First-Year Student Learning Communities

Choose a learning community topic that interests you

• Community, Justice, and Environment

  How can we make the world a better, safer place? It’s an aspiration that cuts across party lines and community borders. But the ways people answer—and the data they use, or misuse, to shape their answers—are the subject of endless debates, fuel countless click-baiting media frenzies, and lead to enormous sums of money thrown at solutions that might or might not work. This learning community starts by asking: What factors shape (or disrupt) social order, public safety, environmental well-being, and the common good? How do different factors end up shaping different outcomes for different community members? And how can—and how do—organizers and citizens make their communities safer and more just for all?
   

  This learning community will center our learning through three linked courses. Every participant will take an introduction to the factors and systems that shape—and the data that we need to effectively understand—crime and justice in this country. Each participant will also choose from one of two FYSEM courses, examining 1) the intersections between environment, crime, and justice, or 2) the rich complexities of—and the people and organizations actively working to strengthen—our vibrant neighborhood and city.
   

  Across these three courses, we will focus particularly on the “us” in “justice”: How and why do different systems (economic, political, judicial, environmental, cultural) shape different outcomes—good and bad—for different members of the community? How do such systems actually function, and how do different sorts of systems affect one another (e.g. what are the links between streets and public parks, crime, and public health)? How do community members define their own needs and dreams, and what are the ways they can (and do) shape the neighborhood they live in? The learning community is intended to develop methods for critically and practically thinking about justice, analyzing complex data, and learning from community expertise. In and across these three courses, participants will define and test-drive approaches to public research and communicating about the complexities of justice in cities and neighborhoods. Together we'll begin exploring how we, as residents here in the Midway and Saint Paul, can help understand and contribute to the public good around Hamline University and beyond.

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• Evidence and Delusions

  Did you ever wonder, "How do we know what we know?" Or, "How do we distinguish between truth and delusion?" Join this learning community to consider such questions as “What makes us have ‘strange’ beliefs?”, “How do we know if one thing causes another?”, “What is ‘good evidence’ and who decides?”, “How does believing differ from knowing?” Together, we will explore how we “know what we know” and how different fields of study approach knowledge, evidence, and data. This learning community will capture students interested in studying a variety of topics, as everyone will benefit from understanding the data that drives our lives. No knowledge of statistics or data science is expected to join this learning community, just curiosity and a desire to learn.

• From Then to Now

  This learning community will explore the connection between ancient and modern — how ideas and culture developed in a particular place and time, and how they have evolved over the last 2,500 years, transplanted in many parts of the world. How we today use this rich cultural heritage, invented and reinvented over the centuries, to express private feelings as well as register our reaction to political and social happenings.

• Human Worlds

  Humans are world-makers. Through the things we build, the ideas we imagine, and the stories and performances we share with one another, humans make shared understandings about our planet and the lives we have with other beings. The variety of human differences, and our shared solutions to living—our cultures—make studying humans deeply fascinating. How do humans build and unbuild our socio-cultural worlds? Living in a contemporary world powered by fossil energy that is changing our planet’s atmosphere and climate, how do we address change?
   

  Choose from one of two FYSEMs dealing with human behaviors and climates in making our world. One is sociocultural and performative, examining the spectacular histories and legacies of drag culture and performance; of identities and meanings; of solidarity and underground counterculture. The other looks at the underground more literally: as a material examination of the foundations of our society and technologies of carbon and climate change, asking how we can address our warming planet and the undoing of our biosphere. The students of the two FYSEMs come together in Introduction to Anthropology—a foundational class that introduces the holistic study of human beings and their behaviors cross-culturally across the planet. Covering topics from language, digital culture, and globalization; to race, gender, rituals, and meaning—the class is rooted in the introduction and practical application of a variety of methods to investigate our human world toward the goal of greater understanding.

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• IMPACT Scholars

  Identity, Multiple Perspectives & ACTions (IMPACT) Scholars!
  
  We will look at identity as it might be defined biologically, culturally, or through the lens of how educational roles are depicted in movies. We will also consider how power is deeply connected to identity. As part of this multi-course journey, you will reflect on the various aspects of your identity as you share these experiences with a group of peers. You will also have the opportunity in your learning community classes to consider how you can act to overcome any barriers society might place on people from particular identities (the ACTion part of impact scholars). Each course in the learning community will not only explore identity, but also your own personal power and ways to more effectively use it to effect change in the world.

• Politics of Passion

  This learning community will explore and articulate the political landscape we find ourselves in today through the lenses of political science, religious studies, and anthropology. We will consider the following kinds of questions: How did we get to this point of such stark political division in our country? How do people’s religious ideologies and readings of scripture shape current public policies? How is music political, and how can music help us consider new political possibilities? How can passion be political? More broadly, we are interested in inviting students to analyze how passion, deep values, and beliefs interact in the political sphere, while also discussing how our own passions compel us to engage in politics … or not. This learning community would be well suited to students interested in political science, religious studies, and anthropology, among other related majors.