Colloquia can be found under the course number UH 3004H in the course timetable, and each colloquia has a different CRN number. Colloquia offerings usually change every semester.

“Biomedical Ethics”
CRN #15240

The American health care system is the best that money can buy. Yet, many ethical questions have arisen because of this superior technology: Who is in charge of the switches in intensive care? Should health care be rationed by a priority system? Will the human genome project help cure genetic diseases or will it become a eugenic screen? Who are the legal guardians of the children produced by in vivo fertilization procedures? Should research with fetal cells be sanctioned? Is there a need for an ethicist in a hospital? Should the U.S. have a national health care system which includes ethical standards? The course will include readings from the works of Lewis Thomas, Norman Cousins, etc…, plus participation by departmental faculty and local physicians.

• Instructor: Thomas Sitz
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: R, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
• Location: 002 FRALIN

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“A Digital Library Related to 4/16/07 at Virginia Tech”
CRN #15238

This course will coordinate with an NSF-funded effort to develop a digital library related to April 16, 2007. ( http://www.dl-vt-416.org) That initiative aims to support researchers, educators, learners, and the public by collecting all types of electronic information (videos, audio recordings, photos, reports, news, and other formats) that relate to the events of April 16th ort the community recovery thereafter. The digital library will support information of visualization, date mining, social network analysis, and other work with hundreds of thousands of documents. Students will work on group term projects and will meet in seminar-format sessions with the interested interdisciplinary faculty, including from Business, Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology, and University Libraries.

• Instructor: Ed Fox; Co-Instructor: Steve Sheets
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T, 5:00 – 6:50 p.m.
• Location: 1040 TORG

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“Chinese Medicine”
CRN #15243

Chinese medicine is among the oldest health care systems, having been practiced for over 5000 years. Arising out of Daoism, the goal of Chinese medicine is to restore balance, thus creating an environment in which illness can not take root. Classically, a Chinese doctor was only paid as long as the patient remained healthy. This course will examine the principles guiding Chinese medicine. Other topics of discussion will include how tuina, also known as Chinese massage, qi gong, Thai massage, and internal martial arts work to improve health.

• Instructor: D Denbow
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T, 3:30 – 5:20 p.m.
• Location: 1890 LITRV

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“The Harry Potter Phenomenon”
CRN #15236, 17599

On July 21, 2007 the seventh and last novel in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series will be out in print, with a record breaking 12M copies going to press in the U.S.A. alone. Now seems the perfect moment to assess the popularity of there novels with the generation for whom they were written. The 9 or 10-year old who first thrilled to Sorcerer’s Stone in 1997 will be a college student awaiting the completion of the series with Deathly Hallows in 2007. The course will attempt to analyze the popularity of the series, examine the way the books revitalized the field of children’s literature, and look at the range of critical response from Harold Bloom’s outrage over the decline of our culture to may pundits’ adoring reception. We’ll ask ourselves that millennial anxieties lurk beneath the surface of the novels, try to account for the surge of fan-fiction (over a hundred thousand submissions on one internet site alone), and read a variety of scholarship on the subject.

CRN #15236:

• Instructor: Kathryn Graham

• Credit: 3 hours

• Day/Time: T, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

• Location: 207 MCB

CRN #17599:

• Instructor: Peter Graham

• Credit: 3 hours

• Day/Time: T, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

• Location: 234 SQUIRES

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“Men’s Issues”
CRN #15245

This course is not restricted to men. We will examine the various issues that contribute to our understanding of what it means to be a man. This course will cover the message we receive in our life from our mothers and fathers, men’s emotions and how they are expressed, differences in communication between women and men, male bonding, sports and violence, sexual identity, sexual attraction, and aging. Each week students will be given copies of papers to read and a homework assignment to raise awareness of male issues. Even in your brief lifetime, you will be asked to draw on your life experiences as we discuss the various issues.

• Instructor: Art Buikema
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T, 3:30 – 5:20 p.m.
• Location: TBA

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“Interviewing Techniques”
CRN #15239

This class will examine the techniques used by professional theatre, film and television performers that can be used in other disciplines during interviews for jobs, scholarships and life. The competition among actors for jobs in the “business” is highly fierce and competitive. Over the years, performers have developed very sophisticated interview techniques to help them land a job or win the role. Many of the techniques used by actors can be adapted for interviews in other disciplines. This course will allow students to learn and practice some of these skills and techniques.

• Instructor: Greg Justice
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T, 3:30 – 5:20 p.m.
• Location: 104 PAB

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“The Cutting Edge of DNA”
CRN #15247

This laboratory course will introduce four students to the emerging field of genetic engineering. The basic theories and techniques used in molecular biology research, i.e. recombinant DNA cloning and dideoxy sequencing, will be explored in a research laboratory. Each scientist will be working on a project designed to give new information on the genetic and physical organization of a bacterial chromosome. Research faculty from various science departments on campus will give informal talks on their work throughout the semester. Successful completion of the research project will require a minimum of six hours in the laboratory per student and several oral presentations by each student about the work being done.

For an application, see Christina McIntyre in the Honors Program Office, 133 Hillcrest Hall.

• Instructor: D Dean
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: TBA
• Location: TBA

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“Selfishness”
CRN #15246

Beginning in the 1980’s, both conceptual and personal concern for such ideas as self identification, self awareness and self-esteem became popular. In these three decades the political and social culture of American society underwent significant change. Careerism, conservative political ideology, and even religious practice centered on the individual. Some people argue that the current emphasis on the individual has replaced significant beliefs concerning collective American life. This colloquium examines some of the major issues facing American society today and how the concept of self has played a significant role in creating policies to deal with these issues. Discussions will center around the long term health of American society given changing practices in environmental control, health delivery, race and ethnic relations, church/state relations, corporate life, the management of wealth, and other major problems confronting American society. Members of the colloquium will be expected to produce a research paper on a topic of their choice relating the concept of self to such issues.

• Instructor: Jack Dudley
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: W, 4:00 – 5:50 p.m.
• Location: 132 HILL

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“Public Policy: Let the Argument Begin”
CRN # 15241

The spring colloquium will convene Tuesday afternoons for three hours to assess timely, contentious issues of public policy that arouse widespread public interest and even controversy. Students will entertain four to five topics during the term, each to be researched, analyzed, debated and rendered ultimately in the form of the argumentative essay, which will be the final measure of course performance. The process will include elements of both collegial debate among colloquium participants and individual crafting of the written essays. Final course evaluation will emphasize depth of analysis, clarity and precision of writing and special attention to the strength of logical presentation. The objective of the colloquium will be to present the students an intellectually challenging, stimulating and rewarding series of exercises in the analysis and communication of real-time, consequential issues.

• Instructor: Tommy Denton
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
• Location: 132 HILL

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“Poems, Poets, Poetry”
CRN #15237

“Like any construction—a carpet, a bureaucracy, a field, a meal, or the efforts of a professional traveler to describe where he’s been—it can be understood only by understanding how it is made out of what it is made out of, and what sort of uses it turns out to have.”
Clifford Geertz, After the Fact, p.25

This colloquium will explore what makes a poem a poem and what we do with poems. We will look at form: sound, rhythm, meter, genre (epic, lyric, elegy, epigram, …), etc. We will also look at function. In times of trouble or celebration, for thousands of years, in cultures around the world, in public and in private, people often turn to poems—poets, poetry—and use them to help us react to, make sense of, endure, change, rejoice in, think about … most anything. Poems are good for thinking. Why?

We will consider poems from different eras and cultures, including ancient Greece and Rome, as well as modern traditions of poetry, with a few organizing themes:

• Poetry has been called ‘language charged with meaning.’
• Poetry has been called ‘language in which sound is as important as sense.’
• Poetry has been called ‘equipment for living.’ How come?

Prerequisites: none, EXCEPT a willingness to think about language and to read slowly with care. No previous experience with poems or poetry necessary, or even desirable.

• Instructor: Andrew Becker
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: R, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
• Location: 132 HILL

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“Inventing the Future through Our Ut Prosim Tradition”
CRN #15242

As proclaimed by Virginia Tech’s motto, Ut Prosim, service to the Commonwealth and the world is a core value of our university. When we utilize our knowledge and scholarship to serve others, we fulfill the promise of a land grant university. When we serve others in ways that also utilize our natural talents and passions, we fulfill our promise as human beings and find meaning for our lives. The goal of this course is to inspire, guide and empower Honors students to apply their knowledge, talents, compassion and energy toward leading others in community service activities. The course will include readings, inspirational guest speakers, spirited discussions, and service activity with Appalachia Service Project in Jonesville, VA. We will leave campus on Thursday afternoon, April 3, and return Sunday afternoon, April 6. As a capstone project, each student will develop their own proposal for a service project following the proposal guidelines developed by the Carter Academic Service Entrepreneur (CASE) Grant Program. Near the end of the semester, students will present their proposals in a campus case competition and one student will receive a $1,000 grant to implement his or her proposed activity.

• Instructor: Bryan Cloyd
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: M, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
• Location: 132 HILL

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“The Art & Science of Tracking”
CRN #15244

The ancient/modern art/science of tracking requires knowledge of ecology, anatomy, behavior, weather, seasons, soils, and self. The tracker needs highly developed attentional and perceptual skills, patience, creativity, imagination and the ability to think in skilled, practical ways. Theorists have considered tracking as the evolutionary origin of storytelling, letters and science. It has been growing in popularity and is becoming a discipline in its own right. Because of its cognitive complexity and multi-disciplinary nature it holds appeal far beyond its origins in hunting and search. Tracking skills are highly transferable to other modern contexts. This class will study tracking theoretically through readings, lecture, and experientially through “field studies” outside; rain, snow or shine. Students will compare modern and traditional ways of knowing, undertake extensive perceptual training, cultivate a broad knowledge of local ecology and a begin to construct a deep knowledge of their personal place.

• Instructor: Michael Blackwell
• Credit: 3 hours
• Day/Time: T/R, 4:00 – 5:15 p.m.
• Location: 132 HILL

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Special Studies – Other Honors Offerings

“Medical Practicum”
CRN #16985

This course is a collaborative agreement between the University PreMedical/Dental Advising Office in the Honors Program at Virginia Tech and the Giles County Technical Institute in Pearisburg, Virginia. The course is for sophomores and will lead to state certification as a Certified Nursing Assistant. The student will be expected to correlate the theory of clinical care with the demonstration of technical skills to provide effective client care in clinical environments. Certification as a C.N.A. is a portal of entry into clinical environments to shadow physicians and gain patient contact and care. There is an application and review process to select the students that will participate. The application is in the Honors Office (room #137), the application must be filled out completely, a review committee selects the final candidates, and these students will be force/added into the course. A term paper dealing with an issue in modern health care will also be required.

• Instructor: G. Simmons
• Credit: 4 hours
• Day/Time: TBA
• Location: TBA

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