FSEM Courses

One of the most challenging human rights violations to investigate are forced disappearances. The challenges are vast, from identifying what legally constitutes a forced disappearance, to creating avenues for accountability when there is little evidence and identifying who is responsible for uncovering the truth.  This course examines why some cases have achieved meaningful progress toward accountability while others continue to struggle.

In this course, we will explore the life and work of James Farmer, an exemplary leader of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who taught at Mary Washington during the 1990s. We will investigate the history of the concept of race and its impact on how we perceive ourselves and the world.

Positive psychology is a field that developed in the 1990’s to identify and enhance the human strengths and virtues that allow individuals and communities to thrive. This course focus on using the science of positive psychology to gain skills to help you thrive in college and ultimately in life.

This course begins with the question of how we ought to remember the Holocaust. Some see Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List as kitsch, for example, while others praise it as a monument to humanity. Are the monumental concrete steles of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin an appropriate way to remember the victims? Or do they reduce the victims to an anonymous mass?

Where does evil come from? This FSEM will discuss what evil is and where it comes from, allowing students to study a real-life villain of their choosing.

Do you think your race colored your high school experience in any way? Do you expect that your race will affect your academic and social life at University of Mary Washington? Does racism exist in higher education? If so, what forms does racism take? We will explore these questions by first reading scholarly works on race and higher education.

This course explores the multifaceted dimensions of leadership, including an in-depth examination of various leadership based on the extraordinary work and achievement of key corporate CEOs and their respective organizations. Students will analyze the importance of decision-making and the role perspective plays in effective leadership.

This course explores the geography of the global food system, examining food production and consumption models around the world and investigating the reasons why malnutrition persists.

I have been involved with the study of languages since I decided that I would take English as my college language requirement. Learning English proved more difficult than I anticipated (I thought I would learn it in a semester!), but it showed me how intricate and fascinating languages can be (i.e., messy). Ever since I started learning English, I became interested in other languages, how adults learn a second language, and lately, how our attitudes towards languages and dialects are shaped by our own ideas about the people who speak them.

History is the study of what happened—the paths, both chosen and unchosen, taken by people in the past.  But what about what didn’t happen—the paths not taken, the choices not made, the outcomes that never came to be?  Historians refer to this topic of debate as alternate history or counterfactual history.