100-Level Connections

(one unit to be taken in the first year)

Learning Objectives

As one of two foundational seminars in the Sound Connections curriculum, the Connections 100-level seminar welcomes students to the academic community at Puget Sound by integrating the introduction to the liberal arts with the development of skills for lifelong learning in diverse communities.

Through the introduction to the liberal arts, students:

  • Enrich their understanding of the course topic/theme/issue by exploring it from multiple disciplinary perspectives and developing appreciation for the distinct and complementary approaches inherent to different disciplines.
  • Develop an understanding of the Puget Sound liberal arts curriculum, including its structure and ethos.
  • Discover ways of identifying and pursuing academic interests.

To develop skills for lifelong learning in diverse communities, students:

  • Participate in collaborative learning and engagement that fosters community and cultivates a sense of belonging.
  • Develop skills for learning in and contributing to a diverse community that aspires to be equitable and inclusive.
  • Develop self-awareness regarding individually effective approaches to learning.

Guidelines

The course's substantive theme provides context for an introduction to the multidisciplinarity of a liberal arts education and for the meaningful practice of skills for lifelong learning in diverse communities.

To introduce students to the liberal arts, this course:

  1. Explores meaningful examples of disciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry grounded in the substantive theme of the course. 
  2. Facilitates students’ exploration of their own Puget Sound curricular and co-curricular interests.
  3. Includes a student-directed collective project or similar collaboration that relates to the substantive theme of the course.

To develop skills for lifelong learning in diverse communities, this course:

  1. Integrates at least two activities supporting learning objectives 4-6 with the course theme.
  2. Incorporates collaborative assignments that foster connection and develop communication skills between and among students.
  3. Discusses self-care/wellness as a crucial element of an effective approach to learning.
  4. Includes activities that facilitate practice of academic success skills [such as fostering resilience, managing stress, forming effective study habits, or managing time and distractions]
  5. Integrates an iterative learning process in which students reflect on opportunities to try, redo, and reassess learning practices.

CONN 1xx courses may not fulfill major/minor/emphasis requirements, Divisional requirements, nor other core requirements.
 

CONN 100-Level Approved Courses

  • CONN 109 Doodling, Brainstorming & Calligraphy
  • CONN 110 Edible Identity: American Chinese Foodways
  • CONN 111 Fatal Consequences: Examining Women Who Kill
  • CONN 112 An All Encompassing Fun
  • CONN 113 All the Way Outside
  • CONN 116 Passport to Discovery: Study Abroad and Global Affairs
  • CONN 120 From Cascadia to Arrakis: Environment, Politics and Place in Dune
  • CONN 121 Ethics in Practice
  • CONN 122 Forward Motion: The Bicycle's Role in Social, Economic, and Political Change
  • CONN 123 Health and Exercise: From Science to Society
  • CONN 124 'The Beautiful Game': A Sociological Exploration
  • CONN 126 Born to Build Community
  • CONN 127 Steeped in Knowledge: Exploring the World of Tea Across Disciplines
  • CONN 128 Hacking Happiness: Exploring the Science of Well-Being
  • CONN 129 Solving Real World Problems with Engineering and Design
  • CONN 130 What's in the Water? Exploring Urban Creeks in Tacoma
  • CONN 133 The Undercommons: Navigating the Liberal Arts
  • CONN 134 Economics in Pop Culture
  • CONN 139 The Wizard of Oz
  • CONN 148 Medical Narratives
  • CONN 150 The Arts of Resistance
  • CONN 151 Art in the Everyday
  • CONN 154 Ghost Stories
  • CONN 156 Arts Activism and the Justice System
  • CONN 162 Mathematics and Democracy
  • CONN 166 Magic and the Supernatural: From Harry Potter to Astrology
  • CONN 168 The Dao of Chinese Architecture
  • CONN 169 "Take this Job and Shove it!": Sociology of Work through Music, Comedy, and Pop Culture
  • CONN 175 381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott & Collective Negotiation
  • CONN 182 Data & Reality
  • CONN 195 The Liberal Arts, The Mystery of Consciousness, and The Future of Knowledge
  • CONN 196 Northwest Urbanism

Connections 200-400 Level

(two units to be taken in years 2 through 4)

CONN 200 Level Learning Objectives

CONN 2XX classes address a problem or topic using (a) questions and methods beyond those deployed by a single discipline; and (b) materials and assignments from at least two distinct disciplinary perspectives. Assignments largely involve sources prescribed by the instructor rather than sources students search for and identify themselves.

To understand distinctive disciplinary approaches to knowledge, students will:

  1. Distinguish the types of questions that different disciplinary lenses bring to a topic
  2. Explore the methodological and theoretical tools of different disciplines
  3. Identify assumptions and values of the different disciplinary perspectives

To evaluate relationships among different disciplinary approaches to knowledge, students will:

  1. Uncover the way different disciplines complement or act in tension with one another
  2. Identify and critique limitations of specific disciplinary approaches/methods
  3. Evaluate the consequences of approaching a topic with a particular set of questions or methodological tools 

CONN 200 Level Guidelines

To understand distinctive disciplinary approaches to knowledge, these courses will:

  1. Introduce two or more distinct disciplinary approaches and their methods through guided inquiry led by the professor
  2. Consider questions posed by the respective disciplinary approaches
  3. Include historicization and contextualization of the disciplines

To evaluate relationships among different disciplinary approaches to knowledge, these courses will:

  1. Offer compare/contrast exercises to analyze a particular topic based on different disciplines’ methodological and theoretical tools
  2. Examine different cases that illustrate the opportunities and limitations of each disciplinary approach to a question
  3. Provide opportunities to reflect on the value of exploring questions from more than one disciplinary perspective

CONN 300-400 Level Learning Objectives

Students in Connections courses develop their understanding of the interrelationship of fields of knowledge by exploring connections and contrasts between various disciplines with respect to disciplinary methodology and subject matter.

CONN 300-400 Level Guidelines

Connections courses draw upon the curricula of either established disciplines or the University’s interdisciplinary programs. These courses may involve the collaboration of faculty from more than one department or individual faculty with interdisciplinary expertise and interests.

In the Connections course, students engage the interdisciplinary process by

  • identifying multiple disciplinary approaches to a subject;
  • analyzing the subject from these perspectives;
  • participating in cross-disciplinary dialogue; and
  • exploring the integration or synthesis of these approaches to foster understanding of the subject.

Connections courses explore these interdisciplinary issues at a level of sophistication expected of an upper-division course. These courses may have appropriate prerequisites, so long as they do not unduly limit the audience in numbers or the level of disciplinary sophistication.

The upper-division Connections course must be taken at Puget Sound.

200-400 level Connections courses may fulfill major/minor/emphasis requirements, KNOW, and Experiential Learning requirements; they may not fulfill Divisional requirements.

CONN 200-400 Level Approved Courses

  • AFAM 346 African Americans and American Law
  • AFAM 355 African American Women in American History
  • AFAM 360 The Art and Politics of the Civil Rights Era
  • AFAM 375 The Harlem Renaissance
  • AFAM 401 Narratives of Race
  • ARTH 310 Women, Gender, and Art, 1500-2000
  • ASIA 305 Heroes and Rebels: Martial Arts Culture in China and Beyond
  • ASIA 340 First Encounters: Japan and Europe in the 16th Century
  • ASIA 344 Asia in Motion
  • CONN 302 Literary Text Mining
  • CONN 303 Art-Science: Inquiry into the Intersection of Art, Science, and Technology
  • CONN 304 The Invention of Britishness: History and Literature
  • CONN 307 Hooch: The Natural and Social Science of Liquor
  • CONN 309 Applied Environmental Politics and Agenda Setting
  • CONN 310 Memory, History and Identity in Contemporary Europe
  • CONN 311 Interactive Fiction
  • CONN 313 Biomimicry and Bioart
  • CONN 318 Crime and Punishment
  • CONN 320 Health and Medicine
  • CONN 322 Jihad, Islamism, and Colonial Legacies
  • CONN 325 The Experience of Prejudice
  • CONN 330 Finding Germany: Memory, History, and Identity in Berlin
  • CONN 332 Water and Wild Nature
  • CONN 333 Nations and Nationalism in Modern Europe
  • CONN 335 Race and Multiculturalism in the American Context
  • CONN 337 Capitalism and Culture
  • CONN 340 Gender and Communication
  • CONN 344 Magic and Religion
  • CONN 345 Economics of Happiness
  • CONN 350 Modeling Earth's Climate
  • CONN 354 Hormones, Sex, Society, & Self
  • CONN 357 Exploring Animal Minds
  • CONN 359 The United States in the 1960s
  • CONN 365 The Science & Practice of Mindfulness
  • CONN 370 Rome: Sketchbooks and Space Studies
  • CONN 372 The Gilded Age: Literary Realisms and Historical Realities
  • CONN 375 The Art and Science of Color
  • CONN 377 Caesar in Vietnam: PTSD in the Ancient World?
  • CONN 379 Postcolonial Literature and Theory
  • CONN 387 Never-Never Land
  • CONN 390 Black Business Leadership: Past and Present
  • CONN 393 The Cognitive Foundations of Morality and Religion
  • CONN 395 China and Latin America: A New Era of Transpacific Relations
  • CONN 397 Migration and the Global City
  • CONN 410 Science and Economics of Climate Change
  • CONN 415 Education and the Changing Workforce
  • CONN 420 The American Progressive Ideal
  • CONN 478 Animals, Law, and Society
  • CONN 480 Informed Seeing
  • CONN 481 Gamblers, Liars, and Cheats
  • ENVP 335 Thinking About Biodiversity
  • ENVS 325 Geological and Environmental Catastrophes
  • GLAM 330 Theories of Myth
  • GQS 320 Queerly Scientific: Exploring the Influence of Identity on Scientific Knowledge Production
  • HON 401 What is America?
  • HUM 301 The Idea of the Self
  • HUM 302 Mystics, Knights, and Pilgrims: The Medieval Quest
  • HUM 303 The Monstrous Middle Ages
  • HUM 330 Tao and Landscape Art
  • HUM 368 A Precious Barbarism: Enlightenment, Ideology, and Colonialism
  • IPE 389 Global Struggles Over Intellectual Property
  • IPE 405 The Idea of Wine
  • IPE 427 Competing Perspectives on the Material World
  • LAS 380 Around Macondo in Eighty Days
  • LAS 387 Art and Revolution in Latin America
  • LAS 399 Latin America Travel Seminar
  • REL 301 Consciousness and the Bourgeoisie
  • REL 302 Ethics and the Other
  • REL 410 Religion and Violence
  • STHS 318 Science and Gender
  • STHS 330 Evolution and Society Since Darwin
  • STHS 333 Evolution and Ethics
  • STHS 340 Finding Order in Nature
  • STHS 345 Science and War in the Modern World
  • STHS 347 Alchemy and Chemistry: Historical Perspectives
  • STHS 348 Strange Realities: Physics in the 20th and 21st Centuries
  • STHS 352 Memory in a Social Context
  • STHS 354 Murder and Mayhem under the Microscope
  • STHS 361 Mars Exploration