This course explores the ethical issues surrounding topics that are common to many scientific disciplines such as: data acquisition and management, the peer review process and the role of various regulatory boards. Selected case studies from specific disciplines are also examined. Students work in groups to investigate and present the ethical issues relevant to a topic of their choosing at the end of the semester. S/U only. Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only; science majors only. Enrollment limited to 24. Instructor permission required. (E)

This six-week course teaches students to extend and refine their academic capacities to become autonomous learners. Course content includes research on motivation, learning styles, memory and retrieval, as well as application of goal setting, time management and study skills. Students who take this course are better prepared to handle coursework, commit to a major and take responsibility for their own learning. S/U only. Priority is given to students referred by their dean or adviser. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 15.

This course provides students with both a theoretical and practical foundation in facilitation and design for social change. Students learn human-centered and equity-centered design principles, as well as different modes of facilitation. This is Part Two of a two-tiered cohort program: the Leading for Equity and Action-Based Design (LEAD) Scholars Program, a new leadership program for students sponsored through the partnership of the Office for Equity and Inclusion (OEI) and the Wurtele Center for Leadership (WCL). S/U only. Prerequisite: IDP 134. Enrollment limited to 20.

This class is for students who are starting their Smith journey, embarking on or returning from an immersive experience abroad, weaving their interests through a concentration or self-designed major, or wrestling with expressing what a Smith education has prepared them to do. Students test different integrative paths of their own design, tell their own story and create a digital portfolio to showcase their work. Students learn to articulate connections between their work in and outside of the classroom and explain how Smith is preparing them to engage with the world beyond. S/U only.

This class is for students who are starting their Smith journey, embarking on or returning from an immersive experience abroad, weaving their interests through a concentration or self-designed major, or wrestling with expressing what a Smith education has prepared them to do. Students test different integrative paths of their own design, tell their own story and create a digital portfolio to showcase their work. Students learn to articulate connections between their work in and outside of the classroom and explain how Smith is preparing them to engage with the world beyond. S/U only.

Natural and social history of the Ada & Archibald MacLeish Field Station (265 acres; 11 miles away) are explored and experienced. Taking place primarily outside, this course emphasizes the dynamic interconnections of our environment from the small scale interactions between plants and pollinators to the large scale disturbance of human agricultural activity. Through observation and activities of discovery, students tell the natural and social history of the Station through writing, poetry, art or dance. Students are expected to walk several miles each class in all weather.

This course is a series of workshops that situate particular making techniques that take place in Smith’s many “makerspaces” within social, economic, ecological, historical and cultural contexts. Students connect their making practice to the ways making informs their liberal arts education. This course also serves to introduce students to the faculty and staff who facilitate making at the many different making spaces across the college. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 18.

This is an advanced research seminar in which students work closely with archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection and other archives to explore histories of resistance, collective action and grassroots organizing among domestic workers in the United States, from the mid-18th century to the present. Domestic work has historically been done by women of color and been among the lowest paid, most vulnerable and exploited forms of labor.

This course explores the various moral revolutions that have transformed the United States since 1960, focusing particularly on the emergence of new trends in American culture, religion and intellectual life. Students examine how battles over private and public morality helped to define the postwar years, shaping social activism, public policy and popular attitudes towards race, gender and inequality. In the process, they learn about the historical roots of present-day polarization, exploring the emergence of cultural and moral worldviews that continue to divide Americans today.