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UMAINE HONORS COLLEGE
HONORS TUTORIALS
SPRING 2008
(Honors 312) Remote Sensing Using Robots
Using the new Lego Mindstorm Robots, students will be introduced to robotics, programming and remote sensing. The robots are equipped with sensors and the students will practice using these sensors to investigate an unfamiliar environment (such as the deep sea or space exploration).
Emmanuel Boss (School of Marine Sciences)
(Honors 313) Literate Programming and Programming Fundamentals
The goal of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental concepts of computer programming using a literate programming style. This course does not assume any knowledge of computer programming and should be accessible to all students, even those who have never read a computer program, let alone write one. The course material and grading scheme is designed to suit a wide range of students, from novices who use computers only tentataively to experts who happily write device drivers before breakfast. Each student will be assigned reading and writing tasks appropriate to her background. While we will pick specific programming languages and environments for concreteness, the emphasis will be on the underlying general concepts and not on the particular realizations.
More information can be found at the web site for the course.
Sudarshan S. Chawathe (Computer Science)
(Honors 314) Tutorial in Gravity’s Rainbow
This course will be a highly focused reading of one of the most intriguing and controversial American novels written in the twentieth century. Considered by some of the quintessential postmodern literary achievement by others (i.e. most people on the planet) as simply unreadable, the novel is truly an intriguing, thought-provoking tour de force of language and art.
David Kress (English)
(Honors 319) Why We Lie
In the course of study of a core text based in evolutionary biology and cognitive science, with supplementary readings from a philosophical text and a variety of other “elective” texts, fiction, non-fiction, and film (to be selected by the class) we will examine the cultural and psychological motivations for, justifications for, and consequences of, lying, in a variety of historical contexts. We will collectively define some key hypotheses of the core text, and test these hypotheses in our examination of the elective texts.
Sharon Tisher (Resource Economics and Policy)
(Honors 341) Ethical Decisionmaking When There Is No Right Answer
This seminar will consider how we relate to ethical dilemmas when the right thing to do is not clear. Guest speakers from the courtroom, legislative hall, hospital room, human resource desk, counseling center, minister’s office, and battlefield will describe their own experiences with complicated choices that affect peoples’ lives. We will combine these discussions with our own thoughts about how we develop a framework in which we make these decisions. We will also look at three actual case studies when someone had to make a choice and all the options seem conflicted.
Robert A. Strong (Maine Business School)
(Honors 309) The Honors Read: 2008
An opportunity through careful reading, analytic and synthetic writing, and extensive discussion, to select, from among texts nominated by the University community, the "Honors Read" for incoming students in the Honors College in 2009. The tutorial will include developing and refining criteria for the decision, analysis and reaction to the texts incorporating those criteria, and preparing a summative letter of transmittal to be included with the texts delivered to the incoming students.
Charlie Slavin (Honors)