OPS7200 Technology & Operations Management

2 CreditsTechnology & Operations Management (TOM) - This course introduces students to the fundamental components of a firm's operating systems, be it a mature enterprise or an early stage company. The course introduces the new methods and models to analyze, diagnose and improve operations activities for both manufacturing and service firms. We examine key issues for competitiveness including operations strategy, innovation, product and process design and development, global supply chain management, quality management, and sustainable operations. Developing a strong appreciation for the contribution of technology and operations to a company's market success is an essential element of effective decision-making for entrepreneurs and leaders of all types of organizations.

OIM2001 Technology Operations Management

4 Credits

**This course is equivalent to SME2002. Students who took SME2002 cannot take this course.**

This course focuses on the processes and management systems required for entrepreneurial leaders and managers to successfully test and actualize business strategy. To be effective, leaders must accurately interpret customer value through new product development & service system design. They must create, manage and make investments to improve the conversion of resources into delivered value. Ultimately a venture's Operating Model must conform to the business's objectives and tightly link all activities tailored to its strategy such that the intent and the actions achieve the desired results in an ethical and sustainable manner.

The structure of this course builds the critical thinking skills and introduces the managerial methods needed to become entrepreneurial leaders and managers in all operating environments, independent of industry or scope. Students will discover how the design of operations impacts measured performance and affects customer satisfaction. The course further instructs how the digital modeling of expected results before action is taken leads to improved operational decisions.

Managing operations is vital to every type of organization, for it is only through effective and efficient utilization of resources that an organization can be successful in the long run. This is especially true in a globally-networked economy, when we see that significant competitive advantages accrue to those firms that manage their operations effectively. We define operations in the broadest sense, not confining the focus within the boundaries of the firm but defining the scope to the intentions and activities considered in the supply of goods and services from their conception to their consumption.

In the classroom, students will have case-based learning and hands-on experience to apply operating theories and managerial tools to make well-informed decisions. Students engage in project & group activity and assessment to help supplement individual learning throughout this course.

Prerequisites: FME 1000

PHL4609 Technology, Nature and Values
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsInvestigates the ways in which our increasing technological capabilities have influenced our values and the reciprocal influence of beliefs and conceptual systems upon technological progress.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

LIT4611 East and West: Writings of Trespass
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course explores the captivating and dangerous ways in which writers construct foreign worlds of "East" and "West"-i.e. how they trespass, distort, and dream the border between themselves and other civilizations. From the Argentinian Borges' depictions of Arabian labyrinths to the Syrian Adonis' depictions of New York City alleyways, from the French Baudelaire's meditations on Oriental opium-dens to the Persian Hedayat's meditations on the madmen of Paris, from Camus' staging of the apocalypse in Algeria to Darwish's staging of the apocalypse in the migration of Palestinian refugees to European capitals, we will see how such authors represent unknown and outsider cultures. Ultimately, then, the course will interrogate the experience of radical otherness and its use as a complex force of creativity, consciousness, and imagination.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

EPS3536 The Entrepreneurial Innovator
4 Advanced Management CreditsIn the Entrepreneurial Innovator, transdisciplinary teams will identify multiple entrepreneurial innovation opportunities, through user engagement and extensive prototyping, over the course of two separate design sprints. This experimental, hands-on seminar will be held in the Weissman Foundry and offer broad exposure to prototyping processes and capabilities. The seminar is open to 3rd and 4th year Babson, Olin and Wellesley (BOW) community students.

Innovation can be defined as creativity that is new and useful, combining elements of novelty and some compelling utility to an end user or target customer. Entrepreneurship considers ways to generate and monetize innovations, making value-creation profitable and sustainable. Working in transdisciplinary teams, BOW students roll up their sleeves to investigate and define unmet needs and innovation possibilities for two different user groups/customer groups. Participation in the seminar requires an action-orientation, frequent off-campus trips, user engagement, physical prototyping, as well as visual representations of user problems and innovative solutions.

Prerequisites: Open to all Babson, Olin, Wellesley (BOW) community students in their 3rd or 4th
year of study

ECN3625 Economic and Political Integration in the European Union
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Elective CreditsThe European Union is the most important experiment in liberal democracy since the founding of the United States almost three hundred years ago. The question is, will it ultimately succeed in its goals of eliminating trade barriers and increasing political unity in order to promote economic growth and ensure peace. From the "Brexit" movement in the UK, to the rise of right-wing populism in Hungary, Poland and Italy, to the massive influx of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, the EU faces potentially shattering challenges to its authority and its institutions. Students will learn about the history of the EU, the institutional structures, the democratic nature of decision-making and legislation, the economic foundations of the single market and the impact of adopting a single currency, the Euro. With this knowledge in hand, students will examine the current crises and the future challenges for the success of the European Union experiment.

Prerequisites: (SME2031 or ECN2002) and ECN2000

SEN1332 The Greatest American Scandals

(Student Instructor: Elizabeth D'Agostino) Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, and O.J. Simpson all have one thing in common: they were the subjects of journalistic scrutiny. In this course, we will focus on groundbreaking U.S. scandals of the past century to examine the role of journalism and its complex relationship with democracy. Students will explore politics, history, business, crime, and ethics, and questions about truth through interactive lectures, guest speakers, and media analysis. We will discuss how journalism informs facets of American culture, including gender roles, race relations, political battles, and institutions of power. After learning about historical events like Watergate, Clinton's impeachment, and the O.J. Simpson trial, students will be able to contextualize current events and ultimately answer the key question of this course: why does journalism matter? Course materials include podcasts, films, and TV shows such as "Slow Burn," "Catch and Kill", and "O.J.: Made in America."

Tuesdays: 6:30-9:00pm

HIS4670 The History and Ethics of Capitalism
(Formerly History of Capitalism)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course deals with the history of capitalism from early modern times to the present. It is concerned not just with the story of capitalist enterprise but with the cultural values and social institutions accompanying capitalism. It addresses the tension as well as the affinity between capitalism on the one hand and, on the other, contextual cultural values and social institutions. It especially focuses on the way that capitalist power subverts as well as supports the free market economy and democratic political processes with which it is often identified.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

MDS4615: The Interview

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

To interview means literally to see (view) each other (inter). As media from paintings to pixels have emerged and proliferated over the past decades & centuries, so too have the means by which we see/read/hear one another, giving rise to a whole range of transmedia interview genres: news interviews, celebrity interviews, athlete interviews, political interviews, press conferences, podcasts, talk shows, and storytelling interview methods like documentaries, mockumentaries, reality TV, etc. These stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more time-test interview genres, like surveys, polls, focus groups, job interviews, police interviews, court testimony, and so on. In this class, which merges media studies, genre studies, and professional communication, we will uncover what is essential to each of these interview genres and to them all by experiencing the many roles of the 'interverse:' we will participate as observers--readers, watchers, listeners--but also meanwhile as doers-interviewers, interviewees, microphone positioners, camera operators, stenographers, question designers, video editors, and so on. What we will find is that a conversation always involves more than speaking & listening, and that seeing and being seen often create pathways to new futures.

Prerequisite: Any combination of 2 Intermediate Liberal Arts Courses (HSS, LTA, CSP)

LTA2080 The Literature of Guilt: I'm Sorry for Apologizing so OftenN
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course will examine guilt and how it affects us, both personally and societally. Through both literary and cultural texts, we will study guilt in a number of settings including familial guilt, generational guilt, survival guilt, and societal guilt. Students will be challenged to look at guilt in both its helpful and harmful forms, investigating why we feel the emotion and the effects it can have on us. We will read works by Dante Alighieri, Joseph Conrad, J.M. Coetzee, and Jane Smiley, among others. We will also watch Beloved and We Need To Talk About Kevin as well as the first season of Rectify.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)