All entering first year students will be part of a First Year Seminar, which is a three credit content-based course counting as an elective. All Seminars are taught by dedicated faculty providing academic guidance and helping students make the transition from high school to college. The Seminars enhance the benefits of a liberal arts education by preparing students to become critical thinkers and to learn the skills necessary for college success. The program uses the seminar format to encourage students to develop reading, writing, and research skills all around a thematic approach.

All FY seminars will include:

• Research in at least one topic
• Instruction in research methods, including web-based research
• At least one presentation of a topic to the seminar
• Multiple-draft writing assignments
• Instruction in discussion methods, include active listening
• Instruction in active reading
• Class time spent with explication of texts
• Specific time benchmarks for written work, drafts, and presentations to facilitate time management

FYE Workshops
In conjunction with the FY Seminars, all FY students will attend at least one FYE Workshop during their first semester in order to learn more about the resources of Dowling College and to learn skills to promote their flourishing in their chosen paths. Click here to see the list of Spring 2008 FYE Workshops


FYE 1020A Biographies of the Great Composers (MUS) [Prof. David Racanelli]
This course is designed to introduce students to the lives and music of the great composers of the Western art music tradition. Select materials pertaining to these composers, such as autobiographical and biographical accounts, critical essays/reviews, letters, and musical scores will be used to complement the text in order to illustrate how scholars have drawn conclusions concerning the details of the composersÕ lives, and how historical figures, such as Mozart and Beethoven, are still relevant today. In this course, students will also be introduced to rudimentary musical terminology and develop listening skills for music appreciation.

FYE 1031A Hero's Quest in Literature (ENG) [Prof. Virginia Walker]
If you love myth, adventure, and challenging speculative fiction, you will love The HeroÕs Quest Seminar. You and I will examine what a hero/heroine means to us as humans. Is the hero about physical might or intellectual might? Why does the hero need a quest? Does each of us have a quest? What challenges does a hero face and what do they mean? What does a trip into the Underworld mean? Through our reading assignments you will meet the hero of HomerÕs Odyssey; a defiant heroineÑAntigone; a medieval beast slayer; a fantasy hobbit hero; a tragic heroÑHamlet; the man called Equality 7-2521 who must escape a totalitarian world and recreate civilization; and Lauren Olamina, the enigmatic black woman, who intends to take the human race into outer space. While you read great poems, plays, and novels from ancient times up to the twenty-first century, you will also be learning habits for college excellence: critical thinking fundamentals, composition skills, discussion participation, mastery of college-level terminology, and approved research methods. There will be short papers for you to create, fun assignmentsÑsome cross-cultural, real hero discoveries, and films [perhaps after class hours]. Your participation in class discussions and your reactions to what we read will allow you to go on a quest to find the hero within.

FYE 1033A Multicultural Memories: A Literary Journey Toward Self Discovery (ENG) [Prof. Frances Schauss]
Multicultural Memories is a literature-based, student-centered, problem-based learning (PBL), first year seminar, designed to meet three days per week. The course will combine an examination of multicultural literature through essay and short story with traditional college orientation topics. The literature will explore thematic topics of origin, identity, violence, difference, and collectivism. College orientation topics of time management; skills acquisition; and research, literacy, and technology skills will help students succeed not only in this class but in other college level courses. Through author study, character analysis, student family exploration, and self-evaluation, students will recognize that skills appropriate for college accomplishment are identical to skills necessary for success in any individualÕs life.

FYE 1035A The Faces of Jesus (ENG) [Prof. Joshua Gidding]
An interdisciplinary freshman seminar in selected representations Ð literary, cinematic and artistic -- of the figure of Jesus through the ages, from the biblical era to the present. Materials covered will include the Gospels, selected letters of Paul, and selected works of literature, painting, and cinema.

FYE 1040A LI's Environment: Past and Future (CHM) [Prof. John Tanacredi, Prof. Lou Siegel]
Introduction to the history and current effects of natural forces and human impact on the evolution and development of Long Island as an environmental system. Discussion of causes and possible solutions to Long Island's most pressing environmental challenges.

FYE 1041A Environmental Restoration: Brownfields to Greenfields (CHM) [Prof. Lori Zaikowski]
Industrialization and advances in technology have brought many benefits to society, but they have also produced some negative side effects. Since World War II, chemical byproducts of modern industrial processes have contaminated tens of thousands of sites in the United States alone, and Congress established a Superfund in 1980 that provided billions of dollars to clean up the most contaminated sites. Although some sites have been cleaned up and removed from the Superfund list, tens of thousands of contaminated sites remain. Students will select a local Superfund site and will research the types of chemicals, their properties and uses, will propose a cleanup and budget for the site, and will create a detailed visualization for its future conversion to a property of use to society. Students will present their research and vision in the form of a written proposal, and will do an oral presentation or poster at an end-of-the semester symposium.

FYE 1043A Science, Science Fiction and Society (CHM) [Prof. Russell Seidel]
This seminar is dedicated to bringing the students to an understanding of the interplay of science, science fiction, and society. The influence of contemporary scientific thought on the science fiction genre will be investigated, as will the converse. The impact of both on society will also be explored. Indeed, a clear trend indicating the convergent evolution of science and science fiction can be reasonably conjectured, substantiated, and expounded upon. In this course, students will examine the co-development of science and science fiction, the facts and liberties taken with science in science fiction, and the relevance of both to life and technology in the modern world. Students will utilize group presentations, written assignments, and oral presentations in their investigations of contemporary science and technology and both modern and historical science fiction literature, film, and television. In so doing, the students will not only investigate the topics at hand but also develop the methods of expression requisite to a successful college career.

FYE 1050A Medical Ethics (PHL) [Prof. Karl Bausinger]
The course will provide students with philosophical and factual knowledge and both abstract and practical skills in thinking about real ethical problems. Students will learn about current controversies in medical ethics and the ways that different philosophical theories are used to shed light on conflicting beliefs. This will involve legal, medical and sociological facts about relevant issues such as, for example, the development of a fetus, pregnancy, abortion, genetics, disability, terminal illness, the process of dying, and the distribution of health care. Students will also develop a variety of skills. Through class discussion and paper writing, students will improve their skills of expressing their understanding of the complexities in ethical dilemmas, and searching for satisfactory solutions to those dilemmas. The course will also focus heavily on particular cases involving real people and actual events, and they will learn to see the options available to those people, to assess the ethical strengths and weaknesses of those options, to make a choice of one of those options, and then to articulate a defense of that option.

FYE 1055A Ethics in the Cyber Age (PHL) [Prof. Christian Perring]
In this seminar, students will be taught the skills necessary for college success by examining the ethical issues raised by the advances in computer technology and the Internet. Topics studied will include free speech and censorship, privacy of information, government regulation, ownership of intellectual property and plagiarism, the quality of life in human relationships mediated by technology, and the role of the marketplace of ideas in democracy.

FYE 1057A Human Rights (PHL) [Prof. Christopher Johns, Prof. Mikael Elliott, Prof. Daniel Restrepego]
This course is an introduction to philosophical issues connected with the idea of universal human rights. It will examine proposed accounts of human rights and the justification for those accounts, as well as the implications such accounts have for international relations. Additionally, students will confront challenges to the idea of universal human rights, such as the claim that moral truth is always relative to oneÕs non-universal culture, and the claim that accounts of rights must be broadened to encompass non-human animals. The course will address the skills of reading, listening, researching, writing college-level papers, integrating research in papers, working in groups, doing presentations, managing time, and being independent.

FYE 1060A Politics, Economy and Business (MKT) [Prof. Stuart Rosenberg]
In this course, students examine the relationship between the political environment and economic policy, and the consequences for corporate America. The topics covered are geared toward the prevailing issues that face society. In the most recent semester, some of the topics were the effects of rising gasoline prices, Hurricane Katrina and immigration.

FYE 1070A Leadership and Success (DRM) [Prof. Lawrence Poppiti]
This course is designed to introduce students to fundamental concepts, skills, methods and techniques necessary for success in various aspects of college life. Various models, definitions and examples of leadership will be considered as useful examples providing a starting point from which to discuss and evaluate the elements necessary for success in college life and beyond. Students will engage in an analytical and intellectual examination of issues relevant to the study, practice and development of leadership. Various communication skills and techniques will also be discussed and examined as useful tools for success in higher education, business and life. The course will focus on the skills of effectively communicating information and ideas through oral and written presentations, speaking, reading, listening, researching, writing college-level papers, integrating research into papers, working independently and in groups, managing time and developing analytical and research skills.

FYE 1080A Learning to Look (VIS) [Prof Karyn Cernera, and Prof. Steven Lamia (Honors Section)]
The goals of this freshman seminar class are to help students become more observant in their everyday lives. This journey concentrates on unleashing the ability to observe with understanding, subject, form and text and their varying interpretations in the world. Through simple exercises students will produce line drawings and written descriptive narratives to accomplish their studies. This method of examination and investigation will be required for each topic or idea presented in class, along with assigned required reading. The ability to describe simple visual and written language requires an understanding of content. This exploration of detail will ask each student to apply observational skills from three points of view: internal or skeletal, exterior or outer surface and an ÓotherÓ real or virtual, parallel view. Varying views or perspectives will also alter our perceptions as we examine bird's eye, ant's eye and less traditional vantage points. Historical examples from pre-history to present day, both in visual and text form will be used as references and research material. Visual juxtaposition of imagery spanning different time periods and cultures will also help students to observe varying stylistic characteristics as they learn to look. Learning to be keen observers through attention to detail can enhance any course of study and allow a move from concrete to critical thinking.

FYE 1090A Women's Lives: Diversity, Change, etc. (PSY) [Prof. Nanette Silverman, and Prof. Suzanne Johnson (Honors Section)]
This course examines the many diverse experiences and identities women have in the United States and the changing nature of these experiences and identities. The course will utilize many different types of reading materials from autobiographical accounts, short stories, poems, and scholarly writing of women from diverse backgrounds. Through these readings students will explore how gender, race / ethnicity, age, class, religious affiliation, physicality, and sexual orientation affect their lives and shape the diverse and changing identities they have and will have throughout their lives.