Courses
Winter Session courses on the New Brunswick campus meet or exceed the high academic standards set for the regular academic year at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, a top-ranked research institution and public university. Courses are selected for their suitability and approved by the school dean and/or faculty curricular committee.
View All Winter Session Courses
Instructor(s): Stephen BurleyExpand
Over a period of five full days (January 11-14, 2022), undergraduate and graduate students will closely work with experts on science writing and macromolecule 3D visualization projects that will produce articles for use by researchers, educators, students, and members of the curious public around the world. Students will learn writing and macromolecule 3D visualization tools, and how to work in teams to communicate the challenging scientific and medical concepts.
Successful participants will be published scientific communicators! Their work will be published on the RCSB Protein Data Bank Education and Outreach website (PDB101.RCSB.org), which logged >1,000,000 of unique users worldwide in 2020.
This course will be presented virtually, but meeting synchronously for the full five days.
Click here to Apply to the Molecule of the Month Boot Camp
Stephen K. Burley is a physician-scientist, who has worked in academe and the biopharmaceutical industry. He is an expert in structural biology, oncology, drug discovery, and data science.
Click here for a detailed description of Boot Camp activities
Instructor(s): Norman Markowitz Expand
Become immersed in the 1950s this winter. Students will read and view the way people have long lived in a media-saturated society, from radio and motion pictures to television and today the Internet. This course connects the central issues of the 1950s as played out through mass media and popular culture and continues to influence the U.S. and global political economy and culture today in a period of history whose myths and stereotypes still flow around us in politics, culture, and daily life.
Professor Markowitz has taught at Rutgers since 1971 and is no stranger to online courses. He developed this course himself and lived through the 1950s as it formed his first real memories. He has written for History News Service, the History News Network, the journal Political Affairs, and various Encyclopedias, including the Encyclopedia of American National Biography, and the Encyclopedia of Social Movements on a variety of topics, including biographical entries on Jimmy Hoffa Julius, and Ethel Rosenberg, the Civil Rights movement, 1930-1953, and Poor Peoples Movements in American History.
This course is a 300-level course and fills a requirement for history majors and minors.
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Instructor(s): Albert NigrinExpand
This online course focuses on the films of Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, John Frankenheimer, David Lynch, Val Lewton, and others. The course provides an in-depth analysis of the structure and content of films which include: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seconds, Cat People, The Magnificent Ambersons, Mulholland Drive, and others. Emphasis on the "mise-en-scene," narrative form, set design, sound, and special effects in the films of these celebrated filmmakers.
Warning: some films may contain nudity, sexual situations, violence, profanity, substance abuse, and disturbing images.
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Instructor(s): John Pavlik Expand
Students use emerging digital technology to develop and test innovations in journalism and media. Emerging technologies are applied to journalism and media to create and test new storytelling formats, production techniques, media management strategies, and social media approaches in this online asynchronous course. Students will learn about the principles of digital media innovation and how to apply them effectively and ethically.
Professor Pavlik has developed a series of digital media prototypes including the Situated Documentary using augmented reality and virtual reality. He is a former columnist for CNN.com and an executive producer for Fathom.com. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Communication Research Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
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Instructor(s): John Pavlik Expand
In this online and asynchronous course, students will use experimental new media tools to transform news reporting, media storytelling and other media processes. Augmented reality, e-reader technology, 360 degree cameras, immersive media, the Mobile Journalist Workstation, 3D imaging and audio, 3D printing, interactive video, video as input, geo-tagged content, animation and news, and other emerging new media tools are applied to journalism and media to create and test new story formats that in an analog world would be impossible
Professor Pavlik has developed a series of digital media prototypes including the Situated Documentary using augmented reality and virtual reality. He is a former columnist for CNN.com and an executive producer for Fathom.com. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Communication Research Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
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Instructor(s): Professor Camila BelliardExpand
This online course analyzes feminist practices articulated from a transnational and intersectional perspective. Students will draw from Cherrie Moraga's "theory in the flesh", and the foundational work of This Bridge called my back, amongst other discussions of feminist theory and practice today. Students will learn about grounded knowledge production, embodied positionality, and feminist activism as tools for feminist research and advocacy.
This course is 100% online asynchronous, students will interact with peers and participate in weekly discussions based on readings and audiovisual material. Assignments are designed to promote writing, critical thinking as well as creative skills.
Instructor(s): Keri SansevereExpand
This 1.5 credit asynchronous mini-course will provide students with a basic point of entry into the rich archaeological record of New Jersey from prehistoric through historic times. By the end of the course, students will: read a selection of major literature on the course topic, identify the material culture that contributes to the archaeological narrative of New Jersey, and become familiar with digital resources that are used to connect the public to archaeology in light of the continued public health crisis. Getting the public involved in the archaeology of New Jersey has been a tradition for over 80 years and students will have the chance to practice public archaeology at a safe and appropriate level.
Prof. Keri Sansevere, holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Temple University and Sansevere’s research operates at the intellectual borderland between cultural anthropology and archaeology. My dissertation examined colonoware, a kind of pottery traditionally found on archaeological sites in the American Southeast and the Caribbean associated with enslaved laborers. Through ethnographic interviewing, oral history, and participant-observation, my research discovered that the pottery is present in the American Northeast, but knowledge of it resides in places that are difficult to access: the memories of archaeologists, inaccessible storage facilities, and obscure literature. Though the field of anthropology traditionally uses analytics like class, gender, and race to reveal hidden structures of power among so-called “ethnographic others,” my research discovered there is much to learn when the same analytics are applied to the industry of North American archaeology.
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Instructor(s): Hyacinth MillerExpand
What better time to learn about the Caribbean than during the winter solstice! We have all heard about the region, but what do we really know about the people, the culture, the food, the history? Satisfy your curiosity about the Caribbean through this course. This unique, asynchronous course will teach students all about the region and how this region impacts the world. It is an interactive, engaging, learning experience. It is for those that are genuinely inquisitive and open to exploring new areas of study.
Professor Miller is a political scientist and a Caribbean-ist. As a Caribbean-American, Miller is passionate about this topic and has been teaching this course since 2013.
This course fulfills the Contemporary Challenges - Human Difference, Multidisciplinary, Science and Technology, Social Justice requirement.
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Instructor(s): Gary MinkoffExpand
Entrepreneurship skills add value to any career path. While learning how ventures (startups, corporate, social impact and non-profit) are developed and launched, students will learn how to be identify opportunities, and become a more insightful, creative and resourceful problem solver, improve your presentation, storytelling and communication skills, gain, enhance your capabilities as a team member/collaborator and get to apply what you learn in real time to real world problems/situations. By the end of this course, students will learn how successful entrepreneurs became successful and learn how to turn setbacks into opportunities. They will also have opportunities to improve networking skills and even expand their professional network.
This course is a hybrid of asynchronous online and synchronous online: it will be asynchronous until January 4 with live, remote sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This course fulfills a requirement for both Rutgers Business School (RBS) Students in Entrepreneurship Concentration and Non-RBS Students in their Entrepreneurship Minor.
In addition to his work as a faculty member at the Rutgers Business School, Professor Minkoff has four decades of professional experience as a successful serial entrepreneur, innovator and leader in business, non-profits, and government. He has also been an advisor/mentor and consultant to start-up founders and leaders of organization of all sizes in various industries. He also is the Chair of the Advisory Board of the New Jersey Small Business Development Center at Rutgers.
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This course is an introduction for students to understand the rest of the hemisphere, south of the border in Latin America. With 22% of the US population of Latin American descent, it is vital for students to learn about Latin America. In this course, students will study Latin America’s rich cultural and political legacies. It is a gateway for a lifetime learning about Latin America and the many other courses offered at Rutgers about Latin Americans and Latinos. This online, asynchronous course is sponsored by the Rutgers Center for Latin American Studies, a gateway to the region’s fascinating cultures and histories.
This course fulfills a Rutgers SAS Core, and approaches the subject from a multidisciplinary view of culture, geography, politics, society, economics, and more.
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Instructor(s): Michael DeStefanoExpand
Motor learning is the study of processes that underlie learning and performance of motor skills. In this course we identify structural components of the central nervous system that are directly involved in the control of movement and describe their primary functions. Tactile, proprioceptive, and visual sensory systems are also examined in terms of their anatomical and physiological basis, how they influence the control of movement, and the limits they place on human motor skill performance. In addition to lecture, there is a lab component to this course that demonstrates the practical application of motor learning concepts and theories. Students consistently point out that lab is not only one of the most enjoyable aspects of the course, but also an effective way of reinforcing topics presented during lecture.
Instructor for the course, Dr. DeStefano, is well versed on the interrelationship between motor learning, motor development and motor control.
Students who have continued on to graduate school, as well as having gone directly into the workplace, have repeatedly stated how applicable motor learning knowledge has been in the real world.
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Instructor(s): Jaime Cosloy Expand
This asynchronous course will provide an in-depth understanding of individual employee intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships as well as the organizational processes that are fundamental to working in a sport organization.
Jaime Cosloy is a labor attorney for the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) in Brooklyn, New York. In this role she investigates and litigates unfair labor practice charges. Prior to her legal career, Jaime worked at the National Football League in the Player Engagement department implementing programs for current and former players including continuing and financial education and the League conduct policy.
This course is a major requirement for Sports Management.
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Instructor(s): Dr. Lisa Rossman MurphyExpand
In this unique course, students will examine contemporary issues affecting the physical health of children, such as obesity, technology, and climate change. They will also explore the cultural differences that affect engagement in physical activity in children. This asynchronous, online course is the first of its kind, and a great fit for students that are interested in working with children in a medical, healthcare, or educational role.
Dr. Rossman Murphy is a physical therapist, specializing in pediatrics for over 20 years. She works with others in the medical/healthcare community in promoting child health.
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Instructor(s): Alessandra ValentinExpand
This asynchronous, online course explores how categories of difference such as race, gender, sexuality, class, size and disability produce some people as human and others as less than human within film and society. By analyzing the representational politics of horror films, we will understand how society sees difference as monstrous and as a means of legitimizing the oppression and elimination of those framed as “other.” Who we fear as a society (and as individuals) is dependent on structural power dynamics and discourses of normalcy that produce “others” as deviant. Our fears are shaped and reshaped through the genre of horror where filmmakers and audiences work out cultural anxieties together.
Over the course of the semester, students will be able to:
- Effectively identify how horror movies mobilize normative conceptions of gender, racial and sexual difference as well as subvert those norms
- Analyze how the categories of difference shape the lived experiences of marginalized people on both individual and societal levels, in local and global contexts
- Explain how power dynamics are at play in the contexts of culture, society, politics, economics and technology as well as the role that they play in naturalizing hierarchies of difference and perpetuating stereotypes
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Instructor(s): Dr. Helane RosenbergExpand
As students leave college, they often feel ill-prepared to interview for jobs, work at internships or pursue further studies. With more interviews and jobs being conducted virtually, it is essential for graduating students, who hope to embark on meaningful careers, to create exciting and interesting presentations, learn how to connect with the virtual audience, and always stay “in the moment.”
This asynchronous, online course prepares students to present themselves in winning and positive ways. Each student submits various video assignments, such as a TED Talk, along with written assignments where they will receive indispensable, detailed feedback and experience new ways to give talks. By the end of this course, students will learn valuable presentation skills that they can take with them to the post-graduate world.
Dr. Helane Rosenberg has theatre training and a doctorate in theatre as well as experience in coaching actors. This background helps her to evaluate and provide essential individualized feedback for the students in this course. This course can be taken by any student in any program housed in SAS. it can fulfill a general elective or the EdSS Minor in Education.
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