First-Year Preceptorial introduces students to liberal learning by teaching them the skills of intellectual synthesis, academic honesty, and resourcefulness—skills necessary for creative thinking, responsible choice, and problem-solving.
Each year, entering students can choose from a selection of ever-evolving topics. Students examine issues through reading, writing, critical analysis, and—most importantly—class discussion. Preceptorial teaches students how to analyze objectively and discuss competing explanations and contradictory beliefs, how to question or affirm a viewpoint, when to be persuaded by a new idea, and how to interact in good faith with those whose opinions differ from their own.
The course generally meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in individual sections for discussion: Tuesday afternoons are generally set aside for class projects, films, one-on-one writing conferences, and writing workshops.
(Only one section of each course topic is offered unless noted otherwise below.)
Performance in Art & Society
In this cluster you’ll be introduced to Performance Studies, a field that holds that all human behavior can be viewed as a performance, from brushing your teeth to flirting to performing a violin solo. We will analyze artistic, social, religious, entertainment, perhaps even scientific performances. Doing so helps answer such questions as: What does it mean to “perform” oneself? How do we shape others’ visions of us through our social media activities? What do we mean when we say that someone is a “performative” activist? What is the relationship between performance and reality? All this combines to ask how we perform ourselves, on a daily basis and on special occasions, and what purpose that performance serves.
Do humans differ in a fundamental way from thinking machines? What is the relationship of the body to our conception of the human, and how might it change with the advent of genetic or cybernetic augmentation? What is the likely endpoint or destiny of humankind? Science fiction stories can be read as thought experiments designed to explore deep questions about what it means to be human. Drawing on a variety of readings and films, our goal in this cluster will be to explore the issue of human identity as seen through the lens of science fiction.
Jaime Spacco PREC 115-1: Science Fiction and Human Identity MWF 6
Hilary LehmannPREC 115-2: Science Fiction and Human IdentityMWF 5
Welcome, brave adventurer, to college! It is hard to imagine a human now or in the past who did not, at some point, play a game. As a species we have gamed with everything from sticks and rocks or decks of cards to custom-built computers. We game to relieve stress, to bond with friends and family, to pass the time and, sometimes, to win. In this cluster, we will use games as a way to explore the human condition. What does playing have to do with learning? What does learning have to do with how we understand the world? What does our understanding of the world have to do with who you want to be in it?
Mark Slabodnick PREC 167-1: Playing with Biology MWF 4
Jessa DahlPREC 167-2: Playing with HistoryMWF 4
Scott HarrisPREC 167-3: Playing with ReligionMWF 4
Alyssa MathiasPREC 167-4: Playing with SoundMWF 4
Creating Monsters
Humans are sometimes labeled monsters either for committing some “monstrous” act or for possessing qualities that designate them as essentially “other.” Drawing on literary theory, psychology, philosophy, and biology, this course examines and evaluates the psychological, sociopolitical, and ethical processes through which this occurs in an attempt to answer the question: What does the status of the monsters we create tell us about what it is to be human?
Katie StewartPREC 107-1: Creating MonstersMWF 5
Barbara Tannert SmithPREC 107-2: Creating MonstersMWF 2
Chad SimpsonPREC 107-3: Creating MonstersMWF 6
Donny NiePREC 107-4: Creating MonstersMWF 2
Fernando GomezPREC 107-5: Creating MonstersMWF 3
Cinematic Visions
We will use films to explore a variety of questions: What does it mean to be human? Who are we, and how do we know? What do we want out of life, and how should we go about getting it? What are our responsibilities to others? What does it mean to live "the good life?" We consider the ways in which film addresses these questions. Does film reflect the answers, or does it create them?
Kelly Shaw PREC 106-1: Cinematic Visions MWF 3
Kelly ShawPREC 106-2: Cinematic VisionsMWF 4
Paul MarasaPREC 160-1: The Gothic Impulse in FilmMWF 1
