2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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The undergraduate course numbering system is as follows:
0100 - Lower Level Courses
0200 - Upper Level Courses
0300 - Upper Level Courses
Not every course listed in this Bulletin is offered annually. Definitive information about course offerings and class hours is available at the time of registration through the Office of the Registrar. Insufficient enrollment or changing conditions may occasionally necessitate the withdrawal of scheduled courses. Please check with appropriate departments to determine if the courses sought are being offered and when they are scheduled.
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Theatre Arts |
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THEA 0261 - Theatre History: Early Stages
Credits: 3
This course is an interdisciplinary study of the development, continuum, and evolution of Western theatre in a world cultural context. The course will focus on the agendas and legacies of key figures and movements in the development of Western theatre from its origins in ritual and ceremonial dance to the community performances of the Middle Ages. The relationship of Western theatre to Eastern examples, the development of the theatre as a physical structure, the development of various concepts of character and dramatic action, and the changing relationship of life on the stage to life off the stage will be examined through the study of selected dramatists, theoreticians, directors, designers, and performers.
Prerequisites: ENGL 0101 and ENGL 0102 .
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THEA 0262 - Theatre History: Renaissance to Romanticism
Credits: 3
This course is an interdisciplinary study of the development, continuum, and evolution of Western theatre in a world cultural context. The course will focus on the agendas and legacies of key figures and movements in the development of Western theatre from the European Renaissance to the emerging world stage of the nineteenth century. The relationship of Western theatre to Eastern examples, the development of the theatre as a physical structure, the development of various concepts of character and dramaticaction, and the changing relationship of life on the stage to life off the stage will be examined through the study of selected dramatists, theoreticians, directors, designers, and performers.
Prerequisites: ENGL 0101 and ENGL 0102 .
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THEA 0263 - Theatre History: The Modern Stage
Credits: 3
This course is an interdisciplinary study of the development, continuum, and evolution of Western theatre in a world cultural context. The course will focus on the agendas and legacies of key figures and movements in the development of Western theatre from the realist/naturalist movements of the nineteenth century to the world theatre of the 1940s. The relationship of Western theatre to Eastern examples, the development of the theatre as a physical structure, the development of various concepts of character and dramatic action, and the changing relationship of life on the stage to life off the stage will be examined through the study of selected dramatists, theoreticians, directors, designers, and performers.
Prerequisites: ENGL 0101 and ENGL 0102 .
(formerly ENGL 0263)
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THEA 0330 - Special Topics in Theatre
Credits: 3
This course focuses upon selected subjects in the theatre arts of performance and design, theatre stagecraft and technology, theatre history, theatre management, or dramatic literature chosen in keeping with the instructor’s field of specialization and in response to student interest and/or emerging trends in theatre.
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THEA 0343 - Sound Design for Theatre
Credits: 3
This course teaches students the principles, theories, technology, and craftsmanship of sound design for live theatrical production. Topics include script analysis for the designer, developing a design concept, researching period music, developing a sound score, translating characters’ internal psychological and emotional states into sound, and organizing the documentation of a design. Emphasis is placed on digital multi-track recording and editing. Students will be expected to plan and to implement a number of sound design projects using computer-aided sound design software. Students also will explore basic audio theory and technology, the components of sound systems, and their applications to a live theatrical environment.
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THEA 0350 - Dramaturgy
Credits: 3
This courses applies aspects of script analysis, dramatic theory and criticism, and theatre history to the study of individual works of drama. Dramaturgy involves the study of the principles of dramatic composition, structure, style, and theory as they relate to a dramatic work, and research on that work’s historical setting and time of composition, on its author’s body of work, on its published criticism, and on its production history. Students will learn what makes a dramatic work theatrically viable, how to assess its strengths and weaknesses, and how to rectify its shortcomings.
Prerequisites: THEA 0260 or ENGL 0365 .
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THEA 0354 - Costume Design
Credits: 3
Students will acquire an appreciation and an understanding of costume design as a unique form of artistic expression. Students will learn about style, about the designer’s creative process, and how to analyze and interpret play scripts and characters from the costume designer’s perspective. They will also learn about the processes of executing costume design, including the tools and techniques of costume construction. The course will provide a cultural and historical perspective, revealing how the pressures of place and time have influenced the fashions of various periods and how costume design has evolved and developed over time. Criteria will be established to enable students to evaluate and to articulate their reactions to costume designs and to the design experience.
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THEA 0357 - Acting II
Credits: 3
Working on a role, students apply the elements of Acting I to text, character analysis, and performance. Scenes and short works will be performed for class criticism.
Prerequisites: THEA 0252 .
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THEA 0358 - Production Seminar
Credits: 3
A topics course. Topic will depend upon the playwright and the play chosen for production. Production Seminar is a culminating course designed to apply the skills actors, designers, and technicians learn in their performance and design/technical courses, and to provide practical experience in the mounting of a theatrical production. The course will be devoted to preparing, building, performing, and evaluating a theatrical production for a public audience.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment by audition or interview; open to all students who qualify.
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THEA 0359 - Acting for Film and Television
Credits: 3
Students will learn how to apply the craft of acting to the demands of acting on-camera for film and television, as well as the techniques and craft required for on-camera acting. Students will be introduced to such aspects of on-camera acting as the terminology of the media, cold reading techniques necessary for auditioning, the camera shots and camera angles, the limitations of the frame, professional behavior on a set, and the actor’s responsibility. Students will engage in a number of exercises as well as monologue and scene work for the camera.
Prerequisites: THEA 0252 and THEA 0357 .
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THEA 0360 - Theatre Production
Credits: 6
This is an intensive hands-on course for students interested in learning and gaining experience in standard technical craft practices for the theatre. The class will familiarize students particularly with the specific equipment and skills needed for the preparation and construction of costumes for a theatrical production. Students will also learn and apply fundamental construction tools, techniques and skills in other technical/craft areas of scenery lighting, sound, scene painting, makeup, and properties. Student may also participate in the running crews for the semester’s theatrical productions. Each student will be required to fulfill assigned hours and to attend work calls outside the regularly scheduled class and shop hours.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor is required for admission to the course.
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THEA 0362 - Research Seminar in Theatre
Credits: 3
Advanced research in theatre, including guided individual study of an approved topic. Members of the department will assist students whose special interests coincide with their specialized areas.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor.
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THEA 0368 - Directing II
Credits: 3
Through directing at least one act play, class criticism, and analysis, students will learn the role of director as interpreter, organizer, teacher, and stage manager.
Prerequisites: THEA 0255 .
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THEA 0380 - Professional Theatre Seminar
Credits: 1
Students will learn about the realities and demands of graduate school and of making a career in the worlds of professional theatre, film, and television. Topics will include but are not limited to auditioning techniques for theatre and for film and television; headshots, resumes, portfolio preparation and presentation; creating personal web sites; marketing oneself; personal wardrobe and makeup; interviewing techniques, how to research, select, apply, and prepare for graduate school; and the professional working environments of New York and Los Angeles. Required of all Theatre Arts majors.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing in the Theatre Arts program.
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THEA 0389 - Scene Design
Credits: 3
The course will convey an appreciation and understanding of scenic design as a unique form of artistic expression and the artistic skills and craftsmanship necessary to a scenic designer. Students will learn how to analyze and interpret a script from the scenic designer’s perspective and to translate one’s concepts into concrete visual and graphic terms. Students will acquire a working understanding of theatre history and style as they relate to scenic design. The course will stress process and methodology and will expose students to the scenic designer’s creative process, touching on such areas as analysis, research, sketching, rendering, model building, and ground plan development.
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THEA 0390 - Lighting Design
Credits: 3
This course teaches the science and the art of the discipline of lighting design. Students will learn the tools of the trade and how to use them to enhance a theatrical production. It will acquaint students with the lighting designer’s process and how the designer analyzes, interprets, and translates a script into a cogent design concept, and how the designer uses the tools and the latest technology of the trade to execute the design.
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THEA 0398 - Internship in Theatre
Credits: 3-12
A practical internship program for senior Theatre Arts majors who want to gain real-world experience in on-the-job training in an area of theatre. Students will participate for a stipulated period of time under professional supervision and evaluation, and will be observed periodically by college faculty. The internship must be proposed by the student and approved by the Theatre Arts faculty. Any additional requirements of an internship - for example, journal or report writing or an oral presentation - will be determined by the faculty.
Prerequisites: Permission of program coordinator.
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THEA 0399 - Independent Study
Credits: 3-6
A course by special arrangement for independent study in an area of special interest or need in theatre and/or drama. The student will work with a faculty member qualified to supervise the independent study project.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor and department chair.
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Anthropology |
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ANTH 0101 - Introduction to Anthropology
Credits: 3
This course is a survey introduction to all of the major fields of anthropology and human adaptation, cultural learning, and endeavor. Students will learn that anthropology and the study of cultural knowledge is inherently holistic, comparative and interdisciplinary. In this course we use the broad and current definition of the discipline as a five field program of study that recognizes global development, post-colonial economic, and political forces at work in the world today. The five fields that students will be introduced to in their introductory coursework and can develop beyond the requirements include: 1) cultural anthropology, 2) archeology, 3) biological/medical anthropology, 4) linguistics, and 5 ) applied anthropology. There is no pre-requisite to this course, first-year students are encourages to take this course.
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ANTH 0200 - Methods of Ethnography from 1900-Present
Credits: 3
This course will create an historical and cultural context for understanding the basic qualitative research from in anthropology since 1900 with a focus on American monographs (with examples from British, French, and German works and ethnographic styles and formats).
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ANTH 0201 - Cultural Anthropology
Credits: 3
An overview of cultural anthropology as a discipline and to the concepts and techniques essential for understanding different cultures, both contemporary and past. Includes analysis of universal aspects of human experience, including the family, economic, political, religious, artistic, and linguistic systems, examined in cross-cultural perspective. A brief examination of hunters and gatherers, tribal and peasant peoples, among others and an introduction to the dynamics of cultural contact, cultural evolution, and change.
SOCI 0200
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ANTH 0217 - Culture and Personality
Credits: 3
Crosslisted: EGST 0217
An introduction to a variety of cultures from the perspective of the “culture and personality” school of cultural anthropology often referred to as the Columbia School. These anthropologists, starting with Boas, Mead, Benedict, Sapir and others developed a variety of skills involving the study of culture and language, gender, emotion/psychology and visual and behavioral cues to study the personalities that cultures encourage and/or stigmatize. This course traces these anthropological insights in a series of studies from early models of study to exploring present day “culture and personality” ethnographic research which focus on culture’s role in identity and power construction. This course addresses the complicated relationship that anthropologists have had as “natives” of the colonizing country who are in many cases attempting to advocate for the indigenous “other” they are studying.
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ANTH 0250 - Special Topics in Anthropology
Credits: 3
An intermediate treatment of a specialized are with Anthropology.
Prerequisites: ANTH 0101
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ANTH 0260 - Introduction to Medical Anthropology
Credits: 3
Crosslisted: EGST 0260
This course is a case-study introduction to medical anthropology as practiced today. We will study how a variety of non-Western cultures interpret and treat what we in the West think of as universal health concerns such as birth, sickness, death and dying, and mental illness. We will study how healing and the body can be understood in a variety of cultural ways, in different worldviews, languages and symbol systems that are the context for often very complex health care and prevention models. Students will learn how a variety of different practitioners and health specialists across the globe such as midwives, “medicine” people, shaman and religious practitioners and our own medically licensed doctors and nurses symbolize and treat illness to improve health and vitality.
Prerequisites: EGST 0101 or EGST 0102 or ANTH 0101
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ANTH 0282 - Introduction to Archeology
Credits: 3
Crosslisted: HIST 0253
A basic introduction to the history, methods, practices and major theories that have shaped and continue to shape the field of archaeology. The primary geographical focus is on the archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean world (particularly but not limited to Egyptian, Biblical, Greek, Roman, and underwater archaeology) but the course also covers exemplary sites and discoveries throughout the world. Topics such as the politics of archaeology, legal issues, preservation, antiquities theft, and forgeries/fraud are also addressed. Upon completion students should be knowledgeable in the basic methods and issues of archaeology applicable to most regions and time periods and be prepared to attend a field school/join an expedition.
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ANTH 0313 - Chinese Culture and Society
Credits: 3
This course is about the basics of the Chinese society and culture. It sets out to decode the mystery of the Chinese civilization, its past, its present, and its possible future. It examines how Chinese society’s basic characteristics have developed as a result of the interactions of historical, geographic, economic, philosophical, political and religious factors. It also considers how these factors are reflected in the contemporary dynamics of Chinese society and culture. The thematic overview of the course focuses on the development of a civilization - how it has developed through the centuries and how it reveals itself in its contemporary form.
Prerequisites: ANTH 0101 or POLS 0110 or SOCI 0101
SOCI 0313
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ANTH 0320 - Political Anthropology
Credits: 3
Using culture as a lens this course focuses on the political development. Specifically using anthropological tools we will focus on the development and impact of the cultural origins on modern political processes and its institutions, both Western and non-Western; the meaning and courses of political identity in complex contemporary societies; and, the prospects for democracy and the Western styles political institutionalization among and within the world’s divers civilizations.
Prerequisites: ANTH 0101
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ANTH 0350 - Special Topics in Anthropology
Credits: 3
An advanced in-depth treatment of a limited and/or specialized area within Anthropology.
Prerequisites: ANTH 0101
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Art Internships |
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ART 0336 - Animation Internship
Credits: 3
The Animation Internship Program prepares students for work in the Animation / Illustration / Multimedia fields of the visual arts. The internship can be a placement within an on-campus department that demonstrates a motion graphics or animation need, or an off-campus placement with an animator, illustrator or multimedia production firm. The following grade point averages 3.0 GPA in the Art Major, 3.0 GPA in the Animation Concentration, a 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, and Junior Academic Standing (54 credits) along with the completion of ART 0265 Animation 2 and ART 0325 Animation 3 are required for an Animation Internship placement. A departmental acceptance of an internship is by application and approval by the Art Department’s Internship Coordinator, The Art Department’s Chairperson, and the Westfield State Career Center. Visit the Art Department’s webpage for the application and for more information on the deoartment internships.
This class can be taken twice.
Prerequisites: ART 0265 , ART 0325 , 3.0 GPA in the Art Major, 3.0 GPA in the Animation Concentration, a 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, and Junior Academic Standing (54 credits)
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ART 0337 - Graphic Design Internship
Credits: 3
The Graphic Design Internship program prepares students for work in the Graphic design/Web/Design/Multimedia fields of visual arts. The internship can be a placement in a department on-campus which has projects for a graphic design intern or an off-campus placement at an advertising, marketing agency or graphic design firm. The following grade point averages 3.0 GPA in the Art Major, 3.0 GPA in the Graphic Design Concentration, a 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, Junior Standing (54 credits) along with the completion of ART 0228 Graphic design1 and ART 0210 Typography 1 are required for a Graphic Design Internship placement. A departmental acceptance of an internship is by application and approval by the Art Department’s Internship Coordinator, the Art Department’s Chairperson, and Westfield’s Career Center. Visit the Art Department’s web page for the application and for more information on the department internships.
Prerequisites: ART 0228, ART 0210, 3.0 GPA in the Art major, 3.0 GPA in the Graphic Design Concentration, 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, and Junior Academic Standing (54 credits).
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ART 0340 - Art Internship
Credits: 3 - 15
The ART 0340 prepares students for work site work experience in their field of visual arts study. This internship prepares the student for daily worksite procedures and experiencing projects from development through completion in the many fields of the visual arts that assists in later job placements. The following grade point averages 3.0 GPA in the Art Major, a 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, and Junior Academic Standing (54 credits) along with the completion of four 200 level art studio class from the Art Major for Internship placement. A departmental acceptance of an internship is by application and approval by the Art Department’s Internship Coordinator, the Art Department’s Chairperson, and Westfield’s Career Center. Visit the Art Department’s webpage for the application and for more information on the department’s internships.
This class can be taken twice.
Prerequisites: Four 200 level art studio classes from the Art Major, 3.0 GPA in the Art Major, a 2.8 overall Westfield GPA, and Junior Academic Standing (54 credits).
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Honors |
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HNRS 0101 - Honors Discovery Seminar
Credits: 1
A (1 credit) first-year seminar to foster the successful transition of new Honors Program students into their college lives, with the support of current Honors Program peer mentors (enrolled in the course for 1-3 credits) to help them understand university resources, expectations, and policies; identify faculty, staff, and student groups whose interests align with their goals; and provide opportunities for social engagement on campus outside of class time. Through experiential learning, with an emphasis on maximizing the use of campus resources and enhancing self-awareness through deep reflection, this course will actively engage students in their Westfield State University experience, while fostering personal and professional growth in a dynamic and inclusive classroom environment. This seminar is an elective, not required for Honors Program completion. Can be taken multiple times for credit; maximum 6 credits applicable to Honors Program requirements.
Prerequisites: Must be a member of the Honors Program in good standing to enroll.
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HNRS 0201 - Introduction to the Senior Honors Project
Credits: 1
This seminar is intended to prepare students in the Honors Program for their Senior Honors Project (SHP), a year-long independent research or creative project rewuired to graduate as a Commonwealth Honors Scholar. This preparatory seminar should be taken in the spring of the sophomore or junior year depending on the student’s major and planned SHP timeline (students should consult with the Honors Program Director and their major advisors about timing in the fall semester of the sophomore year). Students enrolled in this course are not required to go on to complete the Senior Honors Project, and students do not have to be enrolled in this course to complete a SHP. This course counts as 1 credit toward Honors Program requirements.
Prerequisites: Sophomore or Junior status, Honors Program member.
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HNRS 0301 - Upper-Level Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar
Credits: 3
A special topics seminar that constitutes an innovative new course, substantially different from any existing WSU course; is interdisciplinary and appropriate for students across majors; features speakers, trips, and/or other special events to enhance classroom learning; and includes a capstone project that could lead to conference participation or provide a basis for Senior Honors Project work. Students must take one upper-level interdisciplinary Honors seminar to complete Honors Program requirements. Variable topics; may be taken more than once.
Prerequisites: Completion of 6 credits of Honors coursework.
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HNRS 0390 - Honors Program Internship
Credits: 1-3
A variable credit internship that allows students to develop and carry out independent special projexts related to the Honors Program. Examples might include producing content, layout, and design for the Honors Program newsletter; developing and carrying out special projects related to Honors Program events, student mentoring, or academic support; managing social media marketing and analytics, and other projects. Supervised by the Honors Program Director, Assistant Director, or Faculty Fellow. Students will be required to keep a log of their activities during the internship and to compile a portfolio of work completed at its conclusion. 3 credits = 8 hours per week. This internship does not fulfill a student’s own department internship, unless with permission of the student’s department chair.
Prerequisites: Must be an Honors Program student in good standing; sophomore standing or above.
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