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10X Dramatic Writing Studio
This class is an invitation to explore writing for theater, film, and television by creating ten scripts over the 10-week term. Edward Albee told Andr…
3D Studio: Introduction to Three-Dimensional Art and Design
This course is an introduction to three dimensional design and sculpture. Through a variety of projects students will analyze and apply the classic or…
A Production Monster Course
This winter, students will collaboratively research and build a hybrid performance installation performed for the public at the end of the term. The p…
Acadia: Exploring the National Park Idea
Using Acadia National Park as a case study, this course will explore the various facets of "the national park idea" and what it means for Americans in…
Active Optimism: Practices in Transforming Food Systems
In "Beginning to End Hunger," M. Jahi Chappell quotes the Brazilian sociologist Herbert Jose "Betinho" de Souza, who said "I'm not some stupid optimis…
Actor Training I
This course is geared toward students with or without performance experience. Together we will establish a common language to define the most importan…
Advanced Ceramic Sculpture
This is a ceramics course for intermediate or advanced practitioners and requires foundational skills in hand building and/or wheel-throwing. It is de…
Advanced International Environmental Law Seminar
This course is designed to provide an overview of the use of international law in solving transnational environmental problems and shaping internation…
Advanced Music Theory
This interactive course will focus on the theory of Western European art music with additional content on jazz, popular music, and selected non-Wester…
Advanced Samba Percussion Ensemble
In Advanced Samba Percussion Ensemble, we will focus on developing a repertoire of percussion music based in two Brazilian music traditions: Samba Reg…
Advanced Studio Printmaking
This art studio course is a continuation of the introductory course Studio Printmaking. A print mirrors the surface of its matrix and presents a refle…
African American Literature
This survey of African American literature from its origins in the slave narrative to the present vivid prose of some of America's best writers consid…
Agroecology
The global demand for food and fiber will continue to increase well into the next century. How will this food and fiber be produced? Will production b…
American Dreaming: Theatre and Activism in the US
Students read plays and study a variety of artists that have used theater as a viable force for change over the last century. Together we will explore…
Animals and Arguments
In 1903, American naturalist John Burroughs triggered a fierce public debate when he accused some of his peers of writing “sham natural history.” Thes…
Animals and Ethics
What are our moral obligations to other animals? Should non-human animals have legal rights and moral standing? If so, on what basis? How does the mor…
Animation
This course explores animation as a form of creative expression, experimentation and personal vision. Various techniques, such as drawing, cut-out, pa…
Apples: History, Horticulture, Culture, and Science
This three-credit integrated class will include fieldtrips, travel, on-campus classes, and independent project work. The class will explore the histor…
Art and Science of Fermented Foods
This course will take an in depth look at the art and science of fermented and cultured foods. The first half of the class will focus on the microbiol…
Art Since 1900: Harmony and Conflict
The artworks of Pablo Picasso and Hannah Höch; both the well-known and lesser-known artist made paintings and sculptures that facilitate our understan…
Audio Journalism: Reporting, Producing, Storytelling
This will be a "soup to nuts" course in audio journalism geared towards the beginner. In this class we will detail: how to record and edit audio; inte…
Audio Production as Compositional Tool
In 1979, the music producer Brian Eno argued that the recording studio is a “compositional tool,” upending the idea that the recording studio exists t…
Audiocraft: Writing and Producing Longform Narrative Audio
How do you use sound and story to build tension and hold attention? In this course, students will explore longform narrative storytelling using sound…
Austen, Bronte, Eliot
This is an advanced course which explores in depth the works of three major writers of the Victorian period: Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George…
Authoritarianism, Conflict, Collaboration
This course draws on multiple disciplines and interdisciplinary fields (anthropology, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, postcolonial an…
Bees and Society
In the last decade the plight of wild and domesticated bees has pervaded the media and public discourse, yet bees remain largely misunderstood in our…
Beginning Contemporary Dance Technique
In this introductory level course, we’ll work to develop a movement practice that centers both self care and togetherness. This class will draw on a v…
Biochemistry
This course explores the fundamentals of biochemistry. Emphasis will be placed on the flow and regulation of genetic information from DNA to RNA to pr…
Biology: Cellular Processes of Life
This course introduces students to the molecular and cellular processes that are essential for life. We will initially cover some basic chemistry to d…
Biology: Form and Function
This is one half of a 20-week, two-term introductory course in biology, providing an overview of the discipline and prerequisite for many intermediate…
Biostatistics
This course will provide students with a toolbox of techniques in statistical analysis, with a focus on the biological sciences. Students will learn h…
Black Atlantic Music
In Black Atlantic Music students will work to understand how histories of slavery, colonialism, diasporic imagination, and networks of cultural exchan…
Blue Food Systems
Just three aquatic species account for most seafood consumed in the US: shrimp, tuna, and salmon. But worldwide consumption is more diverse, including…
Buddhist Philosophies
What is the nature of self? What is the nature of mind? Why do we suffer? What is enlightenment? This course introduces students to the foundations of…
Business and Non-Profit Basics
Anyone who is involved with for profit or non-profit enterprises needs to understand a wide variety of interdisciplinary skills. This introductory cou…
Calculus I
The goal of this sequence of courses is to develop the essential ideas of single-variable calculus: the limit, the derivative, and the integral. Under…
Calculus II
This course is the continuation of Calculus I. It begins by considering further applications of the integral. We then move to approximations and serie…
Captured in Sediment: The Peopling of Maine
This is a laboratory course which is one of three courses required to be taken together. The three courses make up a "monster course" with the overall…
Ceramics I
This beginning course in ceramics will explore the making of objects with clay by using the potter's wheel, slab roller, coils and press molds. We wil…
Chamber Music
What do Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms have in common? They are all considered great masters of classical music, having written several works fo…
Changing Schools, Changing Society
How have schools changed and how should schools change to ensure "the good life"? This interdisciplinary, team-taught course examines the potential an…
Chemistry and Biology of Food and Drink
Introductory chemistry and biology are explored in the context of food and drink: the biology of crops, culinary chemistry, and the biochemistry of br…
Chemistry I
This is the first half of a two-term sequence designed to help students describe and understand properties of materials. The course first explores how…
Chemistry II
This is the second half of a two-term sequence designed to help students describe and understand properties of materials. Topics include kinetics, equ…
Child Development
How does a child think? What causes him/her to learn? What teaching approaches work best with young children? These questions and more will be explore…
Children’s Literature
This course is a broad overview of children's literature and its place in the elementary school classroom. It examines the range and trends in literat…
Cinematic Visions from Marginalized Peoples
Production modes, market concerns, and privilege of access, in addition to the greater concerns of racism, sexism, classism and other social biases ha…
City/Country: Literary Landscapes 1860-1920
This class focuses on American fiction from the realist/naturalist period (roughly 1860-1920), a time when enormous changes were occurring in and on t…
Climate and Weather
This class will explore general weather and climate patterns on global, regional, and local scales. We will discuss the major forcings driving global…
Climate Justice
Climate change is one of the biggest and most difficult challenges faced by contemporary societies. The challenge has multiple facets: environmental,…
Coasts and Shores: A Seminar in the Human Ecology of Place
In recent scholarship on humans’ relationship with the sea, a rich and varied set of approaches has emerged, showing how this land-sea interface has b…
Collaborative Filmmaking
In this intermediate to advanced studio course, we will explore various ways to make films together in small teams, including with people outside the…
Collecting Nature: Exploration of Scientific Collection
Natural history collections are important artifacts that provide pivotal information on the past, present, and future of our natural world. They docum…
College Seminar: Barbed Wires, Drawn Lines
How many times have you mused about the idea of borders? What do the lines that divide us mean, and how are we to make sense of them? Literature has a…
College Seminar: Murder, Mystery, Mayhem: Women in Crime
The Monster is real, and it’s calling. -Michelle Mcnamara Grew up reading Nancy Drew and Miss Marple? Can’t let a day go by without listening to a mur…
College Seminar: The Anthropology of Food
This course uses food as a lens to explore human origins, cultural diversity, social structure, and human/environment interactions. Through academic a…
College Seminar: The World of Ms. Marvel
As a Pakistani-American teenager from New Jersey, Kamala Khan must contend with being a non-white female offspring of an immigrant family, a reality f…
College Seminar: Utopia/Dystopia
The practice of social dreaming has a long history in philosophical thinking, stretching back to Hesiod and Plato. What constitutes a perfect or ideal…
College Seminar: Women in True Crime
Commercialized in the 16th century through ballads and pamphlets, true crime has been around for a bit. Yet it is in the recent decade or so, with the…
College Seminar:”Soda, Pop, or Coke?”: Linguistic Diversity
Picture this: you and your friends are grabbing burgers and you overhear someone order a pop. You instantly get the urge to correct them because soda…
Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Nation-State
This course is an introduction to concepts and practices of nationalism, the modern nation-state, and questions about postcolonial contexts and concep…
Communicating Science
Science communication is multi-dimensional, encompassing both communication within science for scientists, and between science and external audiences…
Communicating Science
This course is designed for science students developing their professional communication skills. It will improve the students' writing ability by intr…
Comparative Global Politics of Biodiversity & Climate Change
Climate change and biological diversity are prominent issues on the global political and environmental governance agendas and in public environmental…
Composer’s Ensemble
Using traditional music notation and a variety of non-traditional notation techniques, The Composer’s Ensemble will offer a fun series of sessions whe…
Congressional Elections Workshop
This class will be an intensive, immersive exploration of Congressional elections in the United States. It runs only in the Fall of midterm Congressio…
Conspiracy Theories and Theories of Conspiracy
The fear of the “hidden” enemy that lurks behind the curtain, controlling events from the shadows, is a narrative topos that continually seems to rais…
Constitutional Law: Supreme Court and Civil Liberties
This introductory class in constitutional law will have one fundamental objective: understanding the current and historical role of the US Supreme Cou…
Contemporary Artist as Researcher and Activist
The student will be introduced to a contemporary stream of visual culture that places nature, ethos, competing ideologies, and our relationship to the…
Contemporary Dance Composition
This introductory course will focus on personal expression through movement and compositional techniques. Each class will begin with a gentle warm up…
Conversations with the Ghost of Marx
This course introduces students to the study of political economy from a Marxian perspective. Unlike economics which focuses on various parts of the e…
Corn and Coffee
This course explores the rich history of capitalism through the lens of two of the most ubiquitous and valuable crops in the world: corn and coffee. T…
COSTA RICA: Introduction to Tropical Field Ecology
This intensive, field-based course examines fundamental concepts and processes of tropical ecology through exploration and investigation of a diverse…
COSTA RICA: Tropical Entomology
Insects are the dominant animals in nearly all terrestrial ecosystems. However, in places like Maine, their abundance, diversity, and impact are not a…
Cross Kingdom Interactions
This course focuses on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of associations formed between organisms that are markedly different in form and f…
Culturally Sustaining and Revitalizing Education
This course is designed for students planning to teach in schools whether in Maine or outside of the United States. Culturally sustaining/revitalizing…
Curatorial Practice: Study Skins
This course provides a deep dive into the practice and art of preparing museum study skins. Study skins are a traditional form of specimen preparation…
Current Trends in AI: Problems and Projects
This course explores the nature of current developments in artificial intelligence and how they present challenges and opportunities in ways they are…
Curriculum Design and Assessment
Human ecologists who educate, embrace not only the interdisciplinarity of knowledge, but also the complexity of individual student development in poli…
Deep Sea Biology
Most of the ocean is deep, dark, and cold – conditions that at first glance appear terribly inhospitable. And yet the past century and a half of deep-…
Demons from the Depths
Across a range of epochs, cultures, and territories, human beings have proffered myths, stories, and scientific theories in order to explain catastrop…
Derrida and Questions of Difference
Algerian Jewish philosopher, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), one of the most widely translated French philosophers of the 20th century, developed a body…
Design Research Studio: Campus Paths
Participants in this studio course will examine the CoA campus path system from the standpoint of mobility, access, and landscape narrative. We will e…
Design Research Studio: Water Reuse as Community Development
This topical studio explores the application of ecological design principles in urban settings to counteract ongoing environmental injustices. Partici…
Designing Your Life
Students hear a series of conflicting messages when it comes to their education and future. Advice, impulses and pressures to “follow your passion”, “…
Devices of Wonder: Moving Pictures
Exploring what Athanasius Kircher referred to as “The Great Art of Light and Shadow,” this course will traverse a variety of early optical devices tha…
Differential Equations
Differential equations are an application of calculus used to model a wide variety of physical and natural phenomena. The rate at which a cup of coffe…
Dissecting Popular Music
Can you trace the anatomy of a catchy song? How does the form and structure of music compare across culture and style? How does sound recording dramat…
Documentary Video Studio
A documentary video or film purports to present factual information about the world. A documentary may take a stand, state an opinion, or advocate a s…
Dramatic Mechanics
Theatre is, at its core, an embodied investigation of the dynamics of difference and power. This course will focus on how that investigation works bot…
Dramatic Writing for Stage and Screen
This is an intermediate creative writing course for students interested in writing for theater, film and television. We will read published and unpubl…
Drawing Intensive / Developing a Studio Practice
In the first part of this course, drawing will be used to experiment, interrogate and expand different aspects of one’s artistic practice. Using a bro…
Drawing Mineral and Botanical Matter in the Forest of Maine
Viewed as a regular practice, the descriptive power of drawing can intensify the experience of observational fieldwork, provide the draughtsperson wit…
Dynamic Landscapes
In this course students will learn to make place-based observations of landscapes to consider the processes shaping them. Various climatic and tectoni…
Ecologies of Cities
We typically think of cities as centers of political and economic power, social vibrancy (and tension), and cultural richness, diversity and productio…
Ecology
This course examines ecology in the classic sense: the study of the causes and consequences of the distribution and abundance of organisms. We examine…
Ecology and Natural History of the American West
The American West has played a key role in the development of modern ecology and in our overall understanding of the Natural History of North America.…
Ecology: Natural History
In this course we explore the different terrestrial habitats that occur on Mount Desert Island (MDI). We practice taking observations and investigatin…
Ecosystem Ecology: Biogeochemistry
Ecosystem ecology is the branch of ecological science that considers the large-scale transfer of matter and energy among different living and non-livi…
Electing a President
This class will be an intensive immersive exploration of presidential elections in the United States. It runs only in the Fall terms of US presidentia…
Engaging Mindfully with AI: A Human Ecological Approach
As individuals and communities, we face rapidly escalating temptations and pressures to embrace the use of increasingly diverse, hybrid, powerful syst…
Entry Point: Identity, Language, and Power
It’s through language that we construct our identities in everyday, professional, and academic contexts. We use language to make sense of our experien…
Environmental History
How has human history shaped and been shaped by "the environment"? Environmental history is one of the most exciting new fields in history. In this co…
Environmental Justice
Environmental harms and benefits fall in predictable patterns across our bodies and landscapes, tracing lines of inequality that are embedded deep wit…
Environmental Law and Policy
This course provides an overview of environmental law and the role of law in shaping environmental policy. We examine, as background, the nature and s…
Epic Heroines: Feminist Retellings of Indian Mythology
This course will be an exploration of four heroines from two Hindu epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. Central to the upbringing of more than half of the…
Epic Heroines: Feminist Retellings of Mythologies
This course will explore heroines from two Hindu epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, alongside the Greek mythological figures Ariadne, Medusa, Circe, and…
Equal Rights, Equal Voices: Articulating Suffrage
This seminar will provide an in-depth exploration of public speech texts by a wide array of 19th century woman suffrage activists in the United States…
Estuaries
The simplest definition of an estuary is a place along a coast where freshwater and saltwater meet; however, estuaries are far from simple. They are c…
Ethics, AI, and Authorship
Ways we engage with writing and literacy have shifted dramatically due to technological innovations, raising urgent questions about ethics, authorship…
Ethnographic Methods
Ethnographic research is based primarily on anthropology's signature research method known as "participant-observation fieldwork." This course introdu…
Ethnographic Writing
Ethnographic writing, literally the "writing of a people," is anthropology’s primary disciplinary mode of representation, based on participant-observa…
Evolution
This course provides students with the opportunity to put their knowledge of ecology and diversity into an evolutionary framework. The emphasis is on…
Experiential Education
Even before John Dewey published Experience and Education in 1938, experiential education had been practiced in various forms around the world. This c…
Experimental Marine Science Methods
Contemporary marine science research relies on a rapidly developing world of aquatic technologies, yet there has also been a recent revolution in low-…
Experimental Sound Studio
In Experimental Sound Studio, students will develop advanced skills in sound design, sound synthesis, soldering, field recording, multichannel mixing,…
Fail Better: Writing Short Fiction
This course will serve as a workshop both for creating our own short fictions as well as a forum for reading and responding to work by established aut…
Feminist Theory in a Transnational Frame I
This course introduces students to some of the central texts and genealogies of feminist thought, with a focus on transnational feminist theory. We wi…
Film Sound and Image
This hands-on course will explore sound composition, editing, and mixing to create soundtracks for video and/or film. Students who take this course mu…
Film Theory
How do motion pictures express ideas? Why do we respond to them in the ways we do? Film theorists have approached these questions from contexts as div…
Finding Faith: Toward Meaning, Purpose, Justice & Belonging
What is “faith ?” What assumptions do “faithful” people make about themselves, others, the world, and the sacred ? How do people interpret sacred text…
Fine Art Photography
This course is designed to provide students opportunities to build on their technical and conceptual skills of photography created in accordance with…
Folk Music Ensemble
In this performance-based class, students will work together to learn and perform traditional folk music, both in small groups and as a large ensemble…
Food and Identity in Writing: Multimodality in Composition
It feels like pizza has always been considered American, but we know that it was originally brought to the US by Italian immigrants. Both the US and I…
Food and War Part I
Food systems have long been globalized and interconnected. Consequently, conflict in one part of the world often affects food systems in other parts o…
Food Sovereignty
In his 1893 text The Conquest of Bread, Russian Geographer Petr Kropotkin exclaimed “It is bread that the revolution needs!”. Kropotkin was not drafti…
Forms of Poetry
This class is a study of, and a writing workshop in, poetic forms. We will look at constraints, techniques, and directions of contemporary poetry thro…
Forty Studies that Changed Psychology
This course surveys forty of the most influential research studies in psychology. Within this course, students will explore foundational experiments s…
Four-Dimensional Studio
This class gives students an opportunity to investigate time-based art. 4-D art draws on the vast and varied traditions of theatre, dance, media, and…
Frame by Frame: Hand-Drawn Animation
This production course introduces students to the art of hand-drawn animation: creating the illusion of motion through sequential drawings. Since its…
FRANCE: European Political Institutions
The European Union is a fascinating, ongoing experiment in international cooperation. Currently twenty-eight countries have joined together in a supra…
FRANCE: Immersion Program in French Language, Art & Culture
This course is offered through collaboration with CAVILAM as part of the COA program in Vichy, France. Students take 20 hours a week of language class…
Functional Plant Morphology
Despite uniform rules of development, seed plants exhibit an incredible range of forms including succulent cacti, bug-eating sundews, dainty annuals,…
Fundamentals of Drawing
This is an introductory drawing course. Students will work primarily from direct observation to translate what they are seeing onto paper using dry an…
Fundamentals of Painting
In this course, students will be introduced to the basic aspects involved in the process of translating what they are observing in space onto two-dime…
Futurity: A Production Monster Course
This winter, students will collaboratively research and stage a production of César Alvarez and the Lisps’ Futurity (2015), a work of musical theater…
Gardens and Greenhouses:Theory/Practice of Organic Gardening
This class offers a good foundation of knowledge for a gardener to begin the process of organic gardening, as well as an understanding of what defines…
Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry
This course is one of three courses required to be taken together. The three courses make up a "monster course" with the overall title "The Story of H…
Gender, Politics & Nature in Folk/Fairy Tales of the World
Why do fairy tales capture the attention of adults and children all over the world and endure in popular literary and cinematic forms? What do they re…
Genetics
This course will explore the many roles that genes play in the biology of organisms, the molecular basis of gene function, and the methodologies used…
Genre Explorations
As someone who writes every day, you have probably noticed that it’s more common to text LOL to a friend, as opposed to writing “LOL things were busy”…
Geographic Information Systems I: Foundations & Applications
The ever-increasing human population and its profound impact on the Earth's systems and finite resources pose significant risks to all of nature and h…
Geology and Humanity
In this course we will explore how geology has played a major role in human history and culture over multiple temporal and spatial scales. We will dis…
Geology of Mt. Desert Island
This course is designed to introduce students to geological concepts, tools of the trade, and to the geological history of Mount Desert Island. Throug…
Geology of National Parks
In this introductory geoscience course students will learn foundational principles and concepts such as plate tectonics, geologic time, climate and we…
Glaciers and the Landscape
Glaciers are rapidly retreating around the planet and predicted to continue this trend in the coming centuries. The decline of the world’s ice sheets…
Glaciers and the Landscape
Glaciers are rapidly retreating around the planet and predicted to continue this trend in the coming centuries. The decline of the world’s ice sheets…
Global Politics of Climate Change
Two international treaties, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, are the legal architecture for global coop…
Graphic Design Studio 1/ Visual Communication
Visual communication is one of the most pervasive means of communication between humans. Graphic design, in the realm of visual communication, is a pr…
Green Chemistry: Design for Benign
Green Chemistry by definition strives to prevent pollution from the very beginning of a chemical process; however, this course will strive to teach mu…
Growth & Decay: Ecological Sculpture
How might a sculpture decay or grow, becoming an active part of its environment? How might biomimicry offer us tactics for surprising or outsmarting o…
Guitar Fundamentals
This course is a fundamental study in guitar chord construction, note reading, chord symbol identification, fingerboard facility, theory as related to…
Hamlet
This course is an intensive study of Shakespeare's work from the point of view of the actor. Through text analysis, scene study, physical/vocal work a…
Hard(ly) Working: The Promises, Problems, & Politics of Work
You are not your job—or are you? Do you live to work or work to live? Consider a job you hope to hold after graduation: if it disappeared tomorrow, wo…
Hatchery
The Hatchery is applied Human Ecology in action; it offers students a bridge from coursework to actively creating their vision of the future. The Hatc…
Histories of Race
Race as a concept was constructed in the western world in the early modern era as commentary on and explanation of human differences. This class will…
History of Agriculture: Apples
This course will explore the history of agriculture from the vantage point of Downeast Maine with a focus on apples. The premise of the course is that…
History of Filmmaking I (1895-1945)
This course explores the history, production and meanings of motion pictures. Using various films as case studies, we will look at the development of…
History of Filmmaking II (1946-Present)
D. W. Griffith, pioneer of early cinema, prophesied in 1924 that by 2024 cinema would have been instrumental in "eliminating from the face of the civi…
History of Photography
This introductory course charts the history of photography from early nineteenth-century nascent technologies (daguerreotypes and tintypes) through to…
History of the American Conservation Movement
This course provides students with an overview of the American conservation movement from the 1600s through the present. Through an examination of his…
History of Video Art
Today, many use the words 'film' and 'video' interchangeably. In fact, these words refer to different mediums which evolved at different times, in dif…
History Workshop: Wabanaki Studies
This class will be an empirically-based research seminar on the history, politics, archaeology, and culture of Maine’s Wabanaki tribes that tackles a…
Homesteading: Theory and Practice
This course examines homesteading as a food systems, cultural, and economic practice. Maine is a center of homesteading activity in the United States…
How Writing Works: Looking Under the Hood
So much about writing can feel mystifying when you arrive at college and your writing universe suddenly expands. You might find that the writing “rule…
Human Ecology Core Course
Human Ecology is the interdisciplinary study of the relationships between humans and their natural and cultural environments. The purpose of this cour…
Hydro Politics in a Thirsty World
This course will look at the complex issues surrounding the development, distribution, use and control of fresh water around the world. Focusing prima…
Identity Economics: Discrimination in the U.S. Labor Markets
On the one hand, modern economies are shaped by uneven capitalist development and premised on exploiting colonized, raced, gendered, sexualized Others…
Illuminated Landscapes: Experimental Animation & Projection
How can we use handmade animation as an artistic practice to perceive, understand and visualize ecological relationships? Learning a variety of experi…
Improvisation in Music
This "hands on" theory/performance course for singers, instrumentalists, guitarists, pianists, drummers, etc., deals with improvisation, a spontaneous…
Indigenous America
This course will provide an introduction to the history of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Using a seminar style the class will combine some overv…
Integrated Methods IA: Grades PreK-3 Reading and Writing
This course is designed to prepare prospective teachers with methods necessary to implement a comprehensive literacy program for grades PreK-3 to incl…
Integrated Methods IB: Grades 3-6 Reading and Writing
This course is designed to prepare prospective teachers with methods necessary to implement a comprehensive literacy program for grades 3-6 to include…
Integrated Methods II: Science
How can an integrated curriculum for elementary school students help to deepen the relationships children and young adolescents construct with the nat…
Integrated Methods II: Science, Math, and Social Studies
How can an integrated curriculum for elementary school students help to deepen the relationships children and young adolescents construct with the nat…
Integrated Methods II: Social Studies
How can an integrated curriculum for elementary school students help to deepen the relationships children and young adolescents construct with the nat…
Intermediate Drawing
This is a studio course which builds on foundational drawing skills. Students will work with dry and wet media; there will be an emphasis on compositi…
International Wildlife Policy and Protected Areas
"Save the whales"; "save the tiger"; "save the rainforest" – – increasingly wildlife and their habitats are the subject of international debate with m…
Intersectional Voicing: Modern US Women Novelists
This is an intermediate / advanced course in which students will explore the connections between and among modern US women’s novels focusing on inters…
Intertidal Ecology
The intertidal occupies the space on the ocean shore between the highest and lowest extents of the tides, and the organisms inhabiting the intertidal…
Introduction to Adolescent Psychology
This course focuses on the segment of the human life span from puberty to early adulthood. In this class we will examine the physical, cognitive, soci…
Introduction to Ceramic Sculpture
Clay is a unique sculptural medium that can be highly technical and precise, a glorious gestural mess, and/or all points in between! This is an introd…
Introduction to Chaos and Fractals
This course presents an elementary introduction to chaos and fractals. The main focus will be on using discrete dynamical systems to illustrate many o…
Introduction to Computer Science: Data
As our access to data and compute power have increased, more and more disciplines rely on computer science techniques to analyze, visualize, and proce…
Introduction to Computer Science: Image and Sound
Did you know, computers can be used to build and modify images and sound bytes? In this course, students with little to no prior computer experience w…
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
This course is an introduction to some of the central questions, arguments, and concepts of Cultural Anthropology. Broadly defined, “cultural anthropo…
Introduction to Epidemiological Modeling
Mathematical models are an essential tool in epidemiology. Models are used in a number of ways, including: to predict the course of an epidemic; to es…
Introduction to Feminist Therapy: Practices and Principles
Feminist Therapy is focused on empowerment through self-awareness and self-assertion as shaped by an understanding of the larger social and political…
Introduction to Glass Blowing and Sculpture
This hands-on course will introduce the student to glass as an artistic material. The weekly schedule includes a lecture on campus and a four-hour lab…
Introduction to Journalism: Telling the Story
The main goal of this course is to guide students to produce interesting, accurate, well-written, compelling articles about people, processes, and eve…
Introduction to Latin American Literature: 20th C Fiction
From the metaphysical landscapes of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar to the alienated anti-cities of María Louisa Bombal and Gabriel García Márque…
Introduction to Macroeconomics
This course provides an introductory lens to understand the economy as a whole – the macroeconomy – and how its various parts interact. We will study…
Introduction to Marine Navigation
This is an introductory course that teaches students the principles and primary skills of navigation in coastal waters, utilizing compasses, charts, e…
Introduction to Microeconomics
Economics has a popular reputation as a field of study centered around making money and getting rich. However, for most of its history, economics has…
Introduction to Mycology
The fungal kingdom contains a diversity of mushroom forming and non-mushroom forming organisms which exhibit a wide range of life histories. As mutual…
Introduction to Oceanography
Planet Earth is misnamed. Seawater covers approximately 70% of the planet's surface, in one giant all-connected ocean. This ocean has a profound effec…
Introduction to Philosophy of Mind
What is the mind and how does it relate to the body? This two-part question will guide the structure of this introductory course in the philosophy of…
Introduction to Photography
Photography is a common language spoken across cultural, economic and geographical boundaries – used in news gathering, commerce and fine art. Being a…
Introduction to Political Economy
This course introduces students to the study of political economy from a Marxist perspective. Unlike economics which focuses on various parts of the e…
Introduction to Songwriting
Have you always wanted to write an original song, but don’t know where to start? Or perhaps you have been writing songs for years and would like a dif…
Introduction to Statistics and Research Design
This course introduces the basics of statistical analysis that can be used in either a scientific or a social science frame of reference. While this c…
Introduction to the Counseling Process
This is intended as a survey course that will overview the contemporary theories, issues, and techniques of professional counseling. In brief, topics…
Introduction to the Legal Process
The "law" affects every aspect of human activity. As human ecologists we must garner some basic understanding of how law is used (or misused) to shape…
Introduction to Wildlife Ecology
This course is designed to introduce students to how, and why, we study and manage wildlife populations. We will discuss the socio-political backgroun…
Introductory Entomology
Nearly 80% of all described species belong to the class Insecta. Due to their abundance, diversity and adaptability, insects are crucial components of…
Invertebrate Zoology
This course is a phylogenetic survey of the major groups of animals without backbones. These animals range in size from single cells to giant squids,…
Island Life
Islands have played a major role in the development of ecological and evolutionary theory. Most recently, islands have served as an important metaphor…
Jazz Ensemble
In this intermediate-level course we will form a medium-sized ensemble to rehearse and perform jazz music. Some prior experience with improvisation is…
Jazz Manouche
During the 1930s, the French-Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt launched a new musical style. Combining the traditional music of his Romani heritage wi…
Journeys in French Film and Culture
This course will use the theme of the journey to select French language films for study that span the history of filmmaking. We will use these films a…
Journeys: Writing for Voyagers, Trekkers, Wanderers
How can witnessing and reporting other worlds—whether a country, a village, a river, a mountain, or a back alley–make us more sensitive travelers, sh…
Landscape Cinema
This course focuses on the relationship between filmmakers and nature. From the opening question “What is landscape?” We will address through video pr…
Language, Power, and Computation: Algorithmic Text Analysis
Computational text analysis (CTA) is an emerging field that uses computation to analyze texts. CTA draws on the fields of computer science, machine le…
Latin American Literature: Border Stories
Since 1848, the border between the United States of America and Mexico has posed a cultural enigma. The literature of the people inhabiting this area…
Learning a Language on Your Own
The goal of this course to help each student design and implement an effective learning program for the study of a language of her choice at whatever…
Life Stories: Memory, Family, and Place
One of the deepest human instincts is to tell our life stories, to figure out who we are. This course will use a workshop approach with a particular f…
Linear Algebra
Linear algebra is a foundational area of mathematics, finding widespread application in statistics, machine learning, economics, physics, and across t…
Linguistics, Language & Culture: Human Ecological Approach
This course explores the basic questions concerning the origins, nature, history, functions and philosophical significances of human languages. Compar…
Literature of Exile
Displacement, disappearance, deportation, exile, and return in New Writing: how do storytellers relate, relive, and re-create displacement from war, e…
Literature, Science, and Spirituality
A survey of Anglo-American literature from the Scientific Revolution to the present. Focuses on the ongoing debate about the role of science in Wester…
Little Magazines: Seminar in Contemp. Literary Publishing
This course is an introduction to literary magazines and the work of editing. We will examine the history of “little” magazines from the mid nineteent…
Maine Energy and Climate Advocacy
This practicum will focus on understanding how the Maine Legislature works by participating in the public advocacy process. With the federal governmen…
Making Art: Effort, Resilience, Persistence
In this advanced art practicum and seminar, students will pursue the development of a body of art work or series of art works. Through practice, criti…
Marine Biology
This is a survey course that broadly covers the biology of organisms in various marine habitats (rocky shores, mud and sand, estuaries, open ocean, th…
Marine Mammal Biology I
This course provides an introduction to the biology and natural history of marine mammals, specializing in species resident within the North Atlantic.…
Marine Mammal Biology I: Field Studies
This Fall course provides an introduction to the biology and natural history of marine mammals, specializing in species resident within the North Atla…
Marx and Marxisms
This course is an introduction to the work of Karl Marx and to some of the ways his work has been taken up across a range of disciplines, interdiscipl…
Metal Arts
This course will introduce students to metal working as an artistic process and material. Through this course there will be a basic introduction of we…
Midnight’s Children
“Only by unleashing the fictionality of fiction, the imaginativeness of the imagination, the dream songs of our dreams, can we hope to approach the ne…
Mind Matters: Contemplative Education for Liberatory
For tens of thousands of years, contemplative practices among many Aboriginal, First Nations, and indigenous peoples have connected humans with life i…
Mixed Media Scultpure
This course will focus on creating sculptural objects through the use of mixed media. This course is designed to build off of three dimensional design…
Movement Training Basics
This course is an introduction to a wide variety of physical skills useful for anyone interested in investigating their own potential for physical res…
Moving Image Studio: Short Films
Moving Image Studio is a space for students to take on the entire process of making a short film. Students are welcome to work collaboratively or inde…
Museums and the Making of Public Knowledge
Museums play a powerful role in shaping how communities understand history, culture, science, and the environment. Far from neutral spaces that displa…
Music Ensemble: African Liberation
As newly independent African nations claimed their freedom from colonial rule, an effort was underway to define the sound of these nations. State-spon…
Music for Narrative Media
How does music work to amplify the meaning and motivation of narrative artwork? Music for Narrative Media is a practice-based course focused on creati…
Music Fundamentals
This hands-on course deals with the aural, visual, and physical elements of music and its production. Topics include foundational music theory/ear tra…
Music Fundamentals: Intro to Reading/Hearing/Writing/Playing
This hands-on course deals with the aural, mental, and physical elements of music and its production. It is divided into instructional segments includ…
Music Theater Production
In this three-credit course, students will collectively research, rehearse, and produce an established work of music theatre in collaboration with two…
Musicianship
Ready to take an existing or budding musical practice to the next level? This course is for students interested in developing their skills as instrume…
Mutual Aid, Past, and Future
Contemporary political theory often explores how our established institutions drive seemingly intractable forms of ecological degradation and social h…
Native American Law
From first contact through the confrontation surrounding the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Dakota Access Pipeline, Native American law has tried t…
Native American Literature
This course is a challenging introduction to several centuries of Native American literature, the relevance of historical and cultural facts to its li…
Nature, Humans, and Philosophy
According to COA’s website, Human Ecology studies the relationships between humans and their natural and social environments. But what do we mean by “…
Navigating Change: History, Place, Stories
This three-credit interdisciplinary course will explore how coastal communities, especially around Frenchman Bay, have navigated and are navigating ma…
Neurobiology of Sensation and Perception
This will be a course that uses Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biochemistry to explain perception, movement, and the mechanisms of the senses: sight, s…
Nineteenth Century American Women
This course studies the American novel as written by women of the nineteenth century. It focuses on how women's issues and styles change over the cour…
Nonfiction Filmmaking
A century ago, John Grierson described documentary filmmaking as the “creative treatment of actuality,” recognizing the processes of interpretation, i…
Now What?: Finding Purpose in Chaotic Times
Disoriented. Disconnected. Discouraged (to say the least). In 2024-2025 we have witnessed fundamental shifts in the cultural fabric and social landsca…
Object and Performance
Objects have long been significant elements in ritual, dance, theatre and performance art; they might be props, body extensions, idols and avatars. Ta…
Object-Oriented Programming: Computer Game Design
Object-oriented programming is a design paradigm that encapsulates variables and functions into structures called objects. Understanding what objects…
Oceans & Fishes: Readings in Environmental History
This course will explore the rapidly expanding field of marine environmental history and historical studies that focus on fish and fisheries. Recent m…
Organic Chemistry I
This course explores the physical, chemical, and environmental properties of carbon-containing materials such as plastics, solvents, dyes, as well as…
Organic Chemistry II
This course explores the physical, chemical, and environmental properties of carbon-containing materials such as plastics, solvents, dyes, and living…
Organic Farm Planning and Production
This course provides an introduction to small-scale farm production and planning with an emphasis on organic vegetable production practices. This cour…
Ornithology
Welcome to the wonderfully weird world of Aves! This advanced course is designed to provide students with in-depth knowledge and experience in all asp…
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Music, Art, Zines 1975-2015
This course is an investigation of how we consume and are consumed by music. Topics include youth and subcultures of music, power and identity, the po…
Our Life with Words: Philosophies of Language
What is language? What is the relationship between language and thought? Between language and experience? What is meaning? These are some of the centr…
Our Public Lands: Past, Present, and Future
By definition "public lands" belong to all of us, yet public lands in this country have a history of use (and abuse) by special interests and a shocki…
Peasants, Food, and Resistance
States cannot exist without armies, and armies require soldiers, laborers, and food; additionally, other expressions of state power require massive re…
Personal Finance and Impact Investing
Financial decisions are often a reflection of personal beliefs encompassing lifestyle, ethics, personal worth, security and numerous other factors. Pe…
Philosophies of Good and Evil
Good and evil are timeless topics and they have motivated centuries of philosophical thinking. Although the terms “good” and “evil” are commonly used…
Philosophies of Love
This course investigates the intellectual history of concepts of love that provide origins for notions of it central in our time. Is love the key to g…
Philosophy of Death and Dying
This course philosophically explores the concepts of death, dying, killing, and life. Topics include the soul, the afterlife, euthanasia, physician-as…
Philosophy of Science: Reason, Truth, and Reality
What makes science special? In answering this question, this course will look at several more specific inquiries: Is science rational? Does science ha…
Physics and Mathematics of Sustainable Energy
In this course students will learn content and skills so that they can participate effectively in sustainable energy projects, make personal and commu…
Physics I
This course covers a range of standard introductory physics topics. The goals of the course are: to introduce students to important physical ideas bot…
Physics I: Mechanics and Energy
This course is the first of a two course sequence covering a range of standard introductory physics topics. The goals of the course are: to introduce…
Physics II: Modern Physics
What are relativity and quantum mechanics, and why were they viewed as revolutionary when they were formulated in the early 1900s? How and why does re…
Place Through Pigments
Terry Tempest Williams wrote that “… soul and soil are not separate.” This seems especially true in the realm of pigments: colors gathered from the…
Plant Systematics
Systematics is the scientific study of classification, specifically the placement of organisms into groups based on their common descent. This course…
Plants and People: Economic Botany
This class offers an introduction to plant biology centered around plants that are useful to human societies. We will explore plant anatomy, physiolog…
Polar Ecology and Exploration
The Arctic and Antarctic represent some of the most extreme environments on the planet. As physical places, both poles play an important role in gover…
Political Economies of Carbon
Carbon is the building block of life. It is also central to one of the most critical challenges of this century: climate change. Combustion of fossili…
Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence
We live in a time when ever more pervasive forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are transforming our world. From quotidian applications such as gener…
Political Economy of Genders
We live in a time when the struggle for economic survival is life-shortening. We live in a place where the struggles for reproductive justice, the rig…
Population and Community Ecology
Ecology, in the narrowest sense, is the study of the distribution and abundance of organisms on the earth. This class focuses on ecology as a science,…
Postcolonial Islands
This course focuses on islands – geopolitically and conceptually – to consider the significance of postcolonial difference for contemporary political…
Postcolonial Shakespeares
In her introduction to Post-colonial Shakespeares, Ania Loomba says, “Shakespeare lived and wrote at a time when English mercantile and colonial enter…
Postcolonialism and Psychoanalysis
The course considers the definition of the human by bringing together the field of postcolonial studies with the field of psychoanalysis. Both postcol…
Prison Food Systems: An Audio Production Course
Food is central to the human experience. It can bring us profound joy and a sense of belonging to a place, to a people, and to ourselves. And yet, foo…
Problems and Dilemmas in Bioethics
Bioethics studies ethical problems that occur in medical practice and the life sciences. Contemporary bioethics is an expansive and fundamentally inte…
Public Libraries and the People
This course will explore the history of public libraries, primarily in the United States, as democratic and educational institutions. Students will ex…
Public Speaking Workshop
Consider all the ways that public speaking could be a part of your academic and professional paths: presenting your research, sitting on a webinar pan…
Pushing the Boundaries of the Essay
What comes to mind when you hear the word “essay”? Maybe you think of a formula that you learned long ago: five standardized paragraphs supporting a s…
Queer Archives: People & Processing
Where do we get our history from, and who gets to tell it? In this course, we will be examining this question through LGBTQIA+ history and the practic…
Queer Dance Histories
This course focuses on historical and contemporary relationships between dance, politics, gender, and sexuality, with a particular emphasis on dance m…
Race and Racism in America: A Very Short History
This readings seminar will explore the history of race thinking and structural forms of power in America from the earliest settlement of the hemispher…
Reading the West
The spectacular range of habitats between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Basin and Sonoran Deserts has generated some of the most significant "place…
Readings in Political Ecologies
This is an intermediate/advanced reading seminar focused on contemporary, experimental, and speculative political ecologies. Readings will include boo…
Research for change: Writing, language, social (in)justice
We face many day-to-day issues, such as climate change, discrimination, economic challenges, and an increase in disinformation. To solve these problem…
Restoration Ecology
The Society for Ecological Restoration defines ecological restoration as “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded…
Rethinking the Canon: Self, Others, and Philosophy
How do "philosophies born of struggle" (Leonard Harris) change, disrupt, and advance the discipline of philosophy? Academic philosophers have historic…
Rights of Nature
Does nature have rights? There is a growing global movement answering that question in the affirmative. But what does that mean and how does it functi…
Samba Percussion Ensemble
Samba is one of music’s great spectacles – loud, coordinated, precise, and kinetic. The music is equally at home on the stage and in the street. All a…
Sci-Fi & Sculpture: World-Building as Art Practice
What do science fiction and sculptural installations have in common? The manifestation of momentary, immersive, and provocative new worlds! In this hy…
Secondary Methods: Life Science, Social Studies and English
This course is designed to prepare those who are intending to meet the learning needs of diverse populations of students in grades 7-12 or late adoles…
Seeds
Over 90% of today’s terrestrial flora are seed plants and provide the majority of the ecological energy across the world. Today the majority of the hu…
Setting Sail with Amitav Ghosh
“For him it meant that everything which existed was interconnected: the trees, the sky, the weather, people, poetry, science, nature. He hunted down f…
Sex, Gender, Identity and Power
This course offers an overview of feminist, trans, and queer theories. The purpose of this course is two-fold. First, it will provide a snapshot of th…
Shape and Color
In this studio course, students will explore various aspects of composition in two-dimensional media primarily through the language of collage. The ex…
Shellac to Spotify: 100 Years of Recorded Music
Around one hundred and fifty years ago people’s relationship to sound and listening began to fundamentally change. No longer just an ephemeral phenome…
Solutions
We live in a world of problems . . . global warming, inequality, discrimination, child labor, slavery, waste, species extinction, domestic violence an…
Sound Studies Practicum
How are artists and scholars of sound engaging various crises in the anthropocene? What are the possibilities and limitations of responding to or repr…
Soundscape
Soundscape may be defined as an environment of sound (or sonic environment) with emphasis on the way it is perceived and understood by the individual,…
Sourcing the Body: Disability as Human Ecology
In this course we will use creative process as a tool for developing perspectives on disability as a context-embedded expression of humanness. This cl…
Sourcing the Body: Experiential Anatomy
In this course, we will work towards an embodied understanding of our own anatomy, as well as a deepened sense of listening, presence, and understandi…
Spanish: Advanced
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Beginning II
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Communication and Discussion
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Immersive Beginning I
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Immersive Beginning I
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Intermediate
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Spanish: Intermediate II
This course is immersive and interdisciplinary. Students work exclusively in Spanish, and the language is always taught through the cultural context o…
Special Topics in Ecological Design Research
The ecological design research studio investigates three interrelated convictions: (1) through acts of design we can transform the inhabited (built) e…
Special Topics in Painting
In this studio class, students will develop their individual sensibilities as painters while growing their technical skills. Throughout the term, stud…
Special Topics in the Biology and Politics of Seeds
The aim of this practicum is to pursue a collaborative project with seed workers at the local, national, or international level. A basic background an…
Stop Motion Animation
Stop motion explores the wondrous process of transforming everyday objects, artifacts, and static puppets into living, breathing entities through fram…
Strategies for Social Change
People organize to bring social change for many reasons – e. g. to end oppression, bring peace, prevent ecological collapse, promote cultural survival…
Structuralism: Resistance, Change, Politics
How do your actions impact the structures and conditions within which you exist? How do these structures impact you? How are they made? Where do you l…
Studio Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of transferring an image from one surface to another. A print mirrors the surface whence it came and also performs as a ref…
Supporting Students with Disabilities in the Reg. Classroom
This is an introductory course in special education. We will explore the needs of children with disabilities and techniques for meeting these needs in…
Sustainable Architechture
This seminar serves as a design primer for human and environmentally friendly approaches to the design of the built environment captured by the term “…
Sustainable Architechture
This seminar serves as a design primer for human and environmentally friendly approaches to the design of the built environment captured by the term “…
Sustainable Architecture: Ecological Artifact
As a species, buildings are our single greatest ecological artifact. This seminar introduces sustainable architecture through the lens of ecological d…
Sustainable Strategies
Business has tremendous societal ramifications. Inventions and industries from the automobile to the internet impact everything from air quality to ec…
Teaching as an Act of Hope
In a world marked by complexity, uncertainty, and diverse challenges, the role of teachers extends far beyond the transmission of knowledge. Students…
Terrestrial Politics
This course explores politics of the terrestrial, of the earth and its defenders, through lenses of both theory and practice. Through their writings a…
The Analytical Chemistry of Paleoecology
This is a seminar course which is one of three courses required to be taken together. The three courses make up a "monster course" with the overall ti…
The Camino
The Camino monster course travels the roughly 500-mile pilgrimage route of the Camino Frances. Students will walk the path from St. Jean Pied-du-Port…
The Cold War: Early Years
This course provides a broad historical overview of the early years of the “Cold War” period that shaped global politics generally and American foreig…
The Cold War: The Later Years
This course provides a broad historical overview of the early years of the “Cold War” period that shaped global politics generally and American foreig…
The Contemporary Landscape in Photography
This course examines the techniques and expressive possibilities of photographing “natural” landscapes, the built environment, and the intersection of…
The Contemporary World of Women’s Novels
This course selects from among the most interesting, diverse, and well-written of contemporary women’s novels — many from the global South and all fro…
The Craft, Theory, and Practice of Interviewing
This course is about the craft, theory, and practice of interviewing primarily for research projects, but it’s also relevant to other interview-based…
The Empire Writes Back
“You must unlearn what you have learned.” -Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back Before there was Star Wars, there were Empires. What began with the “Age of D…
The History of Making Prints
In this seminar, we will cover the history of printmaking. Rather than take a chronological approach to print history, the seminar examines four broad…
The History of Natural History
Natural History can be regarded as the oldest "science" -indeed, at one point within the Western canon Natural History WAS science. Beginning with dis…
The Human Ecology of Apples
This course will create the opportunity for students to do project-based learning on pomology, preservation of and research about historic apple varie…
The Human Ecology of Apples: Projects
This course will create the opportunity for students to do project-based learning on pomology, preservation of and research about historic apple varie…
The Human Ecology of Wilderness
Wilderness has been the clarion call for generations of environmentalists. Henry David Thoreau once said, "In wildness is the preservation of the worl…
The Measure of Our Lives: Toni Morrison Seminar
This course will be an intermediate/advanced seminar honoring and exploring the works of Toni Morrison (1931–2019), an African-American author who won…
The Nature of Narrative
This is an advanced writing focused course in which students practice the human ecology of literary analysis. We explore the 'mind' or consciousness o…
The Nature of Narrative II
This is an advanced course in which students practice the human ecology of literary analysis. We explore the "mind" or consciousness of twentieth and…
The Power of Poetry: Six US Women Poets
This class serves as an introduction to six important female poets of the US literary tradition, ranging from Emily Dickinson to Joy Harjo. Other poet…
The Price of Knowledge: Economics of Education
Why should we study the economics of education? One answer is the significant amount of money that individuals and society spend on education across a…
The Range of Sublimity in the Artist Mind
Edmund Burke’s chief contribution to aesthetics is his exegesis on the contrary states that define the Beautiful and the Sublime: these are the regula…
The Stitched Mark: Contemporary Embroidery
In this course we will explore embroidery, the stitched mark, as a drawing tool. Focus will be on individual expressive mark making and content buildi…
The Theory and Mystery of Color
Color touches on nearly every aspect of life on earth. It is used to elicit the widest range of emotions and feelings by quickly influencing cellular…
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is the area of physics concerned with the behavior of very large collections of particles. Examples include the water molecules in glas…
Thinking Critically about Current Events
This course offers students the opportunity to think critically about current events through seminar discussion. Over the term students will select cu…
Transforming Food Systems
This course explores possibilities for transformative change across local and global food systems. The course centers on the questions: What would it…
Trees and Shrubs of Mount Desert Island
This course introduces you to the native and ornamental shrubs and trees of Mount Desert Island. Lectures will cover basics of plant taxonomy and fore…
Troubadours, Nuns, Concubines, and Witches before 1500
This course traces variations in the social, legal, political, and economic status of women in Asia, Africa, and Europe from antiquity to about 1500.…
Tutorial: Amitav Ghosh and Climate Change
A social anthropologist by training, Amitav Ghosh has been one of the foremost South Asian fiction writers. His fiction is grounded in and guided by h…
Tutorial: Introduction to Group Theory
Group theory is an area of mathematics that is concerned with symmetry. In this context, an object or system is said to be symmetric if it is unchange…
Tutorial: Introduction to Proofs and Mathematical Structures
This course is an introduction to mathematical structures, proof techniques, and the language and style of formal mathematics. Topics to be covered in…
Tutorial: Network Analysis and Modeling
Network science is an active and growing cross-disciplinary area that focuses on the description, representation, analysis, and modeling of complex so…
Tutorial: The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late
In this advanced tutorial, students will deeply engage with the book The Long Heat (2025), by Wim Carton and Andreas Malm. The book is an in-depth, sc…
U.S. Farm and Food Policy
This course offers a broad introduction to food and farm policy in the United States. Food and farm policy encompasses laws, regulations, norms, decis…
Unraveling Writing Myths: Genre Explorations Across Contexts
Is it true that you can’t use “I” in scientific research papers? Is it accurate that you can’t start a sentence with and, or, but? And is there really…
Utopia/Dystopia
The practice of social dreaming has a long history in philosophical thinking, stretching back to Tao Yuanming and Plato. What constitutes a perfect or…
Vertebrate Zoology
In this course, we will explore the phylogenetic, morphological, and ecological diversity of vertebrates within an evolutionary framework. Using a com…
Visualizing Truth: Animated Documentary
For over a century, filmmakers have used animation to imagine realities that can’t be captured on live-action film. From the stop motion scientific vi…
Voting and Elections: Case Studies
This course will be an in depth exploration of contemporary flashpoint issues involving the design, administration, and regulation of elections for pu…
Waste
The term "waste" has varied definitions; it can suggest excess material not put to use, garbage, time or objects that are not made productive or usefu…
Watching Globally: Intro to Contemporary Cinema of the World
What happens to us when we walk into a movie theater? What are our expectations? To what degree are we prepared to be challenged or confronted by some…
Water, Design, and Environmental Futures
This course investigates an ecological design approach that centers on water and water systems as a means of achieving community development goals in…
Wheel-thrown Pottery
The potter’s wheel can be traced back to the ancient Sumerians, as early as 3,250 B.C.E. With that as our starting point, this introductory studio foc…
Wilderness in the West: Promise and Problems
Wilderness has been the clarion call for generations of environmentalists. In a letter in support of the Wilderness Act, writer Wallace Stegner charac…
Wildlife Ecology
This course is designed to introduce students to how, and why, we study and manage wildlife populations. We will discuss the socio-political backgroun…
Wildlife Law Seminar
In his seminal essay on the "Land Ethic," Aldo Leopold explores the incongruity between man's legal structures and the natural world around him. This…
Within Living Memory: Audio Production and Podcasting
This course will explore the process of narrative storytelling with sound. We will study a broad range of audio formats, from podcasts to audio instal…
Worksongs: Music, Labor, and the Space Between Work and Play
For as long as people have worked, they have sung. Worksongs coordinate the heave of a sail, set the pace of a hoe, ease the monotony of a repetitive…
World Percussion
This is a "hands on" class for learning and performing conga, snare drum, drum set, hand percussion techniques, focusing on the role of percussion in…
World Percussion
This is a "hands on" class for learning and performing conga, snare drum, drum set, hand percussion techniques, focusing on the role of percussion in…
Worldmaking After Empire
2024 is the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) by members of the General Assemb…
Writing as Art, Craft, and Social Action
We write to discover what awes us, what questions we most need to ask, what conversations we hope to join, what causes we are drawn to support, what c…
Writing for Nonprofits
In this course we’ll explore many of the ways that writing makes the work of nonprofit organizations possible. We’ll learn to identify, analyze, and r…
Writing Goes Wild: Environmental Adventures and Impacts
How does the environment affect our sense of place as well as national, regional, and personal identity? Taking a multifaceted view of human relations…
Your Turn: Critical/Creative Inquiries in Board Game Media
In this course, we will discover what tabletop gaming has offered humanity from the Ur-game (the Royal Game of Ur, played in Mesopotamia 4500 years ag…
YUCATAN: Advanced Self-Directed Cultural Immersion
The course provides students a compact immersive experience in Yucatecan culture and Spanish language through a self-directed and individualized progr…
YUCATAN: Immersion Practica in Spanish and Yucatecan Culture
This course provides students with an immersion experience in the language and culture of the Yucatán Peninsula. The course aims to increase student’s…
YUCATAN: The Maya of Yesterday and Today
This course covers key aspects of the history and culture of the Yucatecan Maya, including pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern times. Lectures, discuss…