Interdisciplinary Courses

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INTR - Interdisciplinary Courses

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-125: Speech & Debate (Credits: 0 to 1)

This course focuses on developing skills in public speaking and informed debate, with an emphasis on preparing students in leadership principles. Students can also opt into local or national competitions. Students will engage in critical thinking, argument and speech construction, and Socratic thinking. A key component of the course involves collaborating on the formation and growth of the existing speech and debate team. Whether you're new to debate or looking to refine your skills, this course offers hands-on experience in a dynamic, supportive environment. No prerequisites. This course is repeatable for credit.

INTR-130: College Success (Credits: 0 to 2)

This initial course in the GROWS program sequence will support students' transition to college by helping them achieve social and academic integration within the university. Students will learn academic success strategies, gain skills necessary to successfully navigate college, and will participate in the social fabric of Westminster. This course also provides a general orientation to Westminster's resources and provide students with an introduction to relevant offices and services, explore major and career options, and develop college success skills.

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-200: Special Topics-Interdisciplinary Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)

Topics of interest and importance not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

INTR-230: Community-Based Learning (Credits: 0 to 2)

This second course in the GROWS program sequence will ensure academic and social integration for 4-year students. Through this course, students will expand their development of skills in leadership, collaboration, and community engaged learning. Students will integrate into the community to better understand their own roles and responsibilities within their local community. This will include mentoring the first year GROWS Scholars cohort.

INTR-300: Special Topics-Interdisciplinary Studies (Credits: 1 to 4)

Topics of interest and importance not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

INTR-306: Envisioning Futures (Credits: 3)

Futures thinking skills enable people to envision possible futures, prepare for them, and develop creativity, hope, and resilience during rapidly changing times. This course explores a variety of ways people are imagining and creating new futures, such as prefigurative movements, artificial intelligence tools, scenario-building, and arts-based approaches. The course teaches future thinking skills including research into emerging trends, drivers, and signals of change, imagining futures through various tools, and developing group simulations with action-planning components.

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)

This interdisciplinary course addresses the questions: who will be our neighbors in the future and what can we do today to build welcoming communities? We will explore a variety of causes that force people to migrate or move (e.g., wars, disease, extreme weather events, drought/flooding, etc.) and how those forces are likely to impact Utahns and people in some specific regions of the world. We will also explore how communities respond to newcomers and use futures thinking tools to envision possible futures for communities relating to students' disciplines and areas of interest. The course will include hearing the voices of people forced to migrate and those who work with displaced persons. Students will develop action plans related to their professional and personal interests. (WCore: EWRLD)

INTR-312: 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-330: Accessing Developmental Opportunity (Credits: 0 to 2)

This third course in the GROWS program sequence will continue to strengthen the collegiate experience of GROWS scholars by helping them to find their place at Westminster and develop academic, self-management, professionalism, and critical thinking skills. Students will explore developmental opportunities such as internships, research opportunities, and fellowships. Student will engage with alumni and community mentors.

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-430: Graduation Transition (Credits: 0 to 2)

This fourth course in the GROWS program sequence will allow students to apply their academic, self-management, professionalism, and critical thinking skills. Students will develop a transition plan for post-graduation, whether it is graduate school or entering the workforce.

INTR-440: Interdisciplinary 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 completed 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://westminsteru.edu/student-life/career -center/internships.html

INTR-440S: 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 completed 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://westminsteru.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.