Lower-Division

Teaches foundational practices for intellectual and personal development in an academic community: analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy. Framed by three overarching questions: How do I learn? Why do I learn? and From whom do I learn? Students read in different genres and formats and engage in peer-to-peer learning and collaborative discussion. Assignments include reflections on reading and discussion, an oral history project, and a creative project. (Formerly Academic Literacy and Ethos: Power and Representation.)

KRSG 1A explores opportunities, expectations, and responsibilities in university life. Topics include: academic planning; general education requirements; majors and minors; campus policy; and preparation for Kresge's core course: Power & Representation. Students gain familiarity with resources for health, well-being, time management, academic success, cultivating just communities, sexual harassment and violence prevention, reflection on UCSC's principles of community, and an introduction to the living and learning tradition of KRSG College. This course can be taken for Pass/No Pass grading only.

Transfer student orientation to the opportunities, resources, learning experiences, and principles of community at UCSC. The course explores the purpose and structure of a research university. Transfer students gain an understanding of graduation requirements and how to customize their pathway to degree completion. This course can be taken for Pass/No Pass grading only. (Formerly Introduction to Research Universities and the Liberal Arts.)

Introduction to media representations through film and their consequences for individuals and communities. Addresses how today's films represent struggles for justice and agency—especially relative to race, gender, citizenship/documentation, and communities of diaspora—in terms of filmmaking frameworks and the dialogues they foment. Each week class screens and discusses a collection of films, television, news programming, and video games to analyze and critique the ways in which power operates. Students also use such analyses and criticism to inform us as we create our own filmmaking projects. (Formerly offered as Power and Representation in Media.)

Develop practical skills and knowledge in naturalist observation. Acquire an overview of the field of natural history, particularly applied to the UCSC campus. Document an evolving and multidimensional personal experience of natural spaces, including, but not limited to, wilderness. (Formerly KRSG 18.)

Karl Marx’s writings have had a far-reaching impact on political and intellectual history, producing many different and often conflicting readings. This small, in-person seminar provides an introduction to Marx’s writing through careful reading and discussion of a range of published and unpublished texts. Each week focuses on a specific concept and tasks seminar participants with collaboratively forging interpretive insights through careful analysis and discussion. Emphasis is placed on developing skills and practices of collective reading. To promote reading deeply and mindfully, all texts are read in hard copy (provided at no cost to students).

Discussion-based seminar where students read classic works by two foundational figures in science fiction: Octavia Butler and Ursula K. LeGuin. Discusses the impact of these authors in science fiction and literature more broadly; reflects on the unique power and possibilities of the science fiction genre itself; and thinks about what it might mean to cultivate a lasting reading practice, one based on pleasure and joy, not obligation. Emphasis is placed on developing skills and practices of collaborative reading. To promote reading deeply and mindfully, all texts are read in hard copy, provided at no cost to students. (Disability Resource Center digital accommodations will be provided as needed.)

Guides transfer students toward deeper engagement with the research university. Students work in small-scale learning communities and the course is designed as a catalyst for opportunities in undergraduate research, internships, creative projects, and experiential learning. Topics include: excelling in the quarter system and upper-division classes; centering strengths and overcoming imposter syndrome; developing research goals; financing educational goals; and planning for life after graduation, including careers and graduate school. (Formerly Successful Transfer to the Research University.)

A public speaking course that uses community-building theater games and embodied practice to teach students to be more comfortable with themselves, collaborate with peers, and communicate with an audience. Students learn techniques and build confidence to present in class and professional contexts.

Students work collaboratively on City on a Hill Press, the student-run, campus newspaper of record, gaining practice in news production. Students engage in analysis and critical reflection regarding both the form and content of news, and its critical relationship to a healthy democracy. Course outcomes include the development of media literacy, and experience addressing issues such as intent, fairness, accuracy, and impact. Areas of focus include, but are not limited to, graphic design, illustration, photojournalism, visual composition, copy editing, fact-checking, and media literacy. Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor in consultation with City on a Hill Press co-editors-in-chief.

Students work collaboratively on City on a Hill Press, the student-run, campus newspaper of record, gaining practice in investigative journalism and news editing. Students engage in analysis and critical reflection regarding both the form and content of news, and its critical relationship to a healthy democracy. Course outcomes include the development of media literacy, and experience addressing issues such as intent, fairness, accuracy, and impact. Areas of focus include, but are not limited to, story production, story assignment and management, and staff editorial composition. Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor, in consultation with City on a Hill Press co-editors-in-chief.

Analyzes systems of incarceration in the U.S. and explores movements to abolish those systems and to envision alternative modes of justice. Themes include, but are not limited to, the role that mass incarceration plays in contemporary society, histories of resistance, political prisoners, racial justice, and the intellectual, creative, and political interventions of incarcerated people. Students engage in collaborative projects throughout the class, and learn effective strategies for group work and interpersonal communication. (Formerly offered as Prison Narratives.)

Students attend weekly creative writing readings by fiction writers and poets, read excerpts from the writers' works, participate in question and answer sessions, and write short, creative and/or analytical responses to the readings and writings.

Hands-on practice with basic ecological horticulture skills through work at the Kresge Garden, including soil cultivation. Enrollment by instructor approval through application (available in the Kresge College office). Enrollment limited to college members.

A course of guidance and exercises to assist in developing independent writing projects, and a group setting for critique and feedback. Students do in-class and out-of-class writing assignments; read and discuss texts; and work to develop a final project.

Examines the principles and processes of restorative justice juxtaposed to current practices in the judicial and educational systems of contemporary society. Students study leading restorative justice practices and their implication for individual and community transformation. Students learn to facilitate the restorative justice process restorative circles, and have the opportunity to practice them in real time. Enrollment is by instructor consent and is restricted to frosh, sophomores, and juniors.

Students learn about and address the climate crisis through creative interventions (video, photography, writing). Students discuss and reflect upon their impact on climate change, learn how they might tackle the climate crisis, and create their own climate change portfolio for future creative-activist work.

History of social documentary photography with its practice. Includes analysis of historical and contemporary images from social documentary work; camera, darkroom, and digital skill development; an individual student documentary project; and collective project discussion.

The climate crisis challenges and frustrates common assumptions about individual and collective agency, nature and the process of history, the organization of human and non-human activity, and of politics itself. This seminar examines current debates and representations in various media, working collaboratively to understand the political dimensions of what we designate in simple terms as “climate change”, but which really encompasses a broad range of interrelated natural and social phenomena. Students develop critical interdisciplinary research projects within thematic groups that explore more specific topics—e.g., strategic failures of cosmopolitanism, eco-fascism and climate migration, biodiversity and land enclosure, the Green New Deal vs. degrowth, or the ethics of sabotage. (Formerly Critical Writing Practicum: The Politics of Climate Crisis.)

A program of directed study arranged between a student and a Kresge faculty member. Student must submit petition to sponsoring agency. Student must confirm Graded or P/NP with instructor in petition before enrolling.

A program of directed study arranged between a student and a Kresge faculty member. Student must submit petition to sponsoring agency. Student must confirm Graded or P/NP with instructor in petition before enrolling.

A program of directed study arranged between a student and a Kresge faculty member. Student must submit petition to sponsoring agency. Student must confirm Graded or P/NP with instructor in petition before enrolling.