Read more about popular classes Michigan Alumnus visited for its winter 2010 issue, as part of our Winter 2010 Issue Extras.
A Seminar in Auditorium A
College of Literature, Science at the Arts: Law and Philosophy
When Elizabeth Anderson teaches Law and Philosophy, she poses questions and invites discussion, giving a large lecture the feel of an up-close seminar. In doing so, she brings two disciplines together—examining law analytically, applying philosophy to real-life situations.
Today, the class is considering cases of religious exemption, like Sunday blue laws, which created an economic hardship for those whose Sabbath falls on a Saturday and had to close businesses two days, one for religious and the other for legal reasons. Anderson notes that exemptions can be abused by those without real need. Does it matter if a law creates hardships as long as its intention is not discriminatory? Using examples from assorted laws, abstracting principles and summarizing arguments as they changed thorough history, Anderson keeps students engaged.
Providing hypothetical examples, too, she asks students to participate in an analysis of law and legal institutions from the perspective of moral and political philosophy.
When she started teaching the class as pilot in the early 1990s, it was geared to fewer than the 200 students who now take it each fall. Some topics remain the same—such as equality and discrimination, democracy and voting rights, and the tension between social control and liberty, but some are new. “I recently added a unit on sexual harassment,” says Anderson.
Dixie Harbin, an LSA senior, finds it interesting “to see how early scholars and various institutions developed ideas about the law and how they impact contemporary America.”
Two Classes in One
Ford School of Public Policy: Systematic Thinking: Problems of the Day
“Stay home.”
That’s what biology Professor Janine Maddock tells students, backing this up by promising that lectures will be audiotaped and available as podcasts. She is, it seems, setting public policy at a time when swine flu threatened our nation.
Maddock is the second of two speakers in class today. Professor Paul Courant team teaches with different colleagues for different portions of the semester. As news of banking regulations shares the front page with stories about the flu, Courant talks about why millionaires may feel poor and raises questions about an economic issue that engages students on both sides: Does putting caps on executive salaries limit freedom? Do we want executives taking short-term risks with other people’s money?
Then Maddock begins a discussion about pandemic viruses in a new era of human disease. After tracing the history of disease—before, during and after industrialization—she points out how public policy affects disease. There is talk of reducing trade between certain countries to decrease exposure. Starting school later in a year will postpone the onset of flu for that city. Which policies are good, which not so good? She describes an exercise she usually does with students to illustrate the way disease is transmitted that involves standing close together and passing small objects to one another. She will not do it today: after all, it might illustrate her point too well.
Helping People Move
School of Kinesiology: Motor Behavior and Developmental Disabilities
Dale Ulrich’s kinesiology students develop an understanding of factors that contribute to the motor behavior characteristics of children with developmental disabilities and learn how to develop physical activities that will help them.
Today, he is talking about cerebral palsy, a nonprogressive lesion in the motor cortex that causes movement disorders. Speech impairment can give the impression there are cognitive problems when there aren’t any. He looks at the causes and the ways to diagnose the condition, which is increasing in prevalence. Most important, perhaps, he explores ways students, some of whom will become physical therapists or physicians, can change the prognosis.
Team sports, where the emphasis is on winning, are is less useful than swimming, biking and other individual sports that a person can pursue at her own rate, he notes.
Much of what Ulrich describes is current—new approaches to helping the disabled. He shows videos of devices for body support and training, and discusses their use. Caitlin Koehlinger, a senior in kinesiology, took the class because she heard good things from her peers. “I really enjoy attending lectures because Professor Ulrich tries to relate it to our future professions and shows us examples of real life situations we can use in the future,” she says.
Others who want to work with the disabled say this class is essential.
The Material Is the Message
School of Art & Design: Organizing Visual Space: An Introduction to Oil Painting
Jim Cogswell takes students in his studio beyond their presuppositions about shapes and colors. On one occasion, they make collages, using photos and magazine pictures. “Don’t use anything you wouldn’t want to change,” he advises. “You have to be willing to cut your boyfriend in half to make a decent painting…to turn the horizontal rectangle into a square or a vertical rectangle.”
Cogswell says students, whose paintings hang in Palmer Commons, Pierpont Commons and other campus venues, start out with images that may be meaningless. But as they work with them, they build a relationship to them. “The content doesn’t come from something a priori but with your relationship to the material.”
The professor asks students to work in limited pallets. He shows that they can get color from a pallet of black, white and burnt sienna, that they can create a tableau in white or gray with a specific light source on it. Can they do a still life in reds, lots of reds? “You can communicate something enormous through the reds.”
Bringing the Outside In
College of Engineering: Entrepreneurship
This weekly seminar, which introduces students to visiting entrepreneurs, enrolls more than 300 students each term, and some elect the class more than once. The businesses generally have a technological bent.
Today, Margaret Boryczka, MA’81, co-founder of Apex CoVantage, talks about how she began her value-driven business and the importance of risk diversification—Apex converts data for the legal and publishing industry, does network infrastructure design and develops software products. Boryczka describes the history of her company and its employee-centered culture and offers tips on starting and running a business, among them “strive for excellence” and “let employees grow to their potential.” In the lively Q&A that follows, students want to know: How did you get seed money? Did you expect to start your own business when you were in college?
Ishan Aaron Mukherjee, a first-year engineering student, says he enjoys listening to speakers like Boryczka because of the “very flexible” discussions.
Michigan 4, Rome 2
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts: Sports and Daily Life in Ancient Rome
There’s something for students who spend Saturdays at the stadium and for those interested in military archeology in this popular classic civilization class that attracts more men than women. Students enjoy the energy Professor Arthur Verhoogt brings to his exploration of how the evolution of sports helps us understand broader cultural structures in ancient Rome.
LSA student Christopher Niquette says he enrolled because the subject matter intrigued him. “It’s a different way of looking at the empire. We look at how sports changed and played into how the empire changed.”
