Alongside the public lecture series, the Gannett Project sponsored for-credit courses that put RIT students directly in conversation with each year's visiting speakers — lunches, interviews, videotaped discussions, and capstone projects.
COLA 0520-449-01 (Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts) · COS 1099-559-01 (Interdisciplinary Science) — COLA/COS Freshman Honors Colloquium
Co-directors: Gary Skuse (Science) and Mary Lynn Broe (Liberal Arts) · Three academic quarters, 2008–09 · 6 credits
This course explored the work of the nine high-profile artists, scholars and thinkers who made up the 2008–09 series, “Visionaries in Motion II: The Human Imprint” — opening with AI expert Ray Kurzweil and including a performance poet and playwright, an environmental activist, an industrial-landscape photographer, two new-media webloggers, a graphic memoirist, a research scientist, and a land-use interpretation group.
Students became familiar with each speaker's readings, videos and artistic work, developed interview questions, and conducted videotaped interviews when each lecturer visited RIT, kept an interactive journal, and took part in a follow-up assessment after each event. Final projects ranged from editing a compilation videotape to publishing a chapbook or co-authoring a magazine article. The course spanned the full academic year, with two credits awarded per quarter to allow students flexibility without forfeiting credit for withdrawing partway through.
COLA 0520-449-01 / COS 1099-559-01, Interdisciplinary Special Topics · Spring 2007 (MW, 4:00–5:50) · Organized by Mary Lynn Broe as part of the Gannett Project
A multi-disciplinary look at evidence: what it is, and how it needs to be properly collected, sifted, evaluated and preserved for verification of authenticity, across legal, criminal, historical, scientific, journalistic, medical, geographic, artistic and aesthetic realms. The course compared standards for gathering and evaluating evidence across disciplines and asked how the internet, electronic communication, and easy methods of falsifying evidence affect our ability to validate it — incorporating outside speakers, films (including The Viking Deception), and roundtable discussions on “Ethical Issues and Evidence” and “Uses and Abuses of the Internet.”
Contributing faculty spanned the Institute and community: Robert Croog (PTC, COLA), Rebecca Edwards (History, COLA), Elizabeth Hane (COS, Environmental Science), Guy Johnson (Ctr. for Advancing the Study of Cyberinfrastructure, CCIS), Christine Keiner (STS, COLA), Paul Brule (Criminal Justice, COLA), Elizabeth Lawley (Information Technology, CCIS), Nancy Norwood (Curator, Memorial Art Gallery), David Pankow (Cary Collection, Wallace Library), Mark Price (English, COLA), Marjorie Searl (Chief Curator, Memorial Art Gallery), Gary Skuse (Bioinformatics, COS), Kristen Waterstram-Rich (Nuclear Medicine, COS), and Jennifer Wolfley (English, COLA, and Mary Magdalen House, Grace Urban Ministries). The course was popular enough to be repeated as an elective in 2009–10.
COS 1099 (Science) · COLA 0504-599 (Literature) · Co-directed by Mary Lynn Broe and Kristen Waterstram-Rich · Three academic quarters, 2006–07 · 4 credits
Built around the six high-profile scholars of the inaugural 2006–07 Gannett series — from Eugenie Scott (NCSE) on September 20, 2006 to keynote speaker Daniel C. Dennett on April 10, 2007 — this course examined how evolutionary science has shaped social behavior across biology, psychology, postmodern theory, and medicine. Opening with the evolution-versus-creationism debate as framed by Eugenie Scott, students developed interview questions and conducted videotaped interviews with each of the six lecturers, kept a journal on the exchanges, and completed a final project such as an edited compilation video, a chapbook, or a co-authored article.
MCS 0531-449-01, part of Material, Culture, Science · Spring quarter 2006–07 (MW, 2:00–3:50) · Jason Younker, with Bart Roselli (Program Director, RMSC)
This course addressed the global issues surrounding cultural objects — contested ownership, repatriation, reparations, legal compliance, museum technologies, and the changing role of repositories — through experiential learning with the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Lectures, roundtables, and instruction came from museum professionals, nationally renowned speakers such as Dr. Rennard Strickland and Dr. Jon Erlandson, and Native American representatives. Students developed collection database and museum display technologies, or worked on cataloguing, policy review, and community project development, gaining an understanding of federal legislation on human remains and cultural patrimony as NAGPRA entered its third decade.