Independent College Programs
Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/icpr
Independent College Programs (ICPR) supports courses that expand and enhance the curricular opportunities at Haverford College.
These courses, offered by visiting professors and members of the various departments of the College, are in different ways outside the major programs of the departments. They may be introductory in approach, or they may be interdisciplinary, bringing the insights and techniques of one discipline to bear on the problems important to another. They attempt to introduce students to intellectual experiences that are different from the ones available in our departmental curricula, although in recent years ICPR has served as something of an incubator for new interests and themes in the curriculum, such as health studies, visual studies, and environmental studies.
The courses have no prerequisites, except where explicitly stated.
Concentrations & Interdisciplinary Minors
Some of the faculty affiliated with ICPR teach courses that count towards various concentrations and interdisciplinary minors. Students should read more about the role these play in the curriculum under the Catalog descriptions for the individual programs in question.
Faculty
Sue Benston
Visiting Professor
Linda Gerstein
Professor of History; Chair of Independent College Programs
Neal Grabell
Visiting Professor of Economics and Independent College Programs
David Harrington Watt
Douglas & Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies
Ronah Harris
Visiting Assistant Professor of Independent College Programs
Eric Hartman
Executive Director of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship
Kristin Lindgren
Director of College Writing and Visiting Assistant Professor Writing
Carol Schilling
Visiting Professor of the Writing Program and Health Studies
Affiliated Faculty
Emma Lapsansky-Werner
Professor Emeritus of History and Visiting Professor in the Writing Program and Quaker Studies
Shannon Mudd
Director of Microfinance, Impact Investing, and Social Entrepreneurial Programs; Assistant Professor of Economics; Coordinator of Mathematical Economics
John Muse
Assistant Professor and Director of Visual Studies; Director of VCAM
Zolani Ngwane
Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology
Judith Owen
Professor Emeritus of Biology; Visiting Professor of Biology
Anna West
Assistant Professor and Director of Health Studies
Terrance Wiley
Assistant Professor of Religion and Coordinator of African and Africana Studies
Courses
ICPR H110J BELONGING AND BECOMING AT HAVERFORD COLLEGE (0.5 Credit)
Brook Lillehaugen, Christina Rose
This course creates a curricular space dedicated to acknowledging, exploring, and acting on diversity and inclusion as experienced (differently) by members of our community and working collaboratively toward greater equity. This course is graded universal P/F in which no numerical grade is assigned. Cross Listed: none Prerequisites: none
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H114 DESIGN FOR ALL: HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN IN PRACTICE (0.5 Credit)
Ronah Harris
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course introduces the history, process and uses of human centered design. HCD is a methodology that emerges from several disciplines: cognitive psychology, art & design, and user design. It is a creative approach to problem-solving and the method used by many companies and organizations to design products and services that relate directly to the people they serve. Students will both learn the process and create their own projects. Lottery Preference: no preferences
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H146 ETHICS AND THE USE OF MATHEMATICS, WITH A FOCUS ON ANTI-RACISM (0.5 Credit)
Tarik Aougab
This half-credit seminar will explore what it means to “do math ethically”, to emphasize the ways in which mathematics is inherently political, and to think about anti-racism in mathematical disciplines. This course is graded P/F. Crosslisted: Independent College Programs, Mathematics
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H246 MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP (1.0 Credit)
Neal Grabell
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
A study of the managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling resources to accomplish organizational goals. Focusing on leadership and ethics, this course will consider the role, skills, techniques and responsibilities of managers in business, non-profit, and other organizations.
ICPR H247 FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING (1.0 Credit)
Neal Grabell
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
An introduction to financial accounting concepts, financial reporting, and managerial accounting. The course will address how accounting measures, records, and reports economic activities for business entities and how decision makers analyze, interpret, and use accounting information. COURSE MAY NOT BE USED TOWARDS THE ECONOMICS MAJOR or MINOR AT HAVERFORD. Crosslisted: Economics, Independent College Programs
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H250 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EXHIBITION: OBJECTS, IMAGES, TEXTS, EVENTS (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the theory and practice of exhibition and display. This course will supply students with the analytic tools necessary to understand how exhibitions work and give them practical experience making arguments with objects, images, texts, and events.
ICPR H258 AMERICAN QUEEN: DRAG IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An interdisciplinary visual studies examination of queer subcultural performance and its influence on contemporary American culture. Readings include live performance, visual art and film as well as historical and theoretical secondary sources. Prerequisite(s): an intro course in Gen/Sex
ICPR H271 COMPARATIVE AND TRANSNATIONAL STUDIES: FROM KUALA LUMPUR TO KANSAS CITY (1.0 Credit)
Thomas Donahue
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
How can comparative lenses on the one hand, and transnational lenses, on the other, make sense of a globalizing world and its workings? This course uses both lenses to understand the ways we live now. Also, the ideas and practices that shaped them. So we study, for example, how modernity was built by the Black Atlantic, by creolizing, and by different diasporas and their homelands. And how constitutionalisms in Spanish America and U. S. states resemble each other. Or how the Arab world and East Asia shared debates over dealing with Eurocentrism.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H277 ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS AND THE PROFESSIONS (1.0 Credit)
Neal Grabell
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Through an exploration of ethical theory and case studies, we will examine topics such as: the tension between compliance with the law and the profit motive, professional responsibility and detachment, the proper treatment of clients/patients, short-term vs. long-term benefits, the relevance of social benefits claims to business practice, doing "well" by doing "good", and the dilemma of ethical relativism in the world of international business.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H290 INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER (1.0 Credit)
Molly Farneth
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Explore the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, class, religion, and embodiment in our time. Our focus is principally on the USA, though we make some forays into international conversations. Readings are drawn from a smattering of the most recent developments in academic research and theory, as well as from science fiction, activism, popular culture, and new media. We work to bring the personal into the classroom, and to take what we learn out into the world.
ICPR H295 QUAKERS, WAR, AND SLAVERY, 1646-1877 (1.0 Credit)
David Harrington Watt
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
In the 1640s and 50s, many Quakers believed that Christians should fight in wars; none of them (as far as we know) believed that Christians ought not own slaves. By 1723, most Quakers had renounced war; a good many of them had begun to assert that owning slaves was contrary to the will of God. Students in this course will try to determine how—and also why—Quakers changed their minds about war and slavery. Crosslisted: Independent College Programs; Peace, Justice and Human Rights; Religion Prerequisite(s): First Year Writing
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ICPR H298 IMPACT INVESTING (1.0 Credit)
Shannon Mudd
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Impact investing is investing to generate both a financial return and a positive social benefit. It supports firms seeking to address social, environmental and /or governance problems (ESG) in a sustainable way often within market activity. The focus of this course is to not only gain an understanding of the theory and practice of impact investing across its many components, but also to gain practical experience by assessing a particular set of potential impact investments, making formal presentations of findings to an investment committee leading to a recommendation for investment to a partnering foundation. Crosslisted: Economics, Independent College Programs, PJHR Prerequisite(s): ECON 104 or 105 or 106
(Offered: Fall 2023)
ICPR H301 DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND TRANSNATIONAL INJUSTICES (1.0 Credit)
Thomas Donahue
Division: Social Justice; Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
What are the worldwide obstacles to peace and justice? How can we surmount them? This course examines theories of some of the leading obstacles to peace and justice worldwide, and of what global citizens can do about them. The three obstacles we consider are colonialism and its legacies, whether we live in a global racial order, and whether the global economic order harms the poor and does them a kind of violence. The two solutions we will consider are the project of economic and social development, and the practice of human rights. The course aims, first, to give students some of the knowledge they will need to address these problems and be effective global citizens. Second, to understand some of the major forces that shape the present world order. Third and finally, to hone the skills in analysis, theory-building, and arguing that are highly valued in legal and political advocacy, in public life and the professions, and in graduate school. Crosslisted: Independent College Programs, Political Science
(Offered: Fall 2023)
ICPR H319 HUMAN RIGHTS IN PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA–IN NATIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT (1.0 Credit)
Eric Hartman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course considers human rights as moral aspirations and as interdependent experiences created through civil law, drawing on student internships with social sector organizations in Philadelphia and throughout the United States, to interrogate the relationship between social issues and policy structures. Prerequisite(s): An internship through the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. Exceptions may be made for students involved in other forms of sustained community engagement and/or activism.
(Offered: Fall 2023)