First Year Experience Fall Course Descriptions

mortality, intimacy, and sitting with what's hard 

This theme doesn't look away. Love and death are the two great universals — every culture wrestles with them, every person eventually confronts them — and yet we spend most of our lives avoiding both. These courses take them head on: the cross-cultural history of romantic love, the rituals humans build around dying, and the craft of writing fiction that unsettles rather than reassures. Expect to be challenged, moved, and maybe a little haunted. 

Kill Your Darlings: Crafting Unsettling Narratives (R. Jewell) 

Explore why dark stories captivate us—and learn to craft unsettling fiction inspired by Poe, King, and Dexter. This course approaches unsettling narratives not as spectacles of violence, but as carefully constructed literary experiences shaped by voice, structure, and ethical choice. Drawing from gothic fiction, psychological horror, and true crime, students examine how writers create tension, empathy, and moral complexity without relying on shock alone.  

Emphasizing creative writing, the course combines peer workshops and guided discussions to explore techniques such as unreliable narration, pacing, and point of view. Students develop and revise their own dark fiction, give and receive constructive feedback, and build a supportive creative community grounded in shared inquiry. The semester culminates in a polished creative project and extemporaneous presentation, with a reflection on craft, ethics, and audience impact, helping students develop confidence as both writers and public communicators.  

Global History of Love (M. Carpenter) 

Romantic love is an intense human experience. But is it a universal one? Do all humans strive to attain and maintain romantic love in their relationships? Or are there cultures in which different kinds of love are more valued, such as love of ones family and friends? Beliefs about the purpose and value of love have varied greatly over time and across cultures. This interdisciplinary course borrows from psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, economics, and gender and feminist studies to examine who, how, and why we love.  

Positively Morbid (E. Kissam) 

“Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.” – Sir William Gladstone. 

Welcome future corpses! Did you know that NY recently legalized human composting? Have you heard that the living and the dead compete for space, especially in places like Taipei? Death is a part of everyone's life. Dealing with death and dying affects us emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, culturally, financially, environmentally…you get the idea. While preparing you for future academic challenges we will investigate and discuss varied aspects of death and dying. 

geopolitics, conflict, and global systems 

Why do nations go to war? Who wins, who loses, and who decides? This theme drops you into the messy, high-stakes world of global politics — from the propaganda reels of the Cold War to the economic rivalries reshaping the world today. You'll examine how conflict shapes human minds, markets, and history, and start asking harder questions about power, fear, and what it costs to compete on a world stage. 

Coldest Cold War Flicks (J. Jockel & J. Sieja) 

This course will examine the earliest and coldest days of the Cold War, a period extending from the end of World War II in 1945 to the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963, through a sampling of historical texts and American movies made during that time. Movies are often more than just mindless escapism: the stories and texts continually recast by our culture not only entertain but also can provide a window into who we are, and were. We will look at how the motion pictures of the day reflected the major preoccupations of the early Cold War era, chief among them dealing with nuclear weapons, responding to the Soviet communist threat and undertaking America’s new responsibilities abroad, as well as enjoying prosperity and mobility at home in the new suburbs while spawning a generation that eventually would be called the “boomers.” Over the course of the semester, you will watch one film every weekend and write a short paper about a theme related to it. Films range from midcentury noir and family melodramas to science fiction and Oscar winners. The class is almost entirely discussion-based, so come ready to contribute!  

Global Economic Development: Rival States & Rival Firms in the International System (J. Jayman) 

In the complex 21st century international system the drive for economic development has implications for war and peace. Today, there is intense competition between nations of all sorts, whether powerful or weak, all with complex domestic constituencies and a myriad of foreign connections. Given the complicity of goods and services of the world, supply chains and resource dependencies connect friendly and antagonistic nations alike. People from many backgrounds travel and even migrate to work overseas at times welcomed and at other times treated poorly. In this seemingly confusing world of conflict and cooperation at multiple levels, this course offers students the opportunity to conduct research in an area of interest to know beyond what is publicly presented. Students are expected to focus on a key area of interest within economic development and international politics to understand the role of government, firms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements, and other actors to know more clearly the sources of problems and possibilities for solutions. Topics can vary from research on firms in a particular industry to improving the living standards of poor people to knowing climate change implications, and so on. Students are encouraged to think about their role as citizens, not only of their own countries, but also of the world as St. Lawrence encourages commitment and courage to be engaged. 

music, gaming, and who you are online 

Who are you when no one's watching — and who are you when everyone is? This theme dives into the digital spaces where identity gets constructed, performed, and contested. From the virtual worlds of MMORPGs to the tribal loyalties of music fandom, these courses examine how we use culture and technology to figure out who we are, who we want to be, and who we're trying to signal to everyone else.  

Communication & Identity in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) (S. Vue & B. Yang) 

Step into a world, where communication isn’t just talk, but about survival, strategy, identity, and shaping your experience in this interactive and diverse environment. Throughout this journey students will dive into the virtual World of Warcraft, a massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG), to explore a complex cultural and communication system and learn about role-play, digital identity development, and digital social communities.  They will focus on how social norms, roles, and expectations are formed and maintained, as well how conflict is managed within this digital space. Additionally, students will focus on several FYP/FYS foundational skills throughout the semester.  These skills will include critical capacities, oral and written communication, community and belonging, and sense of purpose.  Lastly, students will learn about and practice time management, responsibility, accountability, ethics, problem-solving skills, information literacy, and authenticity, which are all essential skills to have in this increasingly diverse and complex world.  

Your Favorite Band (F. Schenker) 

Have you ever worn a t-shirt of your favorite musician? Have you argued with someone about whether a new song is terrible? Have you met a Swifty, a member of the Beyhive, or someone in the BTS Army? This class explores the ways we use music to distinguish ourselves. Why do we often focus on what we consume – or listen to – to define ourselves? We will also explore the ways we communicate our passion for music. How do we talk about the music we love? We will employ a wide range of sources – from a book trying to understand Celine Dione’s popularity to YouTube videos of people criticizing music they hate – to think about how music can contribute to the way we imagine ourselves. 

fast fashion, slow making, and the politics of stuff 

In a world of hauls, micro-trends, and overnight delivery, what does it mean to make something by hand? This theme takes a critical look at consumer culture — who makes things, who buys them, and what gets thrown away — and then turns toward making as a form of resistance. These courses will have you sewing, upcycling, rethinking your relationship to objects, and asking whether slowing down might be the most radical thing you can do.  

From Hauls to Hand-Made: Clothing & Consumerism (T. Cooper & A. Rife) 

In this class, you will learn foundational skills for college life through the topic of clothing and consumerism. In an era of fast fashion, clothing hauls, and micro-trends, continuous consumption has become the norm. Can sewing change that? We will explore the role of consumer culture in clothing production. But, more importantly, we will explore ways we can contribute to a more sustainable approach to clothing consumption at individual and global levels. You will learn skills in hand and machine sewing to begin exploring up-cycling and re-purposing existing clothing. Together, we will take a practice-based approach to making a difference.  

Waste Not Want Not (S. Lee) 

Surrealists sampled one another’s poems to create their own. Avant-gardes like Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven rummaged through garbage at the tobacco factory where she worked for collage material. Frustrated by the stodgy gatekeeping of the academy, women writers like Virgina Woolf self-published “little magazines” in her own home. Fueled by the feminist fight to elevate domestic labor, the artist Miriam Shapiro turned the stuff of everyday life into "femmage" pieces. Modern artists and writers were hoarders, waste-pickers, and recyclers, turning doodles into covers and ads into collage.

Against the world of overwhelming mass production and virtual reality, let us channel some of this scrappy energy and a respect for handicraft, undertaking literary artistic production of the most analog proportions. We’ll study a smattering of experimental productions, from an underground zine in 1930s South Africa to early stop-go-animation in Soviet Czech Republic. How does remaking become a political act? Alongside, we’ll try our hand at producing some of these waste-art: “exquisite corpse” poetry, “readymade” assemblage, kitchen-sink art, found poetry, zines of all sizes, collaborative collage, and the “Cornell Box.” Bring your ideas, experiences, hopes, needs, skills you have and the skills you plan to learn.  

movement, resilience, and what the body knows 

What can running teach you about resilience? What does sport reveal about race, gender, and national identity? This theme takes physical experience seriously as a site of learning. Whether you're analyzing the cultural weight of athletic imagery or exploring how the act of running shapes character, these courses ask what happens when we get out of our heads and into our bodies — and what we find when we get there.  

Born to Run: Running, Resilience, and Growth on the Trail and Off (H. Eissenstat) 

How can the experience of running help us to be more successful?   

We are, literally, born to run; it is one of the things that makes us human. Anthropologists tell us that the capacity for long-distance running was part of what made early humans effective hunters. Toddlers delight in running almost as soon as they first start walking. Yet while the capacity to run may be woven into our nature, becoming a dedicated, purposeful runner requires discipline, resilience, and character — the same qualities that drive our growth in college and in life.  

This course explores this relationship, examining how running can inform our development on the trail and off. This is not a course about becoming a faster or better runner. Drawing on academic research, works of literature, and film, students will explore running across different historical and cultural contexts and consider what the runner's experience reveals about perseverance, identity, and self-knowledge. Along the way, students will sharpen their skills as critical readers and effective writers and public speakers through close engagement with challenging texts and structured discussion.  

You don't need to be a runner to take this class — or have any desire to become one. Only a willingness to reflect, engage, and go the distance.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Sport and its Imagery (M. Denaci & G. Repicky) 

Sports and sports imagery are central to American culture. But have you ever considered the impact of sport beyond the playing field? This course expands on sport beyond the Xs and Os of the game, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the complexities of sport and its many forms of visual representation. Students will examine the social and cultural impact of sport and its imagery through lenses including those of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and nationalism. This course will also explore the business of the sport industry and the challenging issues current sports governing bodies must navigate to continue their operations. 

nature, slowness, and reclaiming your attention 

In an age of constant distraction, paying attention is a radical act. This theme is about what happens when you step away from the screen — into the woods, onto the page, into a difficult conversation — and practice being genuinely present. These courses explore the outdoors as a classroom, creativity as a daily ritual, and dialogue as a skill that has to be built. You'll come away with practices for attention, expression, and connection that will serve you long after the semester ends.  

An Outdoor State of Mind + required Pre-Trip (A. Carpenter) 

Why do many of us seek out the natural world as a place to play, experience adventure, relieve stress, and rest our minds?  What is it about spending time and engaging in physical activity in the outdoors that seems to attract and heal many of us? In this FYE, we will explore different narratives of the outdoor experience and different ways to engage with nature. We will think about these topics from an individual, community, and global scale and will do this through hands-on experience, reading, writing, and reflection. As part of our inquiry, we will critically examine our own experiences in nature, and practice basic skills needed to safely and responsibly recreate in nature.  Prior experience with outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and paddling are not required; anyone with an interest in the outdoors, and a willingness to safely step outside their comfort zone, will do well. Students will spend time doing outdoor activities on a regular basis. 

The Adirondack Adventure Pre-Orientation Trip is a requirement for this class and requires an early arrival to campus on August 18th. Note that practices and games for fall sports and International Student Orientation will conflict with the pre-orientation trips. Otherwise, any incoming student, of any skill level, is eligible to participate. 

Learn more about the North Country pre-orientation trips. 

Questions? Contact the Outdoor Program at 315-229-5015 or outdoorprogram@stlawu.edu.

Say What? Let's Talk: Listening & Speaking Across Difference (E. Oey) 

Have you ever wondered, “Did that person just say that?”? Have you ever been caught off-guard by a comment and didn’t know how to respond? Have you ever felt that someone just didn’t understand where you were coming from? In this course, we’ll explore our personal and social identities and examine how these identities shape our perspectives and life experiences. Through class exercises and practices drawn from Restorative Justice (RJ), mediation, and Intergroup Dialogue (IGD), we will deepen our skills to listen actively, see issues from multiple perspectives, hold judgement “softly” and build bridges of understanding across differences.  By using deliberative dialogue to critically reflect on diversity and learned biases, we’ll broaden our abilities to meaningfully engage in difficult conversations with family, friends, and the wider community. 

Sky Before Screen: Analog Rituals for Creativity (S. Barber & M. Schulenberg) 

In an increasingly distracting and online world, how do we build our capacities for attention and creativity? In this course we will consider emerging research on how nature and art-making may help us combat things like smartphone addiction, explore a variety of rituals designed to promote creativity, study the ways some contemporary artists and writers engage with the natural world in their work, and make some original art—both literary and visual—of our own. Our art-making practice will include projects like making and keeping sketchbooks and journals, making paper, carving and printing lino-cuts, and writing and workshopping poetry and micro-essays. Rituals for creativity that you can expect to explore include some things you might expect—observation notebooks, close reading and listening, and doodling—and some you might not have thought about yet, like walking meditation, list-keeping, crafts, and puzzling. Together we’ll work to get our thoughts and habits unstuck from the daily grind by putting skies (and animals! and plants!) before screens and centering our creative focus in nature and our material world.  

urban space, landscape, and how place shapes life 

Every space you inhabit was designed by someone, for someone — and that design shapes how you feel, move, and belong. This theme explores the built and grown environments that frame our lives, from the adaptive reuse of industrial waterfronts to the tangled histories hidden in a backyard garden. These courses ask who gets to shape shared space, what we choose to cultivate and what we let go wild, and what landscape reveals about memory, power, and identity.  

Trespassing Through Gardens (R. Bara) 

Trespassing through the side lots and backyards of childhood, we may have encountered gardens—well-tended rows of vegetables, or long-abandoned flowers that still might bloom among the weeds, or a seemingly wild landscape that nevertheless hinted at some effort of arrangement. In this course, we’ll explore themes of environmental aesthetics, conservation, and the management of nature. We’ll read Michael Pollan’s "Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education" and a selection of essays, stories, and poems. And, as we tour an extension farm, agricultural lands reclaimed as meadow and woodland, and the wildflower-filled no-mow zones around the Johnson Hall of Science, we will examine how choices made about the landscape in the past shape what we see today. We will strive to build a community of peers who share similar interests in environmental justice and the natural world. 

Urban Design for Culture and Nature (S. Ashpole & A. Giardino) 

Urban Design in Nature and Culture examines urban nature, cultural imagery, and design in global cities. Students investigate how industrial sites, historic buildings, parks, and waterfronts are transformed into vibrant cultural hubs and how these spaces are mobilized in shaping the artistic and symbolic imagery of cities by writers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Drawing on films, novels, visual analysis, urban planning, and critical theory, the course explores questions of well-being and contemporary urban life alongside memory, identity, and the pursuit of a meaningful life. Case studies—including London, Barcelona, Marseille, Naples, Nice, Vancouver, Boston, Singapore —illustrate adaptive reuse, public space design, and the symbolic power of urban form in shaping modern city narratives. The course fosters study abroad preparedness, interdisciplinary engagement, career development, and intellectual purpose. It fulfills the Humanities (HU). 

leadership, collaboration, and showing up for others 

Every leader has to learn when to speak and when to listen. Every team has a dynamic that either lifts people up or holds them back. This theme is about the deeply human work of showing up well — in a group, under pressure, and in the moments that ask something hard of you. Whether you're studying leadership theory or working through real problems with real teammates, you'll leave with a sharper sense of how to act with purpose and bring others along with you. 

Teamwork, Leadership, Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking (M. Whalen) 

Through lectures, readings, videos/documentaries, class discussions and activities, students will explore theories of management and leadership in relation to problem-solving and critical thinking when part of teams. By the end of this course, students will be able to: 

• Identify and assign team roles to facilitate effective meetings. 
• Examine and assess team performance. 
• Select strategies to enhance/improve team performance by influencing group dynamics. 
• Apply appropriate management and leadership styles to guide teams in problem-solving. 
• Facilitate critical thinking and avoid conditions for groupthink to move teams toward successful outcomes.  

What Makes a Leader? The Creative Experience of Leadership w/CBL (P. Doty & A. Warren) 

The skills of leadership are human ingenuity and intuition and the rendering of good leadership is a testament to human creativity. We will be looking at a number of theories of leadership and management, like servant leadership, drawing upon historical versions of leadership and political power as well as contemporary theory, and these readings will hopefully constitute a contemplation of leadership that facilitates your appreciation for what it takes to lead. The ideas you encounter in this FYP will challenge you to form a perspective on what constitutes effective leadership, what constitutes ethical leadership, what constitutes leadership worth study. This course includes an experiential learning component known as Community-Based Learning (CBL). The CBL component expands the walls of the classroom to include the community beyond SLU. Students in CBL courses actively engage in their learning by spending two hours a week outside of class time in a placement with one of our community partners. Students then bring the world outside back into the classroom to connect their placement experiences with course content. (Travel time to and from the site is not included and is moderate for placements beyond the Canton community. Students do not need a vehicle to participate in CBL classes.) 

As a Community-Based Learning (CBL) course, this class extends beyond the campus. Each week, you'll spend approximately two hours outside of class time embedded with an organization around St. Lawrence University. You might work alongside an off-the-grid farmer, mentor middle-schoolers, or help care for cats at a shelter. These hands-on experiences will allow you to hone skills of anthropological observation and reflection while forging connections with the people around you. If this sounds like your kind of challenge, join us to discover more of your purpose and your place in the grand human story–and start writing its next chapter.

What is CBL?

This course includes an experiential learning component known as Community-Based Learning (CBL). The community-based experience is a required, weekly component for all students in the course, and serves to expand the walls of the classroom to include the community beyond SLU. Students in CBL courses actively engage in their learning by spending two hours a week outside of class time in a placement with one of our community partners. Students then bring their experiences back into the classroom to connect with course content. The CBL office facilitates and manages the entire placement process for students. Please note: Unless specified, travel time to and from the site is not included and is moderate for placements beyond the Canton community. Students do not need a vehicle to participate in CBL classes.

disease, trauma, and the resilience hidden inside crisis 

What does crisis do to the human mind? This theme examines two of history's most extreme stress tests — world war and disease — through the lens of psychology, neuroscience, and social inequality. From the trauma of the trenches to the unequal distribution of life-saving medicine today, these courses ask how humans break down, adapt, and sometimes find unexpected reserves of resilience when everything is on the line.  

Drugs, Disease, and Disparities (A. Gillis & S. Tartakoff) 

The creation of life-saving medicines is an incredible scientific feat. From discovery, testing, approval, production, and distribution, medications that successfully make it through this rigorous process have the ability to transform society. Conditions that used to result in mass disability and death can now be cured. So why do millions of people still suffer from conditions that are treatable with modern medicines? Access to life-saving medicines is a product of interconnected systems that are deeply unequal: global health structures, government policies, and pharmaceutical business models. In this course, co-taught by faculty in Chemistry and Sociology, students will explore the science that creates medicine (ancient, modern, and near future) as well as the sociology that explains why this produces inequality. This course will use writing assignments, group discussions, and oral presentations to help students develop more effective communication skills, whether you are most interested in health, science, inequality, or the power of real-world story-telling.  

The Psychology of War: Inside the Human Mind During WWII (A. Fox) 

What drives ordinary people to extraordinary acts of courage — or cruelty? In this course, you'll use cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to understand one of history's most intense human experiences. Why did so many people follow orders they knew were wrong? How does the brain process fear, trauma, and stress — and what makes some people resilient when others break down? How do we treat trauma and clinical symptoms that stem from such experiences? Using real WWII case studies, you'll explore how war hijacks the mind and behavior — and what that reveals about human nature.