Current acoustic, psychophysiological, physical, anatomical, psychological and clinical aspects of audition, and the theories of hearing developed to explain them. Prerequisites: COMM-DIS 211, 311, and 313 or equivalents.

Review of communication sources, channels, messages, reception, and effects, diffusion of health information, adoption of preventive health behavior, and mass media and social change patterns.

Water Geographies focuses on current issues related to water, and individual and group action that can make a difference to improve water sustainability. It is a service learning class. We will read several journalistic books as well as news articles to explore current issues. We will think about the ways that people cause and face conflict over water, and how they strive to improve sustainability. Focus issues will include: freshwater sustainability and development; bottled water; dams, energy & rivers; marine fisheries; and the Connecticut River.

School-Based Prepracticum. This course features pre-student teaching experiences in a middle or high school classroom under the supervision of experienced public school teachers. Candidates observe teachers, work with large and small groups of students, and develop lessons that incorporate NCATE and Massachusetts learning standards.

School-Based Prepracticum. This course features pre-student teaching experiences in a middle or high school classroom under the supervision of experienced public school teachers. Candidates observe teachers, work with large and small groups of students, and develop lessons that incorporate NCATE and Massachusetts learning standards.

An intensive survey of physical and chemical oceanography, emphasizing the role of the ocean as a system influencing the Earth's surficial processes and climate. Topics include the composition, properties and behavior of seawater, wind-driven and thermohaline ocean circulation theory, air-sea interactions, the flux of materials from the continents to the oceans, biogeochemical cycles (including the marine carbon cycle), and the role of the ocean in past, present, and future climatic change. Attendance at an accompanying weekly seminar required.

The Community Journalism Project is an intermediate reporting class that sends students into ghettos, barrios, and poor white and working class communities of Western Massachusetts. Journalists have become increasingly out of touch with the majority of the population. The working class, the poor, minorities are often overlooked in the mainstream media. This course puts students into the homeless shelters, food pantries, health clinics, community centers, public schools, and low-wage job sites in hope of finding solutions and answers from the real experts.

A study of Machiavellian power-politics and of efforts by social contract and utilitarian liberals to render that politics safe and humane. Topics considered include political behavior, republican liberty, empire and war; the state of nature, natural law/natural right, sovereignty and peace; limitations on power, the general will, and liberalism’s relation to moral theory, religion and economics. Readings from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Smith and others; also novels and plays.

This course examines recurring issues facing the Russian state and its citizens: the complex interplay between formal institutions and informal politics, patterns of cooperation and antagonism in relationships with other countries, and the "resource curse." It also addresses the importance of public opinion in a hybrid political regime; the use of the Internet and the mass media; and human rights in contemporary Russia. It examines history to provide sufficient context, but will concentrate on the period between the end of the Soviet Union and the present day. Enrollment limit of 40.

This course will examine the origins, evolution, and contemporary status of racial thinking. It will explore how religion and science have both supported and rejected notions of racial superiority; and how pre-existing European races became generically white in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The course will also examine current debates concerning the reality of racial differences, the role of racial classifications, and the value of racial diversity.