Effective Writing (WR 100)

This course will introduce you to the discipline of writing in the university through analytical and productive work with the contemporary essay and its various genres. You will learn how to conceive and pursue a line of inquiry about a subject, how to develop an original argument, and how to support an argument with various sources of evidence, including scholarly research. You will develop and practice a full writing process, including planning, drafting, considering critical feedback, revising, reflecting, and editing. And you will hone your critical reading skills to evaluate and engage with other people's arguments. To help you achieve these goals, we will critically examine and respond to texts, in a range of genres, written by authors in the real world for real audiences. We will also do a lot of writings consciously and reflectively employing the concepts and strategies we learn about inside and outside of class. All of the work we do in this class is grounded in rhetoric: the effective use of language and symbols, always sensitive to context, especially one's audience and productive of change. The various skills you learn and practice in this course will enable you to become a more thoughtful, reflective, critical thinker who can participate in intellectual and world-shaping conversations inside and outside the academy.

Faculty biography

Professor Dominic Micer has been reading and writing for more than half a century and has been teaching writing for nearly a third of a century. His favorite book is Primo Levi's The Periodic Table; his favorite painting is Winslow Homer's Right and Left, and his favorite musical composition is Steve Reich's The Desert Music. He has been known to tell a joke or two in class; students in the class have been known to laugh at those jokes sometimes.

Politics (PS 101)

Politics is the set of human and social activities that concern public affairs. These include the power relations among individuals and groups and the distribution of resources, such as the provision of public goods. Among other questions, we will examine why and how we organize collectively for economic, social, and political ends; why politics involves both cooperation and conflict; why political parties exist in almost all countries, even in non-democratic ones; the types of regimes that govern us, notably democracies and dictatorships; and how we elect political leaders in the United States and abroad.   The goal is to equip you with the basic toolkit of a political scientist and, in doing so, gain the ability to examine public affairs more rigorously through analytic and social scientific lenses, thereby going beyond journalistic accounts of current affairs. We will put that into practice by reading news of current affairs alongside the relevant theories.

Faculty biography

Dr. Joan Ricart-Huguet is a faculty member in the Department of Political Science. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University and an M.A. from Columbia University. He enjoys introducing students to the fundamentals of politics (PS 101) as well as teaching more advanced courses in his areas of expertise, such as African politics, political economy, and political leaders. Originally from Catalonia, he came to the United States for school and decided to stay after living in the wonderful states of CA, NY, NJ, and CT. He enjoys most sports, especially tennis and soccer.

Mentor biography

Jill Eigenbrode serves as an Assistant Director in the Academic Advising and Support Center. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from University of Maryland, College Park and a Master of Arts from Notre Dame of Maryland University. A lifelong native of Maryland, she enjoys hiking, reading, and traveling in her spare time. 

Virtual Advisor

WR 100 satisfies the Composition core requirement for all students. PS 101 satisfies one of the two social science core requirements for all students, and is recommended for students interested in Political Science. PS 101 will count as an elective for students who intend to major in Sellinger school majors, Economics, Sociology, and Psychology.