Uncovering the Riches Outside the Courses of Instruction

Undergraduates sporting Harvard course catalogues and Cue guides were as ubiquitous in Harvard Yard last week as the photo-snapping tourists.

But students at the college are not restricted to the core classes and concentration requirements tagged in their course guides with fluorescent Post-its.

Lighter than the Courses of Instruction, here is the Harvard Crimson's condensed course catalogue of the top five classes you can take outside of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences:

Simply Divine

Visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School (HDS) James W. Fraser does not expect his students to know the answers when he poses questions in Harvard Divinity School course 2921, "Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America."

That philosophy is the basis of his course: he and students in his seminar navigate contemporary religious issues together.

"When I first thought about teaching this course [two years ago], a friend said to me, 'all the issues of religion in the schools were settled half a century ago, to which my answer is sort of 'hah!'" Fraser says.

In fact, he was inspired after teaching the course for the first time two years ago to write a book, Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America, was just published.

"It seems to me that the action this summer by the Kansas state board of education dropping evolution from the science curriculum, the ongoing battles about prayer in the schools--particularly in places like Alabama--and the struggles in many places including Massachusetts is a pretty clear sign that this is a big-time issue in American society at the beginning of the new century."

Instead of settling into a consistent method of teaching, Fraser alternates between lectures, discussions, and uses case studies to keep the class fresh.

The course is taught in Andover A on Thursday mornings from 8 to 10 a.m.

Juicy Tidbits

If you don't have enough classes on your plate, you can fill it up with John Willoughby's Radcliffe class A103, "Writing About Food."

The course, which will be offered Wednesdays from February 2 to May 10 from 5:15 to 7:15 p.m., will teach students to "explore the various markets in which their work can be published."

While the course may leave some students with heavier stomachs and lighter wallets, the $705 course fee is waived for undergraduates, who cannot take the course for college credit, according to Radcliffe.

Students in "Writing About Food" may want to grill the professor: Willoughby is the author of The Thrill of the Grill and is co-author of License to Grill.

The Useful Class

Students in "The Art and Science of Negotiation," to be offered this spring at MIT, get to play in class.

Each class in the introduction to bargaining and negotiation includes role-playing and case analyses.

"You have to be looking at the actual practice of negotiation, the substance," says course instructor David W. Laws, a lecturer in MIT's department of urban studies and planning.

Laws says the hands-on approach helps students understand all of the disciplines involved in negotiation, including cognitive psychology, justice, literature, economics and philosophy.

"It's very interactive and at the same time it's theoretical," Laws says. "You get to do it and to think about it and then learn about the relationship of those two."

The course will be offered for three hours on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

Good Migrations

The Graduate School of Design (GSD) offers a Friday course for those who hunger for the metropolis.

Spent your teenage years playing Sim City? Then this could be the course for you.

Course 4330, "The Paradigm of the Metropolis in the Twentieth Century Department of Urban Planning and Design," is an interdisciplinary approach to studying cities.

Culminating in the study of the "Mega-City," the course will use sociology, psychology, and social theory to help students understand the evolution of cities.

The course will covers European and North American urban development from the traditional, pre-19th century town to modern America.

Francesca Rogier teaches the course from 9 a.m. to noon in the room 510 at GSD.

Watercolors?

If you have trouble deciding on just one area of concentration, course T-210E at the Graduate School of Education will let you combine three and integrates a bit of playtime.

"Exploring Water through Ways of Doing Art and Physics," taught by Elizabeth Cavicchi, uses art and experimentation with water to demonstrate investigative learning.

Sketching water and making jets are among artistic activities, and students will learn how art and learning overlap.

"Through art and experimenting with water," proclaims the course description, "we encounter our own learning, research it further, and think about how science teaching can evolve exploratively."

"Exploring Water" is offered Tuesdays from noon to 2 p.m. from Oct. 19 to Dec. 14.