Appendix B: Urban Studies Courses
Business and Technology
BTN195 Profile and Prospects of Business in New York City
This is an urban study course which examines the status of business in New York City using various sources of data and field assignments such as visitations to the New York Stock Exchange, major business corporations, and various government agencies. Students will learn how to develop a profile of business in New York City in terms of employee, type of industry and form of ownership. Students will also learn about various social responsibility programs being offered by the business community, and will examine the many different career opportunities available in the NYC area.
BTN211 Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Marketing
This course examines the principles of marketing as applied in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. Stages in the marketing cycle, including research, strategies, planning and the components of the marketing mix will be discussed. The role of marketing functions performed by urban tourism industry organizations as well as the tourism image/experience of New York City will be explored through field trips and/or guest speakers and community-based projects.
Education and Language Acquisition
ELN101 Introduction to Bilingualism
The course provides a general introduction to bilingualism. It covers the rationale, principles and applications of a bilingual philosophy of learning. It considers cognitive, psycholinguistic, social and political aspects of bilingualism. It examines language acquisition theories and issues of language maintenance. It also introduces models of bilingual education and bilingual instruction, including past and present legislation. Experiential learning constitutes a major part of the course.
ELN120 Foundations of American Education
This Writing Course is a comprehensive overview of the foundations of education in the U.S. for elementary teachers. The course emphasizes philosophical, sociological, political, legal and cultural themes. It enables students to inquire, debate, and write about contemporary and historical issues, prepares reflective educators to make informed decisions, and to develop a teacher education e-Portfolio.
ELN194 Puerto Rican Community: Minority Group Experience
This course examines the Puerto Rican community in order to provide an enhanced awareness of and sensitivity to the value systems of New York City’s minorities. Students will experience first-hand the cultural heritage of one of the city’s largest minorities and will learn about their contributions, conditions, and problems. Field trips will include El Barrio, Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, and other organizations.
English
ENN191 Art, Politics and Protest
This course examines political and/or protest art as expressed in literature, song, drama, and other arts. Issues in New York that stirred or are stirring artistic responses will be given special emphasis. Activities will include visits to museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Modern Art, to galleries in Greenwich Village or Soho, to Ellis Island, to Broadway and off-Broadway productions and to individual communities.
ENN/SSN193 Ideal Societies
This course is designed to help students understand utopian movements in urban society from historical, sociological, philosophical, and literary perspectives. This course will focus on both the causes for creating utopian experiments and the ways in which utopias approach family structure, religion, education, power and economic organization. Literary versions of utopian communities will be studied. Field trips may be taken to such places as Roosevelt Island and Shaker villages.
ENN195 Violence in American Art and Culture
This course surveys the depiction of various types of violence and the use of violence as a theme or metaphor in North American literature, art, and popular culture in a global context. Emphasis is placed on New York City as a laboratory and resource for researching considerations of violence in poetry, drama, fiction, film and other visual art forms as well as popular culture (e.g., lyrics, comic strips, advertising, horror and suspense stories).
ENN198 Creative Writing
This course introduces students to the genres of creative writing such as poetry, fiction, plays, and/or creative nonfiction by using New York as a writer's laboratory. Field trips to city places such as museums, streets, parks will lead to writing that uses these places and the people. Students will write a variety of creative pieces dealing with this glimpsed New York life. Related readings and visits with writers writing on New York themes will complement these activities.
ENN240 Literature of the City
This course introduces students to the literature of the city. Students will explore urban themes, social issues and cultural developments in the fiction, essays, poems, autobiographies, and plays of major city writers like Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, Anna Deveare Smith, Chang-Rae Lee, Hanif Kureishi and Oscar Hijuelos. Popular art forms like journalism, song lyrics and film may also be examined.
Health Sciences
SCN194 HIV/AIDS, Science & Society
Through interdisciplinary perspectives this course will examine in historical contexts the political and social responses within nations and cultures to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic including comparison of local HIV prevention efforts and support for people with HIV/AIDS. The history of the epidemic in New York City focused on local HIV/AIDS activism and socio-political issues will be reviewed as will the impact on local socio-cultural communities (e.g., gay men, people of color, injection drug users.) The course will also review the biological basis of HIV transmission, AIDS etiology and the interdisciplinary scientific basis of HIV prevention and treatment strategies (e.g, medical, psycho-social.)
SCN195 Community Health
This course will examine the historical, philosophical, and theoretical principles and foundations of community health. Global perspectives on the role of health education in keeping people and communities healthy, as well as future trends in health promotion will be analyzed. NYC Department of Health initiatives and data, as well as NYC historical events in health are used to illustrate course concepts. This writing intensive course includes assignments based on required reading and activities.
SCN240 Food and Culture
This course explores the foodways of population groups in the United States as an expression of identity and transmission of culture. The geographic, economic, religious and political factors that influence the development of regional food patterns in the United States are examined. The implications and impact of food production, preparation procedures, dining customs and their effect on American society, both past and present will be examined.
Humanities
HUN191 Photojournalism: An Introduction
This course will explore photography as a journalistic tool, emphasizing the photograph as a recorder of newsworthy events. Students will be given assignments to use the photo-document as a narrative tool. The use of text as a complement to the images will be explored. The primary focus of investigation will be the multi-cultural urban center of New York City. Shooting assignments, field trips, a research paper, additional writing assignments required. 35mm camera or digital camera, additional materials required.
HUN192 Art and Society
This course examines the relationships among various art forms and the societies out of which they arise. The focus is to establish the connection between the human drive to create and the social attitudes which influence that creation and provide it with a context. Using the rich cultural resources of New York City, students will have the opportunity to explore characteristics and functions of art in other historical and cultural settings.
HUN195 Art in New York
Through first-hand experience using the museums, galleries, critics, and collectors of New York City, students will examine the form and content of a multicultural range of painting, drawing, outsider art, craft, and sculpture. Museum and gallery visits, as well as a visit to a working artist's studio, will comprise major portions of this course. The class will discuss and write about the exhibits to explore the nature of art criticism.
HUN196 Film and New York City
This course analyzes the various cultural, historical, ethnic, class, and artistic dimensions of New York in feature films, such as Musketeers of Pig Alley, Hester Street, and Do the Right Thing, as well as in selected documentary and experimental films. The course also situates New York City within the corporate production and to exhibition histories of American film. Particular attention is given to films produced in New York over the last two decades and the images of the city they project.
HUN245 The New York Theatre Experience
This course involves the study of current professional and semiprofessional theatre in New York City. Students will be required to attend a series of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway plays in order to compare their content, underlying aesthetic, concepts and production techniques. Plays may be seen on weekday evenings or weekend/weekday matinees. Students should expect to pay for theatre tickets. The class culminates around a solo-play that the students write individually that will coincide with a 10-page written research paper about how this play might be produced in New York City. There will be an option at the end to either act the play in class or do an oral presentation about the play’s inspiration, genesis and ideal New York City production.
Library Media Resources Center
LBN105 InfoCity: Informed Citizens in the Information Age Natural Science
The course explores how information is produced, organized, and distributed in the United States. Students learn research methods through the examination of New York City and federal data. Students learn to find, evaluate, and document text and multimedia for problem solving, inquiry and analysis. The class studies the socioeconomic, political, ethical and legal issues of information production, distribution, and usage in the United States, supported by field trips to government facilities.
SCN140 Wild New York
The goal of this course is to introduce students to the habitats and ecological communities in New York City's urban environment and the processes that have produced them. While emphasizing observational natural history, the course will encourage students to ask questions that can be addressed in a scientific manner. Through lectures, field trips and lab exercises, students will develop an appreciation of the value of the city's biodiversity and the ecological impact of human activity in the urban environment.
Social Science
SSN103 Introduction to Labor and Community Organizing
This course introduces social science perspectives on the theory and practice of labor and community organizing within the urban environment. Students analyze case studies that focus on struggles within a local and global context shaped by different kinds of social inequality including class, race, ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation. Students will learn about new models of organizing, and organizing as a career. The class will go on urban field trips and role-play organizing skills.
SSN/HUN180 Introduction to Intercultural Communication
The course introduces students to the dynamics of intercultural communications and enables them to communicate more effectively in multicultural settings. Through field trips, cultural research and role plays, students develop the skills needed to look objectively at other cultures. Using New York City as a laboratory, they gain experience identifying and analyzing dominant cultural patterns, thus improving their ability to understand the often perplexing behavior of people from cultures other than our own.
SSN182 Urban Anthropology
This course examines urban culture and society in different parts of the world. It includes an examination of the role cities play in different societies, urbanization in developing societies, and a comparison of urban society and culture in developing societies with urban life in the United States. Field trips to sites in New York City such as new immigrant communities will be included to familiarize the students with recent changes in urban culture.
SSN183 History of Minorities
This class examines the history of minorities from America’s Colonial era to the present, paying particular attention to the complex multiracial, multi-class, social, political, and cultural developments that occurred over the centuries. It also examines changing patterns of immigration, and the settlement and employment of various minority groups including African Americans, European Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, women, queer people, and the aged.
SSN184 Environmental Psychology
This course explores the relationships between people and the physical environment, and how attitudes, behaviors and designs play a role in health/well-being, environmental justice and sustainability. The field trip in this course will be based on research projects aimed at understanding behaviors and experiences in various physical environments.
SSN186 Sociology of the Black Community
This course is about the social dynamics of Black communities in urban America. With special reference to New York City, it examines the socialization process, the family, education and organizational life within urban Black communities. Current problems and future prospects for the urban Black community are discussed. Field trips to communities such as Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant are included.
SSN187 Urban Sociology
This course provides an introduction to urban sociology, the study of how group life impacts and is impacted by cities. It covers the origin and growth of cities around the world and the social factors that lead to changes in cities, such as immigration and job opportunities. This course examines how city life affects class, race, ethnicity, gender, culture, neighborhoods and communities. It also employs field trips to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, housing, and politics.
SSN189 The Urban Economy
This course examines key economic problems facing cities and urban neighborhoods, particularly those of New York City. The students will study how supply and demand, land use, taxation, national product, unions and state and federal policies affect the local economy. Through visits in their neighborhoods, and such places as the Office of Economic Development and the Stock Exchange, students will apply the above concepts to local issues of employment, housing, transportation and business activity.
SSN190 Leadership
This course explores alternative leadership theories and styles. It focuses on leadership within the urban context and on the importance of New York City figures such as Boss Tweed, Fiorello H. LaGuardia and Shirley Chisholm. Special reference will be made to the particular leadership problems presented by cities. The course will include speakers and field trips to centers of leadership in New York City, either on the citywide or community level, in the public or private sector.
SSN192 Practical Politics in New York City
This course examines New York City as a unique political entity within the context of urban politics in America. It explores the roles of elected officials, community boards, unions, minority groups and business interests in political decision making. The course includes guest speakers and field trips.
SSN/ENN193 Ideal Societies
This course is designed to help students understand utopian movements in urban society from historical, psychological and sociological perspectives. This course will focus on both the causes for creating utopian experiments and the ways in which utopias approach family structure, religion, education, power and economic organization. Literary versions of utopian communities will be studied. Field trips may be taken to such places as Roosevelt Island and Shaker Village.
SSN194 Religion and Social Change
This course will trace the evolution of traditional and nontraditional religions among various groups within the New York City religious community. The course will focus on Latin groups and Eastern religions as well as social action projects sponsored by mainline major denominational groups. Field interviews by students will be made.
SSN202 Environmental Sociology
This course examines sociological perspectives on the environment. It will explore how humans interact with and help to shape the environment. Special emphasis will be placed on the role that economics, politics, culture, science and technology play in urban environmental affairs. It will also apply basic sociological concepts such as social class, gender, race and ethnicity, inequality and conflict to environmental issues within urban settings.
SSN204 Crime and Justice in Urban Society
This course examines critical issues concerning crime and justice in urban settings. Some issues are current and topical, applying to the contemporary urban crime scene; others have continued through modern history. Themes explored include fear, crime and the city; social disorganization; prisoner reintegration; policing, gangs and gun control; and drug laws. This course will be a writing intensive with an experiential component.
SSN210 The Politics of Sexuality
This course explores how gender, sex, and sexuality are politicized (and policed) through social norms, attitudes and beliefs, as well as public and private policies, practices, and social institutions in urban settings. Feminist theory as articulated by liberal feminism, radical feminism, intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race theory (including womanism) are examined in their historical developments through social movements and public policy. Two field trips are required.
SSN240 History of New York City
This class examines New York City as a complex, multiracial, multi-class, social, political, and cultural space. It considers histories of the city from first contact between European settlers and Native Americans in the sixteenth century to the present. It is an urban studies course and is writing intensive. It will also include at least two field trips.
SSN280 Urban Black Psychology
This course introduces students to the psychology of Black people in America. Through an analysis of African American life in America, this course examines the psychological, social, economic, and historical experiences of Black people in urban environments. Topics include the impact of slavery on the individual and family, issues in urban education, the effects of prejudice and racism on health, social movements, policing and community violence, and wellness concerns in the Black community.
BTN211 Hospitality and Destination Marketing
ELN121 Foundations of Early Childhood Education
ELN122 Foundations of American Education: Grades 7-12
ELN123 Foundations of Bilingual Education
ELN206 Family, School and Community in Early Education
ELN105 Languages of the World and of New York City
SCN196 Community Health Research
LIN190 Pandemics in Global Contexts