Interdisiciplinary Liberal Studies (IDLS)

This course is designed to introduce students to diverse methods, concepts and ways of knowing. Students will engage with multiple disciplines and perspectives, including scientific, environmental, political, social and cultural areas of inquiry. At the completion of the course, students will demonstrate an ability to integrate diverse sources of information in the design of an interdisciplinary academic plan.

This workshop course is designed to provide students in the Independent Scholars and General Studies majors with methodological competencies linked to major learning objectives across their curriculum, including independent research methods, preparing presentations, data visualization, working with teams and enhancing intellectual creativity.

An exploration and analysis of societal literacy practices as viewed through cognitive, cultural, class, workplace, and technological lenses.

This course examines culture change among American Indian and Indigenous peoples in North America, with a focus on the lived experiences, voices, distinct ways of knowing and unique forms of social and cultural expression of these populations from pre-Columbian to contemporary times. Issues including settler colonialism, Indigenous knowledge, identity, belonging, citizenship and sovereignty, myth-making, gender, health and well-being, creativity, and protest and resistance are examined to gain insight to both unique historical trajectories and allow comparison of broad-based cultural dynamics. This course integrates the multiple, often diverging, perspectives of historians, novelists, educators, activists, anthropologists, film directors, scientists and more in the study of American Indian and Indigenous culture history.

An exploration and analysis of the progression of environmental thought and activism in the United States with a focus on activism, climate, conservation, ecojustice, economic, environmental protection, literary, philosophical, political, preservation, resource, wilderness and wildlife issues.

An exploration and analysis the United States at the present moment, with a focus on activist, cultural, economic, educational, environmental, foreign policy, gender, identity, political, social, social justice and sexual identity issues.

This course examines the evolutionary origins, historical trajectory and contemporary dynamics of inequality as a product of power relations rooted in human cultural knowledge and practice, with emphasis on modes of power defined by gender, age, sexual violence, education and cultural sovereignty, ethnic and racial identification, globalization and economic inequality, political polarization, and mobility and immigration. Examples primarily from North America from pre-Columbian to contemporary times and the perspectives of anthropologists, historians, fiction writers and poets, artists, educators, human rights activists, memoirists, politicians, economists and more are studied to untangle the dialectic of cultural-cognitive "ways of knowing" and the embodied experience of power and inequality.

This course explores and analyzes the experiences, cultures and current challenges of people who identify as Asian American, Black, Latinx, Native Alaskan, Native American, Native Hawaiian and as multiethnic and multiracial.

Credit for academically-grounded, interdisciplinary study abroad. Students seeking credit must secure the approval of the department head and a faculty supervisor who will provide the academic structure, assignments, and student evaluation.

Examination of selected interdisciplinary topics of importance to Teacher Education content areas. May be taken for a maximum of six credit hours toward the major.

Capstone seminar for IDLS studies in the Humanities/Social Sciences content area. Studies will apply different disciplinary perspectives to a single topic. Course requirements will emphasize superior written and oral communication skills, and the integration and application of content area knowledge to the teaching environment. Students must have completed their lower division Core requirements and be within one course of completing the concentration area. Education minors should be in their third semester of their teacher education program.

IDLS credit for academically-grounded internships and field experiences. Students seeking credit must secure the approval of the department head for the use of academic structures, assignments, and evaluation plans provided by qualified internship or field experience supervisors. This course may be taken for a maximum of 12 credit hours.

Individualized projects in interdisciplinary liberal studies.

This course leads to completion of a senior project. The ultimate scholarly product will utilize oral and written communication, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and synthesize disciplinary content from the various academic areas included in the student's individualized plan of study.