Are you interested in learning about Victorian ghost stories? What about finding data solutions in computer science? Several new unique classes are being offered this fall.
Students will be tracing the development of the English ghost story from its origins in folk-ballads to its high-water moment at the close of the nineteenth century in the English class, “Haunted Victorians: Nineteenth-Century Ghost Stories.” Taught by Dr. Charles L. Sligh, Assistant Professor of English, students will explore the necessary ingredients for telling a truly frightening ghost story, the ghost story as the quintessential form of Victorian short fiction, and Victorian writers such as Charles Dickens, Henry James, and M.R. James whose ghost stories are associated with the holiday season. The class meets on Tuesday and Thursdays from 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
“Lean Construction” will be offered by Jan Evans, Lecturer and Director of the Cranston Pearce Center for Applied Engineering and Technology, as a traditional and online class on Tuesday nights this fall from 5:30 – 8 p.m. The classes discussed productivity improvement techniques proven in manufacturing and the construction industry including emerging interest in “green construction” and the use of information technology. The course many be registered as ENCM 5650 for graduate students and as ETCM 4999 for undergraduates.
Dr. Jonathon Yeager, Maclellan Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, will teach “Jonathan Edwards’s Life, Thought, and Legacy in American Religious Culture” on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10:50 — 2:05 p.m. Noted for participating as a leader in the so-called Great Awakening that swept the colonies in the early 1740s, Edwards also penned some of the most influential and ingenious works of philosophical theology in the modern world, including his 1754 Freedom of the Will and his posthumous Nature of True Nature (1765). In this course, students will study Jonathan Edwards’s life, theology, and legacy as it pertains to American religious culture.
The UTC Department of Computer Science and Engineering will offer the course, “Big Data Analytics,” for the first time this fall. With the advent of “Big Data,” businesses and organizations have to turn to new technologies to manage and gain insights from the vast amounts of data. While storage costs are becoming more affordable due to cloud technology, the bigger challenge has been finding an appropriate technology and mechanism to manage the data. Dr. Joseph Kizza, Professor and Department Head, is teaching the class on Tuesday and Thursday from 3 – 4:15 p.m.
A course in Modern African American History will explore both the trials and triumphs that African Americans have experienced from Reconstruction to the present. Students will evaluate the many social and political forces that have acted to restrict black citizenship, including Jim Crow laws, voter discrimination, and police brutality. Students will also simultaneously examine the ways in which African Americans have pushed back against acts of repression, forging their own methods of cultural and political resistance in the face of racial inequality. Dr. William Kuby will teach the class on Wednesday 2 – 4:30 p.m.
In partnership with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the UTC Department of Health and Human Performance is offering a class in public health for students pursuing a master’s of science in physical activity and health. Students in “Fundamentals of Program Evaluation” will learn about the major concepts in program evaluation, including the types of evaluation and their purpose, indicators, logic models, sources of data, study designs, including randomized control trials, and threats to validity. Students will also learn how to conduct a program evaluation by designing a logic model, developing objectives and indicators, writing an evaluation plan, conducting interviews, and writing up evaluation results for stakeholders. This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:40 – 10:55 a.m. and is taught by Dr. Clea McNeely, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.