Registration & Course Schedule
All CommRAP students must register for a 3 credit hour course each semester and COMR 1000 (1 credit hour) in the fall semester. A course registration packet will be emailed to you after you have been assigned to Buckingham and CommRAP through the housing office. The email will contain a contract/pre-registration form. The contract is your agreement to pay the RAP fee. You will also be able to prioritize your top four course choices for the in-house class. Courses are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.
A copy verifying your course selection in the program will be sent by email or will be given to you during one of the optional “New Student Welcome” visit days during the summer. More details about the optional visit days will be sent to you by the Office of New Student Welcome.
Spring 2022 course schedule (PDF)
Course descriptions
Explores the concepts of culture and gender from an anthropological perspective, using films and other media, as well as written texts. By analyzing media about other ways of life, students will learn the basic concepts of cultural anthropology and be able to apply them to any society. In addition, students will learn to think critically about documentary and ethnographic media.
- Sara Jamieson
- A&S General Education: Diversity- Global Perspectives or Distribution – Social Sciences
- CMCI Core: Diversity & Global Cultures
Compares contemporary sociopolitical systems across cultures, from non-Western tribal groups to modern states. Introduces students to anthropological approaches for understanding and analyzing political forces, processes, and institutions that affect cultures such as colonialism, warfare, violence, ethnicity, migration, and globalization.
- Sara Jamieson
- A&S General Education: Distribution-Social Sciences
- CMCI Core: People & Society
Builds students' ability to watch, reflect on, and write about media images. The course will be grounded in the analysis of media practices with special focus on media style and storytelling techniques. Explores media aesthetics from formal, cultural, and theoretical perspectives.
- Sarah Biagini
- A&S General Education: Elective
- CMCI Core: People and Society
Surveys communication in a variety of contexts and applications. Topics include basic concepts and general models of communication, ethics, language and nonverbal communication, personal relationships, group decision making, organizational communication, and impact of technological developments on communication. Required for COMM majors.
- Kendra Gale
- A&S General Education: Distribution - Social Sciences
- CMCI core: People and Society
Covers theory and skills of speaking in various public settings. Examines fundamental principles from rhetorical and communication theory and applies them to oral presentations. Required for COMM or COMN majors.
- Jamie Skerski
- A&S General Education: Elective
- CMCI: Required for COMM or COMN Majors
Examines how aspects of talk (e.g., turn-taking, speech acts, narratives, dialect, and stance indicators) link with identities (e.g., ethnic and racial, age, gender, work-related, and personal). Considers how communication is central to constructing who people are and examines social controversies related to talk and identities.
- Natasha Shrikant
- A&S General Education: Distribution – Social Sciences or Diversity – U.S. Perspectives
- CMCI Core: Diversity & Global Cultures
Explores political, social and cultural changes in American life since Reconstruction. Focuses on shifting social and political relations as the U.S. changed from a nation of farmers and small-town dwellers to an urban, industrial society; the changing meaning of American identity in a society divided by ethnicity, race and class; and the emergence of the U.S. as a world power.
- Martin Babicz
- A&S General Education: Distribution – Arts and Humanities
- CMCI Core: Historical Views
Baseball could not have existed without America. Course explains how the game fit into the larger context of social, cultural, economic, and political history from the nineteenth century to the present. Studies the events and people who made baseball the national pastime.
- Martin Babicz
- A&S General Education: Arts and Humanities
- CMCI Core: Historical Views
Introduces principles of computational thinking through the manipulation, transformation and creation of media artifacts, such as images, animations, sounds, web pages, data visualizations and games. Students will be exposed to a high-level overview of how algorithms, functions and data structures are used in computer programming through a series of assignments that emphasize the use of computation as a means of creative expression.
- Instructor TBD
- CMCI: Quantitative Thinking and Computing - Computing
Introduces students to writing news for a range of media platforms, including print, broadcast, podcast, social media and more, and teaches them how to use the appropriate grammar and style conventions for those media types. Also introduces students to various types of stories, from breaking news to features to profiles, and to basic reporting skills.
- Instructor TBD
- CMCI: JRNL Elective
Promotes mathematical literacy among liberal arts students. Teaches basic mathematics, logic, and problem-solving skills in the context of higher level mathematics, science, technology, and/or society. This is not a traditional math class, but is designed to stimulate interest in and appreciation of mathematics and quantitative reasoning as valuable tools for comprehending the world in which we live. Credit not granted for this course and MATH 1112.
- Matthew Pass
- A&S General Education: Quantitative Reasoning
- CMCI Core: Quantitative Reasoning
Examines cultural visual experiences from critical perspectives and social effects. The course acquaints students with visual design in ways that include image-making as a cognitive and perceptual practice, the production of visual significance and meaning, and the role of technology in creating and understanding mediated images. Students will use a variety of means to produce visual narratives
Examines competing positions in debates over a wide variety of controversial moral, social and political issues. Topics may include: abortion, world poverty, animal rights, immigration, physician-assisted suicide, freedom of religion, hate speech, cloning, income inequality, pornography, gun rights, racial profiling, capital punishment, overpopulation, prostitution, drug legalization, torture.
- Michael Zerella
- A&S General Education: Distribution-Arts and Humanities
- CMCI Core: Humanities and the Arts
Considers philosophical topics and concepts related to the natural sciences, such as the following: science and pseudo-science; scientific method; the nature of explanation, theory, confirmation, and falsification; the effect of science on basic concepts like mind, freedom, time, and causality; ethics of experimentation; and the relation of science to society.
- Mike Zerella
- A&S General Education: Natural Sciences or Arts and Humanities
- CMCI Core: The Natural World
Examines the construction of gender and sexual identities in the modern world. Focuses on the role of social attitudes and material circumstances in shaping how individuals understand themselves and are understood by others, as well as the actions they take to accept, negotiate and resist these pressures.
- Sara Jamieson
- A&S General Education: Distribution-Social Sciences or Diversity- U.S. Perspective
- CMCI Core: Diversity & Global Cultures