FALL 2007
SPRING 2008
Fall 2007
AMERICAN STUDIES 302: Workshop in Field Methods
Prof. Cary Cordova
The coursework is designed to give students an understanding of the social and
economic history of Downtown Carlisle while teaching them methods in conducting
fieldwork. Reading material compares suburban economies, like those promulgated
by “big box” stores such as Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, with more
centralized downtown economies which thrive on small businesses. Students
will be conducting fieldwork in downtown Carlisle by participant-observation,
neighborhood canvassing, and oral history interviews. How has the success
of Wal-Mart been connected to notions of work, capitalism, and desire? What
happened to the vitality of small towns in the United States? What will
local business owners have to say about the movement of economic energy away
from the center of town?
The class partners with the Downtown Carlisle Association, the High I Project, and the Cumberland County Historical Society to produce a web-based project dedicated to the history of downtown Carlisle. Drawing on themes both the students and these three partner programs value, such as the effect of a store like Wal-Mart on the economy of downtown Carlisle business, students will conduct field interviews and gather stories which will be presented to leaders of these partner programs and the interviewees, and digitized for the web-based museum.
EDUCATION 121: Social Foundations of Education
Professor Sarah Bair
The coursework includes a survey of the legal, philosophical, political, and
sociological contexts of American education. Students examine the ideals and
the day-to-day practices of the American education system through research
on competing definitions of an educated person, the university and the community
college, the comprehensive high school, school politics at the local, state,
and national levels, the Supreme Court and desegregation, reform movements,
and the teaching profession and teachers’ unions.
Student service relies on field placements in which students work directly with children and young adults in assigned settings. At site placements including Lamberton Middle School, the Dickinson College Children’s Center and Carlisle High School, students perform 20 hours of tutoring, homework help, observation or service as educational aides.
EDUCATION 221: Education Psychology
Professor Sarah Bair
The coursework includes an examination of physical, cognitive, and psychological
developmental theories and research. Furthermore, theories of learning and
their related current teaching practices in middle-school and secondary classrooms
are surveyed. Issues related to inclusion, exceptionalities, race, class,
gender, and multiple intelligences are explored.
Student service relies on field placements in which students interact with mentor teachers at various sites, including Carlisle High School, Cumberland Valley High School, Wilson Middle School and Lamberton Middle School. Throughout the semester, students research of topic of interest to their mentor teacher. At the conclusion of the semester, students present their findings during a research symposium and provide the mentor teacher with an annotated bibliography on the research topic.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 310: Estuarine Management,
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 330: Environmental Disruption and Policy Analysis, ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDIES 335: Analysis and Management of the Aquatic Environment
Professors Candie Wilderman, Michael Heiman, and Katherine
McGurn Centellas
These courses are part of the LUCE semester. During the LUCE semester, students
enroll in a single interdisciplinary, integrated course, for the equivalent
of a student's normal 4-course load. The course combines classroom activities,
community-based fieldwork research, independent study, and extensive travel
and immersion. During the LUCE semester, students develop an understanding
of the deep connections between natural resources and humans from multiple
perspectives and within an immersion experience while gaining training in
ecosystem analysis field techniques and being exposed to the cultural contexts
in which environmental problems are created and in which solutions are conceived
and implemented.
Student service is provided through community-based fieldwork research, independent study, and extensive travel and immersion in two comparative watershed regions: the Chesapeake Bay and the lower Mississippi River Basin. Students spend a week in September in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast and three weeks in November in southern coastal Louisiana, studying the ecosystems and learning from the local residents. The remaining nine weeks of the semester are spent closer to campus, in the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin. All students will also complete an independent research project in consultation and collaboration with a community group.
(Note: Student work from the LUCE Semester can be found on Dickinson's Blog. Student photographic work has also been posted. Detailed information about the integrated coursework and fieldwork is available at the Environmental Studies web site, with extensive links.)
PSYCHOLOGY 380-01: Research Methods in Health Psychology
Professor Jennifer Devlen
The coursework applies psychological research and methods to examine the interaction
between psychological, biological, social and cultural factors that affect health
and illness. Students will cover a variety of methods employed by health
psychologists and come to understand methods for conducting research and fieldwork
in the community. Why do certain people seek medical care while others
do not? What social and economic factors are contributing to decisions
about health care providers?
Students will work with the Sadler Health Center in Carlisle volunteering in the office and assisting in the collection of data and education classes. The primary goal of the partnership with Sadler is for students to conduct interviews with staff, patients, and Carlisle residents to provide Sadler with information about why people come or do not come to Sadler for medical care. Students will also work with the chaplain at the Hospice of Central Pennsylvania designing a questionnaire about the understanding of death and dying among local clergypersons, which in turn will assist the Hospice chaplain to better educate local clergy about issues surrounding death.
SPANISH 239: Spanish for the Health Professions
Professor Wendell Smith
The coursework relies on developing skills in medical Spanish to tackle a pressing problem – the
provision of culturally and linguistically competent healthcare to Spanish
speakers. Coursework educates students in appropriate vocabulary for
medical settings, an understanding of the importance of language and culture
to medicine, and the problems that arise from a cultural divide in healthcare
delivery. The class discusses language, public policy, anthropology,
and sociology as such disciplines are related to cross-cultural healthcare.
Students are required to serve once a week in a setting where healthcare is being delivered to Spanish-speakers. Many students accompany nurse practitioners from Keystone Migrant Health to labor camps for migrant fruit workers to register clients for health service at Keystone’s clinic in Gettysburg. Students assist with filling out forms and paperwork for Spanish-speaking clients. Bilingual students may serve at the Wellspan Health Connect van in Biglerville as receptionists and medical interpreters and help with paperwork and medical interpreting during patient appointments. Other students will volunteer at the Hamilton Health clinic in Harrisburg serving as interpreters and providing document translation.
FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Shared Futures
Joyce Bylander , Special Assistant to the President
The course is divided into three themes: food, water, and health. The coursework
is designed to invite students into a discussion of the environmental, economic,
and social powers that affect how people get food, water, and disease. What
goes into food production? Why isn’t there enough food for everyone? How
does water get polluted and who doesn’t have clean water? What diseases
are caused by hunger, malnutrition, and polluted water? How can we live
lives that assist people who cannot access adequate food and water? How
do our lives at Dickinson affect other people in Carlisle and the world? Reading
materials explore the connections between lifestyle choices with issues like
hunger, poverty and disease.
Students will spend a day working with Project SHARE, where they will be educated on how this program networks with farms to obtain food and the challenges an organization like this faces in trying to feed the hungry. Students will also spend a day working at the Dickinson College Farm, learning about sustainable agriculture and organic farming, and will devote one day of class to a clean up of the Letort Spring Run.
FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR: Transforming Lives: Social
Justice Leaders in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Professor Amy Farrell, American Studies
The coursework explores the lives, writings, and activism of a range of 19th
and 20th century social justice leaders in the United States. Drawing from
autobiographies, personal narratives, and biographies, the class focuses on
19th century activists such as Maria Stewart, a free Black who argued for
women's suffrage; Frederick Douglass, an activist who fought for both the
end of slavery and for women's rights; Dorothy Day, a socialist who started
the Catholic Worker Movement; and Gloria Steinem, a feminist activist who
fought for women's rights. Students explore what propelled these leaders to
become social justice activists, the ways that ideas and tactics changed over
the course of lives, and the influence that the work of these activists has
had on the lives of others.
Student service will be based on field trips to local social justice organizations, including Project SHARE and Catholic Worker House. Students will observe the problems facing these organizations today and formulate their own response to social injustice. The service work will permit students to study the work of contemporary activists and compare it to that of the 19th and 20th century American activisits.
Spring 2008
ECONOMICS 314: Economic
Policy and Recreation
Professor Bill Bellinger
This course introduces the economic techniques used in the analysis of public policy and applies these techniques to a variety of social problems and policies. The economic techniques taught include the analysis of market failure, benefit-cost analysis, and economic impact analysis. This semester’s extended case study will be the economics of recreation in South-Central Pennsylvania.
Students will focus on subtopics like hunting, hiking, fishing, state parks, or the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. How do you value a natural resource, a National Park, or a fishing trip? The class will develop a report which will provide information for the community on the recreation capabilities of South-Central Pennsylvania.
EDUCATION 121: Social Foundations of Education
Professor Sarah Bair
The coursework includes a survey of the legal, philosophical, political, and sociological contexts of American education. Students examine the ideals and the day-to-day practices of the American education system through research on competing definitions of an educated person, the university and the community college, the comprehensive high school, school politics at the local, state, and national levels, the Supreme Court and desegregation, reform movements, and the teaching profession and teachers’ unions.
Student service relies on field placements in which students work directly with children and young adults in assigned settings. At site placements including Lamberton Middle School, the Dickinson College Children’s Center and Carlisle High School, students perform 20 hours of tutoring, homework help, observation or service as educational aides.
INTERCULTURAL SEMINAR, Dickinson's Program in Malaga, Spain
Prof. Mark Aldrich
This intercultural seminar discusses ways that Malagans form community. The community based research and learning component will focus on helping a group of Malagans restore and preserve a rural chapel on a mountain above the city. This little chapel is very important to the community of people involved in 'verdiales', a kind of music that is 'native' to the countryside surrounding Malaga. The research component will involve researching the history of the chapel and trying to help the community document this treasure. The students will spend three Saturdays on site at the chapel where they will get direct experience understanding how Malagans form community.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT 300-04:
Fundamentals of Nonprofit Management
Professor David Sarcone
The major course components will include the following: a historical review of
management theory to include a discussion on the similarities and differences
between for profit management and nonprofit and public management; the governance
of nonprofit organizations; nonprofit strategic management; nonprofit operational
management; and the management of newly emerging models of nonprofit collaboration
– the development of inter -organizational networks created to more
effectively address complex and recurring community problems. The course
will be taught utilizing Carlisle area community health care task force as
the context for the course material. Students will be actively engaged in
working with local organizations associated with the community health care
task force.
LAW AND POLICY/ POLICY MANAGEMENT
200: Foundations in Policy Studies
Professor James Hoefler
The goal of the course is to educate students about the context of policy decisions
that are made every day in the public and private sectors. Students are
encouraged to consider ethical, economic, and political factors in decision making
in order for them to truly grapple with the difficult process of policy making. Sustainability
is a primary concept in the course because it is a theme from which many case
studies dealing with ethics, economics, and politics emerge.
Students will work with a wide variety of community contacts ranging from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to the Water Efficiency Technical Advisory Group for the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Students will interview clients and work closely with them to devise reports on how community partners can advance their sustainability initiatives. Some possibilities include bringing Zipcars to Carlisle, creating a more Bike-friendly community, encouraging reuse and recycling, and methods for more LEED buildings. The long-term goal of the course is to move beyond the college boundary in the promotion of a sustainability-conscious community.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 132: Environmental Science
with Lab
Professor Candie Wilderman
The course provides an integrated, interdisciplinary study of natural environmental
systems and the human impact on them. Basic concepts of ecology and
energy will be examined and utilized to study world resources, human population
dynamics, pollution, and human environmental health.