Spring 2025 Course Descriptions

(H) ST: Design Thinking

In this course, students will explore the design thinking framework and how it can advance our understanding of the world and people through creative problem-solving for issues in industry, communities, and education. By leveraging one’s own creativity and innovation within teamwork and critical thinking, course activities such as rapid prototyping, experiential projects, and design challenges will center design as a tool for connecting us all. Students will explore the ways in which design can be supported through: co-design, a human-centered lens, and universal design. Students will explore the ways these lenses can create sustainable and impactful change through problem identification and rapidly testing concepts which will lead to practical applications in all spaces and places. This course is for all majors as the value of design thinking can be found in every facet of life from engineering to health to education to business and beyond.

(H) ST: Graduate School:

Interested in graduate school but not sure where to start? In this seminar, you will learn how to navigate the entire application process, such as identifying top graduate programs in your field, pulling together documents to include in your applications, funding your graduate program, and asking for letters of recommendation. Furthermore, at the end of this seminar, you will have written your CV as well as a strong draft of your statement of purpose/personal statement.

(H) ST: Adulting Unplugged:

Approaching graduation and overwhelmed by the uncertainty of what happens next? Then this seminar is for you! Using a schedule of topics designed by students for students, we will, as a cohort, support each other as we explore, identify, and evaluate personal goals, dreams, and priorities to help you make informed decisions about your future after UNF. In our discussions, we will also explore opportunities such as career shadowing, internships, graduate school, and bridge/gap years. In addition, we will discuss real-world expectations, such as budgeting, relocation, networking, and finding your place in a post-UNF community. In other words, by the end of this seminar, you will approach adulting with excitement rather than trepidation!

(H) ST: Spy Stories: 

College is a time for exploration, self-discovery, and career planning, though many people find themselves in jobs they never imagined while in college. From engineering to the CIA or from creative writing to Mayo Clinic, for instance, the path from degree to career is often non-linear and requires adaptability, imagination, social intelligence, and resilience.  This course is designed to develop these and other skills needed successfully navigate your career journey. Through engaging individual and group assignments, you will develop strategies to traverse the career landscape. Our small class size ensures that everyone’s voice is heard. By the end of the course, you will have crafted a comprehensive career plan with clear pathways to achieve your goals. Guest speakers will share their personal journeys and the skills they acquired for success, offering inspiring life stories that will ignite your passion for exploration.

(H) ST: Honoring the Ocean:

Honoring the Ocean is an experiential learning course taught by Honors professors across the state. Dive into the field of oceanography through the lens of the humanities, and literally sail the high seas with a Florida Institute of Oceanography research vessel for 24 hours from St. Pete Beach (students are responsible for their own transportation). This interdisciplinary experience explores humankind’s relationship with the ocean and is open to all majors! 

Please note: Space is limited—potential voyages will take place in March.

*Instructor permission required. Apply Here

Halloran-ENC1143 (H) Gothic History, Art, and Literature (CRN 12468, CRN 15276)

From its initial inception with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) to present day, Gothic literature has not only proven to be one of the most infectious, enchanting, and delightful genres of literature, but has also prevailed in the literary canon with its power to address cultural anxieties, subvert established systems of thought, defy social conventions, and traverse the depths of human nature. But how did the Gothic begin and why? In this course, we will dive into the shadowy realm of the Gothic, a genre populated by tyrannical marauders and unassuming innocents, crumbling castles and moldering dungeons. We will examine history’s first glimpse of the tribal Goths, later emergences of Gothic architecture, and finally, the provenance of Gothic literature.

Turney-IDS1932 (H) Graphic Narratives, MarginalizedVoices, and Book “Banning” (CRN 15238)

Throughout their history, but particularly in recent time, graphic texts (graphic novels, comics, manga, etc.) seem to be a medium attracting disenfranchised and marginalized voices: immigrants; victims of persecution; the LGBT community; women; racial/ethnic minorities, etc.

Paradoxically, or perhaps not, many of these very graphictexts featuring marginalized voices appear at the top of recent lists of mostfrequently challenged (or “banned”) books in U.S. schools and libraries.

This course aims to investigate these two, paradoxical or not, impulses. What is it about graphic texts that draws marginalized voices? What is it about these same texts, and “banned” texts in general, that make them targets for challenges? How can we ourselves have difficult, provocative conversations about these questions that are productive, respectful, and designed to learn?

We will engage with these questions through a number of longer and shorter such graphic narratives, fictional and non-fictional. We will focus on developing your own writing skills by crafting a variety of shorter analytic and argumentative pieces. You will also create a digital project on a commonly challenged title, and even create graphic narratives of your own.

Tentative primary texts include:

• Art Spiegelman, MAUS

• Mike Curato, Flamer

• Darrin Bell, The Talk

• Margaret Atwood, Handmaid’s Tale (The Graphic Novel)

• Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer

• Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak (The Graphic Novel)

Note: Graphic texts can often be more expensive than other types of texts. While I have tried to find titles that are available used, to rent, or in affordable electronic versions, you should still expect to pay roughly $50-100 for our required texts, depending on which versions you purchase and where you purchase them from. Please see me with questions or concerns about this!

For these or any other questions or concerns, please contact Russ Turney at rturney@unf.edu.

Pewitt-IDS1932 (H) Mythmaking-Demeter to Disney (CRN15266, CRN 15267)

How do the stories we hear as children influence us individually, culturally, politically? How are our concepts of terms like Love, Time, Nature, or Power defined by the tales we are told—and the ways we retell them? How do the myths of our societies recur, and in what senses do our lives reflect (or repel) their values? In this Interdisciplinary Studies course for Honors students, we will examine how certain mythological commonalities evolve from antiquity to modernity and how we shape (and are shaped by) old myths to suit new situations, whether in children’s fables or pop culture films.

We will survey not only a number of fantastical stories from several global cultures but also an interdisciplinary array of perspectives through which to read, discuss, and interpret how these narratives have meaning for their times, places, and peoples. In many ways oral stories like myths, legends, and folk tales—though they tend to be denigrated as narratives we “outgrow” often reveal a great deal to us and about us since their authors are not one single individual but are rather an entire culture. In the course we will investigate such narratives across various cultures and investigate the musing a variety of disciplinary methods. In doing so, students will engage in hands-on activities, games, and discussions that allow us to see how disparate fields and different stories help us understand the human experience.

Steffan-IDS1932: Science and Scientific Writing: ReachingYour Audience in an Age of Misinformation (CRN 15268)

The scientific community has an audience problem, and this problem is, in part, created by the responsible usage and dissemination of scientific findings.  In short, the scientific community is facing a rhetorical problem. This course will explore the ways in which science and scientific writing differ through a study of purpose, audience, and evidence. Students will analyze the rhetorical problems facing the scientific community and will compose a wide variety of texts including a literature review, a news article for popular publication, a research proposal and a poster for conference presentation.    

Textbook Requirements: This is an open education research course. The instructor will provide all required reading materials.

Smith-IDS1932 (H) Writing About Film (CRN 15269, CRN15270)

Do you enjoy watching movies and talking about them with your peers? Would you like to develop skills to become a film journalist in academia or an influencer on social media? This course, which can be taken in place of the required ENC 1143credit, aims to build such skills by preparing students to observe, identify, and employ elements of film terminology, form, and theory for crafting film reviews and analytical writings for publication. Specifically, students will develop critical thinking and writing skills and will learn strategies for collaborative teamwork. Additionally, opportunities will be offered throughout the semester to help students promote their work to the broader public. What makes this course unique amongst other writing courses is the actual film component. Films from various genres will be screened in class, and students will discuss how each film represents a social or cultural message. This interdisciplinary course invites any learner with an interest in the art of interpreting film to attend and participate.

Halloran-IDS1932 (H) Journey of the Hero (CRN 15271)

Have you ever wondered what makes a great story or how humans have generated so many narratives that have stood the test of time? Why can we relate to the heroes of The Odyssey in the same way we can relate to the heroes of Percy Jackson? Is it because these stories go beyond the printed word and impact our lives in the real world? American scholar Joseph Campbell identified “The Hero’s Journey” as an adventure of the archetype known as The Hero. Campbell suggests that all world hero myths are basically the same story retold in infinite variations—Neo from The Matrix is Frodo Baggins from The Hobbit is Harry Potter from Harry Potter. All storytelling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth and can be understood in terms of the hero myth or the “monomyth." Using Joseph Campbell’s research as a foundation, this class will explore the universal appeal of the hero. More importantly, class discussions will seek to uncover how the hero’s journey in fiction so often molds our own experiences, beliefs, and choices in reality.