Humanities at Loyola

Hi. Welcome to Loyola University Maryland. I'm here to answer your questions about the Humanities. An undergraduate in general, on Peggy O'Neill and the associate Dean of Humanities. I've been a professor in the Writing Department for 18 years and I've taught a lot of undergraduate classes.

From Massena all the way through senior seminars, so I'm happy to answer any questions, you have.

To the best of my knowledge.

Messina is their first year program that were students select 2 courses that are paired together.

They take one course in the fall in another course in spray their small seminar style classes. One of their those professors will be their advisor and beyond. The regular content of whatever course there in there's also an enhanced hour that goes with that class, where you have outside events. You get a mentor someone who's not your professor you also have a upper level student that works with your group.

And it really helps especially in the fall with that transition to college to Baltimore to living in the residence halls, helping students navigate the curriculum the Co curriculum. The social aspect of college so that has been a really successful program and I've been teaching. In it, almost every year since it started. I still keep in touch with a lot of those students that I had in the Cena.

You know they come back even when I'm no longer there advisor. They come back after they graduate and they talk about how important that first year and that having that connection in that small class, the opportunity to really get to know their.

Their stupid the other students in the class and their professors and to be able to ask questions about just what it's like to be at the University and how the handle different situations that come up.

Within Massena you get paired with a different course in another discipline so for me. I teach first year writing when I teach him Massena and I get paired with lots of different disciplines, so last year. I taught of writing class and then the other section that students took in the spring was computer science.

Next year I'm doing communication an intro to multimedia writing along with the first year effective writing so my courses also diversity course. So it satisfies the core writing, but it also satisfies the diversity core.

So one of the questions that just popped up is about the Loyola classroom experience and I think what helps make Loyola's classroom experience. Unique is that our classes tend to be more especially in the humanities, but I think this happens in across the disciplines there more seminar based. It's not just lecture students or involved. There's a lot of Co. Curricular learning so things to do outside of the regular classroom.

In the humanities, there's lots of opportunities for research so we have special programs where students can get funding to do independent research in the summer, they can get funded to work with as a research assistant with a faculty member in the humanities. There's other opportunities like the kohlenback program, which allows students to work on a project in the community.

And they need to have a faculty mentor, so the Humanities. Faculty often do that. I worked with a student who did a program with the women's.

Shelter and she did the research and I meant heard her through the summer and then she did a presentation so there's lots of different opportunities, depending on what your interests are and what?

Where you wanna go? What kind of research skills you want to develop? What disciplines you're involved in?

So, in terms of Humanities majors, one of the things that's great about being a humanities major in general, but

especially with writing our communication, we have an opportunity to do an interdisciplinary.

Major so you do for writing you can do half your major in writing and another the other half would be in a?

Discipline that you choose so for example, might be communication. If you're interested in being a journalist. You can do half your courses in writing and you have a lot of flexibility with what you take and then half your courses in communication. But just in the journalism part so you don't have to do all of the communications major across all the areas if that's not what you're interested in.

Same thing with writing in English if you're interested in creative writing in our writing Department. We have lots of different classes. So we have creative writing. We have technical writing professional writing writing about science writing about the environment, so if you're interested in being a creative writer. You can do you know your half of your courses in writing and then half of your courses in English? Where you're studying literature and poetry and all and then you're writing classes, you can take the creative writing classes.

That match up with your interest so there's a lot of flexibility in a lot of the humanities majors, so that students can combine different majors and they can also kind of there's a lot of electives so that you can take what you want.

Horses.

So our menu mentioned that you've been accepted in your undecided and how can we help you with that, well we love to get undecided majors because there's so many opportunities for you to explore areas that you might not even be aware of coming out of high school, so the core is one way to help you.

Explorer different?

Disciplines that you may not have had as a as a high school student. The Co curricular activities. The clubs the speakers that we have on campus. The interdisciplinary programs, especially the minors like peace and Justice or global studies as a minor or major those kinds of programs include humanities, but they also include other areas. So we have lots of opportunities for students who aren't sure what they want to do.

Um also students a lot of students they think they know, and then they come here and they take a class in there, you know blown away. They didn't even know that they could study peace and justice. For example, or Asian Studies, Latin American studies so there are lots of opportunities for that.

There's lots of interaction with the professors and Undergrads in Humanities.

Beyond the in the classroom. Of course, most of the classes are seminar style so there might be brief lectures, you know the.

Professor might lecture for 10 minutes and then there's questions. Lots of chance for interaction, but also outside the Class I mean, we have every Department in the Humanities has a club associated associated with it like for example, the philosophy club and then there's faculty that moderate that club that come to the meetings that help organize the activities that the students want to do so.

The prosody club has that in students really you don't have to be a philosophy major to go to that.

Club or participate in the activity that they sponsored or the guests that they brought on campus. Same with peace and justice. We have a lot of speakers. We have a series of peace and Justice Speaker Series and the.

The faculty are involved in that, but they also bring students in so there's lots of formal and informal opportunities for students to interact with the professors. Another example the English Department has a big feast every December.

It's a theme based it's organized by students senior majors in English. But all the professors come all the students that are in English classes come and it's just a great time where they play games.

Um eat good food celebrate the end of the semester, so things like that happen across the campus.

What's the most interesting humanities course? Well, that's hard to say 'cause. It depends on what you're interested in I of course will say that it's a writing course because writing is let you pursue the interest that your your passion about and helps you communicate that with others.

I think every professor thinks that the courses that they teach are the most interesting but I always hear about courses that I haven't taken you know, or areas that I don't know much about and I think they're fascinating.

So some of the history of one course it's upper level history course like.

The history of disability in the Mideast. Bacha sounds amazing to me 'cause I don't know anything about it, but it just depends on what you're interested in what you're going to find the most interesting.

Most of the classes, though allow you to find your own.

Passion within that broader subject so I think you can make any class really interesting.

So we have a question about the Honors Program. The Honors Program.

They are my office happens to be right around the corner from the owners.

Where the honors seminar room is and so I get to hear and see a lot of the honor students and I know the faculty that teaches classes.

The Humanities.

Uh program there's a series of classes that you take just with honors students so the.

45% students that you enter with you as your cohort you'll take classes with them that are in honors. But then you get to take classes with everybody else as well. And so that's been the students like that. They like having that both and they have a tight group and they have.

Some activities out of the classroom besides their regular seminars that they take for the Honors Program. But then they also get are in a major with other class with other students. So you kind of get the best of both worlds to get that tight knit group. But you also get the wider experience and I know when I have honor students like this past fall. I had 2 honors students in my intro to rhetoric class and.

They were delight, they just and they you could tell they had. They were friendly with each other. Even though they were in different years, so that's the other thing I think the honors program kind of.

Top facilitates is how is making connections across years because the honors program itself is not just with your code work but across the four years.

Well.

Jobs with the humanity, we get a lot of questions about the humanities and career opportunities.

And all of the research shows that the humanities really prepare people graduates for jobs in the 21st century.

Learn to think critically write clearly communicate well.

Very closely and those skills transfer anywhere so.

That's I think the best are our students get jobs in all different kinds of areas.

From business like a history major who is working at Fitch Ratings too.

Fine Arts, a interdisciplinary Fine Arts and communication major who is the director of photography.

At the Met in New York City, so it's just a wide range of things.

Prepares you to go into lots of areas, so are.

Placement rate for Humanities really well and so I don't just don't be worried because it's not doesn't seem likely professional it's definitely preparing you for the professions.

We don't have any teaching assistants here, so that earlier question about the interaction with professors everybody that you're going to mostly have full-time professors in your classes in some of their classes. We have some professionals that are teaching the classes like in communications and that's a bonus. That's not we don't see that as a problem that helps the students. But mostly we have full time professors. We don't have any TAS that teach any graduate students.

Or assistance that are leading classes there all the faculty of record as we like to say that they are fully enfranchised faculty.

The Humanities for study abroad is great because lots of courses will transfer an we encouraged Humanities majors to study abroad.

And almost all of our study abroad programs. You can find courses for humanities majors, which is unlike some of the other, more technical majors like engineering or chemistry. But for Humanities. It's it's A plus to be able to go to program in Cork and study take a class in.

Irish literature right that would that's a great thing, so there. There's a lot of flexibility in that way.

We do, there's a question about the adjunct professors and I think I mentioned that we do have a few adjunct per core faculty that common just teach one course. But many of those are professors that have been doing that for a long time and they've been hired.

For a particular reason because they have a particular expertise or they have particular experience in the professions that.

Only someone working in that field will have so we when we do have what we call per course instructors that are not full-time professors.

Those are for a particular reason not there's not a lot of them. Most of our courses are taught by full-time professors not teaching assistance and not.

Just Kirk worse.

So for the English.

Program. How many are in the program.

Sometimes that's a little bit hard to say exactly because we have interdisciplinary, but I'd say it's about.

60 to 70 majors that are in English and then let's across the four years. So it's enough that we get uh you know there's uh.

A critical mass for activities for UM to provide variety, but it's not so much that the students are kind of lost in the shuffle where they don't get to know their advisor or they don't. They don't connect with The Professor. Our goal is to have all of our students connected to one of the professors.

Formally, through advising but also informally through mentoring.

Or other kinds of opportunities.

Oh, so in philosophy that's always interesting because um every philosophy. Professor has their own specialty and in their poor in the core philosophy classes there's

some general guidance, so everybody's gonna in flask. Everybody is going to read something by this is in quarter. Everybody's going to read something by Plato, but it might not be the same thing. So um in philosophy. You'll be reading. You know original it's not a textbook. It's the actual writings of the philosophers and then you'll work on learning how to understand what they're saying.

Read it closely argue about it write papers about it and you know what does it mean if I?

What would uh according to Plato? How do you approach this? What does it mean by looking at the same kind of question?

From a different philosophical lens so that's it just depends on the professor about how much time they spend on different.

Topics or different works, but in all the classes are going to be actually reading.

So.

The original text.

So we have from entering. We had both formal and informal kinds of mentoring programs. So you everybody is assigned in advisor.

When they first come in and that's their Massena faculty member so that is only.

That advising relationship is more than just a technical advising like what classes to take its.

It helps the advisor will help you with anything.

You know a problem in your residence Hall or in the class or another class but along with that machine advisor. You also have a student who's goes through some training in preparation to be supportive of other students and then there's also a staff person who is a mentor for that group, so that's a formal program but then informally we have ways that students can.

Find a mentor that's going to work for that student so I like to think of mentoring is not just finding one mentor. But you are going to find different mentors for different needs. Maybe your first year, you have a need for one kind of mentor.

But as you go through and get into your major your you develop a different kind of different kind of need a different kind of relationship with the professor so.

But I would say is there's multiple opportunities and it's just helping students learn how to take advantage of these opportunities.

Internships is one way that we do help students make that transition from.

Um undergrad into the work world and we have a lot of opportunities, the career services is really helpful. There's

a Loyola connect, which helps you connect to other loyal alums and find internship opportunities. You can also find mentors through Loyola connect if you just want to find out more about.

A certain come.

You know karere, but internships in Humanities. We have some program set up to help fund internships to help students with transportation. I know in the Writing Department. We have a really rich internship program where you take a class and you can get credit. You get support and advising through to help find the internship and as you're going through it, so that kind of support for internships. We really encourage students.

2.

Get an internship whether it's for credit or not for credit and we provide support so you can do that.

There are first year class requirements, regardless of major.

So with the core curriculum. These are not just there, you're not required like nobody is making you take them in your first year but there are some courses that are highly recommended to take in your first year. Those are those 100 level courses, so affective writing, which is WR100 definitely encourage your first year because we want students to be prepared for the writing that they're going to get once they're here across the curriculum.

Understanding lit which is English, 101 again close reading analytical writing again. A great first year class and many of these are classes, you can take through Masino.

Um history 100 level. That's also a recommended first year class again. You don't have to nobody's requiring you take it. But we strongly encourage you to do that specially if you're going to, if you're interested in majoring in any of those areas.

And so those are the courses that we really try to get in your language requirement. The 100 level language requirement. We try to get students started in those classes in either the fall or spring in their first year and then outside of that there are other you might be a requirement. If you know what your major is going to be or if you're interested in trying different majors.

This can help but

Your Messina will definitely be for first year students and everybody in your Massena your two Massena classes will be all first year students. Some most of the Massena classes are core requirements, but not all somewhere electives.

As far as the L sat we do have really good placement for students in.

Ilasco's uhm we have a class that really is focused on helping students with the L sat we have a pre law program where you can get advising.

The person who is now the advisor for a pre law. He's a professor in political science and he also has a law degree. So we do have those kinds of programs to help on the L sat and 2.

See if that's what you really want to do, um.

Is there a complete course listing available for English majors so for the English major if you look in the catalog? Which is available online. You can see the variety of courses that are offered each semester. There's a different selection of those courses that will be offered and that changes every year and they try to have courses that will come up 2 to 3 year intervals in terms of.

You know what's in the catalog so if it's in the catalog it won't be every single semester that courses offered but it should be offered across the 3 years, so summer, every other year, some might be every year but there is a variety.

So what does Loyola offered that is unique I think the?

What makes Loyola unique is the variety of opportunities that students have in the classroom?

And beyond so that kind of opportunity for mentorship right being part of a larger network what we like to call Greyhound Nation, having that really strong liberal arts background and then we have full time faculty that really want to work with undergrad students.

That is not what you find in a lot of schools mean most of our faculty or accomplished scholars know they're publishing books. They're doing all this stuff that you expect but they also really want to work with undergrad students and I think that translates into an excitement about working with the students about Brianne student passions into the class of the class isn't just about what the professor brings but it's also about what the students bring to the classroom.

And I do think that that is different than at a lot of other schools.

Some of the classes for prelaw count towards the.

When I mentioned the course that they offer is through political science, so it would be an elective course, so every major has electives.

And would count as one of the electives. It's your political science major or minor, obviously counts towards that so but.

Anybody can take it, you don't have to be.

Um a political science, so the pre law is not really a program it's.

'cause you can major in anything so prelaw like pre helped you can major in.

Major in political science or history or English or communication or writing or an interdisciplinary which we pad like writing because in the Writing Department. We offer rhetoric courses courses an argument in trade rhetoric argument style.

Um that are attractive for law school help you learn argument political science is a good one history, English all of those are good pre law majors and then you work with the pre law advisor to see what did it. What is it that's going to help you the most?

Um so that's so it's not really a major. It's just kind of a pathway.

Oh my favorite question about business majors, an humanities classes so.

Business majors benefit not just from the core 'cause I think that the core really emphasizes close reading communication analysis things that everybody business needs. But we also have classes that are really helpful specifically for business majors. For example, we have a business writing course or a technical writing course.

Um communication courses are always helpful in business.

Uhm I would say the language requirements are really good for business. If you're interested in business. You have to be able to work with people who are not like yourself and everything now is global so that core language is really helpful. And we even have some for example, French for business majors, so those kinds of courses are just.

They are excellent for business majors and then just having that well rounded sense of history. English any of those kinds of courses.

Will help you no matter what your business happens?

Any other last minute questions.

Thanks, everybody, I enjoyed your questions.

And hopefully I'll see you at open house.

Yeah.