Course Listings

After learning the basic reactivity of functional groups in Organic Chemistry, it is important to consider specific applications of this knowledge. Even within the pharmaceutical industry, organic chemists involved in the stages of drug discovery and production have very different concerns and employ different strategies. We will look at the role of organic chemistry in the medicinal field through the pharmaceutical industry. This one-half credit course meets for the second half of the semester.

This course will be very project-based and hands on. In small groups, students will design, build, and program robots using the LEGO EV3 robotics system. Students will learn the fundamentals of working with sensors, data encoding, autonomous and piloted control, control theory, and response systems. Students will also consider the ethical, cultural, and economic impacts of robotics in society. Students are not expected to have any prior programming background; we will start with a graphical programming language and transition to simple Python. This course will be sufficient to prepare students to take CSC-111 in a future semester.

Brothers who murder or enslave each other, parents who sacrifice their children. This half-semester course examines sacred texts and literature that responds to those texts on themes of family relationships. What do sacred stories tell us about how we should honor family and when we should disown them? 2nd half semester course

What is a mystic? Why have mystics been revered by ordinary people but mistrusted and maligned by religious authorities through the ages? This class will examine selected mystics and their writings from a variety of religions and across centuries. We will begin in the ancient Christian world with women like Macrina and Monica. From the Middle Ages we will read some Sufi mystics in Islam like the poetry of Rumi, as well as some of the many brilliant Christian mystical writers, like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart and Renaissance man Nicholas of Cusa. We will also look at contemporary attempts to achieve a mystical oneness with God, such as in ritualized ayahuasca use and the consumption of psychedelics. Second-half semester class. Can be taken along with REL 272: Monks, or by itself.