Interdisciplinary Studies

Designed for first and second-year students who are pondering a career in a health profession. Students will explore course and major selection across the liberal arts. The role of shadowing, observation, and volunteer work for discerning a career path in the professions will be presented with an emphasis on universal precautions, air-borne and blood-borne pathogens and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Upon successful course completion, students will have met the requirements to participate in shadowing experiences at local Walla Walla clinics and hospital. Activity credit limitation applies. Graded credit/no credit. Open to first years and sophomores; juniors and seniors by consent of instructor.

This course is designed for students preparing for applications to a post baccalaureate program in the health professions. The course will also direct students in the application process, including preparation for admissions testing, writing of personal statements, obtaining letters of evaluation, interviewing, and financing. Activity credit limitation applies. Graded credit/no credit. Open to third and fourth-year students.

The Intercollegiate Debate & Forensics course is designed to provide students with competence and confidence in a variety of speech situations beyond the classroom setting. Students will learn critical thinking, media literacy, and public speaking skills through intercollegiate competition in interpretation, limited preparation, platform speaking, and debate events. Students enrolled in this course will be expected to: (1) Attend debate and forensics tournaments throughout the semester (2) Present/practice events in class for intercollegiate competition which will include creating weekly topic briefs, reading various types of literature to produce original cuttings and critical positions for competition, provide written and oral feedback to fellow classmates, and produce speeches that utilize and perfect various oral presentation formats. (3) Actively participating in service opportunities within the college and local community related to public discourse such as Toastmasters, Portland Urban Debate League, and the Washington Debate Coalition. Credits in this course are classified as Activity credits, which are excluded from the enrollment limit of 18 Academic credits per semester; however, other limits on Activity credits may apply. Graded credit/no credit.  May be repeated for a maximum of eight credits.

This one-credit academic course, approved by the major advisor, and supervised by a member of the Career and Community Engagement Center, connects formal off-campus student experiences in applied settings (e.g., internships) with their academic major. Learning Objectives of the course must allow for enhanced student learning within a student’s major at Whitman College in terms of major-specific knowledge, skills, ethics, problems, or organizational systems or cultures. Assignments may include reflective writing, readings, research, report writing, and presentations. Students are required to meet with the Career and Community Engagement Center regularly, to demonstrate progress and to work to connect the experience to their major. This course is graded by the major advisor on a credit/no credit basis, and cannot be used to satisfy distribution requirements in any area. Students must have declared a major in order to enroll in this course. May be repeated for a maximum of two credits. Please see the International Student and Scholar Services web page. Graded credit/no credit.

See course schedule for any current offerings.

Constructed of concrete and glass, a bustling city filled with cars and commuters can seem directly opposed to the vibrant, flourishing nature we can find in forests or remote wilderness. Small pockets of nature – urban parks, street trees, green roofs, gardens, and more – exist as fragments in a landscape manufactured by and for humans. However, with over half of the world’s human population living in urban environments and cities requiring an expanding proportion of the planet’s land and resources, cities must also play a role in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger, and other environmental and social challenges. This student-designed course seeks to investigate the role of nature in the building of resilient and sustainable cities for both humans and the other living beings around us. To get credit, minimum requirements must be met for attendance, participation in class discussions, and contribution to class reading posts on canvas, and both a project proposal and a project presentation must be completed. Class meetings will be 1.5 hours two days per week for only 5 weeks, from September 10 to October 15. Graded Credit/No Credit. Distribution area: none.

This course is an exploration of the medical tradition that developed in the lands of Islam during the medieval period (c. 650-1500). This tradition formed the roots from which modern Western medicine arose. This course will take you from early Islamic Arabia to the Ottoman Empire, with a focus on the Islamic Golden Age and its bustling heart, the cosmopolitan metropolis of Baghdad, where hospitals flourished and offered free holistic treatments to their patients. We will explore many questions, including: how were diseases dealt with in the medieval Islamic world? What types of cures were used, and why? How were disabilities understood? What were some of the methods used to deal with psychological disorders, or depression? We will read short primary extracts from sources in translation covering a variety of medical practices in different geographical contexts and time periods. We will examine how the early medical knowledge of the ancient Greeks was translated, adapted, and transformed in the Islamic world during this period, before being introduced to Europe and leading to the Renaissance. This course is taught by a Visiting Arnold Professor, and is open to students, staff, and faculty. It will be held as a brown bag lunch series. Graded Credit/No Credit.

This course is designed for students returning from Whitman Off-Campus Study programs outside the United States, or after other extended international study. It provides students with the tools, perspectives, and a set of targeted assignments to make sense of and communicate with others about their transformative experiences abroad. When students return from study abroad, too often their time away becomes adjunct or ancillary to the rest of their studies. When this happens, opportunities to situate their international experiences within a larger, critical liberal arts framework are diminished or lost altogether. This course offers students an opportunity to return to their global experiences through critical interrogation and reflection on what it means to live in another culture. Students will analyze their off-campus study through the lens of other forms of global encounter, including colonialism, othering, and cosmopolitanism. Students will also assess different ways study abroad has transformed them, including psychologically and politically. In addition to readings and discussions, students will carry out a group project addressing how global issues in the media are framed and presented differently depending on international location. Graded credit/no credit.  

This team-taught course will begin by providing a basic understanding of Canadian geography, history, politics and culture. Building on that broad foundation, we will study an array of current issues (across disciplinary boundaries) that help to shape Canadian identity today.  These may include environmental issues, such as the tar sands; economic issues, such as Canada's apparent insulation from the 2007-2009 global financial crisis; border issues, such as fishing rights and terrorism; and national issues, such as Quebec sovereignty. This rich survey of a range of sociopolitical issues will end with an in-depth study of one specific issue that is crucial to Canadian identity, cultural plurality. We will explore the angst surrounding Canada’s multicultural policy and explore a variety of cultural responses ranging from literature to religion and sports. Two meetings per week. Assignments will include a range of quizzes, short written assignments, and a poster presentation.

See course schedule for any current offerings.

See course schedule for any current offerings.

A course which examines a specific topic within the area of international studies. See course schedule for any current offerings.

The Ashton and Virginia O’Donnell Endowment exists to bring to campus individuals who are expert practitioners in global affairs. O’Donnell Visiting Educators will have expertise in international business, diplomacy, social movements, environmental regulation, immigration, engineering, medicine, development, the arts or other areas involving international study. Offerings under this designation will be short-term classes and/or seminars led by the O’Donnell Visiting Educator. Graded credit/no credit. May be repeated for a maximum of four credits. Distribution area: none. See course schedule for any current offerings.

This 1-credit workshop will address key issues in Andean worldview and philosophy, interculturality, promotion and revitalization of Kichwa Otavalo culture and language, sharing and representing aspects of indigenous culture in a globalized context, and transnational collaboration in cultural promotion. The workshop will draw on the experience and perspectives of the Tandana Foundation and its network of staff and community partners, and will be co-taught by Margarita Fuerez and Segundo Moreta, two Kichwa Otavalo leaders who have been involved in strengthening, sharing, and representing aspects of their culture in various ways, and Anna Taft, Tandana's Founding Director. Class formats will include presentations by the three educators, participatory demonstrations of Kichwa Otavalo practices, question and answer sessions, and class discussions of readings and illustrative videos. Students will come away with a basic understanding of an Andean worldview and its expressions in Kichwa Otavalo practice, as well as familiarity with the complexities of promoting, revitalizing, sharing, and representing aspects of an indigenous culture for various audiences, both local and foreign. The workshop sessions will be held for five evenings over a 10-day period. This course may be counted towards the Analysis & Reflection requirement for the Concentration in Global Studies.

Interdisciplinary project, reading or research undertaken as part of an approved individually planned major or combined major.

Designed to further independent research projects leading to the preparation of an undergraduate thesis or a project report in an approved individually planned major or combined major. Required of and limited to senior honors candidates.