As the end of fall semester quickly approaches, there is no better time to begin thinking of courses for your schedule next semester.
Registration starts for seniors with 88 or more credits on Monday, Nov. 15, followed by juniors with between 58 and 88 credits on Tuesday, Nov. 16, sophomores with between 27 and 88 credits on Wednesday, Nov. 17, and first-year students with less than 27 credits on Thursday, Nov. 18. Registration opens at 7 a.m. each day.
The course offering was emailed to students on Oct. 28, including all of the instructions needed for students to complete registration on their respective dates. Students should also be meeting with their academic advisors to ensure they are taking their required courses.
Reading through the course offerings, students may have noticed two courses in particular that stand out.
Associate Professor of Communication Zachary Walton. Wit file photo by Nathan Heinze.
One of the communication courses offered is COM222, Topics in Communication: Sex, Love, and Communication. This course will be taught by Dr. Zachary Walton, associate professor of communication and chair of the Art, Communication and Religion Department.
The course has been in development since last spring, Walton said, but he has been thinking about it since 2014 after beginning to teach COM 195 Interpersonal Communication. Walton also picked this topic for the course after many faculty and staff meetings about the course offerings.
“I joke that people say, ‘Well we need sexier courses or sexier title courses,” Walton said. “I said we would just put sex as the first word and see what happens.”
The course will cover a number of topics directly tied to dating as a whole. Some of the topics include conflict resolution, negotiation between partners and communication between partners.
“The purpose of this class is to help you understand and improve your romantic relationship,” Walton said. “I want students to be better at dating. I want them to be better at negotiating things between partners and figuring out the most practical things.”
The course will be from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
University President Jane Wood, after speaking on her plans to teach a course this Spring. Photo taken by Elizabeth Rockwell.
Another course being offered next semester is HON 210. This course is titled “Honors Seminar in the Humanities” with the topic being called “WWOD—What Would Odysseus Do (If He Were Alive Today?)” This course will be taught by President Jane Wood from 8 to 9:15 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
President Wood has a background in the classroom and is excited to be able to come back to teach a new course.
“For me literature has always been about having dear friends close by,” Wood said. “Even when I was an administrator, I always taught one class a year. What happens for me is I really miss being in contact with literature and having it sort of come alive in a setting where students are talking about it and thinking through it. I miss my friends. I’m really excited to be able to read literature and share it again.”
The class will explore many topics in relation to art, music, history and architecture from the ancient Greeks in relation to how they impact the modern world today.
“We will consider the question of the impact of the classics in the world today,” Wood said. “I would hope it is a discussion-based course. That would always be the goal. There might occasionally be something where there’s a new concept that I would want to give a small lecture and/or again, if history is really important, I would like to have guest lecturers come in.”
