Offered by: School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA)
Why are California and Merced named like that? What is the origin of the $ symbol? Who is the man on a horse in the statue located in the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park (San Diego)? How is Spanish technology helping Texas to become a leader in eolic energy? Why does Salvador Dalí have a permanent exhibit of his work at the Museum of Monterey (CA)? In Tracing Heritage: Spain/USA, we will look for information that will allow us to answer these questions and many others, so we are able to understand the contributions of Spain to the past and present of the United States. At the same time, we will reflect on issues such as being receptive or not to different cultural influences or why in some instances we may feel rejection toward our heritage and past.
Offered by: SSHA - Merritt Writing Program
If we continue to improve and evolve Artificial Intelligence (AI) potential and capabilities, will we, as humans, maintain our ethics, value, and functionality? In this seminar, you will explore the complexity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it continues to develop in prominent fields such as Biological Sciences, Bio-engineering, Computer Science and Technology, Mathematics, Chemical Sciences, Medicine, Business, and others depending on your interests. You will develop strategical skills to identify and evaluate the many roles of AI, explore your favorite field of interest by choosing a company or product, investigate AI's ever-developing presence in your chosen company or product, and attempt to answer a research question that you develop after completing your innovative investigation. To accomplish these steps, you will closely study your chosen company or product, conduct interviews, prepare evaluative presentations, and confidently represent your primary research question(s) and chosen company or product's use of AI by submitting a final research paper.
Offered by: SNS - Molecular & Cell Biology
This seminar will enable to students to gather and evaluate information relevant to the local community through primary local sources, primary literature sources, and secondary sources such as news and review articles, form opinions based on that information and to question current practices. Students will also learn to share their research findings through written and oral/visual presentations. To accomplish these goals, students will learn about different antibiotic consumers and stake holders through in class lectures and discussions. They will then take on some aspect of antibiotic consumption or use in the Central Valley and develop a question about current practices. The students will then investigate that question through literature searches and interviews with local sources and communicate their findings in two research papers, an in class presentation, and a round table discussion where competing interests are represented.
Offered by: School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts (SSHA)
This course in the field of archaeology interfaces with science, history, and popular culture. The goal is to encourage critical thinking and teach students the social context of the discipline of archaeology. It incorporates components of reading, writing, and basic research and library skills. It will examine how archaeology is presented to the general public, explore the myths about archaeology, and archaeologists, and contrast these popular constructs with archaeological realities. It provides an overview of archaeological epistemologies including basic archaeological history, theories, methods, and practices including the ways in which data are recognized, recovered, analyzed, interpreted, and presented. By taking this approach the course seeks to encourage better consumers of not just archaeological media but of all media by teaching critical thinking skills. Students analyze public representations by evaluating the sender, the media, and the message. The course also encourages an appreciation of historic preservation efforts and hopes to instill in the students a proprietary sense so that they will take a proactive stance in the stewardship of the faint, fragile and irreplaceable archaeological record.
Offered by: SSHA - Merritt Writing Program
In this course, you will explore the ways that artists use visual composition to shed light on issues of social inequality. You will develop and refine strategies for understanding text and performance using a variety of research methodologies while improving your ability to communicate through various genres of expression. To accomplish these goals, you will read historical studies of activist art, view documentaries that engage in mixed methods research, survey and analyze works of activist art and music, and research an important figure in the social justice movement, gathering data for qualitative and quantitative analysis. You will also attend gallery and/or performance events and engage in research activities such as taking field notes, writing analytic memos, and compiling field reports. Your research will culminate with written, verbal, and visual components.
Offered by: SSHA - Merritt Writing Program
To pay attention or not to pay attention: In a digital world, is a machine more attentive or intuitive than we are? To what extent are we doing our own thinking? What do we pay attention to or ignore, and how in control are we of noticing and of the present moment? What happens when data points are created for us? For how long can we pay attention to what? What do we do with our attention? In this seminar, we will examine how the artist -- in a larger, general sense -- examines and enacts art through the everyday "work" of art, in large part noticing as someone who intends to live and invent meaning not yet created. In contrast, we will also examine how the internet and advertising culture, or as one writer on the subject puts it, how "the attention merchants" buy and sell our attention. Throughout this course, we will seek to answer questions on what our attention is, how it is crafted, and how we can become more aware and craft it to be creative thinkers, individuals, and scholars -- or how we can enact the everyday work of art and noticing in our personal and academic lives.
