First Year Seminars

All new students at Franklin with the exception of Study Abroad students and transfer students with 30 or more credits will enroll in a First Year Seminar in their first semester. First Year Seminars are three-credit courses that can also satisfy other core and Major requirements as indicated in the descriptions.

First Year Seminars are taught by full-time faculty members who become the academic advisors for the students in the seminar. The students in each Seminar are also assisted by an academic mentor (an upper-division student chosen for his or her expertise in the subject matter) who participates in the class and helps new students understand the opportunities and expectations of academic life at Franklin.

First Year Seminar Topics

BUS 199 Business Ethics: Scandals in the Business Environment
Professor Shanahan

Since the 1980s numerous financial, accounting, and behavioral scandals around the world have challenged the view that businesses can be relied upon to conduct their affairs in an ethical manner, consistent with the political, social, and behavioral requirements of a democratic society. This course explores numerous specific corporate incidents, including Enron, Parmalat, World Com, Computer Associates, Adelphia Communications, and the various Japanese scandals, as a means to identify what should be the expected requirements for a business to operate in a fair and transparent manner in order to meet the obligations that are consistent with established social order and ethical norms. The goal of this course is to help students understand the role that businesses are expected to play within the larger society in which they operate.

COM 199 Global Social Movements and the Media
Professor Vogelaar

This course explores global social movements (including for example the human rights environmental, and anti-globalization movements) from a media perspective. In the course, we will define and explore what constitutes a global social movement, identify the major movements that characterize our era, explore their unique barriers and complications, and examine the ways in which media representation and technologies profoundly influence the success and failure of these increasingly significant social forces. Like all First Year Seminars, this course will also introduce students to some of the fundamental skills necessary for succeeding in college.

ECN 199 The Economics of Slavery, Serfdom, and Servitude
Professor Khan

Over two millennia, a broad cross-section of civilizations have depended on institutions such as slavery, serfdom, servitude, as well as wages to supply their labor needs. Economists ask how differences in these labor institutions affect the productivity and efficiency of the wider economy. Has the labor contract evolved in a way that maximizes net output or have other social, religious, and political considerations been paramount? This seminar aims to introduce and familiarize students with a host of relevant micro-economic concepts such as comparative advantage, transaction costs, productivity, efficiency, and arbitrage. Course readings will consist of interdisciplinary writing by historians, geographers, an-thropologists, and economists. Like all First Year Seminars, this course will also introduce students to some of the fundamental skills necessary for succeeding in college.

ENV 199 Global Food Issues
Professor Long

This course offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the environmental, economic, and political relationship between producers and consumers in the global food network. The seminar begins with an examination of the driving forces of food commodity consumption and food meaning. We then continue by exploring the historical and cultural roots of the current agricultural system, investigating the entrenched agro-economic links between industrialized countries and the developing world. The remainder of the seminar addresses ecological sustainability, cultural issues, and food supply as they relate to this global relationship. The last three weeks address the future of food issues worldwide, exploring possible solutions and alternatives.

FRE 199 Gallicsisms: Myths and Realities
Professor Saveau

"L'Exception française" has come to symbolize France and its image of being a "spoil sport" among nations. In fact, the French reputation as a country of troublemakers has given rise to numerous clichés. Following Roland Barthes' definition "Clichés are the result of the spontaneous" these clichés need to be counter-balanced with an understanding of contemporary French realities. Students in this class will examine the myths and realities of Gallicisms (French customs, ways of thought, attitude towards oneself and the other) as seen from an outsider's perspective in domains as diverse as politics, history, language, sports, cinema, music, gas-tronomy, fashion and domestic life. This class will introduce some of the underlying factors that have enabled and perpetuated these myths. Taught in English.

HIS 199 A Brief History of Travel For Leisure
Professor Pyka

Being on the road is one of mankind?s oldest activities. However, travel for leisure (even with the purpose of self-education) is a rather recent phenomenon, that occurred as a more organized phenomenon only in the Early Modern period with the growing interest of Northern Europeans in Italy as a place of beauty and learning since the Renaissance. For several centuries, the sons of the wealthy were sent south on the ?Grand Tour? to experience the beauties of Switzerland and the rich historical and cultural heritage of Italy and the Mediterranean. With the growing middle classes adopting certain aspects of Aristocratic life styles and cultivating the ideal of self-perfection by education, travelling became in the 19th century more and more a mass phenomenon that eventually turned into modern tourism. This course follows this development by analyzing both primary and secondary sources with special attention to the impact travel and tourism in 19th and early 20th century had on the Ticino and Lombardy, thus introducing the student not only to the fundamental skills necessary for succeeding in college, but also to the wider environment of Franklin College.

IS 199 One Nation, Many Italies: Regional Identity and Contemporary Italian Literature
Professor Gebhardt

This seminar explores a variety of regional identities which contribute to creating a multifaceted modern Italian reality. To do this, we will focus on three novelists and three poets of the 20th century: Leonardo Sciascia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cesare Pavese, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Salvatore Quasimodo, and Eugenio Montale. We will analyze the historical, geographical, and cultural characteristics of their work. How do these writers' regional identities inform their writing (from questions of theme, to style, to vocabulary, to world views)? Students will be encouraged to look beyond the superficial image of a single, cohesive Italian national culture and to study the cultural impact of a multiplicity of coexisting regional Italian identities. Through selected readings which sample some of the most renowned authors of contemporary Italian literature, students will revisit the choral mysteries of rural Sicily, life in the post-war Roman ghettos, Resistance era Piedmont, and the rugged, inspiring beauty of the Ligurian Riviera. Like all First Year Seminars, this course will cultivate the fundamental skills considered necessary for succeeding in college.

POL 199 Limits to Growth Revisited: New Designs for Sustainable Societies
Professor Zanecchia

This course explores the major political and economic origins of environmental problems facing global societies, to include global warming and related issues of biodiversity loss, desertification, deforestation, fisheries depletion, hazardous wastes, and the environmental impact of industrial agriculture. As a point of reference, the course will trace the rise of today's environmental degradation in the context of the post-WWII era of globalization to include the rise and role of modern transnational corporations, international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF, and conventional models for economic growth in both the advanced and lesser developed countries. With this background in mind, the course will then present various models of development that might direct these same societies towards environmental sustainability, to include sustainable architectural design, energy efficiency and alternative agriculture. Guest lectures and field trips will be an integral part of the course.

SOC 199 Youth Transitions in Modern Societies
Professor Bulcroft

This course will examine the prospects and challenges of youth in modern societies with respect to making transitions to adult roles and responsibilities, creating personal biographies and forging new identities. The focus will be on how social institutions shape individuals life trajectories and how modernity has made that process more complex, ambiguous and challenging for young people in terms of forming new identities as adults. Students will be given opportunities to explore their own transition to Franklin College as it relates to their intimate relationships, changing roles in other institutions (e.g., the family), the ways in which it shapes their personal identities, and how their personal choices today might have implications for their future life course trajectories. They will also be given an opportunity to explore how students from other cultures experience the transition to adulthood and how information technology plays a role in their transitions. Course activities will include several self-reflective exercises, viewing and discussing contemporary films depicting the transition to adulthood in different cultures, and a project examining the role of the internet in organizing the "social space" of late adolescence/young adulthood.

SOC 199 Youth Transitions in Modern Societies
Professor Bulcroft

This course will examine the prospects and challenges of youth in modern societies with respect to making transitions to adult roles and responsibilities, creating personal biographies and forging new identities. The focus will be on how social institutions shape individuals life trajectories and how modernity has made that process more complex, ambiguous and challenging for young people in terms of forming new identities as adults. Students will be given opportunities to explore their own transition to Franklin College as it relates to their intimate relationships, changing roles in other institutions (e.g., the family), the ways in which it shapes their personal identities, and how their personal choices today might have implications for their future life course trajectories. They will also be given an opportunity to explore how students from other cultures experience the transition to adulthood and how information technology plays a role in their transitions. Course activities will include several self-reflective exercises, viewing and discussing contemporary films depicting the transition to adulthood in different cultures, and a project examining the role of the internet in organizing the "social space" of late adolescence/young adulthood.