The Integrative Learning (IL) course challenges students to study a topic or question through the lenses of multiple disciplines. Taken during a student’s second year, this approach to integrative learning allows students to grasp the habits of mind and the importance of being able to explore topics and issues from different approaches and perspectives.
IL courses (4 credits) are offered during the fall and spring semesters, and satisfy the IL requirement for graduation.
Spring 2024 Integrative Learning Courses
IL 201 01 Corporate Social Responsibility: People, Planet and Profits (GC)
Instructor: Todd Herrmann
M/W 6:30pm – 7:50pm
This course examines Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by analyzing how global organizations reconcile their fiduciary duty to ‘do well’ (profits) with a broader social mandate to ‘do good’ (people and planet).This course integrates perspectives from multiple disciplines including communications, economics, ethics, government, public health, sociology, and sustainability, in addition to business – viewed through the lens of an anthropologist questioning the meanings, practices, and impact of CSR across a range of organizations and geographies. The course will blend theory and practice in a way that emphasizes both critical thinking and experiential learning with some problematic scenarios. First, we will examine topics that provide a holistic view of CSR, including the evolution of CSR over time, the cause of questionable organizational practices, and the cases for and against CSR. Then, we will apply these key concepts to organizational initiatives aimed at addressing a variety of social issues, including development, investment, human rights, diversity, and environment. While laws and regulations lay down the guideposts for society’s expectations, organization leaders have a lot of leeway in determining the right course of action. This quandary has fueled a philosophical debate with real societal consequences regarding the questions: “To whom is the corporation responsible? Where are the boundaries of responsibility?” The UN Global Compact and related Sustainable Development Guidelines will provide strategies and standards for this exploration. Finally, we will look at the latest trends in CSR impact reporting on behalf of organizations as an extension of their missions or as veiled justification for their actions. Students will have the opportunity for personal reflection, persuasive argument, case studies, and team research and presentations while grappling with CSR and cross-cultural implications in recent events and exploring how to make change from “within” by understanding the inner workings of selected organizations and imperatives for change and innovation.
IL 201 02 Food Policy
Instructor: Kristina Pechulis
M/W 9:00am – 10:20am
Food: Policy, Community Food Systems, and what we eat addresses the central question of what policies and practices are needed to develop sustainable and just community food systems. We examine the many ways food shapes the environment, public health, and the individual, and community life, and look at how the government and the food industry influences what and how much we eat. We will concentrate on how local, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food is produced, distributed, regulated and wasted in the community around Simmons and Boston.
IL 201 03 Reading Rainbows and Friendly Neighbors: Children’s Literature and Media
Instructor: Marilisa Jimenez
Th 11:00am – 1:50pm
This multimodal course seeks to introduce students to the different ways children’s literature and media, particularly children’s television, partner in teaching the US public concepts about literacy, community, and literature. Ultimately, this course helps students understand how media reciprocates and complicates how we read, distribute, and develop notions about literature, literacy, social justice, and belonging. We will study books, television, film, and comics such as Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, Labryinth, The Hate You Give for how they have also adapted to past and contemporary texts and ideas about multicultural portrayals, media usage, reading, accessibility and audience reception.
IL 201 04 Language, Politics, and Domination
Instructor: Abel Amado
Tu/Th 9:30am – 10:50am
Though power can be exercised through non-linguistic means, language is the starting point of asymmetrical social relations, leading to socio-political domination. Through different mechanisms and tools, social actors instrumentalize language in their quest for domination, control, and maintenance of hierarchies. This class focuses on how individuals and groups use language to construct, reinforce, strengthen, or maintain political domination. By employing comparative political and historical approaches and interdisciplinary theoretical insights, this class addresses the following questions: what is the role of language in creating gender, racial, and ethnic hierarchies? Who speaks the “right” language? Is there such thing as linguistic imperialism? Topics covered in this class include the role of colonial linguistics in creating the colonial order; the production of gender/ethnic identities; pidgin and creole; languages of oppression vs. languages of resistance; the role of global languages in the contemporary world.
IL 201 05 Inside France: Paris, Capital of the World
Instructor: Eduardo Febles
Tu/Th 9:30am – 10:50am
The famous German critic Walter Benjamin declared Paris to be the capital of the 19th century. Indeed, Paris has been at the forefront of various artistic movements throughout the 19th and the 20th centuries, including Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, Naturalism, Impressionism, and Cubism, to mention but a few. This interdisciplinary seminar is intended to explore the centrality of Paris in what can be called the birth of modern art through a study of historical, literary and theoretical texts. We will be analyzing short stories, novels, poems, operas, musical compositions, and paintings. We will also explore four big intellectual themes: 1) The role of racial dynamics during the French Revolution; 2) Urban changes and their impact on the working class; and 3) French colonialism as represented in the visual arts; 4) A nascent queer culture in Paris’s Montmartre.
The course will integrate different viewpoints as historical texts will be juxtaposed with creative works, providing a subjective experience of the socio-political contexts in which the works of art are produced.
IL 201 06 Shop Til We Drop?: Consumption, Identity and Survival
Instructor: Charlotte Ryan
Tu/Th 9:30am – 10:50am
This course is all about consumption – that is, the ways in which we use up stuff and exist in our “materials economy,” and the impacts of these cycles on people and the planet. We will consider how we make meaning in relation to stuff, how these relationships impact our happiness and wellbeing, and how they overlay with systems of inequality. We will also consider how our consumer society has changed over time, and how it is pushing planetary boundaries beyond their breaking points.
IL 201 07 And the Pursuit of Happiness
Instructor: Geoff Turner
M/W 9:00am – 10:20am
Are you happy? Rates of anxiety and depression are at all-time highs. We don’t even seem to know where to look for happiness. Is happiness even achievable? This course explores how several different disciplinary perspectives, including Psychology, Biology, Economics, History, and Anthropology can inform how we might achieve fulfillment.
IL 201 08 Health Promotion and Community Nutrition
Instructor: Urshila Sriram
T 2:00pm – 4:50pm
This Integrative Learning course provides an overview of theoretical concepts related to health promotion, disease prevention, and early detection of health problems by integrating related concepts from the nursing and nutrition disciplines. Students will be introduced to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote the health of individuals, families, and communities. There is an emphasis on wellness, prevention, health promotion, and health education. Appreciation of diversity, cultural sensitivity, and the impact of a connected community will be addressed during this course. (registration open to NURS and NUTR students)
IL 201 09 Health Promotion and Community Nutrition
Yara Gholmie
T 6:00pm – 8:50pm
This Integrative Learning course provides an overview of theoretical concepts related to health promotion, disease prevention, and early detection of health problems by integrating related concepts from the nursing and nutrition disciplines. Students will be introduced to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote the health of individuals, families, and communities. There is an emphasis on wellness, prevention, health promotion, and health education. Appreciation of diversity, cultural sensitivity, and the impact of a connected community will be addressed during this course. (registration open to NURS and NUTR students)
IL 201 10 Health Promotion and Community Nutrition
Urshila Sriram
Th 11:00am – 1:50pm
This Integrative Learning course provides an overview of theoretical concepts related to health promotion, disease prevention, and early detection of health problems by integrating related concepts from the nursing and nutrition disciplines. Students will be introduced to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote the health of individuals, families, and communities. There is an emphasis on wellness, prevention, health promotion, and health education. Appreciation of diversity, cultural sensitivity, and the impact of a connected community will be addressed during this course. (registration open to NURS and NUTR students)
IL 201 11 Health Promotion and Community Nutrition
Yara Gholmie
Th 11:00am – 1:50pm
This Integrative Learning course provides an overview of theoretical concepts related to health promotion, disease prevention, and early detection of health problems by integrating related concepts from the nursing and nutrition disciplines. Students will be introduced to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote the health of individuals, families, and communities. There is an emphasis on wellness, prevention, health promotion, and health education. Appreciation of diversity, cultural sensitivity, and the impact of a connected community will be addressed during this course. (registration open to NURS and NUTR students)