Casco Bay Region Thematic Cluster
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Spring 2013 Schedule
Summer 2013: SWO 383 - Social Work with Immigrants [prereq-Junior standing] |
“Casco Bay Region: Where We Live”
A Thematic Cluster in the USM Core (choose honors and/or non-honors courses)
Cluster Description: Explore your surroundings. Understand your community. In this cluster, you’ll examine our region’s culture, transitions, diversity, and natural environment. You’ll reflect on our local identity and experience: Who are we? Why are we the way we are? How does Portland, Maine, or New England fit within the world? How do we relate to the ecosystem that supports us? The cluster fosters a sense of place and connects you to the community. It motivates community stewardship, including a commitment to protect what you love about Maine.
The Casco Bay Region cluster is organized by the Honors Program, and all students are encouraged to sample honors (HON) courses. Non-honors courses are also available. HON courses are seminars that emphasize discussion, reflection, close reading of challenging texts, writing, research, and civic engagement. Non-honors courses tend to be slightly larger and less likely to use a seminar format. All 300-level HON courses in the cluster are open to any USM student willing to engage with the course material; however, if a student’s grade in an HON course is lower than B-, that student is expected to finish the cluster with non-honors courses.
Non-honors Cluster Courses:
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Prerequisites* |
Schedule |
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HTY 360 - History of Maine |
none |
every year |
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SWO 383 - Social Work with Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers |
none (permission for cluster students) |
every year |
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ESP 200 - Environmental Planning |
ESP101/2 or permission for cluster students |
every other fall |
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ART 399 - Shaping the Terrain |
permission |
occasionally |
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ANT 360 - Public Archaeology (6 cr.) |
ANT 103 or permission for cluster students |
every year or two |
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CHY 231/2 - Analytical Chemistry |
CHY 115 with minimum grade of C- |
every fall |
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BIO 231 -Botony |
BIO 107 with minimum grade of C- |
every other fall |
Honors Cluster Courses** (starting spring 2013):
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Prerequisites* |
Sche |
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HON 351 - Virtual Sunset vs. Real Sunset:Reading/Writing Maine Environments In this interdisciplinary course, students juxtapose and compare “real” and “virtual” experiences,drawing from the local environment; determine their position in the scholarly debate about “cyber-utopianism”; learn how to do what’s called “rephotography” or “ghost photography”; and analyze French sociologist, philosopher, and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard’s America in order to imitate its style and method for a final regional studies project. |
39 credits |
every year |
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HON 355 - Casco Bay Area Topics Course topics – which vary by instructor – address the culture, history, or natural environment of the Casco Bay area, Maine, or New England. Course may be repeated for credit when topics differ:
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39 credits |
every year |
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HON 356 - Topics in Casco Bay Area Diversity Course topics – which vary by instructor – examine human diversity in the Casco Bay area, Maine, or New England. Course may be repeated for credit when topics differ. |
39 credits |
every year |
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HON 359 - Honors Internship/Community Service Honors Program internship or community service project. Students, working individually or in a group, receive permission from the honors director; recruit a faculty sponsor; locate a placement; and write a learning contract that outlines reading and writing assignments. |
Honors Director permission 39 credits |
every semester |
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HON 455 - Topics in New England Studies Undergraduate seniors seek permission to sit in graduate courses offered by the American and New England Studies program. Courses appropriate for the cluster examine New England’s identity and experience in the context of the broader American experience. Courses combine various disciplinary approaches, but all draw on contemporary scholarship and stress the historicity of the region’s culture and society.
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Instructor permission (normally requires 3.5+ GPA and senior standing of 84+ credits). |
every semester |
* All Thematic Cluster courses at USM are to be taken after (or current with) any course that fulfills the Core’s “Ethical Inquiry, Social Responsibility, and Citizenship” requirement.
** Normally, students are required to select cluster courses with at least two different prefixes. Students can complete the cluster entirely with HON courses, as long as those courses represent different disciplines (e.g., not all history courses or not all literature courses). Contact the Honors offce for requirement certification.
For more information or to enroll in your first honors course, contact an Honors Program advisor at honors@usm.maine.edu or the 207-780-4330.
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