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 three-credit, semester-long course known as the First Year Seminar. First Year Seminars are taught by 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 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 Seminar Topics

AHT 199 Renaissance Venice
Professor Fassl

Venice is different - from Florence or Rome or any other city. Surviving as an independent city-state for a thousand years, Venice at the height of its power, by the close of the fifteenth century, ruled an empire extending from the Aegean well into Lombardy. A center of trade and an embarkation point for pilgrimages to the Holy Land, it stood at the crossroads of east and west, north and south. This seminar will examine the major protagonists of the Venetian Renaissance-Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese-with respect to the international environment in which they lived and worked. Renaissance Venice will put Venetian art into its greater context and students will think about the implications of cultural exchange. Like all First Year Seminars, this course will cultivate the fundamental skills considered necessary for succeeding in college.

BUS 199 What is Leadership? Managerial and Social Perspectives
Professor Cordon

The course will review various aspects of leadership, particularly as they relate to management of organizations. Is a good manager necessarily a good leader, or vice versa? Students will consider the various types of leadership in the context of managing people, including charismatic, intellectual, authoritarian, motivational and organizational leadership styles. The biographies of various world leaders will be reviewed and discussed in their managerial, social, and/or political contexts. Finally, the course will also incorporate practical and experiential activities on the leadership/management duality. An integral and required part of the course will be a weekend retreat in the nearby mountains and a full-day on-campus leadership exercise, exploring some of the issues discussed in class.

CLCS 199 The Graphic Novel
Professor Gardiner

This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to popular culture studies through the medium of the graphic novel. Together, we will explore the emergence of the graphic novel as a specific artistic medium, as well as its connections with literature and film. We will examine the graphic novel as a medium through various theoretical lenses, including visual cultural studies, post-modernism and pop culture as well as explore the social and political function of the graphic novel in contemporary society. Through detailed analyses of several primary texts, including Watchmen, Maus and Persepolis, we will consider dominant themes, implied readers and intended goals in order to question the ways in which difference, power and knowledge are constructed through literary and artistic forms of production. The course includes primary and secondary readings, field trips and guest lectures.

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.

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 White Lies and Timid Heroes: Italian Storytelling on Stage
Professor Ferrari

What is the difference between the art of fiction writing and the act of telling lies? Have you ever told a lie so well that you almost began to believe it yourself? Italian literature of the early 20th century resonates with such questions. There are specific historic and cultural reasons for this resonance: the struggle of modern Italy against political repression, for example. The timid heroes of modern Italian poetry and prose seek, often unsuccessfully, to shake off the burden of a tradition that denies their true voice, as artists. This course, taught entirely in English, focuses on specific themes of 20th-century Italian literature while, at the same time, fostering experimentation in essay writing and solo performance. While no experience in creative writing or theater are required, students taking IS 199 will be asked to reflect candidly about their personal struggles as "timid heroes" seeking to affirm their own voice, freely and confidently, in a world that sometimes seems to prefer the masked allure of self-compromise and self-deceit.

MAT 199 Mathematics of Inequality
Professor Prisner

Among the central questions of every society are questions about poverty and wealth, and the unequal distribution of goods, income, wealth, or resources. In this course we are analyzing inequity by mathematical methods. Based on real data which we try to collect throughout the course, we construct measures of inequity, like Lorenz curve, Gini index and others. We will investigate what effect certain policies, like taxes or even marriage patterns, have on these measures, and also try to answer the question of whether inequity is increasing or decreasing within different nations and worldwide. We will also critically discuss literature and opinions on these inequality trends. We may have a glimpse on the recent modeling of inequality from "econophysics". The basics of Excel will also be taught in this class, since we will use Excel heavily for analysis and modeling.

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.

SCI 199 Glaciers no more? Climate Change and the Alps
Professor Hale

Climate change has been named one of the most important issues facing our society and globe today. At particular risk are regions at high latitudes and altitudes, including the Alps. This course examines the complex issue of climate change, considering the scientific background of climate and how it changes, the impact of those changes on ecological and human systems, and possibilities for mitigating these impacts. The course will focus on the situation in the Alps, but will also examine climate change in a global context. An integral and required part of the course will be a weekend visit to the Rhone glacier.