Take your required classes in a new and innovative way!

Learning Communities integrate two or more courses using a common theme. By connecting subjects through readings and assignments, understanding of the material is easier and learning is improved. Furthermore, you'll work with the same community of students in the linked classes, helping each other succeed and making friends along the way. To enroll, simply register for the specific courses and sections in the learning community. The courses will transfer and appear on your transcript just as they would if you took them separately.

Benefits of Learning Communities:

• Reinforcement of content in both courses.
• Opportunity to make friends and form strong bonds with fellow students.
• Built-in support system.
• Increased interaction with the faculty.
• Courses offered at prime times.
• Courses often offered back-to-back in the same room.

Fall 2022 Learning Communities

Business and Technology: How to be Successful in the Digital Age

This learning community will focus on how technology is used to augment business globally. Students will examine best practices and develop skills using various forms of technology for research, analysis and data processing.

Fulfills the technology general education requirement: CTA-100

Criminal Minds 

This learning community will explore psychological and criminological concepts as a key to understanding the minds of criminals. Is crime a choice? What are the impacts of the prison experience and the juvenile justice system? Behavioral, cognitive, personality and social psychology theories will provide a framework for understanding and explaining various aspects of the criminal justice system, causes of crime and various types of crimes.

Fulfills general education requirement: PSY-111 and CJS-111 (Social and Behavioral Sciences)

Food for Thought: Truth and Consequences of the Food We Eat 

What are the implications of your food choices? Did you know that something as common as table sugar can impact human rights, the environment and human health? Study contemporary literature related to food's impact on health, politics, economics, culture and the environment, and connect this information to knowledge gained through scientific inquiry.

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENG 101/ENG 101A and either eligibility for any general education math or a score of 27 or better on the Arithmetic Placement Test, or a "B" or better in MAT 005. Note: Credit is not given for both BIO 135 and BIO 136.

Fulfills General Education Requirements: ENG-101 (English Composition) and BIO-135 (Science, Wellness)

From Revolution to Reform - New!

This learning community examines how visual, performing and literary arts have been used for nation building, reform and civil disobedience. We examine how the arts reflect and undermine the political values of the individuals and social groups that produced them. Case studies include: the use of neoclassical architecture to reinforce democratic ideals; Indigenous cartography; how documentary photography circulated to protest unjust labor practices and racial discrimination; the popularity of craft knowledge as a feminist political strategy; and the debates surrounding public monuments during the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENG 101/ENG 101A.

Fulfills General Education Requirements: HUM 101 (Arts & Humanities) and HIS-212 (Arts and Humanities, Social & Behavioral Sciences)

Kicking Ass

How should one deal with conflict? Explore methods from both the Western and Eastern traditions that martial artists use to face conflict and find balance. How does a martial artist prevent conflict? How does the martial artist use internal and external weapons to end conflict? How does the martial artist show compassion in a conflict? These are some of the fascinating questions we will explore through the works of some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers in history.

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENG-102

Fulfills General Education Requirements: PHL-111 (Arts and Humanities) and ENG-102 (English Composition)

Me, Myself & I

“Who am I?” is one of the most fundamental questions human beings ever ask. This learning community is an exploration into The Self and practical ways to answer that question. Participants will enhance their self-awareness and interpersonal communication skills by practicing critical self-reflection. By applying course content to their own lived experiences, students will explore their own development, beliefs, emotions and who they are as communicators.

Fulfills General Education Requirements: PSY-111 (Social & Behavioral Sciences) and COM-110 (Arts and Humanities)

The Game is Rigged

Imagine a world where there are neither distinctions in socioeconomic class nor social hierarchies or privileges based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or nationality. Imagine a society where there is no hunger, no greed and no need for material possessions, and people are free to pursue creative passions and enjoy work. Is this a possibility in the capitalist society that we live in? Can such a utopia be achieved best by gradual reform or a sudden revolution? Critically analyze historical texts and contemporary issues, and explore how various systems of stratification – such as class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality – intersect with religion and our political and economic systems.

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENG 101/ENG 101A

Fulfills General Education Requirements: ENG-101 (English Composition) and SOC-111 (Social & Behavioral Sciences, Diversity)

There's No Place Like Home - New!

In this learning community, we define and question what "home" means and investigate "place-making." We will explore how a sense of place functions for individuals as well as what "place" means to particular groups of people. Through literature and using anthropological concepts and theories, we will examine connections to physical landscapes, social structures and emerging communities. Students will conduct fieldwork where they will map their own relationship to home and place before interviewing others to locate and learn about where they find belonging and attachment.

Prerequisite: Eligibility for ENG 101/ENG 101A.

Fulfills General Education Requirements: ENG-101 (English Composition) and ANT-121 (Social & Behavioral Sciences)

WHO TELLS YOUR STORY: SPEAKING, WRITING AND REFLECTING ON THE BROADWAY MUSICAL “HAMILTON“

Focus on “Hamilton: An American Musical” (2015) composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Explore the musical’s current and relevant themes as we examine communication, English, history and the performing arts. The musical will serve as a springboard to explore texts used to create the play: a biography of Alexander Hamilton, historian Joanne Freeman’s scholarship on duels and historical documents penned during the era. The reading, researching and writing completed in the ENG-102 course will work as a foundation for speeches in COM-111.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of ENG-101/ENG 101A or ENG-101H with a grade of C or better.

Fulfills General Education Requirements: ENG-102 (English Composition) and COM-111 (Arts and Humanities)