Other Programs

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Africana Studies

Assistant Professor Boakye-Baoten (Director); Professors D. James, D.B. Mullen; Associate Professors C. James, Judson, D.J. Mullen

The Africana Studies minor allows students to supplement existing UNC Asheville majors. The Africana Studies curriculum is designed to give students an understanding and appreciation of the complexities of Africana people from both a historical and contemporary perspective. The curriculum gives students an opportunity to acquire an interdisciplinary foundation to the broad issues affecting Africans and peoples of African descent with the aim of providing a grounded knowledge and appreciation of their experiences.

With a strong interdisciplinary focus, the Africana Studies program offers a minor which promotes intellectual and human growth for its graduates who want to pursue careers or graduate studies in many fields such as anthropology, business, communications, criminal justice, education, geography, health sciences, history, hospitality and tourism, international relations, modern languages, nursing, political science, public and nonprofit administration psychology, sociology, and social work.

Arts

Professor Bond (Director)

The interdisciplinary Arts program is not an art appreciation course or an introduction to any of the particular arts, but stresses the human significance of art, its social role, its foundation in aesthetics, and its importance as a way of interpreting reality.

Drawing upon the expertise of faculty from various academic departments, the program furthers the interdisciplinary aspects of the University through the study of artworks from different times, places, and having different purposes.

Astronomy

Participating Faculty: Beck, Bennett, Booker, Dennison, Nichols, Ruiz (Physics)

A minor in astronomy complements related natural sciences and mathematics offerings. The goal of the astronomy minor is to broaden the student’s intellectual perspective through the application of basic science to the universe. Those students with a professional interest in astronomy should consider combining the astronomy minor with a physics major since a thorough grounding in fundamental physics is required for graduate study in astronomy.

Students in the minor program will have hands-on access to unique research facilities, such as those at the nearby Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI). UNC Asheville serves as the administrative campus for the Pisgah Astronomical Research and Science Education Center (PARSEC), a UNC-system-wide center dedicated to promoting student and faculty participation in research and educational programs at PARI. UNC Asheville is also a member institution in the North Carolina Space Grant Consortium, which provides funds to support related educational activities. UNC Asheville students are eligible to apply for North Carolina Space Grant scholarships.

Humanities

Professor Hardy (Director)

The interdisciplinary Humanities program is concerned with the wide range of human ideas, values and institutions. The courses examine what we have achieved in our several thousand years of recorded history, what we have desired, what we have believed, and how these concerns and passions influence us. Humanities helps us make educated and ethical decisions. The Humanities program draws together faculty and subject matter from all of the liberal arts—especially history, literature and philosophy but also religion, natural science, social science and fine arts. All Humanities classes involve close reading of primary sources and literary works, informal discussion and gradual refinement of the student’s capacity for written and oral response.

Liberal Studies

Professor Katz (Director)

A liberating education—one that emphasizes humane values in thought and action and promotes the free and rigorous pursuit of truth—creates good citizens, individuals who assume responsibility for their thoughts and actions and their impact on the world. Their personal development is inextricably linked to the contributions they make to their scholarly, social and political communities. To be good citizens, people must be able to think critically and to communicate their ideas. In serving UNC at Asheville’s liberal arts mission, the ILS Program works alongside the majors to help people develop and improve these skills by immersing them in an interdisciplinary community of mutually supportive scholars.

At the heart of the ILS Program lies the philosophical conviction that liberal arts students should experience how the disciplines investigate, understand and construct bodies of knowledge differently, through a range of concepts and methods. A liberal arts education exposes the student to the ways that individual disciplines approach those topics, problems, and issues that inform the human condition. Such an education creates opportunities for students to experience the many points of contact and divergence across the curriculum.