The May Term in Luxembourg
Academics
Students may enroll in only one of the three courses offered each May Term. Enrolled Clark students will receive normal day-college credit (1 full unit). Students from other schools must make arrangements to have credits transferred to their home institution (1 Clark unit is equivalent to 4 credits).
May Term 2012 Courses
Nutrition, Health, Aging & Life Styles in the US and Europe
(Biology 171) Professor Thomas Leonard, Clark University. This course will contrast European and American nutrition (including lifestyles and eating habits) with regards to nutrition's impact on health, aging, and disease. While the major focus will be the basic components of nutrition and their importance, diffused throughout the lectures there will also be some elementary discussion of underlying genetic factors. Field trips to nearby retirement homes will be included where elderly men and women will be interviewed. Trips to vineyards and various marketplaces are also planned.
The course does not require prior background in Biology. It carries Science Perspective credit at Clark University and is approved for the Gerontology Studies Program and the natural science requirement at The College of The Holy Cross.
Beyond Armageddon: Enmity to Amity in Europe
(History 006) will be taught by William Green, Professor Emeritus, Holy Cross College. The course concentrates on the international history of Europe, commencing with the unparalleled disaster of the Great War, 1914-1918, and the ensuing, even more costly Second World War, 1939-1945. Paramount attention will be given to the conduct of warfare in the territories of Northern France, Western Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg (scene of the Battle of the Bulge). The class will visit sites of warfare undertaken in this region, some of them commemorative, some grisly, all of them important, including Verdun, the Maginot Line, and several military cemeteries--French, German, and American. The post war reconstruction of Europe, the onset and development of the Cold War, and the process of reconciliation among former wartime enemies, particularly France and Germany, will be treated. Consideration will be given to the creation of the European Community, and its remarkable expansion at the end of the 20th century. A visit will be made to Strasbourg, home of the European Parliament, crossroads of French and German culture, and principal city of Alsace.
This course does not require prior background in History. It carries History Perspective credit at Clark and is approved as a European History course toward the History major at Holy Cross.
Cultural Psychology of Urban Living
(Psychology 157) will be taught by Professor Jaan Valsiner of Clark University's Psychology Department. Its focus is to provide students with skills of observational research and semiotic analyses of encounters with people in public settings--streets, parks, functional activity centers, etc. Research tasks will be set up for students in four cultural contexts--German, French, Flemish and Luxemburgish (based on field trips). The general topic in 2012 is Interacting with Foreigners in Europe: How Language establishes Relationships. Students will be immersed in the foreign language contexts with tasks of asking for directions and information from local inhabitants. No knowledge of a foreign language is required. During the Luxembourg stay in the May Term, the students will carry out their individual observational studies of public conduct in culturally structured activity settings, and will write a research paper based on their work.
This course does not require prior background in Psychology. It carries Language Culture Perspective credit at Clark and, at Holy Cross, fulfills the elective requirement for the psychology major.