LIT4689 Poetic Elegy: Shaping Cultural and Personal Loss
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsAn elegy is a poem of mourning, a lament that can express both private and public grief. Reading elegies offers insight into cultural attitudes towards life and death while featuring the resilience of poetic form. From antiquity to the present, poets have used this shaping form to memorialize, describe, reflect, critique, and witness. In this course we will examine the origins of the form and study pivotal poems and poets in its development. We will also explore the contemporary elegy-certainly in the shadows of 9/11 and the war in Iraq-both as a private expression of feeling and as a public need for decorum and custom. Texts may include poetry by John Milton, Anne Bradstreet, Thomas Gray, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich, Yusef Komonyakaa, Carolyn Forché, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, and Brian Turner, as well as lyrical prose elegies by Joan Didion and Philip Roth.

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

ECN3662 Political Economy of Latin American Development and Underdevelopment

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Elective Credits

This course is for any individual interested in the political, financial, historical, and social determinants of economic development in Latin America. Both theoretical and policy issues in development are covered. Analyzing the characteristic volatility of the region's business environment, the course provides an in-depth examination of the workings of Latin America's economies, which in combination with courses in the liberal arts, leads to a greater appreciation of this region's global distinction and diversity.

Prerequisites: ECN2000 and (SME2031 or ECN2002)

ECN 3601: Political Economy of Sustainable Development: Case of Germany

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

Germany has emerged as one of the world leaders in sustainability and innovation since the end of WWII. How has the political economy of Germany shaped its role in sustainability in Europe and in the world? With new "traffic light" coalition, would an increasingly popular Green Party accelerate actions towards sustainable development goals in Germany, or will these actions be hampered by the Free Democrats? The course meets first as an on-campus seminar to introduce you to the political and economic structures as well as the major environmental and sustainability debates in Germany. We will then spend spring break traveling in Germany to learn on the field, including a visit to the German Parliament (Bundestag), where the course instructor once interned.

Prerequisites: ECN 2002

CPS2015 Political Thought

(Formerly CVA2015)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course addresses the meaning and practice of politics through close readings of a range of political theory approaches, such as anarchist political theory, classic liberalism, civic republicanism, Black Nationalism, queer theory, settler colonial/Indigenous studies, conservatism, and feminist theory. The course will pursue such topics as the politics of confrontation, transformation and change, the role and meaning of citizenship, political community, government, inequality, political resistance, violence, and any other pertinent issues we discern from the work assigned. This is a reading intensive course, and it will also explore political themes that can be drawn out of popular culture, such as films and television shows.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring

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

WRT4602 Practicum in Peer Consulting and Writing
Advanced Liberal ArtsStudents learn to act as peer consultants in writing and work on improving their own writing, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills. They accomplish these objectives by addressing their writing problems; writing extensively; developing criteria to evaluate the writings of others; studying various writing processes and theories of composition; examining pedagogical approaches to teaching writing; reading extensively about, and becoming acquainted with, the dynamics of peer tutoring; and working in the Writing Center as peer consultant trainees.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring

Prerequisites: Instructor permission

AQM2000 Predictive Business Analytics

4 Foundation Liberal Arts Credits

This course is only open to students who started Fall 2021 or after

This course introduces students to the foundational ideas of modern data science through a hands-on implementation in modern statistical software. Students will encounter key conceptual ideas like the importance of holdout data, the dangers of overfitting, and the most common performance indicators for various model types through a tour of popular and practical predictive analytics algorithms: linear regression, k-nearest neighbors, logistic regression, classification and regression trees, naive Bayes', and others. In addition to these supervised learning models, students will investigate unsupervised learning models like association rules and clustering, which are designed to uncover structure in data rather than predict a particular target. Throughout the course, students will practice communicating the results of their analyses to a variety of stakeholders.

Prerequisites: AQM1000

SEN1307 Enhance Your Presentation Skills through Forensic Arts

(Senior Instructor: Breeana Blackmon) Poetry Interpretation is a specific type of skill within the speech and debate field of Forensics. In this seminar, students will practice this skill by choosing a short poem to interpret, practice performing, and finally present at the final Senior Seminar Showcase.
In the course, students will first and foremost be challenged to step outside of their comfort zones. Poetry Interpretation will not only boost their confidence, but also greatly strengthen their communication and presentation skills. They will learn how to connect with and captivate a crowd or audience. Also, they will develop valuable leadership skills through critiquing and coaching their peers.

To get a better idea of what Poetry Interpretation looks like and how it relates to speech and debate skills, please visit the following links:

http://www.speechanddebate.org/aspx/video.aspx?id=51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTErgLIYkc4&index=15&list=PLxwwkVu35jxAcS1U-TMYdail3A3gAQbHz

Course Schedule:
Class 1 - Tuesday, January 27
Class 2 - Tuesday, February 3
Class 3 - Tuesday, February 10
Class 4 - Wednesday, February 18 (as February 17 is a Babson Monday)
Class 5 - Tuesday, February 24
Class 6 - Senior Seminar Showcase: Tuesday evening, 3/3 or Friday afternoon, 3/6. Details to be confirmed by first day of class.

MKT9502 Pricing in the Information Industries
1.5 Intensive Elective CreditsPricing as a managerial discipline draws on many domains of knowledge - economics, consumer behavior, marketing, strategy, managerial accounting, law, and so on - and, as customers or as managers, we all have some experience in the taking and/or setting of prices. In this context, offerings of the information (read "content") industries present an interesting challenge since intuition, conventional rules of thumb, traditional models, and plain-vanilla theories do not immutably apply. With this as backdrop, the 1.5-credit "Pricing in the Information Industries" intensive course offering will focus on five topics: (1) pricing principles, (2) pricing and information products, (3) product-line pricing, (4) pricing and bundling, and (5) pricing in the presence of network effects.

Prerequisites: MKT7200 or MKT7800 or equivalent core

SME2021 Finance
3 Intermediate Management CreditsSME finance is designed to develop student understanding of the role of finance in the management of a business venture. Effective financial management, whether performed by the general manager in a small business, or by the finance organization in a large corporation, is necessary if a venture is to succeed and grow. A successful financial manager must have skills, abilities, tools, and a theoretical understanding in many areas, including valuation, financial forecasting, capital budgeting, investor expectations regarding risk and return, the cost of investor supplied capital, and financial strategy. Student skills will be developed in all of these areas in the SME finance stream through readings, lectures, class discussions, exercises, and an analytical project. A successful financial manager must also understand the venture's economic environment, its products, services, and market position, its operational capabilities, and its organizational behavior characteristics. The SME finance stream will link financial management analysis and decisions to these other critical functional areas, so the student will understand its part in achieving overall success for the venture.

Prerequisites: ACC1000 and QTM1000

FIN2000 Finance

4 Intermediate Management Credits

FIN 2000 Principles of Finance helps students understand the role of Finance in the management of business ventures and in their daily lives. Effective financial management, whether performed by the general manager in a small business, or by the finance organization in a large corporation, is necessary for ventures to succeed and grow. A successful financial manager must have skills, tools, and perspectives in many areas, including valuation of stocks and bonds, capital budgeting, investment risk and return, the cost of investor-supplied capital, and capital structure. A successful financial manager also must appreciate the key characteristics of a venture - including its products, services, market position, and purpose - and the economic and social environment in which the venture operates. Accordingly, this course links financial analysis and decision-making to critical contextual factors, allowing students to understand the part played by Finance in the overall impact of ventures. Throughout the topic coverage, connections between managerial Finance and personal Finance are recognized and explored, facilitating development of essential financial literacy capabilities. Competency will be developed through readings, lectures, class discussions, and exercises.

Prerequisites: ACC1000 AND AQM1000