by Krissy Proctor
Copy Editor
Scanning through next semester’s course offerings may have brought more than one student a course load of surprise. “Multimedia Journalism?” “Food in
Italian History?” “Sexuality and the Bible?”
No, it’s not some mischievous faculty joke. Next semester brings more than the start of a whole new year and the return of many required classes; it brings the availability of 16 never before seen courses that are sure to delight majors of all kinds.
According to Registrar Janet Piatt, next spring’s course selection offers more selective topics than the college has seen in a while. In part, this is due to the experimental nature of classes marked as selected topic courses.
“If a professor wants to try out a course he’s never done before, then they’ll call it an “ST” course to see if there’s any interest,” she explained. “But they can’t offer the same course more than every four years; otherwise it will need approval from the department and the school.”
While some of the new courses are meant to appeal solely to certain majors, others were specifically designed to include students from different backgrounds as well, like the “Sexuality and the Bible” course to be taught by Associate Professor of Bible Ken Turner.
“We wanted to do a class that would be fruitful for the [Bible] major, but then we are also trying to entice the larger student body,” Turner said. “It’s certainly immediately relevant.”
The Tuesday/Thursday course will cover topics ranging from a biblical view of marriage and homosexuality to what sex tells us about Jesus and the Church.
“I expect it to be fairly mature discussion. The biggest complaint I’ve had so far is that it’s at 8. But let’s face it, if you can’t get revved up for this class, there’s no hope for you,” he said.
Another upcoming course that is garnering attention is the “Multimedia Journalism” class offered by Associate Professor of Journalism John Carpenter on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12-1:15 p.m. One of the major goals of students in the class will be to learn use of the iPhone or iPod Touch 4G in developing web publications.
“I really wrestled with developing this course,” Carpenter said. “There were so many issues… But then late one night I saw the commercial for the iPod 4G and it hit me, ‘This is wonderful.’ I’m really excited because it’s a lot of where journalism is going to go – with this we have the ability to go anywhere, do anything, and cover stuff on the fly. Plus, it’s really fun for students.”
Carpenter is also organizing a trip to a New York journalism convention as a new one-credit course called “Journalism in the Big Apple,” as well as a three-hour “Media and American Politics” class.
Not one to miss out on the fun, Assistant Professor of History Salvatore Musumeci is also offering two new classes: a one-credit course, “Conversational Italian,” aimed at students interested in the Italy semester, and a three-credit course “Food in Italian History, Society and Art.”
“A lot of Americans already understand the rhythm and basics of the language,” Musumeci said, referring to “Conversational Italian.” “It will be a fairly easy and fun class to be in.”
Other new classes will include “Handbuilding”- a course on creating pottery without a wheel, “Introduction to Business” and “International Business-European Studies,” “Worship Planning and Leadership” and “John and Biblical Theology” for Bible and Christian Ministry majors, “Basics of Bioethics,” the new catalog required course “Expository Writing” and elective “Renaissance Literature – Early Italian Poetry,” along with Psychology courses “Psychology of Christian Spirituality” and “Gender and Sexuality.”