First Year Connections

first-year seminars

spring 2012
First-Year Seminars:
Limited to 15 students, first-year seminars allow you to interact in a smaller setting and connect with a faculty member. We've tried to design seminars to fit every interest, from anthropology to economics to New York City to music.

Frequently Asked Questions:
Will the seminars fulfill degree requirements?
Yes. Each of the 14s seminars listed in this publication will fulfill a distribution requirement. Look for the two-letter designation next to the course information; for example, LT refers to a Literature requirement and NS refers to a Natural Science requirement.

Where do I go if I want to receive more information about registration and first-year seminars?
Make an appointment with your advisement dean or contact the Center for University Advisement at 516-463-6770 or 516-463-7222. You can also visit our website at hofstra.edu/advisement.

getting
started
Preparing for registration
Set up an appointment to meet with your advisement dean.
If you have declared a major you should also set up an appointment to meet with your faculty adviser to review major course offerings. Prior to your meeting(s) make sure to:

• Run your Degree Audit Report (DAR) using the Hofstra portal.
• Choose a few First-Year Seminars that interest you.
• Choose some Distribution courses and major courses that interest you.
• Review the public class schedule for spring 2012 utilizing the Hofstra online system at hofstra.edu/classlookup.
• Make an alternate schedule in case some of the courses you select are closed at the time of registration.

Why meet with your advisement dean?

• To help you review your Degree Audit Report (DAR).
• To finalize course selection for the spring semester.
• To obtain your Alternate PIN, which is required to register online.
• To make certain that your major is correct in the Hofstra system.

Setting up an appointment
Advisement deans are located in 101 Memorial Hall and
107 Mack Student Center. To set up an appointment with
your assigned dean, please call the Center for University Advisement at 516-463-6770 or 516-463-7222.
Appointments:
9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
9 a.m.-7 p.m., Monday and Thursday
Drop-In/Quick Question Hours:
8-9 a.m. and 3:30-4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday

How to register
You can register online through the Hofstra portal at my.hofstra.edu or in person at the Student Administrative Complex, which is located on the second floor of Memorial Hall, South Campus.
If you are registering online you will need your Alternate PIN, which you will receive from your advisement dean or faculty adviser. If you are registering in person you will need to complete the registration form and have it signed by your advisement dean or faculty adviser.
Registration forms are available at the Center for University Advisement, located at 101 Memorial Hall and 107 Mack Student Center.

When to register
Registration for first-year students begins November 7, 2011.

How can you make changes to your schedule once you have registered?
Once you have registered for courses you can make changes
to your schedule online through the first week of classes. After the first week of classes the online system is not available for program changes, and adjustments must be made in person at the Student Administrative Complex.

When is the last day to register for spring courses?
The last day to register for spring courses without incurring a late fee is Thursday, January 5, 2012. The last day to add a course to your schedule without incurring a late fee is
Wednesday, February 1, 2012. The absolute last day to register for classes is Thursday, February 23, 2012. As of February 2, 2012, you will need professor and/or departmental approval through a REGISTRATION OVERRIDE form in order to add a class.

When is the last day to drop a course in the spring semester?
The last day to drop a course without a "W" for the spring semester is Thursday, February 16, 2012.

Common Registration Terms

DAR refers to your Degree Audit Report. It lists all academic requirements that must be completed to receive your Hofstra undergraduate degree.
Distribution courses are course requirements designed to afford students some familiarity with the subject matter and intellectual methods used in the various liberal arts and sciences. They must be completed to receive a Hofstra degree. Distribution courses seek to expose students to a broad range of cultural traditions and encourage students to participate in interdisciplinary studies that draw on the general resources of the liberal arts and sciences. You will often see them referred to with the abbreviations AA, BH, CC, CP, HP, IS, LT, MC or NS.
Hofstra First-Year Connections (FYC) is an integrated academic and social experience that connects you with other first-year students in small learning communities.
Liberal Arts courses are designed to help students grasp the range of possibilities for shaping their lives with particular reference to the formulation of thoughts, sensibilities and notions of meaning. Such courses concern themselves with the questions of basic human values and the ways of understanding character and organization of reality. Business and education courses are not considered liberal arts courses. Liberal arts courses refer to disciplines within the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.
The portal is the online gateway to Hofstra information. Use it for registering for classes, checking grades, reviewing DARs, accessing BlackBoard, finding local resources, and other support services.
Prerequisite is a course that must be taken and passed prior to enrollment in another course.

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Living/Learning (LLC) Housing Options:

American Politics

Arts

Civic Engagement

Environmental

Health Sciences

Leadership

Math/Science/Engineering

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DISTRIBUTION COURSE LEGEND

(AA) Appreciation and Analysis (Humanities)
(BH) Behavioral (Social Sciences)
(CC) Cross Cultural
(CP) Creative Participation (Humanities)
(HP) History/Philosophy/Religion (Social Sciences)
(IS) Interdisciplinary Studies
(LT) Literature (Humanities)
(MC) Mathematics/Computer Science
(NS) Natural Sciences

• ANTHROPOLOGY
  Why Chimps Don't Drive Ferraris
  ANTH 14S, sec. 1 (BH): CRN 21924 (4 s.h.)
  M/F, 11:15 a.m.-1:10 p.m., Professor Anna Feuerbach
  Society is defined by the relationship between people and products, whether it's a Nintendo Wii or stone tools. Our aim in this course is to understand how the production, distribution, use and eventual disposal of the things we use in everyday life shape our view of the world.
• ASTRONOMY
  The Universe
  ASTR 14S, sec. 01 & 01L (NS): CRN 22479 & 22480 (3 s.h.)
  T/TH, 2:20-4:10 p.m., Professor Brett Bochner
  This course provides an overview of objects larger than our individual solar system, ranging from stars and stellar systems, to the universe as a whole.  Topics include the births, lives, and deaths of stars and planets; the generation of stellar energy through nuclear fusion; the explosions of stars as supernovae; black holes and other unusual effects of Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity); the structure and behaviors of our and other galaxies; and dark matter, dark energy, and the big bang theory of the creation of the universe.   The class includes lectures, participatory labs, and astronomical observations at the Hofstra Observatory.
• BIOLOGY
  Parasites and People
  BIO 14S, sec. 1 (NS): CRN 24828 (3 s.h.)
  W/F, 12:50-2:20 p.m., Professor Jason D. Williams
  This course will examine the impacts of human parasites from a wide range of perspectives, including biological, historical, socioeconomic and cultural. Efforts to eradicate parasites that cause major diseases such as malaria will be evaluated with an emphasis on their biological basis. In addition, Neglected Tropical Diseases and their impacts in third world countries will be explored. Through discussion based on readings from texts and the primary literature, students gain an appreciation for the diversity of parasites and their impacts on human hosts worldwide.
• COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND LANGUAGES
  Rebellion and Self-Creation in Fiction and Philosophy
  CLL 14S, sec. 1 (LT): CRN 23804 (3 s.h.)
  M/F, 11:15 a.m.-12:40 p.m., Professor John Krapp
  Throughout our lives, we are told how to think, how to act, how to feel. The voice of authority, whether it issues from a person, a group of people, or an institution, writes our script, and we are expected to play our part.  But some people break the rules. They refuse to follow the scripts they are given.  These people often make their lives difficult through such choices. They may also make their lives extraordinary. In this course, we will look at a variety of texts where people challenge institutional authority. We will look at the historical spaces these people occupy and the consequences of their acts of rebellion.
• DRAMA
  Improvisation for Everyone
  DRAM 14S, sec. 1 (CP): CRN 23816 (3 s.h.)
  T/TH, 9:35-11 a.m., Professor Christopher Dippel
  Trust.  Teamwork.  Honesty.  Communication.  Risk.  These are the foundations of improvisation and are as useful to the lawyer or layperson as they are to the actor.  This seminar employs theater games and performance exercises to help students learn to think on their feet, work collaboratively, communicate effectively, and trust their own creativity and ideas.  Our work is supported and enhanced by trips to New York City to see improvisers in action.
• ECONOMICS
  Macro-Freakonomics: Globalization
  ECO 14S, sec. 1 (BH): CRN 22145 (4 s.h.)
  M/W/F, 9:50-11:05 a.m., Professor Massoud Fazeli
  How do you make sense of people who say they are "pro-" or "anti-globalization"?   How are goods, capital and people moving around the world in new ways?  Why does increasing global interconnectedness also seem to lead to greater division, greater inequality, and greater tension? How are we all connected together, and who are "we"?  Topics may include: terms of trade between nations; sweatshop labor and the role of the IMF and the World Bank; the state and causes of disparities in wealth between nations; peace and security in the world; the environment; human rights and cultural preservation.
• ENGLISH
  New Worlds, New Visions
  ENGL 14S, sec. 1 (LT): CRN 23644 (3 s.h.)
  M/W/F, 10:10-11:05 a.m., Professor Stephen Russell
  This class examines the theme of the human encounter with the unknown, the alien, whether realistically in the form of contact with human communities with different values and perspectives or the more radical, fantastic meeting of humans with other sentient species. Whether realistic or fantastic, this recurring motif of our meeting with alternatives foregrounds our own unexamined values and challenges us to be conscious of the forces and principles we allow to guide us.  The class will be a discussion roundtable with short weekly writing exercises and opportunities for both analytical and creative projects.
• ENGLISH
  Hip-Hop Generation Literature
  ENGL 14S, sec. 2 (LT): CRN 23642 (3 s.h.)
  T/TH, 11:10 a.m.-12:35 p.m., Professor Joseph McLaren
  This course examines literary and cultural aspects of the hip-hop generation from the late 1970s to the post-hip-hop period of the present.  We consider the origins of hip-hop in the Bronx, New York, and relationships between hip-hop, the BlackArts Movement and Jamaican sources.  Themes include urbanism, street culture, commercialization, globalization, gender, and language. While emerging hip-hop culture produced such hip-hop artists and rappers as Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, PublicEnemy, Queen Latifah, Nas, and KRS-1, it was also developed during a time when new literary artists were receiving recognition for their fiction and poetry.  Selected recordings, videos, and films are part of the course material.
• ENGLISH
  End of the World As We Know It? Globalization and Its Fictions  
  ENGL 14S, sec. A (LT): CRN 23643 (4 s.h.)
  T/TH, 4:30-6:20 p.m., Professor Amrohini Sahay 
  How is "globalization" changing the world? Do we live in the time of a new "global culture" (from "world films" to Facebook to border-crossing hip-hop to new transnational perspectives in literature), which goes beyond the old "national cultures"?  Are we seeing the rise of a new "global identity"?  The course will bring these debates into focus through examining some of the recent developments of "global culture."  We will read short stories, poems, and  popular literary forms such as Japanese "manga" (comics), as well as look at new visual and other cultural forms and practices, from Facebook to films to food/eating (for example, "fusion" food), and their importance in defining the world for us.
• FINE ARTS
  Sculpture: Thinking in Clay
  FA 14S, sec. 1 (CP): CRN 25206 (3 s.h.)
  M/W, 9-10:50 a.m., Professor Paul Chaleff 
  Flat screens, photos, magazines, posters — these are what young people access to learn about everything around them.  Recently CAD/CAM and other computer programs have been created to help students and professionals to start to think in three-dimensional terms.  But are these media really adequate when it comes to looking and learning about objects that have volume?  Learning to build forms using clay gives students another method of perceiving the space around them, and can give students a distinct advantage when trying to understand how things work in the real world.
• GEOGRAPHY
  Child Labor in the World Today
  GEOG 14S, sec. 1 (BH, CC): CRN 23616 (3 s.h.)
  M/W/F, 10:10-11:05 a.m., Professor Kari Jensen
  This course presents facts and theories about child labor in the world today.  We focus on the country-specific historical and societal context of child labor issues, coupled with a study of governmental policies and nongovernmental organizations' strategies to help alleviate the problems related to child labor, such as poverty and inadequate access to education. The course involves travel to institutions such as UNICEF and the Human Rights Watch headquarters in New York City.
• GEOLOGY
  Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sexual Selection (But Were Afraid to Ask)
  GEOL 14S, sec. 1 & 1L (NS): CRN 21640 & 21641 (3 s.h.)
  T/TH, 12:45-1:40 p.m. and T, 2:20-4:10 p.m., Professor J Bret Bennington
  Evolution is one of the most successful scientific theories ever conceived, explaining and connecting seemingly unrelated things such as drug-resistant microbes, sex, and the fossil record.  At the same time, evolution is denounced by many religious and political leaders as a direct threat to society, while almost half of all Americans reject the conclusion that humans evolved from primate ancestors.  We will examine the history of evolutionary thinking and its critics to understand why Charles Darwin's view of life is still so controversial 150 years later.
• GLOBAL STUDIES
  Introduction to the Global Economic Crisis
  GS 14S, sec. 1 (IS): CRN 22925 (3 s.h.)
  M/W, 2:55-4:20 p.m., Professor Grant Saff
  Economic meltdowns, job losses, bank bailouts, outsourcing, home foreclosures, taxes, failing auto companies. What does all this mean? This seminar explores these questions, introducing students to the fundamentals of the new global economy and how this economy affects us all. The seminar traces the history and trajectory of "globalization" and shows that the roots of the crisis run deep and that the current economic recession was not unexpected.
• HISTORY
  The "Stuff" of Life: Studying the History of the Things Around Us
  HIST 14S, sec. 1 (HP): CRN 24782 (4 s.h.)
  M/W, 9:05-11 a.m., Professor Susan Yohn
  This seminar studies the history of the objects that surround us, such as the go-cart, camera, pirates, and amusement parks, among other things.  What will people make of our society 500 years from now? How would a scholar study a society if only durable objects remain?  Students choose two objects from the collection of the University Archives and one personal object, and research the story behind them.  Students examine the objects in their historical, economic, and cultural contexts; learn how to research those objects; and write a research paper about them.
• HISTORY
  O Creature of Light in the Midst of Darkness:  Understanding Human Origins
  HIST 14S, sec. 2 (HP): CRN 24783 (4 s.h.)
  T/TH, 10:05 a.m.-Noon, Professor Louis Kern
  Beginning with the traditional Judaeo-Christian texts of Creation and Armageddon, the course will consider selected texts of the lost mythic cycles of the Western tradition — the Gnostic gospels, the Kabbalah, the Haggadah and Midrash, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Jewish Pseudoepigrapha, Christian Apocrypha, and pre-Christian polytheistic traditions — and will also take up primal myths of non-Western traditions, ranging from Africa to the Middle East to Asia to the Pacific to native cultures of the Americas. The course will trace attempts to explain and understand our origins, our reasons for being, our ethical beliefs, and our potential end in the context of a broader understanding of human nature.
• LABOR STUDIES
  Micro-Freakonomics – NYC's Underground Economy
  LABR 14S, sec. 1 (BH): CRN 22917 (4 s.h.)
  T/TH, 2:15-4:10 p.m., Professor Gregory DeFreitas
  This course looks at the people, institutions and economic forces – legal and illegal – that built New York, make it run day to day, and shape its future.  Finance, fashion, publishing, communications and the arts – New York City is justly famous as a world leader in these and other fields. But why does New York now have more extreme income inequality than any other part of the country? How does that affect the opportunities of most young people to attain the American Dream? How are record numbers of new immigrants remaking the metropolitan area's visible and shadow economies?
• MUSIC
  History of Jazz
  MUS 14S, sec. 1 (AA): CRN 23815 (3 s.h.)
  M/W/F, 1:55-2:50 p.m., Professor David Lalama
  Music connects our present to our personal, cultural and historical past. The history of jazz is also the history of America's continuing struggle toward racial equality and cultural development.  American painters and writers looked to jazz as a model of spontaneity, improvisation and experimentation.  Jack Kerouac, for example, coined the term "bop prosody" to describe his rhythmic, stream of consciousness paragraphs that merged poetry with prose by attending to the felt rhythm of words and breath.  Students learn to identify periods where musical, literary and visual arts have overlapped, and get a first-hand look at New York City's jazz scene.
• MUSIC
  Music Performance in New York
  MUS 14S, sec. 2 (AA): CRN 24700 (4 s.h.)
  T/TH, 11:10 a.m.-12:35 p.m., Professor Cathy Callis
  New York City has one of the most diverse and energetic music scenes in the world today.  This seminar provides the opportunity to explore some of NYC's many facets of music performance. We will explore the dynamics of live performance from the perspective of the performer, the composer, the audience and the critic.  Elements of music and musical style, the interpretive aspects of performance, the medium, the venue, the repertoire, programming, publicity and marketing, the cultural contributions and accessibility of events will also be examined as they relate to music performance.  All students will sample a variety of concerts, from classical to jazz to world music.
• MUSIC
  From iPod to IMAX
  MUS 14S, sec. 3 (AA): CRN 24699 (3 s.h.)
  T/TH, 12:45-2:10 p.m., Professor Ken Lampl
  Do you have a hit song in your head?  This course explores the fundamentals of making music using Apple's Garage Band software.  The course examines the compositional techniques of song writing, mixing and film scoring through creative exercises.  No prior music making or computer experience is necessary; the course includes trips to music production and marketing firms in New York City.
• PHILOSOPHY
  Meaning of Life
  PHI 14S, sec. 1 (HP): CRN 24704 (4 s.h.)
  M/W/F, 9:50-11:05 a.m., Professor Harold Skulsky
  For us to have a chance of succeeding in finding the meaning of life, human life must have meaning, or at least the lives of individual human beings must have meaning.  But perhaps these claims aren't true, or don't even make sense.  If claims about life having meaning weren't true, or didn't even make sense, would that result horrify or at least disappoint you?  If so – if life lacking meaning matters to you – does that reaction itself show that life has some kind of meaning after all?  We will pursue these questions through class discussions and readings.
• PHILOSOPHY
  Atheism
  PHI 14S, sec. 2 (HP): CRN 24705 (4 s.h.)
  T/TH, 10:05 a.m.-Noon, Professor Amy Karofsky
  This seminar will explore the atheist's claim that God does not exist.  We will begin by considering the atheist's objections against the most promising proofs for God's existence.  We will then look at some of the atheist's arguments showing that God does not exist.  Finally, we will consider how the atheist might respond to certain questions, including:  Can there be morality if there is no God?  Can life have meaning without God?  How can the universe exist if it wasn't created by God?  Students read and examine the writings of different philosophers, both theists and atheists.  It is an introductory class; no prior knowledge of philosophy is necessary.  The course is open to believers and non-believers alike.
• TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY
  Science for a Sustainable World
  TPP 14S, sec. 1 (NS): CRN 22865 (3 s.h.)
  M/W, 9:05-11:05 a.m., Professor Margaret Hunter   
  Interested in solving environmental problems?  Students use the Hofstra campus and the local community as laboratories in which to engage in projects to reduce negative environmental impacts and enhance sustainability.  We explore several areas of environmental research to improve sustainability of our society, including the impacts of our own choices.  This course is designed for liberal arts majors and does not require a background in engineering.
• TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY
  The Biology and Promise of Stem Cells
  TPP 14S, sec. 2 (NS): CRN 24728 (3 s.h.)
  M/W, 12:50-2:50 p.m., Professor Sina Rabbany
  Stem cells have become front-page news.  Why all the fuss?  We explore the biology of stem cells, their potential uses in medicine, and some of the challenges facing stem cell research, from self-renewal through clinical applications.  We then focus on both adult and embryonic stem cells, including their isolation, growth and potential in regenerative medicine.  The moral, religious and policy concerns surrounding this intensely debated area of science are also covered.  This seminar is designed as a science distribution course for non-science majors.