Place-Based Courses
Place-based Discovery Seminars -- Many studies have found that intensive first-year seminars have a positive effect on student performance, satisfaction, and retention. UK offers new students the opportunity to enroll in a first-year Discovery Seminar. This highly praised program provides incoming first-year students with a small seminar, taught by a highly skilled and motivated faculty member, on a subject of deep personal interest to that faculty member, such as poverty and homelessness in Appalachia, the physics of time travel, and the science and politics of mercury. UK tracks students who take a Discovery Seminar: they return for their second year at a much higher rate than their peers who do not take one, and earn significantly higher overall grade point averages.
All incoming AMSTEMM students are strongly advised to enroll in a Discovery Seminar. In each year of the AMSTEMM program, one or more STEM-discipline, place-based Discovery Seminars will be developed or refined and offered to incoming AMSTEMM students. Since Fall 2005, forty-five place-based STEM discipline discovery seminars have been offered.
UK has particular expertise in place-based education. The UK Appalachian Center, has sponsored a workshop for cultivating and promoting place-based education and published a report on the subject. The past President of the Appalachian Studies Association, Dr. Billings, and the director of the Discovery Seminar Program, Dr. Badagliacco, both Appalachian scholars, serve as consultants to AMSTEMM to assist faculty members to develop new place-based, STEM-discipline Discovery Seminars for incoming AMSTEMM students.
Place-based Discovery Seminars (Fall 2008 and Spring 2009) recommended for AMSTEMM students:
| Title | Instructor | Day | Time | Course Number |
FALL 2009 |
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| Social Sciences | ||||
Shakertown and the World of Tomorrow: Local-Global Vistas on the 21st Century |
Ernie Yanarella | MWF | 10:00 AM- 10:50 AM | DSP 110-002 |
Citizen Kentucky: Journalism and Democracy |
Buck Ryan | MWF | 11:00am- 11:50am |
DSP 110-004 |
Building Communities and Making a Difference |
Beth Mills | TTh | T 3:30PM- 5:20 PM Th 3:30PM- 4:20 PM |
DSP 110-008 |
Let Your Life Speak: Exploring Social Inequality and Social Justice, and Service |
Joanna Badagliacco | TTh | 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM | DSP 110-010 |
| Humanities | ||||
Cuisines of the World: An Economic and Historic Perspective |
Sadia Zoubir-Shaw | TTh | 3:30pm- 4:45pm |
DSP 120-007 |
My Kingdom Is A Horse! Thoroughbred Racing in Kentucky: A Social and Cultural Perspective |
Alan Hersh | TTh | 2:00pm-3:15pm | DSP 120-008 |
The African American Experience in Kentucky |
Gerald L. Smith | Th | 3:00pm-5:30 pm | DSP 120-002 |
| Natural Science | ||||
Energy and Our Global Environment |
David Atwood | W | 2:00pm -4:30pm | DSP 130-002 |
SPRING 2010 |
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| Social Science | ||||
| "I Know My Rights:" Civil Liberties in the United States | Robert Tannenbaum | TBD | TBD | DSP 110-001 |
| Natural Science | ||||
American Green: Literary Roots & Modern Branches of Ecocentrism |
Morris Grubbs | TBD | TBD | DSP 120-002 |
The Present is the Key to the Past: The KY-Bahamas Connection |
Frank Ettensohn | TBD | TBD | DSP 130-001 |
The seminars that are "placed-based" may be of particular importance to students who are interested in the AMSTEMM program at UK. The AMSTEMM program recruits, retains, and graduates Appalachian and minority students enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, by providing a community environment, a network of support services, and numerous academic enhancement opportunities while on the UK campus.
