be a central theme of this class. (WCore: WCSAM, QE)
DATA-150: Data and Society (Credits: 4)
Quantitative literacy is increasingly important in our world of information. The primary goal of this course is to learn about data and how it's used. Along the way, we will learn how to develop basic tools to analyze and visualize data, read and evaluate research claims, and report research findings in honest and ethical ways. (This course may not be taken for credit if a student already has credit for DATA 220.) (WCore: QE)
DATA-220: Introduction to Modern Statistics (Credits: 4)
Statistics is the study of data. This course will develop tools for analyzing data from a variety of fields. We follow the process from data gathering (samlping methods and experimental design) to exploratory data analysis (graphs, tables, charts and summary statistics) to inferential statistics (hypothesis tests and confidence intervals) using both simulation methods and sampling distributions. A key component of the course is learning the statistical language R for data analysis and R Markdown for the presentation of statistical analysis. (WCore: QE)
DATA-307: Databases for Data Science (Credits: 2)
A study of the application of relational databases to information collection and extraction. SQL queries are studied in depth.
DATA-350: Statistical Modeling (Credits: 4)
The general linear model is a powerful framework for modeling relationships in data analysis. This course establishes the theory and application of regression models from simple and multiple regression through ANOVA and logit/probit models. In addition to building models, we will also learn to diagnose model fit and handle a wide range of possible complications. We will use the statistical language R for analysis and R Markdown for the presentation of statistical analysis.
DATA-360: Data Science With Python (Credits: 4)
Python is currently the top programming language for data science. It's a flexible and efficient language that's relatively easy to learn and use, with an extensive set of packages for data wrangling, visualization, statistics, and machine learning. In this course we will supplement basic programming skills by exploring data formats and storage, data cleaning and wrangling, and exploratory data analysis using industry-standard Python packages. The goal of this course is to take a more programmatic and Pythonic view of data science. Much of our work will be in the Jupyter notebook environment with some exposure to the command line and scripting. We will also cover basic SQL queries for interacting with databases. Students will learn reproducible research techniques and skills for working with big data in Python.
DATA-370: Statistical Learning (Credits: 4)
Statistical learning is a broad term that refers to any statistical technique that seeks to estimate the relationships among data. Modern advances in computational power allow us to use technology to build a wide array of models to analyze increasingly complex data sets. This course will explore the theory and application of statistical learning techniques such as clustering, regression, discriminant analysis, resampling, regularization, splines, generalized additive models, and Bayesian inference. We will use the statistical language R for analysis and R Markdown for the presentation of statistical analysis.
DATA-401: Directed Study (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student-initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Data Science Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
DATA-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
DATA-470: Capstone Project (Credit: 1)
The capstone project is an opportunity for students to apply the knowledge gained throughout the Data Science minor to an interesting data problem, preferably in conjunction with a research project in their major. The students in the course will work with a mentor in their field of interest as well as the faculty member running the Data Science capstone project to develop a research plan to analyze one or more data sets addressing a topic of interest. All capstone students will meet together one hour a week to share ideas and take advantage of interdisciplinary collaboration. The capstone experience will culminate in a paper and a presentation.
ECON - Courses
ECON-130: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Catallaxy (Credits: 4)
We will hitchhike through time from the catallaxy (economy) of 18th century BC Babylon to the catallaxy of present-day Utah to better understand the history of commerce, currency, chaos, control, and choice in a world of uncertainty and scarcity. During this period, the lives of commoners changed dramatically. Just a few centuries ago they were the pawns of kings. Today, many of us live more lavishly than feudal queens and kings. We will use economic history and basic tools of economic science to study the dramatic changes in the lives of commoners. (WCore: WCSBS)
ECON-150: Economics, Ethics, and Growth (Credits: 3)
This class explores economic ideas through the effort to enhance economic growth by extending the market, and the counter movement to protect human beings, nature, and productive organizations from market forces. Extending the market involves transforming human beings, nature, and productive organization into commodities. This manifests itself in crises, inequality, environmental degradation, and so on. (WCore: WCSBS)
ECON-253: Elementary Macroeconomics (Credits: 3)
Introduction to the origins and evolution of theories of capitalism, emphasizing growth and depression. Analyzes the nation's economy as a whole, presenting an overview of the determination of output, employment, and the price level. This course is required for all business and economics majors. Offered Fall, Spring and Summer semesters.
ECON-263: Elementary Microeconomics (Credits: 3)
This course provides an introduction to microeconomics. We study how individuals, firms and governments make important decisions to get the most from a limited availability of resources. We examine how they achieve this through interactions in the markets, under perfect and imperfect competition. We explore how markets and governments complement each other. The topics include: supply and demand, elasticity, market efficiency, externalities, and market structure, etc. In this class, we frequently use algebraic and graphical analysis, in addition to qualitative analysis. As a prominent economist, John Maynard Keynes, once wrote, "The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions." We expect students to learn the economic way of thinking after taking this class.
ECON-303: Money and Banking (Credits: 4)
Money and banking institutions, theory of prices, and interest. Keynesian and post-Keynesian monetary theory and alternative monetary policies.
ECON-311: History of Economic Thought (Credits: 4)
Examines the history of economic thought in the context of the evolution of the capitalist system. The course uses original sources in understanding the classical, Marxist, neoclassical, Institutionalist, and Austrian schools of economic thought.
ECON-317: Macroeconomic Theory (Credits: 4)
Intermediate study of income, employment, and output; also the role of fiscal and monetary policies. The course also explores the role of fiscal and monetary policies from classical, Keynesian, post-Keynesian, and monetarist viewpoints.
ECON-318: Microeconomic Theory (Credits: 4)
Intermediate study of the price mechanism and resource allocation, behavior of consumers, business firms, and suppliers of productive resources in the institutional context of market economy.
ECON-319: International Economics (Credits: 4)
The study of international economics examines how international transactions influence things such as social welfare, income distribution, employment, growth, price stability, and the ways public policy can affect these outcomes. The course is divided into two distinct areas of focus: international trade and international monetary economics. (WCore: EWRLD)
ECON-325: Environmental Economics (Credits: 4)
Covers economic theories and policies regarding pollution and the use of renewable and non-renewable resources. Explores the degree to which economic growth is compatible with environmental quality and considers both orthodox and heterodox approaches to the environment.
ECON-365: Economic Justice (Credits: 4)
The importance of economic justice stems from the scarcity of resources: how should society allocate resources to achieve the social good? Invariably, questions of justice involve tradeoffs between fairness and efficiency. Such questions are inextricably related to religion, class, gender, poverty, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on. The course examines the concept of justice from the points of view of pre-market economies, classical liberalism, neo-classical economics, heterodox economics, Kenneth Arrow, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, among others.
ECON-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Economics Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
ECON-412: Special Topics in Economics (Credits: 1 to 4)
Special Topics in Economics, e.g., Public Finance, Multinational Corporations, Mathematical Economics.
ECON-418: Economics and the Law (Credits: 4)
The course will begin by developing the general framework used in economics as an approach for examining and solving legal problems. The course tries to make economic principles emerge from a more or less systematic survey of legal principles. By using this approach we are assuming that the law is a system; it has unity that economic analysis can illuminate. A significant amount of time will be spent on non-market behavior--with family, crime, accidents, litigation, and much else that is remote from the conventional analysis of market behavior studied in microeconomics.
ECON-441: Economics Practicum (Credits: 4)
The Disciplinary Practicum is a student team- based, company consultation project. The project addresses a real issue of concern to a client company (or non-profit organization), requires extensive research, and results in a formal oral presentation and written report to the company. Students work in teams of 3-6 students under the supervision of a Gore School of Business faculty member. Prerequisites: ECON 253, 263; MATH 150; junior or senior standing.
ECON-485: Senior Seminar (Credits: 4)
The senior seminar is structured along two tracks - economics thesis work and advanced empirical project. Students can choose from the two tracks depending on their background training and career plans. Students who choose the economics thesis work must produce original scholarship in economics or related disciplines. Students may choose topics from economic theory, economic history, law, economic growth and development, environmental, international, or monetary and financial economics, or focus on contemporary economic and public policy questions or a doctrinal work on economic thought. This option is relevant for students completing the B.A. or the B.A. pre-law tracks in economics. This option is suitable and advisable for students who seek to get involved in an intensive research program and who plan to pursue advanced work in economics education or industry research. The advanced empirical project option is most appropriate for students who are completing the B.S. track in economics. The economics faculty and the seminar adviser will recommend the theme of the empirical project. Students are encouraged to explore local or regional policy questions, or choose topics in business development, insurance, marketing, international business, finance, or strategy, or choose to investigate broader contemporary social and economic problems. BS.ECON students are required to complete the ETS exam, which is generally administered in BUSI 350. If students take ECON 485 instead of BUSI 350, please contact the Gore School of Business Administrative Office to schedule the exam. (WCore: SC)
ECON-493: Business Forecasting (Credits: 4)
The course offers an introduction to forecasting for junior and senior undergraduates in business and related majors. The course aims to equip students with basic expertise on how to generate forecasts using a variety of models including time-series and causal or structural models. The course covers the foundational concepts of stationary and non-stationary data, and the autocorrelation and the partial autocorrelation functions, and it introduces forecasting using time-series decomposition, exponential smoothing, regression models, the Box-Jenkins ARIMA methodology, and vector autoregression and cointegration models. Students will learn how to conduct model-based forecasting and how to evaluate the reliability of the forecasts generated. Computer applications are integral components of the course. Mastering these methods is among the most sought after qualifications for graduates working in either the private or public sectors of the economy.
ECON-495: Mathematical Economics (Credits: 4)
The primary objective of this course is to prepare undergraduate students for the mathematical techniques and analyses that are used in graduate economic programs. Topics include equilibrium analysis, linear models and matrix algebra, the matrix algebra of ordinary least squares regression, application of differential and integral calculus, comparative statics, optimization, dynamic analysis using first order differential or difference equations, and an introduction to game theory and proof writing.
ECON-499: Introduction to Econometrics (Credits: 4)
This course aims to equip students with basic understanding of the econometric tools necessary in quantitative research. Students will apply the techniques learned to specific empirical problems that arise in economics, marketing, management, and finance. The course emphasizes the classical linear regression model, and it introduces estimation and testing using simple and multiple linear regression models, time series models, panel data models, and limited dependent variable models as well as estimation and testing using two-stage least squares and the instrumental variables method. The course is oriented towards applied econometric work and therefore aims to prepare the students for more empirical work. The computer is a valuable part of the course and the students will gain valuable experience in the area of computer assisted data analysis.
EDUC - Courses
EDUC-206: How to Change the World? (Credits: 3)
This course enables students to learn about service and community engagement as a means of impacting the world around them. The course strengthens the students' understanding of the connection between their field of endeavor and the diverse needs of their community. To further understand these community needs, students will spend time providing service to individuals or agencies in the local community. Students will make connections between community service and their own learning through in class activities, assignments, interviews, presentations and personal reflection. (WCore: EWRLD)
EDUC-207: Hope/Resilience Childhood Trauma (Credits: 4)
This Social and Behavioral Sciences W-Core course will explore ways in which traumatic childhood events impact and shape individuals' brain development, health and well-being, relationships, educational trajectories, and involvement with the justice system. We will investigate traditional practices, policies, and structures found within a variety of organizations and critically analyze how they impact the success of youth and adults who have experienced childhood trauma. Furthermore, through community engagement, we will learn from and work with professionals in the field who implement trauma-responsive practices and examine case studies that illuminate trauma-informed practices in education, health care, social services, and in the foster care and justice systems. Based on these experiential and academic experiences, students will apply concepts of transformation, social responsibility, and sustainability to solving real-world problems. (WCore: WCSBS)
EDUC-220: Math for K-6 Teachers I (Credits: 3)
This course is a concept-oriented exploration of number and early algebraic reasoning in relation to children's learning. The emphasis is on developing conceptual and relational understanding of number and number theory, arithmetic operations and their properties, and models for teaching these concepts in the early childhood and elementary classrooms. Students will examine how the concepts of number and operations connect and grow across the K-6 grade levels.
EDUC-221: Math for K-6 Teachers II (Credits: 3)
This course is a concept-oriented exploration of geometry, measurement, probability, and data analysis topics in relation to children's learning. The emphasis is on developing conceptual and relational understandings of these topics from an informal and hands-on perspective. Students will examine how many of the concepts related to these topics develop from the early and elementary children's natural explorations. Prerequisite: MATH 141 with C or better.
EDUC-252: Developmentally Appropriate Teaching,Learning (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to developmental theories, principles, and practices. The following topics are studied: instructional design, classroom environment, assessment, culturally responsive teaching, Common Core, and the Utah State Core. 'Funds of Knowledge' will be introduced as a framework for building home-to-school connections into instructional design. The Teacher Work Sample will be introduced.
EDUC-300: Special Topics in Education (Credits: 1 to 4)
Timely topics in education are presented as appropriate to students' needs and curricula.
EDUC-301: Educational Policy (Credits: 3)
This course emphasizes the importance of understanding schools and other educational institutions as organizations that are embedded in a political system. The course explores decisions that are made within schools, educational institutions, state legislatures, and the federal government. A variety of theoretical frameworks for understanding issues, the decisions of policy makers, participation in decision-making, and the outcomes of policy will be discussed.
EDUC-302: Foundations of Education Diverse Society (Credits: 4)
This course is designed to introduce students to educational theories. Students will examine, integrate, and apply various dynamics and principles of learning theories to practical classroom environments. Emphasis is placed upon the joining of learning theory and instructional 2022-2023NS practice, to personal transformation of teacher professionals. The readings will guide students toward understanding a critical perspective on the sociology of schooling and exploration of how schools have evolved, the political, economic, and social forces that shape those schools today, and the significant issues facing public educators. We examine how to create inclusive spaces in relation to race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. The course helps students understand a variety of philosophical systems that shape public education and guide students to articulate their own philosophy about teaching and learning. Students are required to observe in schools and attend a school board meeting.
EDUC-305: Elementary Classroom Management (Credits: 3)
Students will examine, integrate and apply various dynamics and principles of classroom management to practical elementary classroom environments. Discipline, interpersonal relationships, classroom climate, home and parent involvement, conflict resolution, restorative discipline and providing meaningful opportunities for student voice will be addressed.
EDUC-307: Globalization of Education (Credits: 3)
This course analyzes the political, economic, and social forces that have lead the globalization of education. It uses various frameworks and theories to analyze critically the impact of globalization on everyday educational practices and the role education plays in shaping society. The class introduces systems thinking, analysis of power relations, and responses to globalization of education in various parts of the world. (WCore: EWRLD)
EDUC-309: Advocacy Under the Dome (Credits: 4)
Students will gain the knowledge and skills to participate effectively in local public policy making and advocacy. Through first-hand observation of and engagement with local political processes, study of public policies, and analyses of contemporary movements, students will deepen their understanding of how public policies are made and how citizens can be most effective in influencing those policies.
EDUC-312: Specialized Education Services (Credits: 3)
Explores professional roles and responsibilities of general educators in K-12 schools as they serve students with specific learning needs. Explores the collaborations among educators, families, and community agencies in providing appropriate services and educational plans for students with gifted and talented abilities, mild to severe learning and behavioral disorders, and for students with cognitive and physical disabilities.
EDUC-313: Theories of Adult Learning (Credits: 3)
This course explores theories and research that seek to explain how adults learn. This course uses a complexity thinking frame to understand learning at various levels (e.g., embodied, individual, collective, societal) and learning as an emergent process of interactions between levels. The course draws upon brain research, theories of adult learning, and research on adult learning. Students formulate a working theory of adult learning in a specific setting.
EDUC-315: Learning Theories (Credits: 3)
This course explores theories and research that seek to explain how children and adolescents learn. This course uses a complexity thinking frame to understand learning at various levels (e.g., embodied, individual, collective, societal) and learning as an emergent process of interactions between levels. The course draws upon brain research, theories of learning, and research on learning. Students formulate a working theory of learning in a specific setting.
EDUC-322: Serious Games, Gamification, and Beyond (Credits: 3)
Gaming has become an important pathway for learning in a variety of formal and non-formal settings. In this course, students learn the differences between gamification, game-based learning, and learning games and how to use these formats effectively. Students connect learning theories to game design to enhance motivation and learning. Students make use of research on learning through gaming and design a game-based learning unit. Ethical issues involved in the field will be explored.
EDUC-334: Teaching Adults (Credits: 3)
Teaches a variety of instructional strategies for facilitating adult learning. The course covers setting learning goals and methods of instruction for teaching skills and content, for increasing understanding, and for construction and application of knowledge. The course addresses teaching in different settings and the implications of context on instruction. The course also teaches methods of assessing various types of learning.
EDUC-335: Adult Education, Program Planning (Credits: 3)
This course focuses on the process of planning and evaluating adult education programs. Different models for program planning will be considered along with their appropriateness for differing settings. The course will include methods for evaluating adult education programs.
EDUC-342: Science Methods (Credits: 3)
Principles, methods, and materials for teaching science in the elementary school. Scope and sequence of science concepts include life sciences, physical sciences, and other sciences using inquiry oriented teaching and learning. Students are required to spend twenty clock hours in a field placement.
EDUC-344: Creative Arts Methods (Credits: 3)
Introduction to the methods, materials, and media for creative arts instruction. Involves how to teach appreciation of the arts, music, movement, and production in the arts. Students are required to spend twenty clock hours in a field placement.
EDUC-346: Social Studies Methods (Credits: 3)
Principles, methods, and materials for teaching social studies in the elementary school. Scope and sequence of social studies concepts include geography, history, economics, community, state and national governments. Students are required to spend twenty clock hours in a field placement.
EDUC-352: Management of Nonprofit Organizations (Credits: 4)
The course provides an overview of the history, development, role, auspices, organization, strategies, and purposes of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and the world. Emphasis is placed on structure, planning, policies, organizational leadership/management, governance, stewardship, resource development, community building, advocacy, volunteer services, and problems that face nonprofits. The course addresses social, political, economic, cultural and ideological issues.
EDUC-355: Literature-Based Reading Instruction (Credit: 1)
Students will become familiar with a wide range of children's and adolescents' literature and explore their uses in the classroom. The course focus will be on instructional strategies for developing critical and analytical thinking skills. A wide range of authentic literature will be presented along with a study of genres and integration into content areas.
EDUC-356: Online Teaching and Learning (Credits: 3)
Students will identify how they and others learn using the internet. They will participate in the development of online learning materials and follow best practices in instructional design to identify learning outcomes, design appropriate learning materials for a type of learner, develop effective learning materials, implement online instruction, and evaluate the effectiveness of the learning process. Learners will also participate in learning technologies that help engage online students and teach others how to use these technologies.
EDUC-359: Assessment to Improve Teaching (Credits: 2)
This course prepares students to use data from their own classroom assessments and from standardized tests to improve student learning. Students will learn to tie their assessments to the Common Core standards and to interpret the results of state-wide standardized tests.
EDUC-362: Physical Education Methods (Credit: 1)
Methods and techniques for teaching elementary physical education. Prerequisite: EDUC 302.
EDUC-363: Literacy Foundations, Assessment (Credits: 3)
Research-based literacy assessments, processes, and instructional practices will be studied and then practiced in the field. In addition to a K-6 classroom field placement, a 15-hour assessment and intervention experience with a struggling reader is required. Prerequisite: EDUC 252, 302.
EDUC-364: Reading and Language Arts (Credits: 3)
Provides contact with lessons, materials, methods, research, and theory for the elementary teaching in language arts skills and strategies for application in the K-6 classroom. We examine various instructional strategies and adaptations in language arts for all learners through critical text readings, shared experiences, field placement, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and active student inquiry and participation. Students are required to spend twenty clock hours in a field placement.
EDUC-368: Math Methods for K-6 Teachers (Credits: 3)
This course examines current directions in how students learn mathematics in order to promote thinking about best practices for teaching K-8 children mathematics. The emphasis is on understanding a variety of instructional practices, assessment strategies, and curriculum development to plan for effective teaching and learning. Students are required to spend twenty clock hours in a field placement. Prerequisites: EDUC 220 and 221.
EDUC-369: Literacy Assessment and Intervention (Credit: 1)
Students will practice concepts studied in EDUC 363 as they tutor readers in Title I schools on a weekly basis. Co-requisite: EDUC 363
EDUC-370: Adult Education: Foundations and Futures (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to the breadth of the field of adult education and its historical, sociological, and philosophical foundations. Students will explore their own beliefs, values, and experiences and develop a working philosophy of education. They will deepen their understanding of the historical development of adult education in the US and the differing philosophies that shape contemporary educational policies, and envision possible futures for the field.
EDUC-373: Juvenile Justice (Credits: 3)
This course will explore the U.S. juvenile justice system, including its history, philosophical underpinnings, and biases. Through visits to detention facilities, interviews with individuals involved in the justice system and an exploration of comparative systems of youth incarceration and rehabilitation in the U.S and abroad, students will critically analyze and evaluate our current system and make recommendations for reform. (WCore: EWRLD)
EDUC-374: Popular Culture As Pedagogy (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to critical media literacy as a means of critically examining the messages they receive from the media, through popular culture, and from the entertainment industry. Students will begin to understand the role these institutions play in maintaining systems of domination and subordination through the often detrimental and deleterious portrayal of marginalized groups in the United States. In order to fully interrogate the impact these messages have on society generally and marginalized groups specifically, students will also be exposed to critical theory. Students will then take the knowledge they have attained in this course and engage in a community media literacy project. (WCore: EWRLD)
EDUC-375: Indigenous Knowledge and Lifeways (Credits: 4)
This course will introduce indigenous knowledge systems, worldviews, and lifeways from various regions of the world. The course will be structured so students experience indigenous ways of learning and social-environmental organization. Students will explore epistemological questions, relationships (economic, social, governance, with nonhuman life forms), and historical and contemporary practices. Students will apply their learning to addressing global crises through their specific discipline(s) and reflect on their own cultural identity, values, and practices. (WCore: EWRLD)
EDUC-390: Educational Research Methods (Credits: 4)
This course provides an introduction to research methods and research design. Students will learn basic skills in interpreting quantitative data and develop their skills in qualitative research methods. Students will design a final research project or creative project which integrates the knowledge and skills learned throughout the program and which benefits an education-related organization or effort.
EDUC-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student-initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Education Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
EDUC-418: Student Teaching Seminar (Credits: 2)
This seminar provides a forum for teacher candidates to share information, address concerns, and network with supportive peers and faculty members during their student teaching. Additional foci on the teacher candidates' capstone assessment and career guidance are also provided. (WCore: SC)
EDUC-440: Coop/Education Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
EDUC-480: Elementary Student Teaching (Credits: 10)
Mentored classroom experience under the supervision of a certificated elementary teacher. Placement requires observation of, participation in, and direct responsibility for classroom work and conferences with the mentor teacher.(Students with certificates at other levels may need only five hours; all other students must have ten hours. For more information, please contact the Education Office.)
EDUC-495: Senior Thesis/Project (Credits: 4)
Students complete the thesis or creative project designed in EDUC 390 and learn skills for data analysis and presentation of research findings. Students complete a program portfolio and participate in college-wide sharing of their learning portfolio. Requires Senior standing and EDUC 390 or EDUC 440. May be taken at during the same semester as EDUC 440. (WCore: SC)
ENVI - Courses
ENVI-101: Environment: Science, Society, Culture (Credits: 4)
Interdisciplinary exploration of the fundamental principles of Environmental Studies. Students will consider influential approaches to understanding nature, and investigate local environmental issues. This course draws on ideas from the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities.
ENVI-102: Ecology of Food Systems (Credits: 4)
We eat many times a day, but very few of us think about our meals as part of a complex system of interactions between plants, animals, people, machines, and institutions. In this course we will explore the current state of the US food system, from production to consumption as well as issues such as food waste and food insecurity. Through hands-on experiments, guest experts and field visits, we'll also learn about the many ways that folks are working to create new food systems that are more just, fair and ecological. This course will also introduce students to the hands-on skills essential for sustainable agriculture on a variety of scales. On some days, participants should come to class dressed to do garden work and expect to get their hands dirty, as well as spend time visiting several area farms and gardens. Students will have the opportunity to implement what they learn while working in Westminster's campus garden and in cooperation with community partners. (WCore: WCSAM, QE)
ENVI-103: Radical Hope (Credits: 4)
We live in a world in the midst of a climate crisis, a 6th great extinction, and ongoing environmental injustice. How might we find hope in our connection to things like pigeons, mushrooms, and frogs? The world around us is filled with environmental monsters and ghosts. What might we learn from those stories of horror and loss? The Anthropocene seems fraught with change, peril, and despair at every step; what tools for a more verdant and just future, what seeds for radical hope might we find among the ruins? this course aims to acknowledge the dramatic changes associated with the Anthropocene and the anxiety and despair that those changes might produce. In response, however, together we will look for tools to address this despair and reassess those changes to consider ways we might discover creative connections to the world around us, and how those connections might contain kernels of a more hopeful present and future. (WCore: WCSBS)
ENVI-115: Science of the Environment (Credits: 4)
In this course, you will get hands-on opportunities to learn about many critical aspects of our environment the soil that produces the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink, as well as the climate of the planet we call home. You will have the opportunity to learn how these important environmental systems work, as well several techniques and tools to collect, analyze, and interpret environmental data. A major goal of the course is to help you understand the science behind many environmental issues so that you can make informed decisions about important environmental and global challenges. (WCore: WCSAM, QE)
ENVI-201: Green Careers (Credit: 1)
This course will help students discern their career goals and the ways in which they aim to make a difference in the world via an Environmental Studies degree. Through course exercises and experiences students will begin to identify and acquire the skills and tools they can use to make those changes. The course will include an investigation into the range of environmentally focused careers, while helping students to identify the coursework and professional development students will need in order to succeed with in them.
ENVI-202: People and Places (Credits: 4)
Have you seen hilarious public restroom graffiti, or initials and the symbol of a heart carved on the face of a boulder? Have you wondered about why people do what they do and say what they say in certain places but not other surroundings? How do people make sense of and cope with surroundings such as a prison, or a crowded and polluted neighborhood? Through readings, discussions, site visits, and other activities, we will delve deep into the intricacies of human-place relationships and examine the way in which social differences (race, gender, class, etc.) shape and influence that relationship. Topics may include nature in prisons, wilderness therapy, and community gardens, among others. (WCore: WCSBS)
ENVI-203: Climate Resilience (Credits: 4)
In this course, students will engage in extensive interdisciplinary research on how indigenous and people of colors communities build ecological, cultural, and emotional resilience in response to the crisis of climate change. Students will also collaborate on developing a website where they communicate their research findings to the general public. New content for the website will be created by cohorts of students each time the course is offered.? (WCore: WCSBS, DE)
ENVI-300: Special Topics in Environmental Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A changing topics course that addresses specific issues, ideas, practices, and solutions for Environmental Studies. Possible topics are activism, computer modeling, meteorology, adventure sports, endangered species, etc.
ENVI-301: Field Study (Credit: 1)
This course takes students into the environment. Academically structured weekend trips and carefully guided service learning opportunities are powerful tools for meeting learning goals like active learning, teamwork, global consciousness, social responsibility, and leadership. ENVI 301 offers our students short, intense learning opportunities where they travel to engage contemporary environmental debates or learn about significant environmental issues. Prerequisites: ENVI 101 or instructor permission.
ENVI-305: Geographic Information Systems (Credits: 4)
This course has cross-disciplinary appeal from Computer Science to Geology to ENVI. Maps and other geographic information are increasingly present in myriad applications in our data-rich, digital world. Environmental studies in particular make extensive use of "spatial data", i.e., information involving locations. Working with spatial data is best accomplished with the extensive capabilities provided by geographic information systems (GIS). GIS include a combination of hardware and software that allow us to collect, store, manage, analyze and present spatial data. Such data are increasingly available, are easily collected with GPS tools or even with smart phones, and are used to address issues in many fields. In this class, students will learn how GIS systems work and, in a series of labs, will work with GIS software using various data types to query and analyze it, present it as maps and graphs, and collect data concerning environmental topics. Students will also learn spatial analysis techniques, some principles of cartography, essential principles of how geographic information is used to solve problems. (4)
ENVI-330: Extended Field Study (Credits: 4)
The concerns of Environmental Studies are grounded in specific places, topics, and processes. Extended field study courses put students in those places so that they can explore deeply the challenges, possibilities, contexts, and processes at the heart of contemporary and historical environmental issues. These field courses require a commitment to travel away from campus for an extended period of time (ranging from 1 week to a full semester) for the field experience. This course is repeatable for credit.
ENVI-331: Environmental Conflict and Cooperation (Credits: 4)
Wars, ambushes, evictions, occupations, political and personal arguments, murders, feuds. The Environmental History contemporary social context of the west is full of conflict. But it is also full cooperation, agreement, help, love, encouragement, and collaboration. In this course we will visit the sites of this conflict and cooperation. We'll talk to actors in the debates and the process and look to understand the context of the conflict and the hope behind the cooperation as people look to address the wide range of environmental issues across the West. The sites we visit will be driven by the itinerary of the trip, current events, and the availability of guest speakers. This course will function as one of the Westminster Expedition Courses (and must be taken with ENVI 332, ENVI 333, and HIST 202).
ENVI-332: Landscape and Meaning (Credits: 4)
This course will function as one of the Westminster Expedition Courses (and must be taken with ENVI 331, ENVI 333, and HIST 202). This course will examine the link between the landscapes of the West and the cultural meanings attached to them. The natural landscapes that surround us contain a world of meaning. The earth is home, habitat, playground, resource, waste-sink. It is seen as dangerous and peaceful, bountiful and depleted, crowded and open. Places like Yellowstone National Park, the Nez Perce Trail, the Atomic Test site, or the expanses of the Bitterroot mountains carry with them profound histories and meanings the often confound their natural appearance. How do we reconcile these contradictions? What do they mean in terms of the cultural and political ecologies of particular places? How do the cultural values we attach to natural landscapes challenge our understandings of their history and our own involvement in the natural world? By looking at the cultural geography of the environment we can analyze how the meanings of nature are actively created and why it is contested by different people in different places. And, perhaps most importantly, why it matters. In this course students will examine these landscapes of meaning in person. They will hear from experts, managers, and discuss the contested meanings that surround them. Students will prepare questions for guest lecturers, write descriptive field notes while observing and participating in social life, reflect on your interviews and field notes through exploratory essays, write critical reviews of existing relevant research, and complete an original analysis of a cultural landscape that incorporates properly-cited primary and secondary source material. You may take lots of pictures, video, or record sounds and present them to the public on the expedition blog.
ENVI-333: The Indigenous West (Credits: 4)
This course will function as one of the Westminster Expedition courses (and must be taken with ENVI 331, ENVI 332, and HIST 302). Indigenous peoples inhabited all of the American West; today's Indigenous nations exercise sovereignty over fragments of their former territory. This course investigates the "Indigenous history" of some of the West, based upon the Expedition's itinerary. For example, Blackfeet were displaced from Glacier and Sheepeaters from Yellowstone, now iconic parts of the National Park system. Students will also visit contemporary Indigenous nations and investigate their roles in land-use issues. Students will meet with Indigenous peoples, public lands managers, scholars, and activists along our route. (WCore: EWRLD) (Americas History category)
ENVI-340: Special Topics in Environmental Science (Credits: 1 to 4)
Upper-division courses exploring influential ideas, texts, and practices from the intersection of science and environment.
ENVI-341: Environmental Toxicology (Credits: 4)
Environmental toxicology is the study of the nature, properties, effects, and detection of toxic substances in the environment and in any environmentally exposed species, including humans. This course will provide a general understanding of toxicology related to the environment. Fundamental concepts will be covered including dose-response relationships, absorption of toxicants, distribution and storage of toxicants, biotransformation and elimination of toxicants, target organ toxicity, teratogenesis, mutagenesis, carcinogenesis, and risk assessment. In the second part of the course, we will study the toxicodynamic and kinetics of contaminants in the environment including fate and transport. The course will examine chemicals of environmental interest and how they are tested and regulated.
ENVI-350: Special Topics in the Civic Environment (Credits: 1 to 4)
Upper-division courses exploring influential ideas, texts, and practices from the intersection of the civic realm and the environment.
ENVI-351: The Global Environment (Credits: 4)
This course presents students with an opportunity to study to global implications of contemporary environmental issues and relationships between nature and society. Many scientists and social scientists have argued that we are in the midst of the Anthropocene, an epoch in which people have fundamentally changed the earth's environment. Students will approach these issues with attention to cross-cultural interactions and ideas that shape environmental and humanitarian concerns in light of global processes of social and ecological transformation, students will study the global nature of many environmental issues, their impacts on local communities and ways those communities have responded. Global environmental issues such as energy, agriculture or water use will be considered through specific local changes with an emphasis on communities in Asia, Africa and South America.(WCore: EWRLD)
ENVI-352: Water in the West (Credits: 4)
An old aphorism notes that to get rich in the West, one should become a water lawyer. Another states that "Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting." Forest historian Char Millar writes that "Great hopes, deep doubts, even despair, have been integral to the history of western water policy." The American West has long been defined in large part by its lack of water. The region's aridity lies at the heart of endless ecological, social, political, and legal debates that have at times sparked violence. This course will explore the social world of water in the region, and the challenges presented by its relative scarcity.
ENVI-353: Environmental Movements (Credits: 4)
In this course we'll examine how environmental movements work. What big ideas do they mobilize around? What strategies are effective or ineffective? How do they promote change? We'll consider how US based movements differ from those in other parts of the world and what those differences mean. We'll also look closer to home with a research project analyzing how organizations in Utah have worked to promote a more sustainable future. At a protest against environmental injustice at Love Canal, a young woman wore a sign that said, "We've got better things to do than sit around and be contaminated." This class will look at what people have done and why.
ENVI-355: Special Topics-Env. Humanitie/Soc Sci (Credits: 4)
Upper-division special topics courses exploring influential ideas, texts, and practices at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences and the environment.
ENVI-360: Special Topics in Env. Humanities (Credits: 1 to 4)
Upper-division courses exploring influential ideas, texts and practices at the intersection of the humanities and the environment.
ENVI-361: Writing the Environment (Credits: 4)
This course will ask students to develop their written communication skills through a carefully focused series of writing assignments. Students will build their confidence in written expression by engaging multiple genres including the research essay, the argumentative essay, the editorial, the cover letter and the personal reflection.
ENVI-363: Gender and the Environment (Credits: 4)
This course examines holistic and alternative ideas and practices pertinent to gender and the environment, and their significance in creative and activist work to promote social and environmental justice and wellbeing. Themes to be discussed include gendered embodiment of the environment, gender and environmental movements, and queer ecology, among others. Course reading materials are drawn from multicultural and global sources in environmental humanities (art, film, literature, etc.,) and related interdisciplinary fields of inquiries (masculinities studies/critical men's studies, women's and gender studies, queer studies, etc.,).
ENVI-364: Spiritual Ecology (Credits: 4)
In this class, we will embark on a collective journey to hunt for hope in a world as challenging as this one we are currently living in. From diverse perspectives, we will examine the role that spirituality plays in global earth healing. Through readings, discussions, and other activities, we will ponder the questions of where we came from, where we are at now, where we are going, and what the place of humans is in the larger living system. The class will also be an opportunity for us to build a learning community where we explore our own inner landscapes, our actions in the outer world, and collective solutions to a sustainable and just world.
ENVI-365: Literature of the Environment (Credits: 4)
In this course, we will read and discuss a selection of contemporary environmental literature by multiethnic writers in North America and beyond. Much of our reading will be in the genres of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Along the way, we will examine the historical and political contexts in which these texts were produced while attending to diverse perspectives that inform our perceptions of the environment--from the philosophical to the political and from the scientific to the poetic.
ENVI-370: Theories of Nature (Credits: 4)
This course is designed to introduce students to the field of Nature and Society. This course covers the fundamental integrative theories that explore nature and society interactions, including key contributions from economics, literature, sociology, political science as well as political, social, and cultural ecology. The focus is on learning how to assess the complex interactions between natural and built environments, technology, institutions, social groups and individuals, and value/ethical systems which shape the context for social policy analysis and decision-making. The goal is to promote among students thoughts and practice that facilitate sustainable development both at the community and national level.
ENVI-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Environmental Studies Program. Prerequisite: consent of instructor and school dean.
ENVI-405: Senior Capstone (Credits: 4)
A capstone course for Environmental Studies majors ordinarily taken during one of the last two semesters of undergraduate study. The Senior Capstone will challenge students take the learning they've done in the classroom and apply it to the real world. Students will work in partnership with local community organizations, government agencies and individuals to identify and address environmental needs through community-based action. This work can take different shapes for students from the different concentrations, and will give students the chance to develop their ability to grapple with complex environmental issues and conduct efforts in preparation for future careers, graduate school, and more.
ENVI-410RR: Applied Conservation Biology (Credits: 3)
Conservation biology focuses on the application of scientific principles to inform and guide the protection and management of Earth's biological diversity. This course covers major topics that fall under applied conservation biology, with an emphasis on large-scale conservation and local case studies. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this course, topics are drawn from fields including population ecology, landscape ecology, community ecology and genetics, as well as social, economic, and community aspects of conservation. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-415RR: Applied Ecology (Credits: 3)
Applied ecology provides the conceptual basis for the practice of science-based ecological research, conservation, monitoring, and restoration. In this course, we will explore concepts in ecology that are essential for understanding how historical land-use shapes ecosystems today, and how we can expect systems to respond in the future to current disturbances and proposed management actions. Ecological concepts covered within this course include trophic cascades, speciation, predation and herbivory, habitat use and preference, aquatic and terrestrial food webs, disturbance regimes, and climate change. The course also focuses on local applications for ecological restoration, such as removing or modifying a source of disturbance (e.g., a dam), removing invasive non-native species, reintroducing native species, and removing barriers to wildlife movement. By providing locally relevant case studies and scientific articles, students will learn to apply ecological concepts to local conservation and restoration projects, assignments, and fieldwork. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-420RR: Community-Based Natural Resource Mgm't (Credits: 3)
Much of southern Africa has adopted Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approaches to conservation, led and implemented by community organizations, traditional leaders, conservation NGO's, private-sector investors, and government authorities. The goal of CBNRM is for local communities and private landowners to benefit directly from both consumptive and non-consumptive natural resource utilization strategies. This course covers major approaches to CBNRM focusing on evaluating the success of local strategies. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-425RR: Humans and the Environment (Credits: 3)
Understanding a culture's relationship to the natural world provides insight into successful conservation strategies. Successful approaches to community-based conservation often incorporate local knowledge and necessitate perceiving humans as part of the environment. Drawing on disciplines such as anthropology and geography, and this reading and discussion-based course covers topics such as Human Wildlife Conflict, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, impacts of protected areas on local people, ecosystem services, and the methods and problems associated with applying research to conservation and development efforts. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-430RR: Biological Field Methods (Credits: 3)
Conservation biology and ecology are based on a solid foundation of skills related to field methodology and the observation, recording, and reporting of plants and wildlife in their natural environments. This course provides an introduction to a variety of field methodologies and natural history observation techniques, and will provide students with the information and tools needed to understand the scientific process: formulating a research question, collecting data, compiling and analyzing data, writing a scientific paper, and presenting research results. This course gives students practical research skills and field experience that cannot be gained in a classroom setting. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-435RR: Introduction to Natural History (Credits: 3)
Natural history is the study of plants and animals in their natural environments and is the basis of all scientific learning. The concepts of conservation biology and ecology are enhanced by a solid foundation in natural history. No great technical knowledge is necessary to comprehend the practice of natural history, but it is necessary to practice these skills in the field. Students will become familiar with the flora and fauna native to their program area, and will learn standardized methods to record observations, patterns, and experiences in the field. Students will also read and discuss a variety of natural history-related essays. This field course is offered by Round River Conservation Studies. Contact the Environmental Studies program chair for more information.
ENVI-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Students receive credit for meeting pre-arranged learning objectives while working for a business, a non-profit, a government program, or some other organization that engages the environment. Hands-on experience is especially important to Environmental Studies students, and the faculty will work to support internship opportunities for all students. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
ENVI-450: Undergraduate Research (Credits: 1 to 4)
Students undertake a portion of a research project and learn all aspects of interdisciplinary inquiry in Environmental Studies. This course may be taken one credit at a time. This course is repeatable for credit.
FILM - Courses
FILM-110: Making Sense of Movies,And Aesthetics (Credits: 4)
This course examines the formal elements of film and its history, from the earliest experiments in motion photography through the present. Students will learn the terminology and concepts of film analysis (mise-en-scene, montage, cinematography, etc.) in the context of film's evolution across the twentieth century. Films may include profanity, violence, and/or sexually explicit images. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
FILM-300: Special Topics in Film (Credits: 1 to 4)
This is the general designation for film electives, which explore specific elements of film, film history, and interdisciplinary film studies. Courses include: Film Theory, Cinematography and Editing, National Cinemas, Documentary Film, Sociology of Popular Culture, Screenwriting, Film Genres, Narrative and Adaptation, and Race in Film.
FILM-331: These Films Are So Gay! (Credits: 4)
One of the earliest representations of non-normative gender performances in film is The Dickinson Experimental Sound Film of 1894/5. Lasting only 17 seconds, the film captures a man playing a violin into a large recording horn while two men danced "cheek to cheek". The dancing men perhaps were an afterthought for William Kennedy Dickson, the Scottish inventor who recorded the film, or as Vito Russo insists, in The Celluloid Closet (1981), as a direct representation of homoerotic affection between men. Nevertheless, this film demonstrates the power found in questioning heteronormative constructs of gender identities and sexuality and raises questions of how films both represent, either by accident or design, non-normative sexual desire that ultimately become part of cultural identities. In this course we will explore representative films of queer cinema not only for their aesthetic value but also for their political meaning and historical legacy. Some of the themes and films we will explore are: problematic yet impressive explorations of gender identities of the pre-code era such as Sidney Drew's A Florida Enchantment (1914) and George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935); homoerotic desire in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Kenneth Anger's short films; iconic camp films such as Robert Aldrich's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Frank Perry's Mommie Dearest (1975); boundary and taste pushing films in the aftermath of Stonewall such as John Waters's Pink Flamingos (1972); and contemporary films where the pretense of "suggestive" homoerotic love interests are dropped and fully explored such as Sean S. Baker's Tangerine (2015) and Céline Sciamma's Girlhood (2014) .
FILM-345: Video Production (Credits: 4)
Covers the basics of video production and editing. Topics include storyboarding, camera operation, sound, lighting and editing, as well as a wide variety of film and video genres including narrative, documentary and experimental.
FILM-380: Video Game Culture (Credits: 4)
Video games have emerged in the 21st century as one of the most-watched spectator sports. Pro-gamers compete for hundred-thousand-dollar prizes, and they receive sponsorships that can be worth millions. But to view the video game medium as only an economic force denies the complicated nature of gaming. In popular culture, gaming is the domain of nerdy teenagers, but video game conventions demonstrate that the average player is, well, everyone. This course focuses on the critical analysis of social issues in video games. Class time will be split between playing across different video game genres (such as role-playing, action-adventure, life simulation, strategy, sports, music, and literary hypertexts) and participating in current academic debates around gaming and game studies. Class discussions will engage with the ludic and narrative elements of game theory from an interdisciplinary perspective that considers video games as cultural artifacts, economic powerhouses, educational tools, drivers of technological innovation and works of art.? This course fulfills the Language & Media requirement for LMW majors.
FILM-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Film Studies Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
FILM-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
FINC - Courses
FINC-200: Investing for Everyone (Credits: 3)
In this course, students focus on understanding basic investment options and being able to think critically about the risk and return tradeoffs of each asset class. The investment options included are stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and real estate. Key investment concepts include risk and return, and the variety of ways investment return is calculated. Students will review market cycles and volatility cycles so that they have a broad perspective on investment performance and risk over time. There is a strong focus on learning to think critically about the sources of information in this space. There is currently no other course that introduces students to the basics of investing within a framework of learning to be a critical consumer in the financial services marketplace.
FINC-300: Business Finance (Credits: 3)
Business Finance introduces students to basic financial concepts and their application to business situations. The course will develop an understanding of the methods used to analyze and manage the financial performance of a firm. Topics include: a review of accounting, financial ratio analysis, time value of money, asset valuation methods, fundamentals of capital budgeting, the relationship between risk and return and the cost of capital.
FINC-305: Investments and Analysis (Credits: 4)
A survey of the organization and regulation of security markets, security analysis and valuation, and principles of portfolio management from the perspective of the individual investor.
FINC-309: Concepts and Applications of Corporate,Finance (Credits: 4)
A case analysis approach of financial management theory with special emphasis on capital budgeting, capital markets and long-term financing.
FINC-310: Financial Institutions,Banking (Credits: 2)
This course provides an understanding of financial institutions and their interactions in the economy. It explores Utah's unique and growing industrial banking industry. It provides an understanding of why these institutions are formed, how they function, and their unique characteristics.
FINC-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Finance Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
FINC-405A: Investment Strategies and Applications I (Credits: 2)
This course meets for two hours in Fall semester and two hours in Spring semester. Students in this course will be managing the D.A. Davidson Student Investment Fund for the academic year. The course will give students experience preparing industry/sector analyses, researching and using various investment styles, making stock selections, monitoring portfolio selections, preparing performance reports and portfolio re-balancing. The class is designed to expose students to employment opportunities in investment research and management. The course will include materials designed to help students prepare for the Level 1 exam for the Chartered Financial Analyst professional designation.
FINC-405B: Investment Strategies and Applications 2 (Credits: 2)
This course meets for two hours in Fall semester and two hours in Spring semester. Students in this course will be managing the D.A. Davidson Student Investment Fund for the academic year. The course will give students experience preparing industry/sector analyses, researching and using various investment styles, making stock selections, monitoring portfolio selections, preparing performance reports and portfolio re-balancing. The class is designed to expose students to employment opportunities in investment research and management. The course will include materials designed to help students prepare for the Level 1 exam for the Chartered Financial Analyst professional designation.
FINC-410: Raising Money for New Business (Credits: 2)
This course is for business and non-business majors interested in starting a new business. We will review the different sources of funds for a new business and the standard documentation needed to receive funding. We will also familiarize students with the concepts, issues and techniques of starting a new business.
FINC-412: Special Topics in Finance (Credits: 2 to 4)
Topics relevant to Finance students will be offered periodically under this title.
FINC-435: International Finance (Credits: 4)
The primary focus of this course is the understanding and application of the concepts of corporate finance, financial markets, and investment in an international context. Students will analyze economic, political, cultural, religious, and demographic factors that impact country financial risk. Specific topics include the international flow of funds, exchange rate determination, managing currency exposure, global investing, political/financial risk analysis, and international capital budgeting from a global perspective.
FINC-493: Business Forecasting (Credits: 4)
This course is designed to introduce students to advanced statistical forecasting procedures. The course addresses the process of assessing the need for forecasting, choice of forecasting tools, evaluation of the forecast and how to present results to management. Topics include exploratory data analysis and graphing techniques, data transformations and smoothing multivariate regression models, simultaneous system estimation, and time series analysis.
FINC-495: Finance Capstone (Credits: 4)
This course integrates the concepts/theories the student has acquired in their undergraduate experience from Undergraduate Business Core courses, upper division Finance courses, and Finance elective courses. By creating and analyzing a variety of financial models, students will demonstrate their ability to effectively understand and communicate complex financial concepts, analyses, and decisions. Students will also study ethics to increase their financial ethical awareness and to create their personal ethics statement. (WCore: SC)
FIRST - Courses
FIRST-100: College Success (Credits: 0 to 2)
This course is part of the First Scholars Program which will ensure that participating students achieve social and academic integration. With an emphasis on lived experience, first-generation and traditionally underrepresented students will learn academic success strategies, will understand their social identities to successfully navigate college, and will participate in the social fabric of Westminster. This course also provides a general orientation to Westminster's resources. Students are introduced to college offices and services, explore major and career options, and develop college success skills.
FIRST-200: Community-Based Learning (Credits: 0 to 2)
This course is part of the First Scholars Program, a program designed to ensure academic and social integration for 4-year students. Through this course, students will expand their development of skills in leadership, collaboration, diversity understanding, and community engaged learning. We will focus on furthering our understanding of our own personal identity. We will take that understanding and integrate it into the community to better understand our own roles and responsibilities within our local community.
FIRST-300: Accessing Developmental Opportunities (Credits: 0 to 1)
This course will continue to strengthen the collegiate experience of our First Scholars by helping them to find their place at Westminster and develop academic, self-management, professionalism, and critical thinking skills. The course was created with the vision of expanding institutional support for first-generation students and to serve as a bridge as they navigate their campus environment and explore developmental opportunities such as internships, research opportunities, and fellowships.
FIRST-400: Graduation Transition (Credits: 0 to 1)
This course will continue to strengthen the collegiate experience of First Scholars by strengthening their understanding of identity and allow them to apply their academic, self-management, professionalism, and critical thinking skills. Students in this course will understand how issues of power, privilege, and oppression inform issues like policy, laws, values, and culture. Students in this course will also develop a transition plan for post-graduation - be it graduate school or entering the workforce.
FREN - Courses
FREN-110: French I (Credits: 4)
A novice introduction to the written and spoken structures of the language. Cultural appreciation also emphasized.
FREN-111: French II (Credits: 4)
Continued development of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, as well as cultural appreciation.
FREN-220: French III (Credits: 4)
An intermediate conversation/composition course with some emphasis on grammar.
FREN-221: French IV (Credits: 4)
Students will view various French movies which have been chosen because of their historical, cultural, or linguistic importance. All of these movies will have English or French subtitles and will became the subject of "intermediate" conversations and written compositions in French. Assignments will integrate grammar review, vocabulary, and the study of idiomatic expressions.
FREN-300: Special Topics in French (Credits: 1 to 4)
This changing-topics course provides a variety of on-campus special interest French language courses, as well as May Term travel courses. Recent courses have included Conversational French, Cinma en Classe de Franais, and French Gastronomy.
FREN-320: Advanced French I (Credits: 4)
Continuation of advanced conversation/composition with emphasis on French literature and culture. Some review of intermediate and advanced grammar.
FREN-321: Advanced French II (Credits: 4)
Continuation of advanced conversation/composition with emphasis on French literature and culture. Some review of intermediate and advanced grammar.
FREN-370: Survey of Literature (Credits: 4)
The reading of representative French masterpieces to provide an to provide an understanding of the major literary and intellectual developments in French civilization. Analyses of the works enlighten problems of translation, critical approaches, and aesthetic principles.
FREN-387: Undergraduate Teaching (Credits: 1 to 2)
Advanced students work as teaching assistants in FREN 110-111. A maximum of two credit hours of FREN 387 may be applied toward the major or minor. This course is repeatable for credit.
FREN-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the French Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. Recommended for advanced students only. This course is repeatable for credit.
FREN-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
FRN - Courses
FRN-225: French Language Basic A1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This introductory level course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of French. Through a combination of interactive classroom activities, audiovisual materials, and practical exercises, students will acquire basic vocabulary and grammar, and develop essential skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to engage in simple everyday conversations, comprehend basic written texts, and write short messages and descriptions.
FRN-226: French Language Basic+ A2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
Building upon the foundation laid in the A1 level, this course aims to strengthen student's proficiency in French. Emphasizing communicative competence, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more complex grammatical structures and enhance their listening and speaking skills through role-plays, discussions and presentations. Reading comprehension and writing abilities will also be further developed, enabling students to handle a wider range of topics and express themselves more fluently.
FRN-325: French Intermediate B1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
At the intermediate level, this course focuses on deepening students' understanding and command of French language and culture. Through authentic materials, multimedia resources, and interactive activities, students will refine their grammatical knowledge, expand their vocabulary, and develop a greater ability to engage in discussions and express opinions. Reading and listening comprehension skills will be honed through exposure to various texts and audio sources, while writing skills will be enhanced through composing coherent paragraphs and short essays.
FRN-326: French Intermediate B2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This advanced level course is designed for students who have already acquired a solid foundation in French. It aims to further polish their language skills to a near-native level. Students will delve into more complex linguistic structures, idiomatic expressions, and cultural nuances. Through authentic materials, such as literature, newspapers, and films, students will deepen their reading and listening comprehension abilities. Speaking and writing skills will be refined through in-depth discussions, debates, and composition tasks, enabling students to express themselves accurately and fluently in a variety of contexts.
GEOL - Courses
GEOL-107: Geology of the American West (Credits: 4)
This class uses case studies in Western North America to introduce students to the field of geology. Through investigations of the Pacific Northwest, the Colorado Plateau, the Wyoming Craton, and the Wasatch Mountains, students will learn the theories and concepts that geologists use to understand our entire planet. Be warned: this class will change the way you see the world. (WCore: WCSAM, QE) Note: Students may get credit for GEOL 107 or GEOL 111, but not both.
GEOL-111: National Parks Geology (Credits: 4)
Many of America's National Parks were designated because of their geologic beauty and history. This course will examine geologic principles and concepts through the lens of National Park Service units, as they often represent the most exquisite examples of geologic phenomena. Geology within national parks tells a story of the evolution of North America, from mountain building, to volcanism, to historic inland seas and giant beasts of an earlier geologic age. (WCore: WCSAM, QE) Note: Students may get credit for GEOL 107 or GEOL 111, but not both.
GEOL-201: Earth Materials I: Mineralogy & Lab (Credits: 4)
In this integrated lecture-lab course, students learn how minerals are formed in various geologic environments, how to identify minerals using diagnostic properties, and how minerals are relevant to societal needs. Students will use chemical principles to understand mineral formation and appearance from the atomic to outcrop scales. Lab exercises allow students to practice identification skills of mineral samples and will allow students to explore the world of minerals using polarizing light microscopes.
GEOL-205: Climate Science and Solutions (Credits: 4)
A study of the earth as a dynamic system focusing on the human dimensions of global change. (WCore: EWRLD)
GEOL-210: Historical Geology (Credits: 4)
This course traces the history of the Earth from its fiery origins to its current state. Along the way students will learn about the major geological, environmental, and biological changes that have sculpted the planet we all know and love.
GEOL-214: Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Credits: 4)
This course takes an in-depth look at how geologists use sedimentary rocks to interpret the changing nature of the earth's surficial environment. This class utilizes actualistic experiments and field studies in addition to traditional lectures and discussions. Topics include the physical nature of sediment and sedimentary environments (shelf, terrestrial, and carbonate); naming clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks; dating, correlation, and magnetostratigraphy; biostratigraphy and biogeography; and sequence stratigraphy. Includes a 2-hour weekly lab.
GEOL-230: Dinosaur Paleobiology (Credits: 4)
They say you can't get blood from a stone, but paleontologists often try to do exactly that. With nothing but a few fossilized fragments, paleontologists reconstruct not just the anatomy of extinct creatures, but also their physiology, behavior, ecology, and life histories. This class will use dinosaurs as an extended case study to explore how paleontologists make claims about the lives of long dead creatures, and about how understanding those creatures' lives can lead to additional insights about the history of the earth and the dynamics of evolution. (WCore: WCSAM)
GEOL-260: Geoliteracy (Credits: 2)
This course serves prospective geology majors and minors with an overview of the field from the perspective of working geologists. Topics to be covered will include, but not be limited to, an overview of geological subdisciplines, reading the scholarly literature, careers in geology, and communicating geological information to a variety of audiences.
GEOL-300: Special Topics in Geology (Credits: 1 to 4)
Topics of interest and importance not covered by regularly scheduled courses.
GEOL-301: Earth Materials II: Petrology (Credits: 4)
This integrated lecture-lab class serves as an introduction to the types of igneous and metamorphic rocks and the geologic processes that create them. Emphasis is placed on the identification of rocks from hand samples and thin sections. Students will explore rocks from world-class locations such as Yellowstone, providing opportunities to link observations and processes to the broader regional geology.
GEOL-310: Structural Geology and Tectonics (Credits: 4)
This course studies the fate and evolution of the solid parts of the earth after initial rock formation has occurred. Students in this class will learn about the forces that bend, break and shape rock as well as the origin of those forces from tectonic processes.
GEOL-311: Scientific Writing (Credits: 2)
Writing is a crucial skill in practicing science; the communication of data to other scientists in written form creates a reliable body of peer-reviewed literature that propels discovery. Students will practice good writing techniques and science-specific fundamentals in the format of a variety of outlets, including primary research reports, secondary literature reviews, and grant proposals. They will learn scientific citation and referencing skills that credit primary discoveries and recent innovations. This foundation will not only give students better communication skills, but it will also give them new insight into reading scientific studies. The course will also consider methods for effective communication of science to the public.
GEOL-315: Principles of Paleontology (Credits: 4)
This course introduces the organisms that compose the fossil record as well as the methods that paleontologists use to reconstruct the life of the past. Topics include modes of preservation, classification and the species problem, biases of the fossil record, phylogenetic reconstructions, functional morphology, paleoecology, morphometric analyses, evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary trends, and critical intervals in the history of life.
GEOL-320: Volcanology (Credits: 4)
Volcanoes are one of Earth's most powerful geologic phenomena, causing disruption on local and global scales, with potentially cataclysmic consequences. This course will survey different eruption styles, magma production and differentiation, associated hazards, mitigation techniques, and volcanoes throughout our Solar System. Modern and historical case studies will be used to demonstrate successes and failures associated with geologic hazards.
GEOL-325: Oil and Water (Credits: 4)
This course focuses on natural resources within the state of Utah, and how these resources affect people and places locally, regionally, and globally. Four principle resources will be examined: oil, water, coal, and mineable resources (primarily uranium, copper, and silver). Students will learn the geology behind each resource, extraction and refining methods, laws and policies pertaining to resource development, and impacts (both positive and negative) of the resources on people, places, and the world. (WCore: EWRLD)
GEOL-350: Geological Research Methods (Credits: 1 to 4)
Geological research method courses combine abbreviated classroom time with extended day, weekend or semester break field excursions to allow students the opportunity to collect their own samples, make their own maps, or in other ways put into practice the concepts that they have learned in the classroom.
GEOL-350A: Geologic Research: Antelope Island (Credits: 2)
Geological research method courses combine abbreviated classroom time with extended day, weekend or semester break field excursions to allow students the opportunity to collect their own samples, make their own maps, or in other ways put into practice the concepts that they have learned in the classroom.
GEOL-360: Field Geology (Credits: 6)
This course, preferably taken in the summer before senior year, is the opportunity for students to put their skills into practice. After an initial week of in-class instruction on field methods, students will get in the vans for the ultimate in experiential learning. At various field locales around Utah and Colorado, students will gain experience mapping, measuring sections, and creating stratigraphic columns. (WCore: SC)
GEOL-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A student-driven research project on some aspect of geology. One credit hour equates to a minimum of four hours of research each week. Requires the consent of the instructor and school dean.
GEOL-402: Senior Seminar (Credits: 3)
This class will familiarize students with scholarly geological literature. Students will read and discuss contemporary geological research papers and will learn the process for writing research proposals and journal articles.
GEOL-405: Geochemistry (Credits: 4)
This class explores the chemical fundamentals of geologic processes. Students will explore how rocks and minerals record chemical variabilities within magma chambers, learn fundamentals of radio-isotopic dating, use tracer isotopes to explore the nature of the unseen mantle and crust, and use stable isotopes to examine climatic changes across geologic time. Real quantitative data will allow students to practice computational skills employed by scientists to understand the evolution of Earth.
GEOL-415: Geobiology (Credits: 3)
Geobiology uses the tools of biology and biochemistry to study the long term interactions between the Earth and life. Students will learn the significance and uses of global chemical cycles, the use of biomarkers in geology, mechanisms of biomineralization, how metabolism affects geochemistry, and will explore the history of the Earth from a completely new perspective.
GEOL-425: Geophysics (Credits: 4)
This class will act as a capstone class for students with a particular interest in the physical evolution of the earth. Topics to be covered may include the dynamics of the earth's interior, the generation and evolution of the earth's magnetic field, gravimetry as a tool for geologic exploration, rotation of the earth's core and the flow of heat in the mantle.
GEOL-430: Undergraduate Research (Credits: 1 to 4)
Students complete a research project and learn the process of scientific inquiry through hypothesis testing. One credit hour equates to a minimum of four hours of research each week. Requires consent of the instructor.
GEOL-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
GER - Courses
GER-225: German Language Basic A1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This introductory level course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of German. Through a combination of interactive classroom activities, audiovisual materials, and practical exercises, students will acquire basic vocabulary and grammar, and develop essential skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to engage in simple everyday conversations, comprehend basic written texts, and write short messages and descriptions.
GER-226: German Basic+ A2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
Building upon the foundation laid in the A1 level, this course aims to strengthen student's proficiency in German. Emphasizing communicative competence, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more complex grammatical structures and enhance their listening and speaking skills through role-plays, discussions and presentations. Reading comprehension and writing abilities will also be further developed, enabling students to handle a wider range of topics and express themselves more fluently.
GER-325: German Intermediate B1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
At the intermediate level, this course focuses on deepening students' understanding and command of German language and culture. Through authentic materials, multimedia resources, and interactive activities, students will refine their grammatical knowledge, expand their vocabulary, and develop a greater ability to engage in discussions and express opinions. Reading and listening comprehension skills will be honed through exposure to various texts and audio sources, while writing skills will be enhanced through composing coherent paragraphs and short essays.
GER-326: German Intermediate B2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This advanced level course is designed for students who have already acquired a solid foundation in German. It aims to further polish their language skills to a near-native level. Students will delve into more complex linguistic structures, idiomatic expressions, and cultural nuances. Through authentic materials, such as literature, newspapers, and films, students will deepen their reading and listening comprehension abilities. Speaking and writing skills will be refined through in-depth discussions, debates, and composition tasks, enabling students to express themselves accurately and fluently in a variety of contexts.
GNDR - Courses
GNDR-101: Gender, Sex, and Identity (Credits: 4)
The central aim of this course is to foster critical thinking about gender and how the concept of gender structures relationships of power around us every day. This means that we will think about, write about, and talk about questions related to what gender is, how it affects us, and how it can change. Throughout this course, we will draw on several different disciplines, such as sociology, philosophy, literature, and political science, to develop a multi-faceted understanding of how gender structures our lives. We will also look at specific topics related to the intersections of race and gender, sexual identity, gender inequality, and the flexibility of gender categories. (WCore: WCFAH, DE)
GNDR-131: Philosophy of Gender and Power (Credits: 4)
The term "feminist" has almost as many meanings as it has both advocates and detractors. For some, the "feminism" means a radical shift in language, politics, and economics. For some, the term simply means equality. And still for others, the term means witchcraft, sexual deviancy, and the death of the American family. This semester, we will examine how contemporary theorists (many of whom call themselves "feminist") argue the world needs to change in order to make a more just environment for women. In the process, we will read about, write about, and discuss a wide range of issues including structures of power, sexuality and sexual violence, race, masculinity, and beauty norms. The goal for this class is not to decide on one solitary definition of "feminism" but instead to force ourselves to think more critically about how gender structures the world around us and how we can change our future. (WCore: DE)
GNDR-221: Domestic Arts: Stiching From the Margins (Credits: 2)
The domestic art of stitching has in recent history been coded as a feminine pursuit. This course subverts the notion that femininity is a form of weakness; we will upend this notion with a look at the domestic arts for its ability to provide humans with a self-sufficient livelihood, access to aesthetically pleasing arts, and functional objects. To explore the strength in stitching, students will explore how needlework, often dismissed as passive, requires patience, physical, and mental work to develop the skills of assertive individuality in design (Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch). Our course meets twice a week to engage in a series of domestic arts such as embroidery, weaving, quilting, and other forms of stitching.
GNDR-222: Drawing Gender (Credits: 2)
How can drawing interrogate and express gender? In this course students will consider different modes of portraiture and the way images can communicate self and bodies outside of the gender binary. This course is intended for students without drawing experience who are interested in understanding and using drawing to both challenge and confirm traditional values of gender in our society.
GNDR-223: Gender and the Media (Credits: 2)
How does what we see in the media impact how we think about gender? The media is the air we breathe, and it shapes the way we see the world and ourselves. Come learn about how the media has framed gender through fictional and nonfictional portrayals across news, movies, television, social media, etc.
GNDR-224: Math With No Problems (Credits: 2)
When you think of a math professor, who do you picture? Most folxs don't picture themselves or their identities fitting in the world of math. That's because mathematics culture has not encouraged people outside the norm to fit in. In this class we will embrace the wonder, power, and beauty of mathematics by learning to play. By exploring what it means to do mathematics without the assumptions on who can do math, this course creates a space where gender, race, and sexuality are not marginalized but centered in seeking out patterns and formulating truths. Math with no problems is a place for exploration and does not require any prior math knowledge. This course is hands on where all things will be completed in class.
GNDR-225: Archive of Feelings (Credits: 2)
The past is often presented as clean, tidy, and easy to understand with events shown as inevitable and where the only voices heard are those in power. BUT! The past is as messy, complicated, and dynamic as the people who lived it, and archives offer a window into lives and times, peoples and places that were historically marginalized and excluded from textbook presentations of history, anthropology, and archaeology. This class will dig into a variety of archival sources looking at how gender, sex, and sexuality are coded in archives, how social and cultural mores of dominate ideologies shape what is permissible and what is deviant, and work to illuminate and elevate the real lives and truths of people subjugated to and erased by modern narratives building a new understanding of the world.
GNDR-226: I want my MTV! (Credits: 2)
Music based television has been around since the 1960s but it was the rallying cry of "I want my MTV!" that the music video took over the world. This course begins by examining the canonical history of music videos exploring its avant-garde use of technology and how this medium challenged sexuality, gender, and race while exposing our social class hierarchies through a capitalist endeavor that represented the excess of the 1980s. This course will end with an exploration of how digital media and social media have re-invented music videos. The learning objectives for this course center on exploring the story telling form of music videos while recognizing that this is a promotional medium that encourages mass consumption. For this course students are required to produce a social media project (vlog, podcasts, Twitter essay, etc.) that explores music videos.
GNDR-227: Guerilla Theatre (Credits: 2)
Protest performance for change! Coined by Che Guevara, this theater practice employs protest, performance, music, and art to ignite social and political conversation.? The class will pick a topic and create a piece of guerilla theatre on campus!
GNDR-228: Bodies in Motion (Credits: 2)
Through the study of professional dance and popular social media dance crazes, this course explores how bodies in motion defy and define beauty, gender, sex, sexuality through a disability studies lens.
GNDR-229: Witches, Magic and Belief (Credits: 2)
Witchcraft and magic-as well as attempts to ban them-are aspects of the supernatural and belief that allow us to learn more about the cultures that produced them, particularly their social and cultural anxieties about religion and gender. Ideas of witches and witchcraft are heavily gendered and tied into history and folklore. Users of magic, meanwhile, may use it to find love, connect with others, or to cause harm or exert power over others. In this class, we will ask ourselves how developing an understanding of witchcraft and magic (including related ideas such as possession and exorcism) can lead us to a more humane understanding of belief and the human experience.
GNDR-300: Special Topics in Gender Studies (Credits: 2 to 4)
Presents a number of special topics allowing students to explore a wide range of issues relevant to gender studies.
GNDR-319: American Women's History (Credits: 4)
An overview of the economic, social, and political roles women have played in American history, from the colonial period to today. Investigates women's work in the household and market economies, women and the family, and women's legal and civil rights and liabilities across time. Offered alternate years.
GNDR-320: Gender, Stories, and Migration (Credits: 4)
Increased migration is a nearly present feature in the news and politics. Although women comprise about half of all migrants, discussions of gender and sexuality are generally absent in the analyses, even as they are highlighted in the press and in the way we talk about migration. This course will use stories-understood broadly-to explore migration, specifically through the lens of gender studies and the uneven impact of migration on women. (WCore: EWRLD)
GNDR-325: Human Trafficking (Credits: 4)
This course will provide cross-disciplinary understanding of different forms of slavery and their current prevalence in the United States and throughout the world (as sex-trafficking, forced labor, child soldiers, and similar). We will identify connections between historical slavery and modern-day practices of human trafficking, focusing on issues of economics, power, human rights, abolition, and legislation on both local and global levels. Our readings will include first-person narratives, abolition materials, scholarly articles, case studies, and government reports and legislation. We will also watch several documentaries and follow prominent anti-slavery campaigns. A substantial component of the course will be devoted to civic engagement, allowing us to conduct research in the community and get involved in local organizations that emphasize prevention and protection. The ultimate goal will be to apply academic research and service learning to problem-solving in a critically informed and socially responsible fashion. (WCore: EWRLD)
GNDR-331: These Films Are So Gay! (Credits: 4)
One of the earliest representations of non-normative gender performances in film is The Dickinson Experimental Sound Film of 1894/5. Lasting only 17 seconds, the film captures a man playing a violin into a large recording horn while two men danced "cheek to cheek". The dancing men perhaps were an afterthought for William Kennedy Dickson, the Scottish inventor who recorded the film, or as Vito Russo insists, in The Celluloid Closet (1981), as a direct representation of homoerotic affection between men. Nevertheless, this film demonstrates the power found in questioning heteronormative constructs of gender identities and sexuality and raises questions of how films both represent, either by accident or design, non-normative sexual desire that ultimately become part of cultural identities. In this course we will explore representative films of queer cinema not only for their aesthetic value but also for their political meaning and historical legacy. Some of the themes and films we will explore are: problematic yet impressive explorations of gender identities of the pre-code era such as Sidney Drew's A Florida Enchantment (1914) and George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935); homoerotic desire in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Kenneth Anger's short films; iconic camp films such as Robert Aldrich's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Frank Perry's Mommie Dearest (1975); boundary and taste pushing films in the aftermath of Stonewall such as John Waters's Pink Flamingos (1972); and contemporary films where the pretense of "suggestive" homoerotic love interests are dropped and fully explored such as Sean S. Baker's Tangerine (2015) and Céline Sciamma's Girlhood (2014) .
GNDR-335: Psychology of Women (Credits: 4)
An overview of major theories of women's development, applications of feminist theory, gender-related research, and women's health issues across the life span. Psychological issues important to women during childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, are discussed, such as gender role acquisition, pay inequities in the work force, adjustment to menopause, and violence against women. Focus is given to research on women in relation to diverse socioeconomic classes, ethnic backgrounds and culture.
GNDR-339: Queer Theory and Posthumanism (Credits: 4)
Humanism is the belief that reason provides the best tools for solving the problems of the world. It has dominated political and literary thought at least since the seventeenth century. It is the foundation of human rights discourse, of many theories of democracy, and of the prevailing models of social justice. Nonetheless, humanism has its detractors, and the last several decades have seen the rise of "posthumanism," which seeks to challenge humanism's dominant position in political and social thought. Some critics suspect that humanism unconsciously upholds the racism, misogyny, and homophobia of the texts that established its terms in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Others are motivated by the challenges to reason presented by psychoanalysis, Marxism, and radical feminism. Queer Theory is among the must important posthumanist discourses in the United States, though not all queer theorists are posthumanists. This course investigates how queer theorists have attacked and defended humanism, and also explores queer theory's relationship to other posthumanist discourses. Authors to be considered may include Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Donna Haraway, Lauren Berlant, Leo Bersani, Jasbir Puar, Lee Edelman, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, and Joan Copjec. This course fulfills the Theory requirement for LMW majors.
GNDR-345: Sociology of Sexualities (Credits: 4)
This course examines sexuality from an historical, social, and interpersonal perspective. Students will study the history of sexuality research in the United States along with the major sexual revolutions. The sociological perspective will be used to understand contemporary issues around sexuality, including transgender rights, sexual orientations, modern-day sexual scripts, the sexual double standard, and the medicalization of sexuality.
GNDR-350: Gender in Society (Credits: 4)
This course exposes students to the problematic concept of "gender", including the many ways in which society's organizations reinforce and shape gender relations, and the ways in which gender shapes our identity, relationships, and the division of labor in society. Using a feminist perspective and drawing on international authors, this course will focus on the concept of "gender" at the individual, interactional, and institutional levels. (WCore: DE)
GNDR-360: Race, Gender, Class, and the Media (Credits: 4)
This course explores and challenges how issues and individuals, groups, and populations are presented in the media. Students will analyze the portrayals of race, ethnicity, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, age, ability and socioeconomic class in entertainment and news media.
GNDR-378: Podcasting (Credits: 4)
As a disruptive technology, podcasts have reinvented the way we listen. While washing the dishes, walking the dog, and commuting we listen to podcasts on comedy, music, horror, news, knitting, murder, boating, walking, eating, film, TV, and video games. The topics for podcasts are endless and, so it appears, is our insatiable hunger for them! In this course we will spend our time listening and creating podcasts. We will explore different genres such as political podcasts and podguides and different formats such as video podcasts. The goals for this course include understanding audio storytelling, ethics, and diversity in podcasting through a transgender BIPOC-inclusive feminist approach that seeks to celebrate? lived experiences. You will learn basic broadcasting skills such as writing, research, interviewing, and editing. The projects for this course will involve podcasting about Salt Lake City, helping you develop an understanding of the historical and current impact of sex and gender on societies, individuals, and institutions in Salt Lake City and the greater Utah area. This requires that during class time we meet outside of campus. Students are required to have a smart phone or a camera with the capacity to record both sound and video. This course fulfills the Language & Media requirement for LMW majors.
GNDR-380: Video Game Culture (Credits: 4)
Video games have emerged in the 21st century as one of the most-watched spectator sports. Pro-gamers compete for hundred-thousand-dollar prizes, and they receive sponsorships that can be worth millions. But to view the video game medium as only an economic force denies the complicated nature of gaming. In popular culture, gaming is the domain of nerdy teenagers, but video game conventions demonstrate that the average player is, well, everyone. This course focuses on the critical analysis of social issues in video games. Class time will be split between playing across different video game genres (such as role-playing, action-adventure, life simulation, strategy, sports, music, and literary hypertexts) and participating in current academic debates around gaming and game studies. Class discussions will engage with the ludic and narrative elements of game theory from an interdisciplinary perspective that considers video games as cultural artifacts, economic powerhouses, educational tools, drivers of technological innovation and works of art.? This course fulfills the Language & Media requirement for LMW majors.
GNDR-400: Senior Project/Thesis (Credits: 3)
Serves as the capstone course for the GNDR minor. Students undertake self-directed project or thesis that integrates concepts learned in gender studies courses with those learned in the student's major area of study. Project completed with a supervisory committee of two (at least one must be a gender studies faculty member). Prerequisite: completion of 20 hours of Gender Studies courses including GNDR 100. Note: Students whose major requires a senior project or thesis will not be expected to complete a second project or thesis. One thesis or project can count for both a major requirement and a gender studies requirement if students (1) select topics relevant to both gender studies and their majors and (2) work with a faculty advisor who teaches gender studies courses.
GNDR-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Gender Studies program. This course is repeatable for credit.
GNDR-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
In order to emphasize the importance of experiential learning, this course offers students opportunities to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience related to gender studies. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
HIST - Courses
HIST-102: Alien Encounters in History (Credits: 4)
People often make the judgment that since the past has influenced our own world, the people of the past must somehow be "like us" in fundamental ways. This course will seek to undermine that judgment by arguing that we are fundamentally different from people in the past and that in understanding these differences, we can more freely choose our futures. Our field of inquiry will be European History in the centuries that include the Ancient World through the Renaissance. In particular, we will examine the ways in which Europeans (a definition that evolves over time) define themselves through encountering and interacting with "alien" cultures. Examples: What's the difference between civilized people and barbarians? How do the people on both sides of the Crusades misunderstand each other? How do the Khan and the Pope try to negotiate their communication? These are a few of the "alien" encounters that we may study. (WCore: WCFAH and WE)
HIST-111: Patterns of Global Immigration (Credits: 4)
This course looks at the recent history of global immigration patterns in the context of modern world history, paying particular attention to the last century, or so, of migration. The course focuses on immigrant experiences in the US and Europe but it also closely examines global circumstances that affect who becomes an immigrant and why. Students will explore immigration through a variety of writing assignments that focus on the historical and contemporary influences shaping the immigration experience in many parts of the world. (WCore: WCFAH, WE)
HIST-120: The Story of America (Credits: 4)
This class will serve as an introduction to American history from the colonial period to the present day. We will seek to answer some fundamental questions: How did we get here? How did we go from a handful of small, not very important British colonies to the richest and most powerful nation on earth? How free have Americans been, who has wielded power, and how has that changed over time? How do historians construct their versions of the past? (WCore: WCFAH, DE)
HIST-123: Citizenship and Voting in Europe (Credits: 4)
This course examines the struggle for citizenship and its attendant benefits in European History. The course will follow this focus by selectively looking at European history from the Renaissance through WWII. Approximately two weeks of the course will be developed to a service learning project related to individuals seeking citizenship and/or voter registration here in Salt Lake City. We will look at how the current local issues relating to obtaining citizen rights affect our understanding of the issues that have aided and impeded citizenship in history. (WCore: WCFAH, WE)
HIST-124: Film and Memory (Credits: 4)
This course analyzes the intersection between film culture and the past by placing memory at the center of analysis. In other words, it explores how different genres of film, from war dramas to science fiction, shape the way communities remember the past and imagine the future. We will explore the representation of diverse societies and peoples in a variety of films. This course will consider how visions of the future reflect historical realities (new ideas about science, nuclear war, space exploration). We will examine how different actors-production companies, directors, studios, and the state-attempt to craft national narratives and contribute to community identity through different genres. (WCore, WCSBS, RE)
HIST-200: Special Topics in History (Credits: 1 to 4)
Special topics focusing on shifting regional and thematic studies. Courses classified under the HIST 200 designation are taught on a rotating basis.
HIST-202: Experiencing Public Lands (Credits: 4)
In 1872 the U.S. Congress declared the Yellowstone region the world's first "national park." In 1916 Congress created the National Park Service, "which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Today the Park Service manages over "units" with nearly 30 different designations - including national parks, monuments, historical parks, military parks, preserves, recreation areas, seashores, parkways, lakeshores, and reserves - and nations around the world have created their own versions of "national parks." This course will investigate the "national park" idea and its implications for natural and human history. Why has this been called "America's best idea?" What have been the implications of national park designation for Native Americans? For wildlife? For American history and culture? How do historians answer such questions? (WCore: WCFAH, WE)
HIST-204: Truth and Reconciliation (Credits: 4)
This course explores past and present attempts to achieve "Truth and Reconciliation" in the wake of violent and traumatic historical events. We will examine comparative examples of Truth and Reconciliation processes in places like South Africa, Canada, Chile, and Greensboro, South Carolina. We will also compare these processes with artistic and grassroots ways to come to terms with the past as well as international war tribunals. By closely analyzing the way individuals and governments create public memory about shared experiences and historical events, we will raise questions about the complex nature of seeking truth and studying history, and the tension between the pursuit of reconciliation and the desire for justice. This course has an oral history component. (WCore: WCSBS, WE)
HIST-206: Homelands and Contested Spaces (Credits: 4)
Focusing on the methods, processes and outcomes of empire in what are usually referred to as "settler states," this course explores the United States, Australia, and South Africa (among others) from circa 1600 to the present. It compels students to grapple with the complex origins, realities and legacies of what we commonly know today as reservations and homelands. Questions of primary concern in this course are: How and why did these spaces come to be? How and why were they maintained (or not maintained)? Why did certain populations accept or reject the creations of these spaces (and why do these responses change over time)? How do the ancestors of settlers and indigenous populations see and experience these spaces today? The course places a heavy emphasis on critical reading, film interpretation, and research. (WCore: WCFAH, DE)
HIST-214: Vietnam and America (Credits: 4)
This course explores the tangled history of America's involvement in Vietnam, the war's impacts on the people of both nations, and the war's global legacy. We will emphasize the reasons, meanings, and outcomes of the war for a range of participants: Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, northern and southern; U.S. civilians, policy makers, and soldiers, pro- and anti- war; and participants, observers, and protesters around the world. This course fulfills the WCore Research Emphasis. You will learn and practice history-specific research, discussion, and writing skills in a variety of assignments, including weekly reflective journals and crafting short "vignettes" and a longer research paper based on primary and secondary sources that you find, evaluate, analyze, and communicate to your classmates.? (WCore: WCSBS, RE)
HIST-230: Global Coffee Cultures (Credits: 4)
This course educates students on the international histories of and ethical considerations attached to labor, political economics, environment, and gender related to global coffee cultures, both the consumption and production sides. Students will critically engage with these historical and contemporary issues pervasive in global coffee communities through primary and secondary texts, film, and an occasional field trip to local roasters and/or cafes. Coffee will be served during each class period. (WCore: EWRLD)
HIST-241: The Craft of History (Credits: 4)
This course introduces students to the study and practice of history. Students will learn how to frame historical research questions, find primary sources, interpret historical works, and effectively communicate their own research. Students also gain real-world field experience in historical research. The course includes occasional, brief field trips (during regular class hours) to historical research libraries, museums, and archives (for example, the Utah Historical Society, Marriott Library Special Collections, and LDS Family Research Library), and historic sites (such as downtown Salt Lake City, Fort Douglas, and local cemeteries). The skills learned in this course will be fundamental to the research and writing expected in upper-division history classes, especially the two-semester thesis sequence (390/490).
HIST-300: Special Topics in History (Credits: 1 to 4)
Special topics focusing on shifting regional and thematic studies. Courses classified under the HIST 300 designation are taught on a rotating basis.
HIST-302: Experiencing Public Lands (Credits: 4)
The United States has a system of public lands unlike any other nation. About 25% of the country's territory is managed by federal agencies, including the USDA Forest Service; Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and US Fish and Wildlife Service (all in the Interior Department); and the Department of Defense. These lands have been designated for a bewildering variety of uses and purposes, and they are managed by very different agencies that face very different challenges, from restoring endangered species to testing weapons to mitigating toxic waste. The Westminster Expedition, a semester-long academic road trip, brings students to dozens of public lands units, where students learn firsthand about those uses, purposes, challenges, and management priorities, often from officials within those agencies and people who live and work on or near those lands and who deal with the policies and challenges of these complex places.
HIST-307: Comparative Revolutions (Credits: 4)
From the Atlantic Revolutions of the late eighteenth century to the Marxist revolutions that swept the globe in the twentieth century, this seminar is a critical examination of conflicts of liberation, decolonization, and radical imagination. We will explore how people reacted to political, economic, religious, and social injustices often violently in search of better futures. We will also examine the contradictions and tensions of many revolutionary movements and the legacy of revolution in political and artistic life in places like France, Russia, Vietnam, China, and Cuba. (World History category)
HIST-308: Supernatural Europe (Credits: 4)
Belief in magic in medieval and early modern Europe was nearly universal. From priests to scholars to millers to merchants, the supernatural was central to understanding the world. This course will use the framework of the supernatural-belief in mythical beings, in spiritual or occult forces, in magic-to investigate European society and culture. We will study how views of the supernatural changed as a result of societal transformations and upheavals, including the Black Death, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, industrialization, and the wars of the twentieth century. (World History category)
HIST-313: Our Troubled Time US History Since 1945 (Credits: 4)
This course focuses on the history of the United States as the preeminent global power, the onsequences and challenges of that status, and the social and cultural issues that have captivated and challenged Americans since 1945. (Americas History category)
HIST-316: Slavery, Civil War, Legacy (Credits: 4)
Examines U.S. history in its most violent and divisive period. Emphases include the experience of enslaved African Americans; the growth of the anti-slavery movement; the division of the nation; the military course of the Civil War; the results of the war; the failed experiment of Reconstruction; and economics, politics and society in the Gilded Age. (Americas History category)
HIST-317: Empire & Power: Us History, 1890-1945 (Credits: 4)
Explores the metamorphosis of the United States from a provincial, continental power to an industrialized and urbanized world power. Emphases include the Industrial Revolution and its impact on foreign policy; the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of empire; the growing power of the executive branch; the Progressive Era; the 1920s; the Depression; and U.S. participation in two world wars. (Americas History category)
HIST-319: American Women's History (Credits: 4)
An overview of the economic, social, and political roles women have played in American history, from the colonial period to today. Investigates women's work in the household and market economies, women and the family, and women's legal and civil rights and liabilities across time. (Americas History category)
HIST-320: Environmental History of the United,States (Credits: 4)
An exploration of how men and women have thought about and acted upon the land in what is now the United States from before the European exploration to the present day, including how the land and its resources shaped how people live, how the ways that people view the land changed over time, and how people have changed the earth and some of the consequences of those changes. (Americas History category)
HIST-324: Global Cold War (Credits: 4)
The Cold War, a global political, and frequently, militaristic struggle from around 1947 to 1991, is often centered on contests between the Soviet Union and the United States. This course will complicate the view that the world was divided between two powers and ideologies by considering the legacy the Cold War had on societies in places such as eastern and central Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa. We will closely examine how culture was often weaponized during the Cold War - how music, art, popular literature, and sports could be used as a source of ideological inspiration, as a form of resistance and protest, and as propaganda. This course will also investigate how cultural developments were shaped by Cold War politics and the threat of nuclear war. Through case studies and oral history interviews, students will explore to what extent cultural forms (whether jazz music or Olympics sports) have the capacity to express communist or democratic capitalist ideologies. (World History category)
HIST-325: The Indigenous West (Credits: 4)
This course will function as one of the Westminster Expedition courses (and must be taken with ENVI 331, ENVI 332, and HIST 302). Indigenous peoples inhabited all of the American West; today's Indigenous nations exercise sovereignty over fragments of their former territory. This course investigates the "Indigenous history" of some of the West, based upon the Expedition's itinerary. For example, Blackfeet were displaced from Glacier and Sheepeaters from Yellowstone, now iconic parts of the National Park system. Students will also visit contemporary Indigenous nations and investigate their roles in land-use issues. Students will meet with Indigenous peoples, public lands managers, scholars, and activists along our route. (WCore: EWRLD) (Americas History category)
HIST-327: History of the Holocaust (Credits: 4)
The horrors of the events that became known as the Holocaust, or Shoah-the murder of more than six million Jews and five million or more non-Jewish people: Roma, homosexuals, disabled people, political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses-continues to haunt human memory. The legacy of the Holocaust continually appears in media and film, in novels, and in political and historical debates. In this course, we will confront some of the most challenging questions and topics that come out of this history: why were most people bystanders? What was the role of Christian anti-Semitism in the destruction of Jews? What motivated ordinary people to murder their neighbors? We will also place the Shoah in a global context by exploring its connections to colonialism, racism, ableism, and other genocides. We will listen to oral histories and testimonies to better understand the lived experiences of those who survived. This course will culminate in a final project that contributes to contemporary understandings of the Holocaust's significance. (World history emphasis and WCore: EWRLD)
HIST-328: Death on Display (Credits: 4)
Death, considered by some cultures as taboo, has a long history of exhibition, from saints' relics to museum artifacts. This course investigates the way different types of institutions-churches, art museums, science and natural history museums, and ethnographic museums-have exhibited death to the public. We will approach the issue of displaying death through international case studies and visit local museums and public history sites to observe first-hand how human remains, funerary objects, and photography exhibit and narrate death. This course also examines debates surrounding the repatriation and reburial of human remains, changing attitudes toward death and dying, and the social meaning of funerary ritual. (World History category)
HIST-329: Culture & Society in East Asia (Credits: 4)
The twenty-first century has often been referred to as the "Pacific Century." East Asia has become a focal point of economics, technology, politics, and popular culture. How did East Asian societies go from devastation, occupation, revolution, and dictatorship to global prominence? The course takes this question as a starting point and investigates the distinctive historical transformations of postwar Japan, China, and South Korea using the lens of popular culture, including film, literature, manga, anime, sports, social media, gaming, music, and new technologies. We will explore how popular cultural phenomena, whether Cold War Olympic sports or K-pop stans, intertwined with politics, economics, religion, and historical memory. This interdisciplinary approach to East Asian history and society will provide a richer understanding of the complex and dynamic cultures of China, Japan, and Korea. Our examination will take us beyond generalizations and stereotypes to think in critical and informed ways about East Asia and its place in the world. (World History category) (WCore: EWRLD)
HIST-330: Middle Eastern History (Credits: 4)
An inquiry into Middle Eastern history from the early civilizations to our own day. The course deals with conflicts as well as quests that have created peace; developments in the three monotheistic religions and their cultures (with an emphasis on Islam); late 20th-Century issues. (World History category)
HIST-340: Conquest & Discovery Colonial Latin Am (Credits: 4)
Surveys the Latin American experience from pre-Columbian society through independence, and emphasizes the recurring themes of authoritarianism and exploitation. (Americas History category)
HIST-341: Democracy, Revolution, Repression (Credits: 4)
Explores Latin American history from Independence (1810) to the contemporary period, focusing on democracy, revolution, and authoritarianism as proposed solutions to the inequality, poverty, and exploitation that sometimes plague Latin American nations. (Americas History category)
HIST-352: Water in the West (Credits: 4)
An old aphorism notes that to get rich in the West, one should become a water lawyer. Another states that "Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting." Forest historian Char Millar writes that "Great hopes, deep doubts, even despair, have been integral to the history of western water policy." The American West has long been defined in large part by its lack of water. The region's aridity lies at the heart of endless ecological, social, political, and legal debates that have at times sparked violence. This course will explore the social world of water in the region, and the challenges presented by its relative scarcity.
HIST-365: Utah and the West (Credits: 4)
This course examines the history of Utah and its place in the region, including its Indigenous inhabitants, early explorers, the arrival of Mormons and non-Mormons, Utah's clashes with the federal government, and the "Americanization" of Utah since 1896. (Americas History category)
HIST-390: Research Seminar in History (Credits: 3)
A required seminar for senior history majors, which combines historiography and research, resulting in the production of a senior thesis based on original research. Prerequisite: History major or minor or consent of instructor.
HIST-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the History Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
HIST-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
HIST-490: Research Seminar in History (Credits: 3)
A required seminar for history majors, continuing the work begun in HIST 390. (WCore: SC)
HON - Courses
HON-201: Foundational Conversations I (Credits: 4)
This sequence guides students through the transition to college-level work by engaging primary texts from around the world and across epochs. Organized each year by a theme-e.g., authority and freedom, other worlds, friendship, crossing borders-the class helps students learn to develop their own views of the works assigned through deep analysis, and to write about their thinking in reasoned, mature prose (through short weekly writings, longer essays, and lots of feedback). The course is conceived as a conversation among students and the two professors about provocative ideas and disciplines in dialogue. Overall, students learn the foundational thinking, writing, and speaking skills for future Honors College seminars, the rest of college, and life outside the classroom.
HON-202: Foundational Conversations II (Credits: 4)
This sequence guides students through the transition to college-level work by engaging primary texts from around the world and across epochs. Organized each year by a theme-e.g., authority and freedom, other worlds, friendship, crossing borders-the class helps students learn to develop their own views of the works assigned through deep analysis, and to write about their thinking in reasoned, mature prose (through short weekly writings, longer essays, and lots of feedback). The course is conceived as a conversation among students and the two professors about provocative ideas and disciplines in dialogue. Overall, students learn the foundational thinking, writing, and speaking skills for future Honors College seminars, the rest of college, and life outside the classroom.
HON-203: Foundational Conversations III (Credits: 4)
This seminar guides students who have entered the Honors College by lateral entry admission through the transition to Honors by engaging primary texts from around the world and across epochs. Organized each term by a theme-e.g., authority and freedom, other worlds, friendship, crossing borders-the class helps students learn to develop their own views of the works assigned through deep analysis, and to write about their thinking in reasoned, mature prose (through short weekly writings, longer essays, and lots of feedback). The course is conceived as a conversation among students and the two professors about provocative ideas and disciplines in dialogue. Overall, students learn the foundational thinking, writing, and speaking skills for future Honors College seminars, the rest of college, and life outside the classroom.
HON-211: Global Welfare and Justice (Credits: 4)
Economic inequality continues to increase throughout the world, putting more human beings in poverty. The 21st century poses a significant challenge therefore to political and economic institutions to deal effectively and justly with this increasing economic inequality-as-poverty. This course explores the political and economic literature on distributive and economic justice, from classical sources to more contemporary sources such as liberalism, Marxism, feminism and cosmopolitanism, to better understand how we might eradicate poverty and economic inequalities through just institutional changes in the 21st century.
HON-212: Arts and Performance (Credits: 4)
Using a multi-disciplinary approach that emphasizes direct artistic experiences, this course explores the what and the why of both arts and performance. As in the creation of art itself, this seminar engenders curiosity, considers context, welcomes risk-taking, and fosters an environment that leads to openness and depth of connection. Primary sources include the specific artistic interests of individuals within the class as well as a variety of arts events within the Westminster and Salt Lake communities. Firmly committed to the idea that being an educated, active, and fully alive individual requires engaging with and critically/creatively responding to the arts, we examine a wide variety of artistic works in the visual arts, music, dance/movement, drama/theatre, as we explore essential questions related to the arts, to creation, to life. Students develop a sense of openness to unexpected possibilities through the recognition of the place for the arts in their lives.
HON-213: Environments and the Space of Art (Credits: 4)
This course explores the intersection of art and the environment across a broad understanding of each sphere. Faculty and students will explore primary texts and experiences that lend an understanding to our place within the arts (visual, literary, sound, performative) and environment (natural, constructed, scientific). Topics might include, for example, unexpected nature, ecosystems and creativity, environmental and cultural changes, and the collateral ideas formed between art and nature. The state of Utah and the surrounding regions provide a remarkable backdrop for exploring these topics through field trips and study. Other learning activities-writing, conversation, and reflection-will offer students myriad ways to appreciate our place in environments and the space of art.
HON-221: Science as Knowledge (Credits: 4)
When we hear someone say "That's not science," it sounds inherently dismissive. In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will discuss the special status often given to scientific knowledge relative to other forms of knowledge and explore the ways in which that status might help or hinder our ability to actually understand our universe. We will build on this discussion to critically evaluate the notions of certainty, authority, and progress that are often intertwined with scientific knowledge, as well as the degree to which scientific knowledge reflects the culture that develops it.
HON-222: Science, Power, and Diversity (Credits: 4)
This seminar explores the relationship between scientific knowledge and power, especially as this relationship intersects with issues of diversity. Students will engage with major ideas and texts from the last century in the contemporary philosophy of science, science and cultural studies, and the natural and physical sciences. Epistemological and ethical issues in the production and dissemination of science knowledge are discussed, as are issues of race, gender, culture, and justice pertaining to science in society. Students will gain critical perspectives on popular contemporary scientific discourse by analyzing ideas from primary source texts, critical accounts of science, and scientific journalism.
HON-231: Human Culture and Behavior (Credits: 4)
Why do people do the things they do as individuals, groups, or as a society? How does our culture and society shape human behavior? How does our behavior shape society? Are the answers to be found in genetics, socioeconomic status, gender, culture, and/or elsewhere? This seminar explores the intersection of human culture and behavior via the methods and perspectives of a variety of social science disciplines. The course examines topics as diverse as violence, law and crime, sexuality and sexual identity, and gender and racial injustice.
HON-232: Data/Society/Decision-Making (Credits: 4)
We are surrounded by data. Even when we're unaware of it, data informs key systems upon which we rely: transportation, politics, computing, medicine, and commerce, just to name a few. In this course, we seek to develop an understanding of the nature of data-what it is, how it is gathered and stored, what it purports to measure, and what it actually measures. Quantitative tools are developed to analyze data while simultaneously exploring the value and limitations of such analysis. The ultimate goal is to connect data to the process of making decisions, with examples from a variety of fields used to illustrate its successes and failures.
HON-300: Special Topics in Honors (Credits: 1 to 4)
These seminar topics vary from year to year. They primarily focus on specific topics raised in the interdisciplinary Honors core seminars, e.g., "Reading & Writing the City" or "Humanitarian Law," but which are explored in depth in these seminars. May be taken more than once for credit. Departmental special topics courses may be crosslisted with these seminars. Offered Fall, Spring and May Term.
HON-400: Special Topics (Credits: 1 to 4)
These seminar topics vary from year to year. They primarily focus on specific topics raised in the interdisciplinary Honors core seminars, e.g., "Reading & Writing the City" or "Humanitarian Law," but which are explored in depth in these seminars. May be taken more than once for credit. Departmental special topics courses may be crosslisted with these seminars. Offered on occasion.
HON-401: Directed Studies in Honors (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Honors Program and for student-initiated, interdisciplinary research projects. Prerequisite: consent of instructor(s), and Honors College dean
HON-402: Senior Project/Thesis (Credits: 3)
A self-directed project or thesis that covers a topic in the student's major discipline or of an interdisciplinary nature and therefore not covered under a single discipline-specific thesis course. Project completed with a supervisory committee of at least two faculty members: one as a lead sponsor/mentor and one or more as second reader(s). At least one of the sponsors or readers must be an Honors College faculty member. Prerequisite: senior standing and consent of instructors and Honors College dean.
HON-403: Capstone Conversations (Credits: 0 to 1)
This course provides a capstone experience that challenges students to reflect on the process of creating independent scholarship in an interdisciplinary learning context. Faculty and students will examine the diverse set of skills required to produce high quality independent scholarship, from the generation of project ideas, to project planning and implementation, to the presentation of their work in a variety of potential formats. At each meeting, students will discuss their progress and approaches to handling upcoming challenges on their independent capstone projects, receiving support, feedback, and input from their peers in other disciplines. In particular, cross-disciplinary conversations will encourage students to draw inspiration from colleagues in other fields and see how their research might have applicability to those fields. The capstone seminar will culminate with the presentation of their project to the Honors College and university communities. This course is repeatable for credit.
HON-440: Internship (Credits: 1 to 4)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
HPW - Courses
HPW-103: Strength Training (Credit: 1)
This course serves as an introduction to progressive resistance training on machines and free weights and development of an individualized strength training program. Safety, etiquette, and proper technique are emphasized. This course is repeatable for credit.
HPW-110: First Aid/CPR/AED for Schools and Comm (Credit: 1)
This course helps program participants recognize and respond appropriately to cardiac, breathing, and first aid emergencies. The courses in this program teach skills that participants need to know to give immediate care to a suddenly injured or ill person until more advanced medical personnel arrive and take over. This class offers a choice of first aid, CPR, and AED courses to meet the various training needs of a diverse audience. This class has an associated class fee.
HPW-156: Exploring Wasatch Mountain Paths (Credits: 2)
Students will utilize the power of nature to explore their inner selves through hiking, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Millcreek, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyons. Hikes and snowshoeing will include paths to a variety of lakes or peaks, generally gaining 2,000 vertical feet over 3 miles, and cross-country skiing will take place at several different venues. Our mountain journeys will focus on increasing overall well-being--physical, mental, psychological and spiritual--through meeting the physical challenge in these inspirational settings.
HPW-190: Varsity Athletics (Credit: 1)
Activity course for student-athletes chosen to compete in Westminster varsity athletics. This course is specifically designed for students participating on varsity teams. Students will benefit from training under a professional coach and from the opportunity to participate in athletics. This course is repeatable for credit.
HPW-215: Flexibility for Life and Sport (Credit: 1)
Students become more educated in the area of flexibility and stretching and gain knowledge in how it can benefit their fitness regimen and daily lives. The course enables students to learn the knowledge and skills necessary to help maintain flexibility levels and increase flexibility. Flexibility for Life and Sport is adaptable to meet the various needs and limitations of course participants. This course is repeatable for credit.
HPW-220: Yoga for Wellness (Credits: 2)
This course is designed to help students discover the benefits of regular yoga practice and develop a personal practice that can be continued beyond this class. Students will study the history and philosophy of yoga and the practical skills of pose work. Most classes will be devoted to understanding beneficial moving and breathing principles. Students will be encouraged to expand their practice beyond the mat, and bring increased awareness into their lives. Reading and reflective journaling will assist this process. Students will be guided to adapt yoga poses to their needs on a daily basis. Relaxation is part of the daily curriculum; as students strengthen their ability to fully rest, learning is absorbed and students become better students. Students will be required to develop a plan for their personal yoga practice. This course is repeatable for credit.
HPW-235: Belly Dance Basics (Credit: 1)
Uses Middle Eastern dance in a low impact cardio workout to stretch and strengthen muscles, especially core. It can help improve posture and increase concentration while having fun. This class encourages lifetime health and wellness.
HPW-250: Wellness for Life (Credits: 2)
This course empowers students to adopt healthy lifestyles. Concepts presented explore the mind, body, and spirit. Covering all areas of wellness; emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual, and social encouraging students to make wise decisions about their health.
HPW-255: Foundations of Sports Management (Credits: 4)
This course provides an overview of general principles and practices of the sport industry, covering all facets of sport management, including leadership, sociology, marketing, legal aspects, finance and governance, in both professional and amateur sports settings. Discussion may involve necessary professional skills and attitudes of sports managers, as well as the manner in which the globalization of sport continues to affect the sport management professions. Students learn and understand those unique aspects of sport management that distinguish it from other management fields. Students gain an increased awareness of various career opportunities in the sport industry.
HPW-260: Psychological Aspects of Performance and,Well-Being (Credits: 2)
The course is designed to provide a deeper understanding of developing theories in "positive psychology," and practical application techniques that apply to students, managers, athletes, and others, in an effort to maximize potential in individuals and inspire optimal living. Participants will read inspirational and informative literature, learn and practice mental training techniques, and examine their perception of the world and their "self" on a deep level. Through reflective assignments and life-specific projects, the course provides an opportunity to make profound positive personal change. Furthermore, with continued engagement in positive and meaningful living, people are able to influence and guide the institutions and world in which they function.
HPW-270: Beginning SCUBA Diving (Credit: 1)
Beginning Scuba Diving introduces students to the joy and excitement of scuba diving. Through home study, class sessions and pool sessions, you will learn the essential information to scuba dive safely in a swimming pool. After the initial classes at Dive Utah, you can choose to complete Open Water training at the Homestead Crater in Midway and complete your PADI Open Water Diver certification. This prestigious certification is internationally recognized and will allow you a lifetime of scuba enjoyment.
HPW-301: Lifeguard Certification (Credits: 2)
Lifeguarding Certification teaches participants the knowledge and skills needed to prevent and respond to aquatic emergencies. The course content and activities prepare participants to recognize and respond quickly and effectively to emergencies and to prevent drowning and injuries. Upon successful completion of the requirements of the course, the student will receive American Red Cross Lifeguarding and First Aid certification along with CPR/AED for lifeguard certification. This class has an associated class fee.
HPW-315: Meditation As Environmental Study (Credits: 2)
This is an experiential course in mindful awareness practice, also known as "insight meditation" or "vipassana." The practice of meditation has much in common with appreciation of and advocacy for the natural environment. Meditation practice both inspires and is inspired by our relationships to the natural environment. From the Gaia principle to Gandhian civil disobedience, nature inspires activism and creative problem solving, as much as it offers solace and comfort to a body, mind, and spirit wearied by "fighting the good fight." In-class meditation instruction, practice, and discussion will focus on the relationships between various meditative experiences and issues of the natural environment, supplemented by weekly readings. Sitting, walking, mantra, visualization, and other meditation tactics will be covered.
HPW-320: Pilates for Wellness (Credits: 2)
This course helps students discover the benefits of regular Pilates practice and develop a personal practice that can be continued beyond this class. Students will learn the history behind Pilates and its practical application to daily movement and living. The Pilates principles and muscle functions for the exercises will be addressed. Students will have assigned reading and will learn names and variations of exercises, proper alignment, breath and form associated with each exercise. A journal is required to keep track of experience and progress. This course is repeatable for credit.
HPW-325: Introduction to Athletic Training (Credits: 3)
This course examines the athletic trainer's role in sports medicine, mechanisms of athletic injuries, tissue response to injury, and introductory techniques of the assessment and evaluation of athletic injuries and emergency procedures. Further topics include blood-borne pathogens, general illnesses common to athletes, and dermatological conditions. Course methodology includes lecture, discussion, and hands-on application. A course fee of $15 is required for athletic training supplies.
HPW-345: Sports Law and Ethics (Credits: 4)
This this course provides a focused overview of legal principles and ethical issues in sports, touching on all levels including recreational, secondary school, collegiate and professional sports. It covers the different fields of law and the broad issues involved in sports law, such as contract, labor law, tort, antitrust laws, the athlete/agent relationship, intellectual property, risk management, and development of relationships between leagues, teams, athletes, agents, television, media, advertisers and fans. The course also covers the necessity and practice of ethical decision-making in the sports environment. Prerequisite: HPW 255
HPW-350: Nutrition for HPW (Credits: 2)
This course focuses on nutrient metabolism, nutrition science, and exercise physiology as it applies to sports performance, exercise, and health. Topics may include the following: the role of carbohydrates, protein, lipids, water, and vitamins and minerals in human nutrition; the relationship of nutrition to maintenance of health and prevention of disease; or the role of nutrition in weight control, exercise and sport.
HPW-360: College Athletic Administration (Credits: 4)
This course will address the unique and focused area of collegiate athletic administration, which allows students to apply knowledge from their previous courses and address topics such as Title IX compliance, fundraising, NCAA regulations, university communications, and other applicable areas. Administration topics will be discussed, such as budgeting, human resource management, facilities, and legal issues.
HPW-370: Advanced SCUBA (Credit: 1)
Advanced SCUBA Diving is designed to introduce students to advanced SCUBA techniques which will allow students to both explore more difficult terrain and to learn advanced safety procedures. This advanced course is for those that already have completed a beginning course and have their Open Water certification. Through home study, class sessions and pool sessions, students will learn about five advanced areas of diving. Successful completion of the five learning modules and training dives will certify the student as a PADI advanced Open Water Diver which is a prestigious certification that is recognized internationally. Completion of this advanced training will allow a student if they choose to move forward in their dive training to learn rescue diving techniques.
HPW-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student-initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered. This course is repeatable for credit.
INTR - Courses
INTR-100: College Success (Credit: 1)
This first semester course provides a general orientation to Westminster resources, policies, and procedures as well as an opportunity to meet other new students, staff and faculty. Students are introduced to college offices and services, explore major and career options, develop college success skills, and participate in a class service project. Each class section focuses on a special interest topic.
INTR-110: Leadership for Social Change (Credit: 1)
Throughout the course, students will examine a variety of topics and their application to leadership. Leadership will also be framed within the context of fostering positive social change (community service). Classes will be activity and group discussion focused. This theory-to-practice class will give you a great start to making a big impact on campus and beyond!
INTR-130: S-Cubed Seminar I (Credits: 0 to 1)
This course will use mini-projects to engage students in the excitement of computer science, physics, and mathematics. Possible mini-project topics include: algorithms that changed the world, fractals, and building an FM transmitter. Students will also explore career opportunities in these fields with frequent guest speakers and discussions about internships and summer research opportunities. This course is graded on a credit/no credit basis.
INTR-135: S-Cubed Seminar II (Credits: 0 to 1)
This course will use mini-projects to engage students in the excitement of computer science, physics, and mathematics. Possible mini-project topics include: algorithms that changed the world, fractals, and building an FM transmitter. Students will also explore career opportunities in these fields with frequent guest speakers and discussions about internships and summer research opportunities. This course is graded on a credit/no credit basis.
INTR-140: Success in College and Beyond (Credits: 2)
This course goes beyond a general orientation to Westminster resources, policies, and procedures by focusing on the skills, behaviors, and resources essential to success in college and beyond. Students will develop an understanding of what it means to be successful learners and will develop a personal plan to achieve academic success.
INTR-300: Special Topics-Interdisciplinary Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
Topics of interest and importance not covered by regularly scheduled courses.
INTR-305: Citizen Diplomacy (Credits: 4)
This course will utilize Citizen Diplomacy to discover and identify perspectives that inform global challenges. Students will explore their identities as world citizens and compare and contrast them with those of people from their own and other countries, ages, and social locations. They will attend Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy (UCCD) lectures and have direct discussions with International Visitor Leadership Program participants, "the U.S. Department of State's premier professional exchange program" sponsored locally by UCCD. Students will design and implement a survey focused on the world's major challenges, reflect upon the data and recommend topics for future UCCD speakers. They will conduct research focused on a global challenge and present their findings. (WCore: EWRLD)
INTR-307: Advanced Global Studies (Credits: 4)
The course on Advanced Interdisciplinary Global Studies (Advanced IGS) endows students with the tools and opportunities to develop and propose concrete solutions and alternatives to complex contemporary global problems. This course will unfold as follows. First students will be presented with a delimited set of highly complex global problems known to scholars in trans-disciplinary and global studies as seemingly "intractable problems". These problems come from the different spheres of ecology, economy, politics, health, and culture, and the interaction among them. Examples of such seemingly "intractable problems" may include the following: the global environmental crisis as evident, for instance, in climate change or the mass extinction of species due to the expansion of human civilization; the global crisis resulting from energy and resource depletion due to overexploitation and overconsumption; the global crisis in the food and water systems due to unsustainable land and water use that leads to soil erosion and water pollution, maldistribution of food and water, and excessive waste; the crisis in the global economic system due to growing concentration of wealth, deepening inequality, continuing poverty, financial volatility, and demographic displacement; the global challenges in health due to the correlation between material deprivation, environmental degradation and proliferating illnesses; or the global crisis of (in)security due to responses to injustice, oppression, exploitation, and violence, or to the rising manifestations of militarism, war, terrorism, conflict and the like, especially as reinforced (or propelled) by misunderstandings and distrust among social groups along categories such as nationality, culture, religion, civilization, race, gender, class and other types of identity. Students will then explore how these problems can actually interact and reinforce each other across different spheres in "perverse" ways that make challenges even more complex and seemingly intractable. Afterwards, students will be challenged to develop a deep critical understanding of the structural and agential drivers behind these problems and to collaboratively find creative ways to overcome such complex challenges, using interdisciplinary, intercultural, and intersectional approaches with global perspectives. The professor will closely mentor throughout the process to guide students in the effort to analyze and deconstruct these seemingly intractable problems and to explore, develop, or creatively prefigure globally inclusive, healthy, socially just and environmentally sustainable alternatives and solutions for one or more of these intersecting issues. In order for students to conduct proper research geared towards the development of solid proposals for alternatives and solutions to global problems, during this seminar students will be exposed to some of the cutting edge in-depth scholarly research and policy work on contemporary global problems, and will be trained in some of the most useful interdisciplinary approaches, theories and methods to address these global problems. Students will also work closely with the professor during the second half of the course to tailor a personalized research agenda containing research materials in accordance with the unique skills and interests of each student. Finally, students will develop as a project a proposal based on substantial scholarly research and geared towards understanding, addressing, and overcoming a specific global problem, or small set of global problems, through concrete solutions or alternatives. The project may result in a research paper or a policy proposal, but may also result in a documentary film, a webpage or another artifact of scholarly quality.
INTR-310: Engaging Worldwide Neighbors (Credits: 4)
Drawing on multi-faceted concepts ranging from process drama (or other art forms), learning theory, and global learning, this course is an interdisciplinary exploration of what it means to be a civically informed and engaged citizen while making valuable local connections. This team-taught course will emphasize hands-on experiential opportunities to bring process drama (or other art-forms: visual arts/music/movement) classes and activities to local immigrant school-age children. (WCore: EWRLD)
INTR-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 8)
Allows students to initiate proposals for intensive tutorial-based study of topics not otherwise offered in the Interdisciplinary/ Custom Major Program. Requires consent of instructor and school dean. This course is repeatable for credit.
INTR-440: Interdisciplinary Internship (Credits: 0 to 8)
Offers students the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge with practical experience. Students will be graded on assigned coursework and evaluation by their site supervisor. Prerequisites: 60 college credits completed (for transfer students at least 15 hours competed at Westminster or permission of instructor), minimum 2.5 GPA, and consent of faculty advisor and Career Center internship coordinator. Interns will work for 42 hours per each registered credit. This course is repeatable for credit. Some majors limit how many internship credits may count towards the major, consult your faculty advisor. REGISTRATION NOTE: Registration for internships is initiated through the Career Center website and is finalized upon completion of required paperwork and approvals. More info: 801-832-2590 https://westminstercollege.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html
INTR-450: The Myriad Internship (Credits: 1 to 4)
This online internship course teaches students how to evaluate and select submissions for the Westminster literary journal, The Myriad--an online academic journal featuring cross disciplinary works by Westminster students. It is published annually in April. In this course, students will learn the skills to evaluate academic submissions and learn the mechanisms of running an online journal. The deadline for submission to The Myriad is Jan 25. The responsibility of this class (taught in the spring) is to evaluate and select submissions for publication as well as to discuss the design layout for the website. Students do not need prior experience in design and editing to enroll in the course. The Myriad has an in-house designer. Students enrolled in the course will simply contribute with design ideas in addition to evaluating and selecting submissions.
IPSL - Courses
IPSL-401: Independent/Directed Study (Credits: 1 to 3)
IPSL recognizes the vital role independent study can play in a student's education. Independent study allows the student to explore a topic of interest under the close supervision of a faculty member who has agreed to direct the student's work. The course may include directed readings, applied work, assisting the faculty member with a research project, carrying out an independent research project, or other activities deemed appropriate by the supervising faculty member and the department. Regardless of the nature of the experience, the work must culminate in a formal project or paper, and a presentation.
IPSL-402: Comm Organization Soc Activism (Credits: 3)
This course deals with the origin and background of non-governmental organizations in the country of study, including how these groups have been created to respond to essential social problems and the ways that civil society in this country has found to exercise fundamental rights and respond to needs not covered by the state. The different types of organizations studied are: Non-Governmental Organizations, Foundations, Civil Associations, Social and Popular Movements. We will study the history, the birth and the issues on which these social organizations work. We will investigate their contribution to the development of skills and opportunities for the 21st century for growth in the midst of differences. Coursework is complemented by volunteering in a community project and engagement with diverse cultures and viewpoints. Students reflect on national and international practices using the curriculum framework and drawing on discussions with host country nationals.
IPSL-403: Language Across Curriculum (Credits: 3)
This course is designed for students with all proficiency levels in a language spoken in the country where the course is taken. This is a streamlined, focused course designed to produce maximum functional fluency in a specific area of interest. Course topics and vocabulary are carefully compiled to provide students the language patterns they need to successfully navigate professional/social situations while living and studying in the country. This course helps students achieve proficiency not only in conversational language but also in skill areas necessary for further study, such as phonetics, grammar and sentence structure.
IPSL-422: Escobar to Santos Modern Colombia (Credits: 3)
It is impossible to talk about Modern Colombia without an examination of the impact of the decades long "narco-tráfico" - the narcotics trade that was at the center of Colombia's political, economic, and social structures. The socio-political core of Colombia is what it is today, in part, because of the illegal drug trade. By the same token, Colombia is not the same country it was one generation ago, which is when Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellín Drug Cartel, died. At the time one of the wealthiest men in the world, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria continues to engender strong opinions on all sides and all spectrums. Some of the nation's poorest people praise Escobar's attention to the plight of the poor. Other Colombians - and foreigners - rightfully bring attention to the violence - and the tens of thousands of dead - that were part of the drug trade and the accompanying terrorism. The years of "narco-tráfico" affected countless Colombians, and many others, during those years, and the history is only starting to be discussed and researched. The first part of the course provides an overview. We then investigate drug production in the Americas and the organizations that engage in these activities. After that, we will look at the costs of narcopolitics in the developing world, in terms of corruption and violence. Next, we will shift our attention to the U.S. and examine both drug trafficking counternarcotic efforts and the impact of the so-called "War on Drugs." The final part of the class will examine the effect of recent and proposed reforms to drug policies and, of course, the reconciliation and peace processes that have brought stability, peace and economic growth to Colombia.
IPSL-430: Sustainable Micro Enterprise/Field Work (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to familiarize students with different types of enterprises in Rural Communities and explore national and international case studies as well as opportunities and challenges in sustaining micro and small-sized enterprises. (SME). It sets out the criteria for identifying whether a company is a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). These different categories, based on the number of a company's employees and its turnover or balance sheet, determine its eligibility for EU and national financial and support programs, especially in the more rural areas of Europe.
IPSL-431: Greek History Culture Language (Credits: 3)
This course is designed to familiarize students with Greek history and culture. Its aim is to explore the 5000 years of Greek history, understanding why Greece is still considered the cradle of our civilization, stopping at its greatest moments, discovering those elements that made Greece stand out through the ages, exploring ancient Greek art and culture and understanding the ways and the degree it shaped the western world. The course will connect the dots from prehistoric times and the era of the great heroes and legends, like Hercules, Odysseus and the Trojan War, with the achievements of Ancient Greece, the troubled years of Medieval and Byzantine Greece until its independence after the Greek Revolution of 1821, and Greece in the 21st century. Taking place in a large, vibrant port city of Thessaloniki, with a history of over 2500 years, the students will be able to experience Greece's living history firsthand and learn the basics of theModern Greek language in context with the course content.
IPSL-432: The Rise of Social Solidarity in Greece (Credits: 3)
This course explores the concept of solidarity, or social unity, in the context of austerity and refugee burdened Greece. Austerity measures motivated community efforts including soup kitchens and free pharmacy distribution clinics. At the height of the European refugee crisis, civilian volunteers offered clothing, food, transportation and shelter to immigrants and refugees entering Greece. This course explores how these two crises moments have challenged established forms of sociality and motivated a movement towards national and global solidarity. Drawing on literature, engaging with ongoing NGO and government efforts, in addition to directed discussions with Greeks.
IPSL-433: Creative Thinking Entrepreneurship (Credits: 3)
This course is about productive thinking and is designed to assist students in developing critical and creative thinking skills that are essential ingredients to enhance their innovation and decision-making skills. These skills include the ability to make well- reasoned decisions, solve problems skillfully, and make carefully thought-out judgments about the worth, accuracy, and value of information, ideas, claims and proposals. Students will apply various modes of thinking to address critical business issues and workplace applications.
IPSL-434: Mediterranean Diet Life Style (Credits: 3)
This course focuses on the Mediterranean Diet and the Mediterranean way of life. It is designed to help students develop an understanding about the specific diet and its health benefits, the main ingredients and produce, research the theory of the Mediterranean way of life, and to provide an international perspective through a rich study abroad program with valuable experiences that students can draw from and finally, through cooking workshops, offer students hands on experience on the secrets and makings of the Mediterranean cuisine. We will also examine the cultural and emotional interconnections that influence what, and how we eat, and how we socialize with, and around food. Greek cooking offers an incredibly rich and diverse array of foods and beverages that are the culmination of literally thousands of years of living, cooking, and eating. While each Greek meal is fresh and inviting, it is also a trip back through Greece's history.
IPSL-435: Mediterranean Outdoors Exploration (Credits: 3)
This course focuses on Leadership, through instruction and experiences in Outdoor settings. The "About Limits: Mediterranean Outdoor Exploration & Leadership" course is to prepare participants to have the academic background skills and necessary experiences to analyze, plan, implement, lead and supervise teams, not only in an outdoor environment but also in academia or a corporate setting, through experiential and physical challenges. It is designed to help students develop conditional leadership skills, understand group development and communication, and empower facilitation techniques in an outdoor environment. In addition, the course provides opportunities to sharpen the creative decision-making process, meet challenges for problem solving and sound judgment, and all this in the wild Greek mountains. Moreover, the program emphasizes the environmental ethics and "Leave No Trace" approach. We will, also, analyze the main domains of a risk management plan through outdoor activities and discuss how this knowledge could be transferred in a business or corporate environment. Finally, the course uses team bonding activities and tries to teach and enhance decision making skills through games in the outdoors. The Greek mountains offer an incredibly rich and diverse natural environment with physical challenges, breathtaking scenery accompanied with endless chats over delicious meals by the fire.
IPSL-440: Guatamala One Health Ecology Culture (Credits: 3)
This course captures the interconnectedness of people, the environment, and animals that we use for food in-situ. These topics are examined through a One Health lens, through site visits and hands-on service projects with local Guatemalan farms, cooperatives, and community-based agricultural initiatives. Students have the opportunity to reflect upon their service and experiential learning via reading reviews and reflection workshops throughout the course. Students live, study, work, and make new and interesting connections such as with local community organizers, other volunteers and students and international researchers, who enrich and strengthen the outreach of the organization to the surrounding communities. Students should have a strong interest in nutrition and food politics, as well as environmental conservation and public health. Experience with the Spanish language is highly recommended but not required.
IPSL-441: Maya Cosmovision & Health Systems (Credits: 3)
This course offers the opportunity to get immersed in the reality of some of the many indigenous communities in Guatemala and to reflect on intersecting issues related to Maya health, spirituality, and intercultural history. During the course, students will participate in lectures, workshops, site visits, and dialogues with indigenous health services providers in community-based organizations. The course is co-designed and taught by a Maya Kaqchikel spiritual guide and healer with many years of experience and extensive knowledge in ancestral healing techniques, herbal medicine, fire ceremonies, and Maya culture. By exploring a Maya & intercultural perspective on health services in Guatemala, students will have the opportunity to understand the struggles and experience the successes of a living and breathing ancestral medical system that integrates a variety of voices, bridges socioeconomic differences, and offers culturally appropriate solutions to the physical, mental and spiritual ailments of the local population.
IPSL-450: Enivironmental Social Justice: Peru (Credits: 3)
Biological diversity is one of the most valuable assets our society has in order to achieve Sustainable Development. This course provides knowledge of the theory and practice of this concept. Topics aim to stimulate a critical examination of the potential of biological resources and interactions in meeting sustainability goals while also understand the need for a constant economic growth and social equity. This course is specifically created to address the complex issues of Environmental Sustainability as they relate to biodiversity conservation with its main focus in Per .
IPSL-451: Incan Architecture Urban Dvlpmt in Andes (Credits: 3)
The course is intended to introduce students to the general, quantitative and qualitative aspects of the evolution of architecture and urban planning in the Andes in South America. We will cover the aspects of territorial, agricultural and civic management under Andean societies and its development through the height of its glory under the Inca culture. The course covers conceptual aspects such as the evolution of Andean society, its historical background, the geography, environment, and overall community health of the central Andes, the interaction between society and its territory and environment. We will review the history of the origins of the American Caral civilization, early urban planning, ceremonial temples of the formative period, the first cities of the ceremonial centers upon the emergence of the urban theocratic centers, the Moche city, the rise of the Andean Wari Empire, the late states and feudal estates, coastal cities, high Andean settlements, Moche architecture and urban planning, the capital city of Chimu, the city of Chanchan, the Pachacamac ceremonial center, through the development of the Inca Empire and the colonial development of the city of Cusco.
IPSL-460: Ethics Community Health South Africa (Credits: 3)
Through the interdisciplinary coursework in this program, students learn about contemporary public health issues in South Africa through hands-on training with IPSL's partner organization in Cape Town, South Africa. By uniting service with traditional learning, students gain knowledge about the historical, political, economic, cultural, and geographic forces that shape the history of public health interventions in South Africa. The service places students at the nexus of Community-based Health, Social Enterprise, Volunteer Development, and the struggle for Social and Racial Justice. Through lectures from scholars and scholar-practitioners, readings, hands-on service, and selected site visits in the region, students critically examine topics related to health promotion and provision, traditional healing, rural health and social justice in South Africa.
IPSL-470: Environmental Sci Sustain Development (Credits: 3)
This course will provide current basic knowledge of the fundamental features and functions of the natural environment, including: natural resources; geo/natural disaster-hazards; the human impact on the environment; and the role in solving problems related to human activities in hazard adaptation and mitigation, in decision-making policies on sustainable development, resource use and environmental protection. The goals of the course are to improve awareness of (and provide techniques for) the sustainable use of natural resources, environmental protection, and sustainable development. Content will emphasize interdisciplinary and integrated approaches.
IPSL-471: Global Health & Environment: Vietnam (Credits: 3)
Global health has been defined as an area for study, research, and practice that places priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. This course examines major global health challenges, programs and policies, with practical examples in Vietnam. Students will be introduced to Southeast Asia's diversity of determinants of health and diseases. Students will explore and analyze current and emerging health priorities, including infectious zoonotic diseases, poverty, environmental pollution, dioxin/Agent Orange and the "American" (Vietnam) War's legacy. Health inequity, health systems reforms, health policy advocacy, and major initiatives for disease prevention and health promotion in Vietnam will be examined with an eye toward comparative study with health in a "developed" nation.
IPSL-472: Public Space in Urban Planning (Credits: 3)
In this dynamic course on public space inclusion in Vietnamese urban planning, you will explore the critical role that public spaces play in fostering vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable cities. Guided by expert instructors and drawing upon multimodal learning approaches, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the principles, strategies, and best practices for effectively incorporating public spaces into urban planning processes. Through a combination of theoretical insights, case studies in various Vietnamese cities, and interactive discussions, you will delve into the various dimensions of public space design, activation, and management. You will examine the social, cultural, economic, and environmental aspects of public spaces, considering how they shape community identity, encourage social interaction, enhance livability, and promote environmental sustainability. Throughout the course, you will engage in hands-on exercises and collaborative projects to develop practical skills in analyzing, conceptualizing, and designing inclusive public spaces. You will explore innovative approaches such as participatory design, placemaking, and tactical urbanism, and learn how to integrate diverse perspectives, including those of marginalized communities, into the planning process.
IPSL-473: Sustainable Tourism (Credits: 3)
Sustainability is a key concept of 21st century planning in that it broadly determines the ability of the current generation to use resources and live a lifestyle without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. Sustainability affects our environment, economics, security, resources, health, economics, transportation and information decision strategy. It also encompasses decision making, from the highest administrative office, to the basic community level. This course will cover many aspects of sustainable tourism across a range of the topical fields involved in researching or implementing sustainable tourism projects. The major topics to be discussed include general knowledge of tourism and sustainability and operations and marketing for sustainable tourism. Discussions will aim to bring understanding of alternative forms of tourism such as ecotourism and community-based tourism and "pro-poor" tourism approaches. Students can direct their focus to particular interests such as community engagement, cross- cultural education and communication, volunteer development and management, etc.
IPSL-484: Community Organizatn Activism (Credits: 3)
This course introduces students to the history of and current effective practices in community and civic engagement, including domestic and international volunteerism, community organizing, and social activism. The class complements on the ground activities abroad, including local service efforts and classroom activities in both the sister course, Community Organizing and Social Activism (COSA) In-Country. Students also reflect on their service using an international lens via bi-weekly reflection activities.
JAPN - Courses
JAPN-110: Japanese I (Credits: 4)
An introduction to Japanese writing systems, the sounds of Japanese (the spoken language), and basic reading. Cultural topics as well as business protocol are also emphasized.
JAPN-111: Japanese II (Credits: 4)
A continuation of the goals pursued in JAPN 110; writing systems, sounds, reading and culture.
JAPN-220: Japanese III (Credits: 4)
This is an intermediate, second year Japanese class that intensifies the study of writing, speaking, and reading skills. Continued emphasis on cultural topics, particularly business protocol.
JAPN-221: Japanese IV (Credits: 4)
Students will acquire the skill to speak Japanese in the normal flow for a few minutes. Students will also improve reading and writing kanji, learn more of Japanese culture and business practice, and cultivate friendship among students and with Japanese people.
JAPN-300: Special Topics in Japanese (Credits: 1 to 4)
Topics of interest and importance not covered by regularly scheduled courses. May be listed as "JAPN 220 Japanese III" and/or "JAPN 221 Japanese IV".
JAPN-401: Directed Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)
A tutorial-based course used only for student- initiated proposals for intensive individual study of topics not otherwise offered in the Japanese Program. This course is repeatable for credit.
JPN - Courses
JPN-225: Japanese Language Basic A1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This introductory level course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of Japanese. Through a combination of interactive classroom activities, audiovisual materials, and practical exercises, students will acquire basic vocabulary and grammar, and develop essential skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to engage in simple everyday conversations, comprehend basic written texts, and write short messages and descriptions.
JPN-226: Japanese Basic+ A2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
Building upon the foundation laid in the A1 level, this course aims to strengthen student's proficiency in Japanese. Emphasizing communicative competence, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more complex grammatical structures and enhance their listening and speaking skills through role-plays, discussions and presentations. Reading comprehension and writing abilities will also be further developed, enabling students to handle a wider range of topics and express themselves more fluently.
JPN-325: Japanese Intermediate B1 (Credits: 1 to 9)
At the intermediate level, this course focuses on deepening students' understanding and command of Japanese language and culture. Through authentic materials, multimedia resources, and interactive activities, students will refine their grammatical knowledge, expand their vocabulary, and develop a greater ability to engage in discussions and express opinions. Reading and listening comprehension skills will be honed through exposure to various texts and audio sources, while writing skills will be enhanced through composing coherent paragraphs and short essays.
JPN-326: Japanese Intermediate B2 (Credits: 1 to 9)
This advanced level course is designed for students who have already acquired a solid foundation in Japanese. It aims to further polish their language skills to a near-native level. Students will delve into more complex linguistic structures, idiomatic expressions, and cultural nuances. Through authentic materials, such as literature, newspapers, and films, students will deepen their reading and listening comprehension abilities. Speaking and writing skills will be refined through in-depth discussions, debates, and composition tasks, enabling students to express themselves accurately and fluently