2008-2009 Catalog - Virginia Wesleyan College

PORTFOLIO147Confucian, Legalist, and Daoist schools, as well as such20th century figures as Sun Yat-sen, Mao Tse-tung andDeng Shao-peng. Prerequisite: Honors and Scholarsstudents or consent. Offered spring of even-numberedyears.495 Pre-Internship Seminar (3)Designed to prepare the student for a successfulinternship experience. Students explore the meaning ofwork and careers and examine how their knowledge andvalues are part of the work and career in which they areinterested. Application for admission to the program mustbe made to the political science faculty during the student’sjunior year. Prerequisites: 12 semester hours of politicalscience and an overall grade point average of at least 2.5.Offered each fall.497 Political Science Internship Seminar (3)Students learn to use theories, knowledge, and valuesstudied in political science and other courses to interprettheir internship field experiences and make generalizationsabout their learning. Corequisite: POLS 498. Offered ondemand.498 Political Science Internship Program (12)Political science majors apply the knowledge and skillslearned in their political science classes in a full-time,semester-long internship. The field experience can be in,but is not limited to, government agencies at the local,state, and federal levels; law, law enforcement, non-profits,political parties, social service. Prerequisites: 15 semesterhours of political science, including POLS 495. Offered ondemand in the spring semester.499 Senior Seminar (3) (I)Required of all students wishing to graduate fromVirginia Wesleyan with a major in political science. Thecourse is team taught by members of the department andfocuses upon a different topic each spring. Examples ofseminars offered in the past are: Democratization andDevelopment; Politics and the Media; War and Peace in theNuclear Age; Political Development and Changes in LatinAmerica and Asia; and Images of Justice. Open to allstudents. Offered each spring.PORTFOLIODR. LAWRENCE D. HULTGREN, DirectorPORTfolio is a selective four-year program that allowsstudents to integrate their college education with offcampusexperiential opportunities. The purpose ofPORTfolio is to provide a curriculum through whichstudents can build the foundation for the knowledge,attitudes, and skills that are necessary for life-long personalsatisfaction, professional success and civic responsibility. Bydissolving the wall separating academics from the worldoutside, it connects liberal learning with the surroundingcommunity. Each student in the program maintains andcontinually updates an electronic portfolio that documentsher/his four years at VWC.Students apply and are accepted as new in-comingfreshmen. The program includes at least one speciallydesigned seminar a year, an internship and Winter Sessioncourses for externships and service learning. Completion ofthe program satisfies VWC’s computer literacy and oralcommunications requirement as well as other GeneralStudies requirements. The program is taken in addition toone’s major.PORTFOLIO COURSES (PORT)121 Intro to PORTfolio Program (3)A time of self-exploration and discovery involving closework with faculty mentors and other PORTfolio students.Readings, off-campus explorations, and the development ofan electronic portfolio assist students in clarifying their ownreasons for coming to VWC, their purposes while they arehere, and the unique resources that they bring to thelearning process. In addition, students expand on theirconnections to the Chesapeake Bay environment and theinternational port of Hampton Roads and begin to usethese unique resources to enrich their education.Prerequisite: admission to PORTfolio Program. Taken inthe fall of the freshman year.122 Liberal Arts Seminar (3)What are the liberal arts, and why spend four good yearsstudying them? In the U.S., the liberal arts are housedinstitutionally in colleges and the undergraduate programsof universities. In this context, the two questions from thefirst sentence in this paragraph may be rephrased as: Whatare colleges? What are they for? How do they try toaccomplish their goals? These questions are approached inseveral ways. One is historical. How did colleges in general,and VWC in particular, get to be the way they (it) are (is)?Where do the various ideas of what it means to be liberallyeducated come from? A second is more philosophical. Whatdoes it mean to know something? How would you teach,given different answers to that question? Another isnormatively. What should colleges in general be doing?What kind of curriculum should we, at Virginia Wesleyan,have? Offered each spring.123 Hampton Roads Service Learning (1)(Winter Session)Introduces and raises the civic consciousness of studentsabout issues that impact the Hampton Roads community.Fostering an attitude of engaged citizenship is its goal.Students gain an understanding of issues from social,environmental, economic, national security and legislativeperspectives. Students are introduced to two issue-basedprojects through on-site presentations. They choose oneand learn about that issue through a week of research andlecture followed by a week of direct service experience. Thefinal week includes guided exercises in reflection and