MSU may be just a university to many students, but others have plans to explore its place in the universe.
Nearly 100 students from a range of majors have enrolled in Social Science 290, section two, Our Place on Earth, a new course being offered for spring semester 2001.
Unlike many science-based ecology courses focusing on environmental problems, this semester-long seminar concentrates on the social, psychological and spiritual aspects of humans’ relationship with the natural world.
“What we are trying to do is get all of us to be more mindful of how we live on this earth in a way that makes it possible for us to share it with many life forms for many generations to come,” said Laura DeLind, a senior academic specialist in the Department of Anthropology, who helped organize the course.
And the course emphasizes the demand for individual responsibility in the local community in particular, some say.
“I don’t think we spend enough time thinking about where it is we live,” said Terry Link, another course organizer and director of the Office of Campus Sustainability. “The course provides a chance for anyone to think differently about their relationship to the places they are a part of. And when that happens, one might begin to treat it differently.”
The section of the two-credit course is sponsored by several supporters, including the University Committee for a Sustainable Campus, a group responsible for many efforts to make MSU’s campus more sustainable for the future.
Link, also a committee member, said the course concepts will be applied to the MSU community.
“Most of us live in more than one place, but we are all here at some particular time in our lives and whatever we learn here can travel with us to whatever place we go,” he said.
Students will be required to choose one or more on-campus excursions from a list including canoeing the Red Cedar River, taking a tour of the Power Plant and visiting the Campus Dairy.
DeLind said students taking the course will learn to see the university from a unique standpoint.
“It’s possible to see it as a physical and natural entity as well as an institute for granting degrees,” she said. “They’ll learn how to take the knowledge of the classroom and put it into behaviors and relationships with other organisms and our physical world.”
During 15 weeks, several speakers are scheduled to present their perspectives on a range of topics. All sessions will be held at 3 p.m. on Thursday in 107 South Kedzie Hall, beginning Jan. 11.
DeLind said the speakers, like the students, have a variety of interests and professions.
“I think it’s the diversity that’s going to be the cauldron from which we find there will be new projects, debates, seminars, etc.,” DeLind said. “This is just the beginning hopefully.”
The first session will feature Scott Russell Sanders, a well-known author and professor, who will speak on the “Nature of Place.” Like all sessions, the presentation is open to the general public.
Link said the course’s fate is undetermined as the committee plans to continue designing similar courses.
“We’re at the evolutionary stage of deciding what do students need to know when they graduate,” he said. “How might we use existing courses or how might we open new avenues?”
