Integrated Core Theme

For example, if you select Violence as your theme, you will choose your Humanities Centerpiece from these courses: The History of Violence (History), Narratives of Violence (English), or Violence, Peace and Social Justice (Religious Studies).

Once you have chosen your Centerpiece, you will choose three other courses from a range of areas, including:

• Biology
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Criminal Justice
• Fine and Performing Arts
• History
• Italian
• Philosophy
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Religious Studies
• Social Work
• Sociology

To provide a wide-reaching view of the theme, you will choose no more than two courses from the same discipline/department.

ICT Selection Instructions

Example:

Humanities Centerpiece: The History of Violence (History)

Integrated Courses:

• Introduction to Forensic Science (Biology)
• Victimology (Criminal Justice)
• Human Rights (Political Science)

This ICT explores violence and non-violence as historical and societal realities, strategies, and psychological inclinations. Violence and non-violence are studied through the lens of a variety of disciplines and discourses that engage questions about human nature, the history and nature of civilization, and the impact of violence on society.

This ICT explores how science and scientific thinking influence social issues, cultural controversies, and intellectual arguments. Students will cultivate the scientific mind and apply the scientific method through an engagement with disciplines from the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Students will identify the many ways science frames and gives meaning to our experience, consider what is distinctive about scientific thinking, and reflect on our shared responsibility to cultivate and practice it.

This ICT introduces students to the interdisciplinary nature of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurial thinking. Innovation advances every academic field, though it may take different forms and produce different outcomes from discipline to discipline. Courses in this ICT demonstrate the historical, societal, artistic, and scientific importance of innovation and creativity, and help students apply creative and entrepreneurial processes to problems in disparate areas of study.

This ICT offers students an integrated understanding of the various factors challenging the sustainability of human life in the cosmos. Students will evaluate humankind’s impact on the environment, to assess and plan for its care and protection. The interplay among the scientific, ethical, business, spiritual, political, historical, social, and policy dimensions of the crisis confronting continued life on earth will be studied.

This ICT explores the theme of both individual and collective identity and their various points of contact. Particular attention is paid to investigating identity as socially and culturally constructed, and the ways in which such a socially and culturally constructed identity may be in tension with notions of individual inclination and will. Instead of taking individual and collective identity as a given set of unchanging qualities, students will consider the shifting relationship among identity, contact, and belonging and their responsibility for the formation of their own personal, cultural, and spiritual identities.

This ICT explores how revolution is understood in particular times and places, and its roles in the past and present. The world in which we live was created by numerous political, social, cultural, intellectual, and economic upheavals. Iona University itself is directly connected to these trends through its Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS). We are also witnessing a profound and rapid transformation of information and communications technologies that alter the modes in which we study the humanities. The examination of the ICT theme will be enhanced in the Humanities Centerpiece courses by addressing media and information literacy skills that are an essential component of the digital humanities.

This ICT explores issues of gender equality as well as gender biases and oppressions that are concealed under the disguise of habits and traditions. Courses will examine the social movements and intellectual approaches that help uncover hidden biases. When hidden biases are made explicit and when structural oppressions are articulated, students can identify a path toward gender equality and justice in our societies. By taking a set of courses that is sensitive to feminist concerns and justice for women, students will be able to challenge gender assumptions and inequalities that continue to plague our world.