Cowell Elective Courses

(5 units, Fall 2024)

GE: IM

COWL 070B: Intermediate Books Arts

Young, G.

Learn fundamental skills in fine letterpress printing, including hand typesetting and instruction in the operation of printing presses. Basic typography is explored as students design and print a small edition of a selected text. Students are billed a materials fee. Prerequisite(s): COWL 70A or by permission of instructor.

(5 units, Winter 2025)

GE: IM

COWL 089: Faculty Research Colloquium

Heald, A

Introduction of UCSC as a research university, our notable researchers, and their work. Weekly discussions with UCSC faculty from a variety of disciplines.

(2 units, Spring 2025)

COWL 111: Mock Trial

Stinneford, C.

Introduces Mock Trial, which is open to all students. Covers the basics of argumentation, cross and direct examinations, permissible evidence, witness testimony, and courtroom protocol. Special emphasis is on public speaking. Students write speeches for opening and closing arguments and create questions for witnesses. Students must read the Mock Trial handbook for examples and strategies. Each student has an opportunity for public speaking and creating a coherent legal argument.

(2 units, Fall 2024)

GE: PR-E

COWL 122: The United Nations — Contemporary Issues

Stinneford, C.

Introduces the Model United Nations through discussion of contemporary issues. Students learn parliamentary procedure and U.N. protocols, as well as, how to work collaboratively to research and to present position papers. Students learn resolution writing, alliance building, and persuasive speech.

(2 units, Fall 2024)

GE: PR-E

COWL 130: Living Harmoniously: Philosophy for Healing

Wood, A.

Many religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions emphasize diverse paths and understandings to the strikingly similar goal for humans to live harmoniously amongst each other in society and in the natural world. This seminar focuses on exploring and examining such ideas across history from around the world with a particular focus on ideas that offer paths to healing for readers and practitioners. The course doesn’t presume to heal students, but rather to point out the tools provided by the philosophical process towards this individual end, as well as equipping students for interpersonal and community efforts at collective, cooperative healing.  

(5 units, Winter 2025)

GE: CC

COWL 135: The Path of Forgiveness 

Wood, A.

This class uses a philosophical approach to address the question of forgiveness as applied to both interpersonal relationships and political questions in a broader historical context. The thesis of the course is that forgiveness is a radical act. Forgiveness is not only a major theme in philosophy and religion but is also relevant as a potentially necessary step toward social solidarity in our contemporary moment of hyperpolarization. For example, we explore the ways in which forgiveness may be connected to healing social divisions such as those constructed around religion, political affiliation, and identity. Religious, philosophical, and literary notions of forgiveness, kindness, empathy, confession, utopia, mutual aid, and redemption are examined first in order to provide students with a variety of possible frameworks for addressing radical forgiveness and related issues. Following these philosophical inquiries into the nature of forgiveness, the course then moves to historical examples of forgiveness in action, such as materialized truth & reconciliation committees, reparations, and prison abolitionist movements across the globe.

(5 units, Spring 2025)

GE: PE-H

COWL 140: Designing Your Life

Stinneford, C.

Do you ever think, ''I want to make a difference!'' but don't know where to start? In this class students learn design thinking methods by addressing the question of what they want to do with their lives after college. Students build deeper awareness of values and goals, define areas of life and work they want to grow in, examine multiple life paths and careers that interest them, and take small steps to try these out. This is an experiential class that asks students to try new ways of thinking and step outside their comfort zone, all within a supportive community of peers.

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

(5 units, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025)

GE: PE-H

COWL 140A: Designing Your Life with the Cowell Alumni

Crosby, F.

How does one make decisions about those big life questions? From deciding what the right thing to do to is to how to have a career that enriches your life, how does one choose what to do? In this course, Cowell Alumni discuss how they made those big life decisions in the hopes that it can guide others. The course is designed to expand on the topics covered in COWL 140, Designing Your Life. Students take COWL 140 and COWL 140A concurrently.

(2 units, Spring 2025)

COWL 158A: Oral History

Vanderscoff, C

Introduction to the theory, practice, technology, and ethics of conducting oral history. Readings and expert guest speakers offer both theoretical and practical insights. Students plan and implement oral history projects in accordance with professional standards.

(5 units, Winter 2025)

GE: PR-C

COWL 161G: Delicious: Cookbook as Literature

Thrope, T

This course proposes an aesthetic approach to the cookbook. We will read from a series of cookbooks, and we will prepare a series of meals described in or inspired by the cookbooks we read. Our interdisciplinary approach to food will allow us to interpret and analyze food as cultural storytelling, while also cultivating the spirit of hospitality through shared meals.

(5 units, Winter 2025)

GE: CC

COWL 165M: Medical Ethics

Klusmeier, C

In this course, we will delve into the morality and ethics of medicine: a wide-ranging, politically complex, scientifically revolutionary, global yet deeply personal field of study. We’ll begin by examining the basic philosophical underpinnings of bioethics and use those concepts as a lens to examine, from multiple perspectives and disciplines, some of the most important scientific and human questions of our time. How do we understand pain? What is reproductive justice? How do we make ethical decisions on topics like organ transplantation and end-of-life care? What is the role of science and technology in the future of medicine? What are the moral intersections of human health and the environment? What is a health care system and why doesn’t everyone have access? This is a course suitable for everyone, in particular those interested in medical anthropology, pre-med, environmental studies, sociology, history of science, and philosophy.

(5 units, Spring 2025)

GE: SI

COWL 168: Social Change

Stinneford, C.

How do you change the world, working alone and in concert with others? To find out, students work in groups with specific community partners who, in turn, help place students in social-change organizations in Santa Cruz County. Enrollment is restricted to college members. May be repeated for credit.

(2 units, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025)

GE: PR-S

COWL 184ABC: Leadership and Institution Building

Stinneford, C.

Through lectures by senior administrators and student consensus-and-recommendation teams, students learn how leaders work with constituent groups, build cooperation, and develop implementation plans in an institution such as the University of California, specifically, UC Santa Cruz. Enrollment is restricted to undergraduates accepted in the Chancellor's Undergraduate Internship Program. 

(2 units, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025)

GE: PR-S