Signature Classes

Students work one-on-one with speakers as they prepare their TEDx Talks. In addition to co-organizing every aspect of the TEDx Arcadia University Conference (fund raising, marketing, speaker format, program schedule, researching and analyzing and collecting primary and support materials for the conference), students collaborate and create their own dynamic TEDx Arcadia University talks. Student will present these at the Conference. They will also create a video/paper final project that chronicles their experience.

The projects for this course are inspired by books, articles, websites and social media accounts from around the world written and published since the term “craftivism” was coined in 2003. We explore historical examples of craftivism throughout history. Students read several books and articles on the history and rise of craftivism. Planned class trips and invited guest speakers shape an understanding of this movement. Students create approximately 8 projects, including a collaborative community class project. The main impetus for this class is to have students refine their activist and artistic voice(s) to find a way to put ideas out into the world using traditional art and craft techniques and processes. Our Craftivism class is the first of its kind in the nation.

This course is an intensive and experiential philosophical study of what it means to live “true to one’s self” in light of the powerful conditioning forces in our multiple, interdependent social worlds. Our critical study of lived experience will require interrogating the abstract concepts of being, self, other, body, and world, through our personal values (e.g., friendship, home, etcetera) and everyday artifacts (e.g., selfies, tattoos, street art, and so on). Critical to this philosophical practice will be engagement with the social and political power relations that bear directly and indirectly on our individual senses of self and well-being. Assessment will be primarily through participation, formal and informal writing, and a creative project.

The course is designed to connect the classroom to the community through service learning and collaborative leadership experiences. The focus is to create a mindfulness among students regarding issues of social justice and how to address them through a creative and compassionate lens. Students will research and discuss issues that affect the global community, such as sex trafficking, child brides, clean water issues, and access to healthcare in developing countries. They will also learn how aesthetic entrepreneurship can be used to make an impact in the social justice context. Students will be provided the opportunity to use the arts to influence social impact locally and globally and use their leadership strengths to influence change.

Everyone should have an internship. We didn’t want students to have to choose between taking an unpaid internship and taking a paid position at a big box store, which they needed to pay their bills. So, we created a class where your work experiences―regardless of where they are―are turned into an internship, ensuring you are creating professional meaning from these experiences. 

Check out our podcasts:

• Episode 17 |Little Moments: Erin, Grace and Trisha discuss the impact of positive and negative mindset on our everyday work life.
• Episode 18 |The Professionals: Abby, Ilija, and Jonathan examine how advances in technology, and outdated standards within workplace culture, influence wellness, equality, generational differences, and more.
• Episode 19 |TEM Talk: Thalia, Morganne, and Emma share their experiences and tips for balancing academics, athletics, work, and internships.
• Episode 20 |Cathartic Corner: Areiana, Jenna, and Jessica offer a quick look at maintaining happiness and avoiding burnout while working as full-time students.
• Episode 21 |Gratadeous: Amadeous, Grace, and Natalie provide advice for navigating online grad school applications and job searches.

Preceptorial is an opportunity for you to make the class you always wanted to take. Students decide the focus of the class together. They design the course policies. They divide the course into units and then in small work for 4-6 weeks to design the syllabus, lesson plans, and assessment mechanism for their portion of the course. In the final 8 weeks of class, they teach each other the course material. You will never learn as well as when you learn to teach others. 

Students can take an upper-level class in their major and turn it into an Honors class by adding an additional project. They can also take the Office of Career Education’s e3 professional development series or The Love Pilot (a series focused on Anti-Black racism) to get Honors Credit.

This course sets out to investigate the art of adaptation. Students will read academic essays to gain a broad understanding of narrative theory (as it applies to both written forms and visual ones), and then move to analyze the application of these various theories in 20th & 21st century literature and film. Oftentimes, how we choose to tell a story is as important as what we choose to tell. This class will help students to understand both the power of stories broadly and some of the particular tools available to them as storytellers.

Everyday Sustainability: Have you ever wondered what it means to live sustainably? Do you want to learn more about sustainable living but think that you have to make huge changes to have an impact? Whatever the motivation, sustainable practices should be a priority for everyone. However, the reality of living a sustainable life is still new to many of us. In this class, we will study and implement sustainable practices in your everyday life. From your choice of clothing and mode of transportation to the length of your shower and the food you consume, we will break down everyday living activities and see how they affect the world we live in. We will research sustainable practices, evaluate the bloggers that claim to be sustainable, take action, and log progress by keeping a sustainability journal, and create a personal project in your own living space. This class is about action armed with knowledge and by the end, you will be ready to live sustainably.  This class, unfortunately, was not able to get its' designation prior to deadline, but the professor was hoping to get an SS.  It isn't hard to petition for that after the fact, and I can help you.

This pass/nonpass workshop focuses on students having empathy with themselves to prioritize goals for a positive college experience and then developing habits to allow them to successfully achieve those goals. In addition, this course will introduce the Honors Program learning goals and ensure students feel connected in the wider community so that they can influence outcomes that affect their experience.

Students may choose from a Hot Topic course, one time, to take a course outside of Honors and have it count as an HN300 course. A Hot Topic course is a class from outside of Honors which furthers the Honors mission, goals and values.