Stories We Tell Course Pairing

Applied Calculus (MA 151)

A one semester introduction to calculus. Definition, interpretation, and applications of the derivative especially in business and social sciences.

Faculty biography

Dr. Sudeshna Basu - bio coming soon!

Encountering the Past (HS 100)

Rather than approaching history as a list of dates, names, and historical events, this introductory course instead explores how historians have defined and practiced their craft, approached key themes in their scholarship, and deployed a vast array of evidence in support of historical interpretations. In other words, we will study how historians make their histories. In doing so, we will approach the discipline as a contested landscape full of debate and conflict where ideas do battle. Unlike many other disciplines, history has no set canon, nor does it have a narrowly defined set of practices or theoretical approaches. This course sets out to introduce students to some of the methods used by historians, while bearing in mind that historical knowledge is provisional and complex. Along the way, students will develop the skills necessary for understanding and producing histories, which include the critical evaluation of sources and the ability to write cogently and persuasively about events in the past. Finally, this course also asks students to think about why the study of history is important to our lives today. We will engage these topics and questions by exploring myths and realities related to the Middle East. In the Western media, the Middle East is often depicted as a hot desert inhabited by Muslim Arabs where women are oppressed, violence is endemic, and anti-Western views are dominant. In reality, the Middle East is an ethnically diverse region of the world and the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as home to one of the world's oldest civilizations. Members of different faith groups and ethnicities have coexisted and cooperated with one another as well as having come into conflict. We will explore how distorted views and images regarding the Middle East took hold and became popularized though literature, media, film, art and other mediums. We will also examine how the native peoples of the Middle East addressed Western representations of the Orient in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at the height of European imperialism.

Faculty biography

Dr. Bahar Jalali teaches the history of the Middle East and also specializes in Gender Studies. 

Mentor biography

Dr. Michael Puma was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and is a graduate of Fordham University (BS, Psychology & American Studies) and Syracuse University (MsEd, Higher Education). He is currently completing a doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration at the University of Maryland, College Park. He spent his first nine years at Loyola in the Office of Student Life serving as both an Assistant Director and Associate Director for Living-Learning Initiatives. In 2011, Puma was named the Student Development Director of Messina. As Director of Messina, he designed and implemented yearly training and professional development opportunities for over 200 faculty, administrators, staff members and student leaders. Additionally, organized programming associated with the first-year Common Text, facilitated academic support sessions for Summer Orientation and Fall Welcome Week and served as a resource for first-year advisors. In 2017, he was recognized as an Outstanding First-Year Advocate Award by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

Virtual Advisor