Programs for re-review:
Courses for review
FREN310 – Interconnections: Language
PHIL479 – Paradoxes (New)
PHIL479 – Paradoxes Syllabis
PHIL474 – Possible Worlds(New)
PHIL474 – Possible Worlds Syllabis
PHIL475 – Irrationality (New)
PHIL475 – Irrationality Syllabis
Tabled courses that have received revisions:
ENGL300 – Communication and Technology: Analysis of Texts and Contexts(Change)
ENGL353 – Rhetorical Theory(Change)
ENGL379 – Principles and Practices in Technical Communication(Change)
ENGL394 – Technical Editing(Change)
ENGL407 – Language in Society(Change)
ENGL409 – Advanced Topics and Genre Studies(Change)
ENGL411 – Advanced Topics in Literary History (Change)
ENGL416 – Advanced Topics in Literature and Other Arts(Change)
ENGL435 – Digital Humanities(Change)
ENGL480 – Seminar in Advanced Journalism(Change)
INDS335 – Interdisciplinary Degree Plan Writing Seminar
Comment:
POLI349 – Environmental Politics (Change)
Rationale:
Before I became Director of the Sondheim Program, in the latter 1990s and early 2000s I periodically taught 400-level seminars that covered a series of environmental policy special topics courses: safe drinking water; biodiversity; food safety; fisheries management. I dropped these courses due to the workload of the Sondheim position. When I returned to a regular teaching position, I taught Environmental Policy as a 400-level course. In hopes of serving more students who were interested in the topic, I then changed the course to a 300-level course. Attaining this goal was frustrated for two years in a row by the room scheduling process, which did not find rooms that would fit 30+ students, so the courses were forced to enroll only the capacities of the rooms made available to me—around 20-22.
Given this history, and the request of the Public Policy Graduate Program to teach a 400/600 level course on the topic (which has been endorsed by the GES faculty with whom I have already consulted—Lansing and Biehler), I would like to teach it again at the 400 level. The topic is one that can be taught at not only the 300 and 400 level, but at the 200 level as well, using different approaches and expectations. One benefit of the 400-level approach is that students will usually have taken more courses at the 300 level, and therefore be better prepared to engage with more sophisticated material.
The 400 level course will differ from the 300 level course in that it will include a substantial research paper. This is a requirement for all 400 level political science courses. I don’t intend to generate a new syllabus for this course until the summer—in part because of the press of current duties, but mostly because of the tremendous upheaval that the Trump Presidency is causing now and will continue to cause in this policy area. Doing it now would just be wasted effort, and contrary to my general teaching approach, which puts a premium on including very current readings on important issues in conjunction with important general readings. By August, I will have an embarrassment of disasters to choose from for the current issues. In fact, I have already talked to two publishers’ reps about the problem they face in marketing environmental politics books that are already outdated even though they have copyright dates of 2016.
In the meantime, I would like to have the course listed at the appropriate 400 level in the class schedule prior to when students register for fall courses.