"Enduring Questions" Courses

These courses address fundamental questions or controversies from different disciplinary perspectives, and focus on exploring how a liberal arts education furthers understanding of complex issues. Courses may be counted toward particular majors and minors at the discretion of departments or programs.

“Enduring Questions” courses prepare students:

• to interpret complex problems or controversies from different points of view;
• to construct effective written arguments that take into account the complexity of a given question and the position of the intended audience;
• to use the perspectives and skills involved in liberal inquiry to analyze and address particular questions or problems; and
• to engage in intellectual inquiry with excitement and a strong sense of relevance.

Recent course offerings:

• Education in a Democratic Society
• Sex and Power
• Steampunk: Remaking History in Postmodern Culture, Literature, and Craft
• Nutrition to Nuclear Power: How is Energy Produced, Distributed, and Used?
• Comparative Electoral Systems
• Biographies of the Buddha (and His Substitute Bodies)
• What is College For? An Interdisciplinary Examination of LIberal Education
• Introduction to Political Thinking
• What is Consciousness?
• The Hedgehog and the Fox:  Dostoevsky and Tolstoy