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The courses listed herein have been approved by the faculty as authorized by the Board of Trustees. Prerequisites (if any) and the General Education Requirement(s) which each course fulfills (if any) are noted following each course description.
3.00 credit hours An introduction to writing poetry and fiction, to some of the conventions writers use in the two genres, and to the workshop-style writing classroom.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: GWS 280.) An examination of the broad spectrum of women’s writing-across time, cultures and genres-studying the literary and political significance of the female voice in creative and critical texts. Through an exploration of texts which may include the poems of Sappho, the speeches of Queen Elizabeth I, the plays of Lillian Hellman, the novels of Toni Morrison, the films of Kathryn Bigelow, to the theoretical writings of Luce Irigaray, students will also delve into the ways that literature provides a space to interrogate the intersections between gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability/disability and class.
3.00 credit hours An exploration of how writing is taught, both historically and by way of current theories and pedagogies, along with an examination of contemporary arguments about literacy instruction. Students practice methods of working one-on-one with writers. Required for Secondary Education majors seeking certification in English.
3.00 credit hours Specialized topics in American literature. Content defined by the individual instructor. Recent topics include African-American women writers, embodiment and social class in 19th and 20th century American literature, Midwestern literature and 21st century U.S. fiction. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours Specialized topics in British literature. Content defined by the individual instructor. Recent topics include cosmopolitan Britain, nature and Romantic poetry, British detective fiction and empire and the Chaucer generation. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours Specialized topics in contemporary literature. Content defined by individual instructors. Recent topics include post-modern and post-human literature. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
ENG 307 - Studies in Literature of Cultural Identity
3.00 credit hours Specialized topics in a literature of cultural identity originating within a particular racial, ethnic, economic or sexual community. Recent topics include Southeast Asian-American literature, white identity in South African literature and queering identity. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours Extends skills introduced in ENG 115, IDS 125 and the General Education experience. Drawing on interdisciplinary readings and practicing cross-disciplinary writing and revision, students examine both their specific area of study and the larger academic and non-academic communities around them. Using inquiry and dialogue, students focus on the value of writing with others from a variety of fields in order to address complex problems in the public sphere.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 115 or ENG 125; Junior standing. Core: Composition.
ENG 330 - Multicultural Literature of North America
3.00 credit hours An exploration of one or more North American ethnic culture’s practices and values through the lens of literature. Students examine oral, musical, religious, philosophical and historical conditions, or traditions that have influenced the formation of ethnic literatures and American culture as a whole.
3.00 credit hours Workshop in creative nonfiction writing that emphasizes invention, research, drafting and revision. Additionally, students examine published models for critique and appreciation of craft. Topic and approach may vary. This course may be repeated once with different content and permission of the instructor.
3.00 credit hours An investigation of the essentials of human language: what it includes (sounds, words, sentence patterns and meanings), how it works, how it varies in social settings and how it changes across time. Required for Secondary Education majors seeking certification in English.
3.00 credit hours An advanced workshop in fiction writing that emphasizes invention, research, drafting and revision. Additionally, students examine published models for critique and appreciation of craft. Topic and approach may vary. This course may be repeated once with different content and permission of the instructor.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An advanced workshop in poetry writing that emphasizes invention, research, drafting and revision. Additionally, students examine published models for critique and appreciation of craft. Topic and approach may vary. This course may be repeated once with different content and permission of the instructor.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An interdisciplinary study of world literatures, focusing on selected topics and regions, usually connected to the College’s annual international focus. Texts are examined in the context of the history and culture of their regions. This course may be repeated once with different content.
3.00 credit hours A literary study of sacred texts from around the world, including portions of the Bible, Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads, Koran, Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada and the Analects. Students compare literary structures, strategies and themes, while considering the cross-cultural influences such texts have had on world literature and art.
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of some aspect of drama or of a particular dramatist. Recent topics include Shakespeare and his contemporaries and Shakespeare and the media. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of some aspect of fiction in the context of history and critical theory. Recent topics include the 18th-century novel, magic realism, 19th-century American best sellers and the Civil War. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of some aspect of poetry, including individual poets, movements, historical periods or approaches to the genre. Recent topics include Chaucer, Romantic poetry and modern American Poetry. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of works by a single author or authors sharing a particular connection. Recent topics include Dickens and Wilde, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison and Henry James. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours A study of major theorists or theoretical movements that have shaped the selection of texts and how they are read within cultures. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An advanced study and practice of professional writing for various audiences, addressing style, structure and ethical considerations pertaining to a variety of document forms and publishing platforms. Special attention is given to writing effective grant applications. Students may only receive credit for one of ENG 455, MLS 455 or MNM 551.
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of a selected topic in literature, language, writing, literary criticism or theory with special attention to issues related to leadership, ethics or values. Recent topics include Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This course may be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course. ACR: Leadership, Ethics and Values.
3.00 credit hours An exploration of writing that engages in civic life and contributes to meaningful public debates. Students engage in research designed to expand their expertise as cultural critics.
ENG 465 - Advanced Creative Nonfiction - Multimedia
3.00 credit hours An advanced writing seminar wherein student writers transform creative nonfictions into a variety of multimedia forms which may include the following visual and/or audio products: documentary, oral history, monologue, commentary, storyboard, slideshow, spoken word poetry or theatrical sketch. Students learn to enlarge the contemporary practice of written nonfiction through projects and prompts that encourage creative, hands-on exploration as well as workshop-based analytical and critical skills.
3.00 credit hours An intensive, advanced study of one particular aspect of or issue in fiction writing or poetry writing. Topic and approach may vary. This course may be repeated once with different content and permission of the instructor.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 201 and one 200-level literature course.
3.00 credit hours An examination of the scientific understanding of climate change. Includes a thorough study of the evidence that the climate is changing; at detailed analysis of our current best understanding of how the global climate system works, including the possible causes of the rapid climate change now taking place, and the connection between human activities and the changing climates. Time permitting, an examination of the impacts of climate change and the options available to ameliorate the changes now underway.
3.50 credit hours (Same as: BIO 106.) An overview of biological and physical processes that affect the environment in the context of current environmental issues. Topics include population, community, ecosystem ecology, conservation biology, water and air pollution and natural resource management. Laboratory required.
3.00 credit hours This introductory course in Environmental Studies explains key environmental concepts and surveys the changing relationships between people and their environments through key texts in American literature, sociology and history.
ENV 201 - Scientific Topics in Environmental Studies
3.00 credit hours A modular course covering scientific topics of relevance to environmental studies. Topics may include Energy Technology and Society, Invasive Species Ecology, Microbes in the Environment, Hot Topics or areas of faculty or student interest. Content will vary from offering to offering.
Prerequisite(s): Completion of at least one general education science course.
3.00 credit hours Sustainability is a common, but still contentious term. Students learn various definitions of it, study its practical application on our local campus and in the Chicago metropolitan area and investigate what is required from all of us to achieve sustainability. A major part of this course is service learning in the local community and field trips to see sustainable projects in action. Topics covered include management of water, waste, energy, food production and the effects on “people, planet, profit”.
1.00-3.00 credit hours (Same as: BIO 220.) Field study in biology. This course takes students off-campus into a field environment for research in ecology, zoology, botany, environmental science and/or related areas. Timing and location vary according to faculty interests and research opportunities. May be offered during D-term or in conjunction with a study abroad program. Examples of recent offerings include study of desert ecology in Arizona and estuarine ecology on the Gulf Coast. This course may be repeated once with different content and permission of the instructor.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: PHL 225.) After a brief examination of philosophical ethical frameworks, the following will be considered: the history of environmental ethics; the problem of the “moral status” of nonhuman animals and other aspects of nature: the environment and “the good life,” ethical issues related to population growth, sustainability, diminishing/vanishing resources and the use of cost benefit analysis in environmental policy.
3.00 credit hours This course introduces the politics of U.S. environmental policy making. It explores how conflicting political, economic and social interests and values contend for influence and exert power in the realm of environmental policy. Students will gain an understanding of how environmental issues arrive on the public agenda, the role of political institutions in making environmental policy, the economic, political, social and institutional forces that shape policymaking, competing approaches to environmental policy analysis and the goals and strategies of the environmental movement.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: ECN 240.) Environmental Economics primarily examines the impact of economic activity on the environment and the shortcomings of the market system in valuing environmental costs and benefits. Traditional regulation of the U.S. economy, including command and control policies are briefly discussed. The focus of the course is the recent development and application of new and potential economic instruments to improve environmental quality. Other topics covered include the valuation of environmental resources and prospects for sustainable development.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: ENG 246.) Environmental Literature encompasses the study of classics of nature writing from the 19th and 20th century Anglo-American literary traditions and the practice of eco-criticism, which analyzes a much wider range of novels and other texts in order to understand the various ways that literature participates in various cultural formations of the relationships between humans, their environment and other forms of life. Texts will include a wide range of genres (poetry, non-fiction, novels, including sci-fi) and periods from the 19th century to our contemporary moment.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: HST 248.) This broad survey of American history from an environmental perspective examines the ways that different groups of Americans adapted to and changed the landscape, and analyzes their ideas about nature. Major themes include the new perspective of environmental history, reading the landscape, the role of region in America and knowing nature through labor.
Prerequisite(s): One humanities or social science course. Core: Humanities or Social Science.
3.00 credit hours Geographic Information Science (GIS) is the science of linking data to locations to explore spatial relationships. GIS goes far beyond mapping to evaluating the relationship between different spatial information so that one can identify the best location for new development, locate pollution point sources, find the easiest way to get from point A to point B and develop a better understanding of the way the world interacts. The goals of this course are to teach basic GIS concepts such as spatial data sources and structures, projections and coordinate systems, data editing and creation and geospatial analysis.
ENV 300 - Topics in Contemporary Environmental Issues
3.00 credit hours Led by professors across the varied disciplines of environmental studies, this is an intensive study of a selected topic in environmental studies. Such topics may include sustainable business, energy analysis, writing about nature, science and environment, and environmentalism in developing nations. This interdisciplinary course integrates principles and approaches from the sciences, humanities and social sciences to better understand the complex social, cultural, economic and scientific grounds of specific environmental issues. May be repeated once with different content.
Prerequisite(s): ENV 120 or Junior standing. ACR: Leadership, Ethics and Values.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: ACC 303.) Accounting and business concepts are applied to sustainability projects within the greater College community. After covering a foundation of cost and managerial accounting concepts, students will work on teams to plan, implement and assess environmental opportunities available to the College. Projects may include cost-benefit analysis, capital budgeting or sustainability certification opportunities.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: SOA 305.) Examines human engagements with the physical environment from early homo sapiens to the present. Topics include major adaptive strategies (foraging, horticulture, intensive agriculture, pastoralism and industrialism) and their social correlates and environmental consequences; factors that lead to collapse of complex societies in the archaeological past; mercantile and colonial engagements and resulting changes in resource use; and contemporary resource conflicts between small-scale societies and states and corporate interests.
3.00 credit hours The demand for energy is increasing worldwide, presenting us with a number of complex environmental, economic and political challenges. Students gain a broad understanding of the current energy system in the U.S., the environmental and economic compromises necessary to power the world in the 21st century, and possible paths to a sustainable energy future. They examine the environmental and economic trade-offs of a variety of fossil fuel and alternative energy sources. The course gives students a framework for thinking about energy-related events that are happening in the world, what they may mean for future energy use and by extension societal and environmental well-being, the political factors governing our energy system and how we might improve our current energy system moving forward.
3.00 credit hours This course introduces students to a number of psychological and socio-economic factors that contribute to environmental issues, and uses them to gain insight into and draw parallels between specific environmental problems. Apart from introducing students to the concepts and literature in global environmental politics, the course provides students with insights into the political structure and context of transnational environmental issues, the ways in which individuals are implicated in these issues, the intergovernmental mechanisms established for addressing environmental problems and the transnational environmental activity, including that through social movements, non-governmental organizations and corporate actors.
3.00 credit hours Examines the concept of environmental justice through interdisciplinary lenses. Beginning by examining different definitions of “environmental justice,” various frameworks will be used to analyze environmental issues through the lens of social justice and human inequality. Through selected case studies, the course examines a number of topics and questions which include: the advantages and drawbacks of current systems of production and consumption and who bears the burdens and who enjoys the benefits of our current environmental and social system and what kinds of alternatives are available.
3.00 credit hours This course is directed to students interested in leading organizations and communities toward greater sustainability. Students utilize the College campus as a laboratory to lead change, motivate others to be stewards of the environment, and help the College achieve its sustainability goals. Students identify and examine critical issues that affect the College’s impact on the environment and work toward specific improvements through group projects.
3.00 credit hours NCC’s Chicago metropolitan locale provides an ideal location to study urban, suburban and rural environmental issues such as regional environmental interdependence, urban ecology, sustainable cities, suburban sprawl, transportation, Chicago environmental history, restoration/reuse of brownfields, green spaces in urban, suburban and rural environments, and agriculture and the environment. This course explores these issues with particular attention to their relationship to the local history and politics of Chicago.
0.00-1.00 credit hours In this portion of the experiential requirement for the Environmental Studies major, students, faculty and occasional guest speakers present research, internship and activist experiences. Majors who have completed their experiential project take the symposium for one credit hour and present the results of their experiential project. Any student can enroll for zero credit and participate as audience members; majors are required to do this once in addition to the term that they present their work.
Prerequisite(s): Completion of experiential project, if taken for credit (presenters); no prerequisite if taken for no credit (participants).
3.00 credit hours An introduction to the critical analysis of film through an examination of the technical, formal and stylistic aspects of cinematic production.
Prerequisite(s): ENG 115 or ENG 125. Core: Humanities. IAI: F2 905
3.00 credit hours A survey of the major developments in American cinema from the invention of motion pictures to the present, with emphasis on directors, aesthetic innovations, technological advances, government policies and business practices. Major focus on Hollywood studios with some attention to independent, experimental and “art” film.
3.00 credit hours The study of key theoretical models and strategies for analysing, assessing and interpreting film as text, as cultural document, and as aesthetic experience. May include theories of spectatorship, genre, production systems, performance, as well as feminist, queer and postcolonial perspectives.
FLM 490 - Special Topics in Film and Screen Studies
3.00 credit hours An intensive study of an area within film or screen studies. Courses could focus on the films of one nation, director or genre; screen adaptation; music and moving images; animation; the history of television or a particular program; recent screen technologies; etc.
3.00 credit hours An introduction to corporate financial management. Topics include financial statement analysis, discounted cash flow analysis, bond and stock valuation, common stock/debt financing, risk and return, cost of capital and capital budgeting.
3.00 credit hours (Same as: MTH 365.) The study of compound interest and annuities; applications to problems in finance and actuarial science. Required for the major in actuarial science.
3.00 credit hours This is a broad-based course in personal financial planning and personal finance intended for students interested in taking a first step toward careers in personal financial advising as well as students who seek to better manage their own financial affairs. Topics include the financial planning process, personal investing, mutual funds, retirement planning, tax planning, insurance planning, estate planning, investment advising, professional ethics and conduct and personal financial responsibility.
Prerequisite(s): FIN 350. ACR: Leadership, Ethics and Values.
3.00 credit hours Theory and applications in the realm of financial decision making in the international sphere. Topics may include the global financial environment, foreign exchange risk management, financing international transactions and asset management including short-term and long-term multinational corporate finance decisions.
1.00-3.00 credit hours Topics vary depending on student interest and faculty expertise. Topics and prerequisites are announced in advance and placed in the course schedule. May be repeated with different content.
3.00 credit hours A broad survey of investments and portfolio management. Topics include stock and bond market analysis and valuation, portfolio analysis and management, efficient markets, international financial markets and derivative securities.
3.00 credit hours A study of measuring and managing the risks faced by financial institutions. Topics include the organizational and regulatory structure of the financial services industry. The risks measured may include interest rate risk, market risk, credit risk, off-balance sheet risk, liquidity risk, insolvency risk, foreign exchange risk and sovereign risk. The risk management methods may include liability and liquidity management, deposit insurance and capital adequacy, product or geographic expansion, and the use of derivatives.
3.00 credit hours The theory and practice of corporate finance. Study of selected topics in corporate finance including capital budgeting, capital structure and dividend policy, mergers and acquisitions and financial analysis and planning.
FIN 475 - Derivatives: Markets, Pricing and Applications
3.00 credit hours This course deals with financial instruments known as derivatives and their use in managing risk and creating leverage. The derivatives market consists of financial contracts in the form of options, forwards, futures, swaps, debt-related securities and many other types of related instruments. These contracts are used by corporations, investment funds, individuals and governments to control risk arising from fluctuating interest rates, exchange rates, stock prices and commodity prices. They are also used by investors and financial institutions to leverage investment positions. This course is designed to expand understanding of derivative related financial instruments and their use in investment and corporate financial management. Upon completion of the course, students will have a clear understanding of derivative markets, the theory of pricing derivative securities and the use of derivatives in practice.
1.00 credit hours An introduction to the college academic experience at North Central College. Students begin their academic journey by tackling a current issue and discussing possible responses using several disciplinary approaches. Required for first year students in Fall term.
FRN 310 - Style and Structure in French Composition
3.00 credit hours Emphasis on improving oral and written proficiency through the study and discussion of core texts. Students develop a sense of the various techniques that contribute to style and use these techniques in their own writing.
2.00 credit hours An introduction to French company organization and related activities (employment, correspondence, simulated transactions), with emphasis on the language skills needed to function effectively in a French business setting.
3.00 credit hours A study of France under the Nazi occupation in World War II, including a focus on collaboration, rescue and resistance, survival and memory.
Prerequisite(s): FRN 310. ACR: Leadership, Ethics and Values.
3.00 credit hours An exploration of the socio-cultural changes in Francophone Africa resulting from colonization and independence, as reflected in contemporary and traditional literature.