All posts by dunger

Course Announcements

Sustainability and the City

As registration begins, we have a new course announcement for students from all majors who are interested in urban sustainability.  It’s hidden under our GEOG 390 designation for now, but it’s a new class called Sustainability and the City. Students will learn to make critical assessments of existing urban landscapes and propose policy and design-based alternatives to shape a more ideal urban environment. Please see the attached flyer and share with interested students. Thank you!

Department of Geography and GIS

 

geog 390 flyer

 

Course Announcements

LINC service-learning opportunities for Sp13

Please share with students the service-learning opportunities in ENG 315, LINC-Learning in Community for Sp13.  Students in previous semesters have enjoyed the hands-on, real projects working with and for community partners around the world.
 
All students – any major, any level – may enroll. We have several new partners and projects with 17 sections meeting at various times: http://linc.illinois.edu.
 
For graduate and advanced undergraduate students, Project Management opportunities are available: http://linc.illinois.edu/information-project-managers.
 
Please view our introductory video and share it with students. “What is LINC?” is posted at http://youtu.be/f7s3aniu_40
 

LINC-Learning in Community

Course Announcements

Great ENGL Class Open to Non-Majors

English 380, section P: Language and the law
Spring 2013: Tu Th 11-12:30 104 English Building
Instructor: Dennis Baron
The law depends on our common understanding of language to frame and interpret everything from statutes and contracts to witness statements and judicial rulings. The law assigns meaning to language as well, sorting out ambiguity and resolving opposing readings of the same text. For example, in Washington, DC, v. Heller, 9 highly-educated Supreme Court justices came to two completely different interpretations of the Second Amendment (the one about the right to bear arms).
In addition to considering various aspects of legal meaning-making, we’ll look at instances where language becomes the subject of the law: First Amendment cases from the Alien and Sedition Acts to George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV” to the USA Patriot Act. We’ll look at attempts to designate English as an official language at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as official language policies in schools and workplaces, together with various efforts to protect the rights of minority-language and minority-dialect speakers. We’ll look the language and privacy rights of employers and employees in the workplace. And we’ll consider intellectual property issues involving language: trademark, copyright, plagiarism (including the legal controversy over the Google Books Project). Finally, we’ll consider some topics in forensic linguistics: interrogation and testimony; voiceprints, author identification, and language profiling. 
Readings—all of them available online—include legislation, court cases, and analyses of various language and law issues. Students will write short essays on each of the course units, participate in a moot court on a current Supreme Court case, and do a class presentation on an issue of their choice.
 
For further information, email debaron@illinois.edu
Course Announcements, Other departments

AGED 260; Minor in Leadership Studies

AGED 260 Intro to Leadership Studies
**New format—more seats**
Due to significant demand, AGED 260 will now be offered in large lecture/discussion breakout format starting this spring 2013. We have opened up 90 additional seatsand will continue to offer the course spring and fall semesters.  The course is offered this spring on MW 9:00-9:50am with discussion sections at varied times R/F.  There are 180 spots available, 80% of these are unrestricted and the rest are restricted to Leadership Studies Minor or Agricultural Education major students.
 
Minor in Leadership Studies
There are ~130 students actively pursuing this minor.  With this quick growth, we are working hard to expand capacity in the required courses and are in the process of vetting a few new elective courses with extra capacity for these students.
If you advise students who are planning on pursuing the minor, please have them contact me or complete the Minor Declaration form and drop it by 128 Mumford Hall, the ACES Academic Programs office.  It is very helpful to have the clearest idea possible of just how many students are working toward this minor so that we can meet the demand for all courses. Thank you.
 
 
Lisa Burgoon, MS, EdM
Program Coordinator, Minor in Leadership Studies
Course Announcements

LAS Blockbuster Courses

LAS blockbuster courses are exciting, co-taught, multidisciplinary courses for advanced undergraduates who want to learn how to apply content area knowledge in humanities, social science, and science to address real-world problems. Students will work with other highly-motivated students and outstanding professors from outside their majors to gain precisely the kinds of skills that employers are looking for.
 
Each course is designed to:
•        prepare students to deal with a deluge of information and distinguish fact, fiction, and opinion
•        improve students’ communication skills
•        engage students in problem-solving activities where they must think critically, approach arguments skeptically, and develop effective counter arguments
•        address issues and problems that are of particular societal relevance today, especially those that impact multiple groups in unequal ways
•        incorporate multimedia and online resources  to support and enhance learning
•        attract a large  mixed audience of undergraduates from a variety of majors in multiple disciplines
•        provide a model for an innovative approach to general education for the 21st century (LAS students will receive Gen Ed credit in two different disciplinary categories for each course)
 
Each course has been developed by an instructional team comprised of faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students who represent at least two of the following broad disciplinary areas: Humanities/Social Science/Science.  The professors have been recognized for excellence in undergraduate teaching.
Course Announcements, Other departments

ECON class update

I would like to update everyone on a few ECON classes:
 
New online course offering for Spring 2013- Principles of Macroeconomics (Econ 103–CRN:  59090) is now being offered completely online for a limited number of students in the Spring of 2013. Same instructor as the face-to-face class, same material coverage, but with the convenience of learning on the student’s schedule. Second 8 weeks course. Only allowing 50 students to enroll. First come, first served. 
 
Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory (ECON 303) will no longer have a restriction to majors.  Non-major students will be able to sign-up for this class similar to the other ECON 300/400 level classes; restrictions will be lifted following the primary registration period, this semester they will open on Nov. 19th.
 
Economics at Illinois (ECON 198) will be the one class restricted to majors and will be offered for the first time this Spring (and every Fall and Spring semester).  Students who began Fall 2010 or after are required to take this class. 
 
The requirements to transfer into Economics remain the same.