Cluster Four: Social and Cultural Processes (7 credits)

PHOTO - Jackson Hall

Acting Coordinator: Jessica Adolino

Description:

Cluster Four courses help students develop students become critical thinkers about their own societies and the larger global community. These courses examine the key social and cultural processes and structures that shape the human experience.

Requirements:

Cluster Four consists of two courses that may be taken concurrently or in any order. Students must take one course from both the American Experience and the Global Experience areas of Cluster Four, and the two courses must be from two different disciplines (such as GPOSC and GANTH).

  1. The American Experience
    • GHIST 225 U.S. History
    • GPOSC 225 U.S. Government

      Each of the American Experience courses provides students with an understanding of the major themes and concepts that structure American life today. GHIST 225 does so through a contextual and document-based study of the American historical experience. Emphasis is placed on understanding the interaction of people, ideas and social movements. GPOSC 225 focuses more narrowly on the evolution and operation of the American political system in presenting major themes and concepts. It does so by examining the fundamental principles on which American political institutions are based and using social science research methodology to examine competing claims about the current functioning of the American political system.

  2. The Global Experience
    • GAFST 200: Introduction to Africana Studies
    • GANTH 195: Cultural Anthropology
    • GECON 200 Macroeconomics
    • GGEOG 200 Geography: The Global Dimension
    • GPOSC 200 Global Politics
    • GSOCI 210 Social Issues in a Global Context

      Each of the courses in the Global Experience is an investigation into a series of global issues that are of great importance to the human community. Topics dicussed will vary from course to course. Issues are examined in a systemic context that allows students to see connections between disciplines. The unifying theme of these courses is a focus on the existence of an overarching structure at the global level that conditions behavior and which itself is shaped by that behavior. From this perspective the study of global issues is more than studying current events; it involves placing these global issues in a systemic context.

Cluster Four Course Descriptions

Learning Objectives:

Students completing an American Experience course of Cluster Four will be able to identify, conceptualize and evaluate:

  • Social and political processes and structures using quantitative and qualitative data
  • Key primary sources relating to American history, political institutions and society
  • The nature and development of the intellectual concepts that structure American political activity
  • The history and operation of American democratic institutions
  • The history and development of American society
  • The history and development of American involvement in world affairs

Students completing a Global Experience course in Cluster Four will be able to identify, conceptualize and evaluate:

  • Basic global problems
  • Global political, social, cultural and economic systems
  • The issues involved in analyzing societies different from one's own
  • The global forces that shape societies
  • Theoretical models used in studying global problems
  • The strengths and limitations of alternative solutions to global problems across and within cultures