Agricultural Communication, History and Government,
Rural Community Development, Writing and Communication
Course Descriptions, Spring 2018
NOTE: Please check the ABAC catalog for course prerequisites.
COMM 3100 Professional Communication Methods
Section 0, MWF 8:00-8:50, CRN 30286
C. Klesman
Professional communication is more than a nice voice and a good PowerPoint. Learning to communicate effectively in conversation and writing, working in groups, building understanding between cultures, thinking creatively in ways that help you learn and solve problems, teamwork and leadership – these are abilities employers want in a new hire, and are a focal point in the class. You can also gain personal insights. Want to know why you still cringe when your mom uses your childhood nickname? Or what kind of conversation signals “It’s over!” in a relationship? You’ve come to the right class. How about tolerance? It’s good to be tolerant, right? But when tolerance is bestowed on a group by a dominant culture, these minority groups are also marked as the “Other,” allowing individuals to be denied equal, ethical treatment. Your learning experience will cumulate with a significant project, designed to benefit the community and prepare you for the Colloquium. The class presents their findings in a public forum at the end of the semester. Past classes have written a volunteer manual for the Georgia Museum of Agriculture (GMA), interviewed ABAC alumni on life as a student at ABAC during 9/11, and recorded oral histories of interpreters at the GMA.
Section 1, MWF 11:00-11:50, CRN 30289
K. Perry
Research maintains that employers seek graduates who can obtain, process, and share information, both orally and in writing, with audiences inside and outside of their organizations. This course, designed as a requirement for all Writing and Communication majors, explores topics including, but not limited to, information gathering and management, presentation of self and others, and professional etiquette and style from a multitude of perspectives.This is not a basic skills course - it is assumed that students already possess basic writing and speaking skills.
COMM 3850 Introduction to Public Relations
MWF 1:00-1:50, CRN 30291
J. Baldwin
Designed for those new to public relations, this introductory course will survey the discipline including the professional foundation of ethics, law, and theory as well as the process, audiences, and professional practice areas. Students will focus on the historic and contemporary roles of public relations in society.
ECON 4710 Rural Economic Development
TR 8:00 – 9:15, CRN 30038
B. McGriff
This is an introductory and survey course into the field of Economic Development, focusing on financing and incentives, sites and buildings, human capital, infrastructure, and community/quality of life issues. The course will provide topical information grounded in theory, but will focus in-class time on concrete approaches from professionals who practice economic development in Georgia. We will explore public and private approaches to economic development and feature group discussions on local strategies for utilizing non-traditional engines of development such as tourism, small business incubation, higher education, and entrepreneurship. The course will rely heavily on interactive discussions, presentations, and current literature reviews.
ENGL 3130 The Publishing Process
MW 3:00-4:15, CRN 30298
R. Price
Have you ever wondered exactly what goes into producing a book for publication? Well, publishing is just that—a process—and this course will take you through every step of that important process. In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of preparing materials for publication. You will also gain hands-on experience with every stage of the production process, from reviewing submissions to copyediting to layout and proofreading to marketing and promotion. This course will require both the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and active and consistent participation. In return, you will gain invaluable career experience in this exciting industry. This course will feature a balance between a lecture and a workshop format.
Text: Morris, Ian and Joanne Diaz, eds. The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, 2015.
ENGL 4010 Introduction to Professional Writing
Section 0, TR 8:00-9:15, CRN 30292
M. Richardson
ENGL 4010introduces students to the most critical issues and genres of workplace andgraduate-level writing. Addressing anaudience, thinking through your writingpurpose, constructing an ethos (the image of yourself created by your writing),organizing and editing your work are all important aspectsof the course. Wewill write eight short to medium-length documents, four of which will be submittedin your final portfolio for a major grade. Genres include the professionalemail, the memo, the résumé, the job application letter, two kinds ofpresentations, a proposal to revise a web site, and a semester-long editingproject. The main thrust of thiscourse is to help students perfect shorterkinds of writing so they can present their best selves in their writtencommunications. Assignments are individualized so that the needsand styles ofthe workplace, graduate school and professional school can all be addressed.
Section , TR 11:00-12:15, CRN 30294
B. Yost
Effective written communication allows individuals to understand each other, encourages people to take action, and motivates others to think creatively and critically. This course introduces students to the practice of using rhetorical principles in the context of business and professional writing. Students in this course will learn to consider audience and purpose to develop an appropriate style as they prepare written documents required in the workplace. Students will produce documents both individually and as part of a group. Students in this course will also be introduced to the basics of writing grant and research proposals.
ENGL 4030 Editing
TR 9:30-10:45, CRN 30293
T. Grant
A study of the rhetorical effects of grammatical and stylistic choices on meaning. The course will review principles of Standard Edited English as well as higher stylistic concerns such as figures and tropes, sentence styles, tone, voice, genre, and so on. Students will gain hands-on experience in revising and editing for style as well as practical rhetorical analysis to guide them in doing so.
ENGL 4890 Special Topics: American Environmental Writing
MWF 10:00-10:50, CRN 30297
B. Asselin
This course will investigate the last one hundred years of American environmental writing. We will begin with the year 1918 when Congress passed the Migratory Bird Act, which protected some 800 species of migratory birds, and look at the fiction and nonfiction that helped lead to its passage. From there we will move on to other pivotal moments in environmental writing and history, such as: Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) for its articulation of a land ethic, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) for its grim warning about pesticides, Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire (1968) for its passionate call for wilderness protection, and more recently with a novel or short story that portrays climate change. The course material has applications beyond environmental writing because we will study persuasive writing techniques, consider the ways in which literature both reflects and creates change, and note how the environment relates to other issues important to contemporary life.
HIST 3050 Borderlands Rural World
TR 3:30-4:45, CRN 30296
R. Pryor
This course will explore the rise and fall of imperial systems in the modern world. At the same time we think through the way scholars have theorized empire, we will spend time with a series of case studies to examine the diverse strategies ruling elites have deployed to dominate conquered peoples and the ongoing tensions such projects engendered. We will spend most of our time with those people who lived and operated on the margins of the empires and, more generally, government control. Escaped slaves living in maroon communities in the Caribbean and South America, Atlantic pirates, indigenous Americans, and South Asian farmers will be among the principle actors in our discussions. We will structure the course around readings, discussions, a series of short written assignments, and a final project.
HIST 4080 History of Science and Technology
MWF 12:00-12:50, CRN 30290
J. Galt-Brown
The course will examine science and technology in their cultural and social contexts since the Scientific Revolution, and the ways in which scientific inquiries, achievements, and debates have shaped and continue to shape human culture (and vice versa).
History of Science & Technology in the Modern World will have two goals: first, to explore the ways in which science and technology have helped various societies make sense of, and manipulate, their worlds and themselves; and second, to appreciate how science and technology reflect their historical periods and contexts.
PADM 3520 Public Finance Administration
MW 3:00-4:15, CRN 30105
A. Fitzgerald
This course is an introduction to public finance, and will focus on the differences between public and private sector financial theories, structures, and processes. Students will be introduced to the history and development of public financial systems, budget processes, legal, ethical, and political issues in obtaining and utilizing public funds, sources of public revenues, expenditures, and accountability of public finance administrators. A specific focus will be on state and local public finances and examination of rural development projects.
POLS 4891 Special Topics: Parties and Elections
MWF 9:00-9:50, CRN 30287
R. Voris
This course surveys the major themes surrounding American elections. Focus will be split
between two major areas: political parties and voter behavior. Topics will include the development
and organization of political parties, their role in the political system, how campaigns are
structured, why individuals do or do not vote, the role of election law, and others.
PSYCH 4250 Rural Experience with Race, Class, Gender, Sex
TR 9:30-10:45, CRN 30124
A. O’Leary
In this seminar-style course, we will read about and discuss issues related to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual identity within rural settings. Systems of privilege and oppression will be major topics of discussion, and we will approach this through many lenses: psychological, social, relational, linguistic, and institutional. Some topics of discussion will include implicit bias, wage gaps and other economic disparities, police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration policy and DACA, homophobia and transphobia, and interventions aimed at transforming oppressive systems. We will consider each of these issues by reading about and discussing the lived experiences of individuals belonging to oppressed groups, as well as current empirical research. Students will also plan and carry out an action designed to promote equity within the community.
RLST 3065 Community Research Methods
MW 3:00-4:15, CRN 30123
J. Koposko
This course will provide students with an overview of research methods emphasizing critical thinking and application in community contexts. This course will explore the foundations of research methods and include topics such as funding research, qualitative research methods, quantitative research methods, and mixed-methods designs. Students will learn skills to be good consumers of research and evaluate findings from multiple perspectives, and also see themselves in the lens of both a participant and a researcher by collecting and analyzing data during class activities. It is recommended that students complete MATH 2000 (Statistics) and have a basic understanding of probability, the logic of significance testing, and the scientific method.
RLST 4020 Proposal and Grant Writing
TR 11:00-12:15, CRN 30299
B. Turner
Grant and proposal writing skills offer a competitive edge for job-seekers across many disciplines. Grounded in the interplay of education, government, and nonprofits, this workplace writing course concentrates on formal documents, specifically proposals, grants, and reports found in a variety of organizations. Students in the course will partner with community groups and organizations to incorporate practical experiences into the course in an effort to learn about current trends regarding these formal documents.
RLST 4980 Capstone: Senior Project
Seniors only. Placement by advisor and Director of Rural Studies.
Each student will work closely with a mentor on a Mentored Research Project.
RLST 4990 Capstone Seminar
TR 2:00-3:15, CRN 30295
S. Giles
Seniors only. Placement by advisor and Director of Rural Studies.
NOTE: Students completing a Senior Project should be enrolled in RLST 4980 Capstone: Senior Project.
Designed to bookend the Introduction to Rural Studies class you took as a junior, this section of Capstone Seminar will work a little differently. Through a variety of course activities, you’ll be asked to bring together what you’ve learned in your upper-division courses and apply it to an identified community, in ways relevant to your track. You’ll use research strategies you’ve learned in the program to assess the community and identify a need. Then you’ll propose solutions to that perceived need, completing both a paper and a presentation.
Textbooks: Ehn, Lofgren, Wilk, Exploring Everyday Life: Strategies for Ethnography and Cultural Analysis. Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock.
SOCI 3000 Rural Sociology
MWF 10:00-10:50, CRN 30108
J. Rivers
An investigation into the characteristics and the organization of the changing rural society. Analysis of the social organization of agriculture and rural-urban relations will be emphasized.