Cultures have a long viewed education as a way to realize social ideals and solve challenging social problems. Schools have been imagined as ways of promoting civic virtue, economic productivity, and social mobility; alleviating inequalities in race, class, and gender; and improving health, reducing crime, and protecting the environment. Courses in this cluster examine the various ways in which education has been imagined, structured, and delivered across time and culture with particular attention to the kinds of goals, ideals, and visions of society have been imposed on schooling

Associated Course Pairings:

Course Descriptions

CC100: Teaching Across Communities

Instructor: Tina Valtierra
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
Format: Hybrid

In this CC100 course, our goal is to understand Education as a scholarly discipline that has historical, political, and socio-cultural roots. Using the current epidemic of teacher recruitment and teacher attrition in U.S. public schools as our focal point, we will critically examine the many socio-political forces that influence teacher quality, development, selection, demographics, and agency. We will consult the history of teaching in the U.S. while also investigating how historical narratives emerge in contemporary education politics (i.e. through current events). Dominant narratives will be juxtaposed with counter-narratives that highlight the ways in which teachers of various socio-cultural backgrounds have navigated a complex system. We will engage in field experiences in schools to observe teachers, engage in dialog, and collectively analyze the complex relationships between disciplinary theory, contemporary politics, and practice.

CC120: Learning Across Communities

Instructor: Manya Whitaker
Format: Flex

This writing intensive course will interrogate the process of learning by examining the learning brain, influences on the brain, and the nature of knowledge itself. We will also compare learning behaviors in different contexts to help elucidate the relationship between teaching practices, learning practices and educational outcomes. Finally, we will explore contextual influences on students' learning as we consider when and how to intervene in students' schooling to improve academic achievement.

CC100: What Is A Liberal Arts Education?

Instructor: Tim Fuller
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Historical Perspectives
Format: Hybrid

Exploring the various answers to the question from the Platonic Academy in antiquity to the founding of liberal arts colleges in America in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the founding of Colorado College; study of the humanities, the inclusion of the natural sciences and the development of the social sciences in the 19th century. The advent of women's colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And philosophic reflections on the role of higher education in the larger society today.

CC120: Foundations of Political Thought

Instructor: Eve Grace
Format: Flex

CC120: Foundations of Political Thought examines enduring political and moral questions as well as different conceptions of political life through a variety of fundamental, competing perspectives drawn from ancient, medieval, and modern, as well as contemporary texts, including Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and Locke. This course constitutes a rigorous introduction to college level intellectual inquiry, precise writing, and careful interpretive reading.

CC100: The Roads that Lead to Rome: Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Culture

Instructor: Owen Cramer
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Historical Perspectives
Format: Primarily In-Person

Introduction to the liberal arts through reading of some of their most ancient and foundational sources. Greek and Roman literature from various genres (such as epic, dramatic, lyric and philosophical); modern ways of receiving and interpreting them. Art, architecture and topography of ancient Greece and Rome. This course will consider the long-standing influence these civilizations played in the development of later Western cultures, and will examine modern outcomes and parallels to the historical forms and movements, such as Athenian democracy as a precedent for American democracy, colonization in antiquity and European colonialism in the c. 16-19, and the Roman Empire as a precedent for the expansive American State of late c. 19 to the present.

CC120: The Roads that Lead to Rome: Different Ways We Write Greeks and Romans

Instructor: Richard Buxton
Format: Primarily In-Person

Classics is a discipline defined by its subject-matter (Greek and Roman civilizations) and its sources (ancient literature, material remains)-rather than any single approach to these; literary analysis, historical inquiry, archeology and everything from feminist to ecological critiques are all welcome. Starting from a central historical topic and a set of related ancient texts (e.g. "barbarian" peoples and Roman historians), we will spend our first week observing different ways that modern scholars tackle this shared evidence and theme (e.g. One approach: "What sources of information did Roman historians have about barbarians and were they accurate?" Another: "The way Roman historians define barbarians as primitive 'others' is part of an ideology justifying Roman conquest and empire."). This provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on the critical continuities-evidence-based hypotheses, say-and methodological diversity available when analyzing any cultural object; the critical activity at the very heart of a liberal-arts education. Starting week two, each student will choose a focus within our larger area. Together we will then explore how to conduct research in an organized and empowering fashion, before drafting, presenting and rewriting a paper that draws on both the information we have gathered and the methodologies we have encountered.