Introduction to Politics – PO 101 Siobhan McEvoy-Levy
The purpose of a liberal arts education, from my perspective, is to enlighten and empower. It should awaken an awe in students for the myriad dilemmas, choices, and lack of choices, that shape human experience, and at the same time reawaken the teacher with new perspectives and possibilities. It should enable both student and teacher to think beyond the limitations of their own experience and beyond conventional wisdoms, and inspire them to try to act creatively, peacefully, and with conscience, in their own interests and for the common good. An undergraduate politics course is one very important arena for experimenting with shared power and developing competencies and commitments for global civic engagement. Indeed, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) states that an important goal of third-level education is to produce graduates “who recognize their shared obligation to humanity,” and who can work for “shared futures marked by justice, security, equality, human rights, and economic sustainability” (Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility). These are the themes of PO 101 Introduction to Politics.
PO 101 provides an introduction to political ideologies and the analysis of political issues with special attention to the contemporary US and global context. We will focus on poverty, war, terrorism, and the global environment and on how different ideological perspectives ‘see’ and ‘respond to’ the challenges these issues present. Through reading, written reflection, role-play, debate and dialogue, and with an optional service-learning component, you should acquire knowledge about politics, be more able to think critically about politics, and better prepared to participate in politics. As one of our class textbooks states: ‘you won’t find right and wrong answers here, but the concepts, information, and arguments to help you come to your own answers. As you arrive at those answers, you may choose to persuade others to your point of view or you may decide to act on behalf of your views. And this is what politics is all about’(Shalom 16).
Introduction to US Politics – PO 131 Jeffrey Payne
Liberation is a strong component of the liberal arts and a particularly powerful motivational factor inside political science. The study of politics cannot be successfully engaged if both students and faculty rely on preconceptions. Therefore, the classroom becomes a unique laboratory where individual assumptions about political processes are challenged, reviewed, and, potentially, reinforced. The liberal arts education endeavors to assist students by giving them a critical lens through which to view their world. Critical thinking is an absolute necessity in the study of politics if our goal is to create engaged citizens.
In this course, both the professor and students will seek to find an answer to the following question: is American democracy healthy? Does the current political system work as it was envisioned in the foundational documents? Is political discourse in today’s environment a constructive or divisive force? We shall study the American system of government in the context of the many democratic struggles in our nation’s history: the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the Global War on Terror, and others. Using role-playing, debates, and discussion, the participants in this course shall address important dilemmas in critical and creative ways. At the conclusion of this course, students should not only have a greater knowledge of how the American political system functions, but also a greater willingness to engage in the system. Politics is not for spectators – it is for participants.
Introduction to International Politics – PO 141 Dave Mason
Objectives: This course will introduce you to the history and dynamics of the international political system, focusing on some of the major sources of international tension and conflict and the possibilities for a more peaceful world. As such, it is grounded in the goals of liberal education: to learn about the world around us; to recognize the diversity and complexity of the human experience; to be cognizant and tolerant of alternative ways of thinking and points of view; and to think critically about important issues facing us as individuals, communities, and global citizens.
It is hoped that after this course you will both know more about contemporary world politics and current events and be in a position to better understand the crises, changes and developments that will occur in the future. This semester we will focus especially on how September 11 and the Iraq war have affected international politics.
“Unmixed Wine”: Democracy or Tyranny – PO 490 Margaret Brabant
The readings have also been selected to stimulate thinking and discussion about what it means to be political scientists trained within the tradition of the liberal arts, a tradition identified by the philosopher and classicist Martha Nussbaum as one with “a long history in the Western philosophical tradition….” Nussbaum links our method of education to one informed by “Socrates’ concept of `the examined life,’ on Aristotle’s notions of reflective citizenship, and above all on Greek and Roman Stoic notions of an education that is `liberal’ in that it liberates the mind from the bondage of habit and custom, producing people who can function with sensitive and alertness as citizens of the whole world.”1
1 Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 8.