Course Clusters

Explores visual and performing arts as tools for social commentary and protest—from historical art activism to contemporary community-based art practices.

Prepares students for behind-the-scenes roles in arts organizations, museums, galleries, and cultural institutions.

Explores how arts and cultural programming contribute to vibrant, healthy communities through creative placemaking and cultural planning.

Analyzes how artists, writers, and performers use creative work to critique society, challenge dominant narratives, and imagine alternative futures.

Investigates how societies remember and represent the past through monuments, museums, memorials, and rituals.

Explores how language shapes thought, constructs reality, and mediates cultural understanding—covering multilingualism, translation, and intercultural communication.

Investigates how performance in theatre, dance, music, and everyday life constructs and expresses identity across race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Takes a critical analytical approach to visual and media culture—examining how images shape meaning, ideology, and power.

Explores how data and evidence are collected, analyzed, and used across sectors—covering research methods, data visualization, and evidence-based policy.

Investigates the relationship between media systems, information flows, and democratic governance—covering press freedom, misinformation, and critical media literacy.

Examines profound ethical questions raised by emerging technologies—from AI and algorithmic bias to biotechnology and surveillance systems.

Investigates unequal distribution of environmental burdens across communities—how race, class, and geography shape exposure to pollution and access to environmental resources.

Investigates food as biological necessity, cultural expression, economic commodity, and site of justice struggles—from production systems to food policy.

Focuses on crafting, sharing, and evaluating environmental messages—covering climate communication, environmental advocacy, and science journalism.

Investigates aging as both biological and social process—examining generational dynamics, aging policy, elder care systems, and demographic change.

Explores healing and therapeutic dimensions of artistic expression—examining how creative processes support mental health, trauma recovery, and community building.

Examines how social, economic, and cultural factors shape health outcomes—covering health disparities, health communication, and the social determinants of health.

Explores mental health and wellness shaped by social, cultural, and structural factors—covering mental health systems, stigma, and community-based support.

Investigates how gender and sexuality are socially constructed, how they intersect with other identities, and how they shape power and lived experience.

Centers Indigenous perspectives, histories, knowledge systems, and contemporary struggles for sovereignty, land rights, and cultural preservation.

Critical analysis of how race operates as a system of power—examining structural racism, racialization processes, and movements for racial justice.

Examines how ordinary people organize to challenge power structures—from civil rights and labor movements to contemporary climate activism and digital organizing.

Explores diverse systems of belief, meaning-making, and ethical reasoning across cultures and historical periods.

Critically examines criminal justice systems, legal institutions, and mechanisms of social control—from criminology to restorative justice.

Examines how digital technologies transform communication, culture, politics, and social relationships—covering social media, algorithmic curation, and digital activism.

Examines how wealth is created and distributed, why inequality persists, and strategies for more equitable economic development.

Prepares students to navigate complex ethical dilemmas in professional life, combining philosophical ethics with practical applications in business, journalism, and healthcare.

Investigates how global interconnection through trade, migration, media, and digital networks transforms cultures, economies, and political systems.

Examines effective leadership across contexts—exploring organizational culture, change management, and ethical decision-making.

Examines how democratic societies make collective decisions—covering policy analysis, legislative processes, and advocacy skills.

Examines sports as cultural phenomena reflecting race, gender, class, nationalism, media, and economics—from athlete activism to sports management.

Examines cities as complex social, economic, cultural, and political spaces—exploring housing policy, neighborhood change, and equitable urban development.

Examines the causes of war and conditions for peace—covering international conflict, diplomacy, peacekeeping, and global governance.