Faculty-led discussion-based courses for freshmen. Small class sizes. 1–2 credits. Credit/no credit.
Learn “shoulder-to-shoulder” with UW faculty as they share their passion for subjects that interest them most. Explore big ideas, sample an unfamiliar discipline, learn about leadership and enjoy community with a small group of students.
Originally from Germany, I came to the United States to obtain a Ph.D. degree. My research interests include medieval and early modern German and Yiddish literature and culture. I am currently working on a book project concerning the adventures of an Arthurian knight across different languages (Yiddish and German) as well as across different media (manuscripts, prints, wall paintings, comics) from the 13th to the 21st centuries.
I am teaching German literature and culture, historic linguistics, and the richness of the Middle Ages!
You are not alone. Get to know your peers! Humanities majors offer a high employability, so embrace your interest in the humanities! Read the syllabus!
I get to teach students about medieval literature featuring King Arthur, dragons, and singing dwarfs on horsebacks, while also exploring our common human need of telling stories! I love it!
In pop culture, the Middle Ages are often portrayed as a “Dark Ages” and a time lacking diversity. This seminar will provide you with a new understanding of the “not-so-dark” Middle Ages through the lens of diversity. It will help you critically review how you understand and perceive diversity by learning about medieval ways of coexisting within heterogeneous societies. Additionally, you will learn to critically evaluate your own opinions and ways to keep an open mind in your learning experiences. Come and learn from the Middle Ages with fellow freshmen and build your leadership skills for a successful time at UW!
Brinda Jegatheesan is Associate Professor in Educational Psychology. She specializes in the Psychology of Child- Animal Interactions with a Cross-Cultural focus. Her research is comparative international.
I am an Associate Professor in Educational Psychology. My specialization is in the psychology of child-animal interactions. I work with shelters, wild life foundations and other animal organizations in providing children with opportunities to learn and develop mindfulness, compassion and a reverence for life through exposure, experiences and interactions with animals.
Advice to freshmen: Learn about a new area that impacts lives positively; make a difference in the lives of children and animals by applying your new knowledge; learn that the natural world has deep life lessons for children in their every life and well-being.
I love teaching about this area because students leave my lectures learning new things never learned before and they understand deeply the tremendous impact animals have on the lives of children.
How do animals impact children in their everyday life? What are the different ways children encounter animals? Why are interactions with animals important to children’s development and health? This seminar will provide an understanding of how children’s lives are enriched by the love and companionship of a pet. Topics include the role pets and therapeutic animals play in children’s health and development, animal-assisted therapies, how young children think about animals and cultural attitudes towards animals. The course is discussion-based and you will learn via classroom and on-site, using visuals and discussions with guests who work with children and animals.
My career has been inspired by a drive to understand how the brain works. This has involved a wide range of studies with non-human primates and neural network modeling, which are described on our website: https://depts.washington.edu/fetzweb/
I am doing neuroscience research in the Primate Center. Our research is described on our website: https://depts.washington.edu/fetzweb/
I'd like to communicate the excitement of brain research and ways to get involved.
The brain is the most exciting research area because of all the many fundamental functions it performs and the continuing pace of new discoveries.
The neural networks in our brains effortlessly perform common miracles of perception, movement, consciousness and thinking. Neuroscientists have learned much about the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and behavior. This course will explore the operation of brain mechanisms in different manifestations, such as generating volitional movements, making decisions, creating and appreciating art, normal and altered consciousness, controlling brain-computer interfaces, etc. The class will discuss experimental strategies to probe the brain, such as recording neural activity in behaving animals, neural network modeling, etc.
Professor Marc D. Binder joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics in the UW School of Medicine in 1978. His research laboratory is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and currently focuses on studying the biophysical properties of motoneurons and their alterations in mouse models of human neurological disorders, as well as elucidating how the functional coupling and cooperative gating of voltage-gated membrane channels affect the excitability of nerve and muscle cells. Although Professor Binder’s primary teaching responsibilities lie within the medical school, he has enjoyed participating in the Collegium Program over the last several years, offering a diverse series of courses including neuroscience, film history, the origins of money and finance, ideas that changed the world, the nature of consciousness, the comedic tradition and this year’s class on the student activist movement of the 1960’s.
I am a Professor of Physiology & Biophysics in the UW Medical School. In addition to heading a research laboratory, I serve as the Director of the Institutional Training Grant for Neurobiolgy funded by the National Institutes of Health, that provides funding for UW graduate students engaged in neuroscience research. The work in my lab focuses on understanding how individual nerve cells generate electrical impulses. My teaching responsibilities include courses in human physiology, cell physiology and neuroscience, predominantly for graduate and professional students. A number of undergraduate students have pursued independent research in my laboratory.
Three pieces of advice for freshman: Find out who the best UW professors are and take their courses regardless of the subject matter. Never skip class. And, if you're not playing a sport, be sure to add an exercise or work out period to your daily schedule.
What do I love about teaching? What could be more interesting than understanding how our brains work?
Activists in the student movement of the 1960's sought relief from what they viewed as the authoritarian rule of the political and social establishment on college campuses. They demanded the right to challenge the 'consensus culture' that formed in the US following the Second World War, to speak openly and freely, to demand actualization of the civil rights delineated in the US Constitution, to eliminate racial discrimination and to put an end to the government's involvement in a civil war in Vietnam. Through directed readings, newsreel recordings and eyewitness accounts, we will revisit this turbulent period in our history and try to assess its legacy through the lens of our contemporary social and political landscape.
Beth Traxler received her Ph.D. in biology from Carnegie Mellon University where she studied the mechanism of DNA processing during bacterial conjugation. Her postdoctoral research on the assembly and structure of membrane proteins was done at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Jon Beckwith.
The research in Dr. Traxler's laboratory focuses on the genetic and biochemical analysis of protein folding and function. The lab uses two different models found in Gram negative bacteria. One interest is the characterization of ATP binding cassette (ABC) proteins in the Escherichia coli cytoplasmic membrane. This work focuses on the maltose (MalFGK) transporter as a model of the in vivo folding process for heteromeric membrane proteins complexes in general and for proteins of the ABC superfamily in particular. This analysis has led the lab to propose a novel model for the mechanism of membrane protein folding, in which a final complex can assemble in non-ordered process from a variety of intermediate complexes. In addition, the lab is characterizing the specificity of protein-protein interactions among the many ABC transporter subunits expressed in a bacterial cell. A second interest of the lab focuses on the processing of DNA and on membrane-based events during late stages of bacterial conjugation. Bacterial conjugation is an efficient way to transfer genetic information among prokaryotes and accounts for the dissemination of many antibiotic resistance determinants among pathogens. The analysis exploits the well-characterized F plasmid of E. coli as a model and aims to characterize the mechanism of DNA processing and DNA transfer through the cell envelope during conjugation.
Recently, the lab has been involved in the development of materials for nanotechnology. Different proteins characterized in the lab’s genetic analyses are being engineered by the addition of polypeptide sequences that bind to various inorganic compounds. Those inorganic compounds can be arranged in predictable structures, based on the self-assembly properties of the substrate proteins. Examples include using different DNA binding proteins to organize inorganic nanoparticles along a DNA guide.
Diversity Issues in Science has been taught by Dr. Traxler since 2005. It is a seminar course focused on discussion of how people of different ethnic/social groups or nationalities experience “research” and how research impacts peoples’ lives. Issues include what informed consent for research means, how different people perceive ethical research, and how politics can inform and affect scientific research.
Professor Howard is a former prosecutor and judge who has taught evidence and other trial-related skills all over the United States, as well as in Hong Kong, in Ireland, and in Africa. In addition to her formal teaching, Professor Howard writes and speaks nationally on the art of trial advocacy and has appeared on several television programs as a legal commentator.
I teach aspiring trial lawyers how to prepare and try cases in the courtroom.
Make sure to take one class your first year that excites you — a class that you are so passionate about that you would take even if you weren't receiving credit. Spend some one-on-one time with your professors. Visit them during office hours and get to know them. You'll be surprised how approachable we are and how much we want to help our students. We really do teach because we love to teach and we want to help our students grow and succeed. There are no stupid questions.
As a former prosecutor and judge, I have the highest respect for our jury system and I am fascinated by the interplay of law and psychology in the presentation of a case to a jury.
In this seminar, we will examine how scientific and technological advances have changed forever the discovery, collection, analysis, preservation, and presentation of evidence, before and during trial. We will also discuss how these changes impact bias and discrimination in the trial process. Students will learn how a judge determines whether expert scientific opinions are admissible, how social media has influenced jury selection, how advanced technological presentation options have presented both opportunities and obstacles to trial lawyers, how juror access to information on the internet has created invisible avenues of digital "evidence" that can influence jury deliberations, and how mass media coverage of trials can influence the outcome and threaten juror privacy. In addition, we will discuss the impact on jurors of the prevalence of CSI-type television shows and movies that may mislead jurors as to the current state of science, affecting jurors' assessment of evidence presented.
José Alaniz, associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Department of Comparative Literature (adjunct) at the University of Washington–Seattle, published his first book, Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (University Press of Mississippi) in 2010. His research interests include Death and Dying, Disability Studies, Film Studies, Eco-criticism and Comics Studies. His current projects include Death, Disability and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond and a history of Czech comics.
I teach mainly Russian literature in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and courses on comics and film in the Department of Comparative Literature.
I am passionate about Disability Studies on this campus, and see the Collegium Semninar as a good venue to promote it to incoming students!
I enjoy hearing my students' fresh perspectives on the material I teach.
Since its publication in 1897, H.G. Wells’ early scifi novel The War of the Worlds has disturbed readers with its stark vision of alien invasion and global disaster. After a century of modern warfare and nuclear catastrophe, in our own era of climate change, mass extinction and other human-caused accelerations of natural processes on a vast scale, Wells’ story finds renewed relevance today. We will closely read The War of the Worlds, view its film adaptations, and follow its influence on philosophy, apocalyptic thought and popular culture up to the present day.
I am an Associate Professor at the Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS). Originally from the UK, I am also a practicing artist who works predominantly with installation, video and data-driven art forms. My work has been exhibited around the world, notably at ZKM, the Prix Ars Electronica and the Toronto International Film Festival/MOCCA.
I am an artist and an Associate Professor at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS). I make work across a wide range of platforms – video, installation, online, sculpture, and public art. At UW I teach studio art classes covering Video, Big Data, Physical Computing and the Internet.
I’m teaching a seminar because I don’t often get to work with freshmen - it’s great to be able to work with students before they become too specialized. I’m looking forward to hearing fresh ideas and perspectives, and helping to get them thinking differently about the relationship between art and technology.
Most of what I teach involves making art using emerging technologies. I like the challenge of figuring out what those technologies represent for us as human beings, and inventing methods for building art with them. In some cases, students are more familiar with the technologies than I am, which means I am always learning too.
How is art different after the Internet? The class looks at work being done by artists using the Internet and assesses ways in which the Internet has influenced and changed more traditional art forms. It considers the shifting role of the museum and gallery in relation to the Internet, and it asks, what skills does an artist need today? Students will view and discuss new approaches to art that the Internet has opened up. As well as short weekly readings/viewings and participation in discussion, students will complete a short written assignment in which they will speculate about future possibilities for art, after the Internet.