This course provides a forum for Community Engagement and Social Change concentration students to develop research projects that synthesize their prior coursework and practical experiences. In a typical capstone project, student teams complete a collaborative project focused on imagining concrete ways out of current crises by designing and proposing innovative approaches to dismantling structures of inequality or catalyzing structures of equity. Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required.

Offered as BKX 203 and PYX 203. This course focuses on various professional practice aspects of publishing, including manuscript selection, book design and production, and product marketing and distribution, through Nine Syllables Press, in partnership with the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center. Students learn about the publishing industry and contemporary US poetry landscape. Students have the opportunity to learn about and practice designing professional chapbook interiors and covers, producing and marketing chapbooks for a selected manuscript from Nine Syllables Press. Cannot be taken S/U.

Offered as ARX 120, BKX 120 and MUX 120. This course serves as a shared gateway for the Archives, Book Studies and Museums concentrations. Students explore histories, futures and systems of knowledge production, preservation, organization and distribution through the kinds of objects and evidence held by archives, libraries and museums. As evidence of their evolving and complex operations, this course introduces the history of such institutions, their evolving public mission, issues central to their work today, and the creation and uses of materials they hold.

Coral reefs occupy a small portion of Earth’s surface, but their importance to the marine ecosystem is great. This course considers the geologic importance and ecological interactions of coral reefs. It focuses on the status of coral reefs worldwide, considering effects of environmental and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., major storms, eutrophication, acidification, overfishing). Methods for reef conservation are examined. Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required.

An advanced, applied course on ecological population modeling and data analysis. Students implement mathematical models describing population dynamics and species interactions as well as modern analytical approaches commonly applied to ecological data using the R computing language. Throughout this course students acquire skills in data analysis, data visualization, data management, code, reproducibility and modeling. Corequisite: BIO 372. Enrollment limited to 20.

An advanced course covering ecological modeling and data analysis. Students explore the principles of mathematical modeling to describe population dynamics and species interactions. Students also learn modern analytical approaches in the study of ecological communities and ecological experiments. In addition to theoretical quantitative foundations, students acquire the analytical skills to implement mathematical and statistical models using the R computing language. Corequisite: BIO 373.

This research-based lab allows students to explore the eukaryotic microbiomes associated with various environments on campus, including the greenhouse and marine aquaria. Students in the course master the basics of light microscopy, PCR and analyses of high-throughput sequencing data. Students also use the scanning electron microscope to survey their communities. The work in the course culminates in a poster presentation on the discoveries of the semester. Corequisite: BIO 370. Enrollment limited to 18.

This course focuses on the origin and diversification of microorganisms, with emphasis on eukaryotic lineages. The first weeks of lecture cover the origin of life on Earth and the diversification of bacteria and archaea. From there, students focus on the diversification of eukaryotes, examining the many innovations that mark some of the major clades of eukaryotes. Evaluation is based on a combination of class participation, short writings and an independent research paper. Concurrent registration in BIO 371 is strongly recommended but not required.

This course investigates key topics in the evolution of life history strategies, ranging from the molecular to the ecological, and emphasizes current research. Students explore concepts such as natural selection, evolutionary development (evo-devo), and sexual selection in an organism’s allocation of finite energetic resources to growth, survival, and reproduction. In addition to discussions of primary literature, students gain hands-on experience in presenting scientific concepts to a general audience.

This lab introduces the computational and quantitative tools underlying contemporary bioinformatics. Students explore the various approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction using molecular data, methods of data mining in genome databases, comparative genomics, structure-function modeling and the use of molecular data to reconstruct population and evolutionary history. Students are encouraged to explore datasets of particular interest to them. Corequisite: BIO 334. Enrollment limited to 16.