Fight Bravely: Stage Combat for Everyone
Let’s admit it: we love a good fight. Whether it’s Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the latest Kung Fu film, or The Empire Strikes Back, a lot of the time, we are just waiting for the moment when negotiations break down, voices are raised, lightsabers ignited, and the combatants come out swinging. In this course, we are going to talk about theatrical and cinematic combat: what we like (yes: you will weigh in with your favorites), how it works in terms of the larger story, character, and movement. But it gets better. After we spend some time talking about the fights we love in film and on stage, it’s swords out. You will learn the elements of safe stage combat in a week of training that will culminate in choreographing with your partner(s) your own original stage fight. It’s wonderful if you have theater or martial arts experience, but this course is open to people of all backgrounds, genders, and basically anyone who wants to mix it up.
From TV to TikTok: Using Media to Promote Health
Have you ever stopped to think about the extent to which your interest in medicine, science, or healthcare has been influenced by what you see on television or social media? Or how your health behaviors are related to what you see on social media? This course will explore these questions through a mix of class discussions, presentations from medical and public health professionals (including potentially a virtual session with a writer from a popular medical program!), and analyzing some of your favorite television programs and social media platforms. Students will use the information learned in this class to analyze health science information on a television program of their choosing and create social media content that shares health information important to them. Spend a week with us looking at health information, health care, and health science through the lens of primetime television and social media. What you learn might surprise you – maybe even inspire you.
Interpersonal Influence: How to Harness Your Social Power
Did you ever ask yourself why some people are just good at getting others to go along with their ideas? Or how some folks always seem to emerge as the natural leader of a group? The answer is social power and influence. Whether we’re aware of it or not, these things exist in all life spaces where people interact. The bottom line is that the more socially effective you are, the more you are able to achieve. In this session, you’ll become familiar with the different sources of social power and influence tactics, and you will kick off a plan to develop and maintain high levels of social power!
Neuroscience of Human Movement: Do We Sense to Move, Move to Sense, or Just Act?
Explore a brain’s view of sensing, moving, and thinking in action. While we might listen to music or watch a video to relax and ‘do nothing’, or go for a walk or run to ‘get away from thinking’, our brain continually integrates sensing, moving and thinking for our intended actions. We will review brain regions and functions through ‘previously real’ [neuroanatomy lab, brain specimens] and brain models, and engage in interactive ‘brain games’ (e.g. teach your brain to read Braille; trick your brain or let your brain trick you in what you see and read) to observe, record, maybe even learn a new motor skill behavior. Explore and experience the brain’s decision-making, for action in a planet full of opportunities; experience your brain’s talents and ability to rise to challenges in action. Students will use the course experiences to bring brain function to act ‘alive’ in the creation of a model of the brain and neural processes, that enable human movement behavior -- senses, moves us, and acts.
Pittsburgh Sports Analytics
Pittsburgh is a sports town, but the sports landscape has evolved since the Steelers and Pirates dynasties of the 1970s. The modern sports world is drowning in data. Every game includes some reference to a win probability. It seems like everywhere you look, from Hollywood movies to TV commercials and internet Ads, we are constantly reminded that data transformed sports. But how exactly did that happen? Although there are many possible answers, all solutions start with well-organized data. In this project, students will be introduced to the fundamentals of properly organizing data, and the basics of answering questions from data. All examples use real sports data from the Pittsburgh area.
Secret Pittsburgh: Digital Stories & the City
How can digital modes like audio production, mapping, and photography help us re-present the world around us? Through small production pieces we will reframe local spaces and learn to add our own stories to the Pittsburgh cityscape. We will explore sites of nature, art, and history, use equipment and maker spaces on campus, practice design principles, and develop working knowledge of creative platforms. By the end of our time together, you will have a digital project to add to your portfolio. You will also be invited to further circulate your work as part of the ongoing Secret Pittsburgh guidebook project. Our learning time will be split between on campus labs and field visits to local sites for digital capture. No previous experience with digital creation necessary; imagination required.
Unwrapping Pittsburgh: Mapping Class, Race and History
What do you think you know about Pittsburgh? Whether you are from the city, from the region, or from further afield, histories change over time based on who tells or writes them and when, what they are trying to accomplish, and what readers/students already think they know or believe. For those less familiar with the city or with less experience here, this course will provide a primer to the history of Pittsburgh. For those who are from the city or the immediate region, it will challenge them to complicate decades-long narratives of Pittsburgh as among the most “livable” cities in the country. Through a combination (provided COVID protocols allow) of physical mobility (walking tours/museum visits), archival documents (virtual and or in person at the Heinz History Center and the University’s Archives Service Center) and discussion, we will unwrap Pittsburgh in its complexity and examine counter narratives that Pittsburgh’s “renaissances” were experienced universally and necessarily positive.
Urban Artwork – Community Murals
Explore Pittsburgh’s rich history of public murals and vibrant neighborhoods as you combine hands-on mural painting with walking tours of Pittsburgh neighborhood murals. In this class, students will design, build, and fully paint a personalized mural that represents their class as a community. Through experiential learning and lectures, students will explore and practice the techniques used in creating murals, how to ensure the longevity of their artwork, and the different materials used for large-scale painting. Concepts surrounding design, color theory, and copyrighted imagery will be explored. Experience in painting and drawing is not necessary, just a willingness to get dirty and have fun.
Urban Ecology and Sustainable Food Systems
Imagine planting a fruit tree or shade tree seedling in your first week on campus that allows you to harvest fruit or enjoy shade when you return to Pitt as an alumna or alumnus. This course is focused on the native paw paw (Asimina triloba), a tree that grows nearby in Panther Hollow within Schenley Park, in Marlie Gardens on Pitt's campus, and on Pitt’s School of Public Health lawn where the 2019 Provost Academy class planted seedlings. This course will involve 1) visiting urban ecosystems near campus; 2) learning about the importance of the paw paw fruit to indigenous communities (including the Cherokee, Shawnee, and Seneca), European colonists, and African Americans; 3) discussing the steps taken to grow food in urban neighborhoods; and 4) learning about sustainability initiatives on campus. Most importantly, students will contribute to Pitt's sustainability plan through service learning by planting seedlings. Students will create individual and group photo essays of their experience to share with the Pitt community.
Your Voice is Your Power
What if we told you politics need not be politicians trying to out-yell each other and heated social media wars where the loudest, richest, meanest voice always wins? Instead, politics can be about people working together to ensure their voices are heard. Our three faculty participants will share how each of them studies and researches the issues of race, of the current political regime, and how to get the voices that need to be heard, heard. We'll talk about why black voices in particular can be systematically marginalized, even amid a time with unprecedented response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. Amid that we'll also talk about strategies to allow all voices to flourish, including amplifying those that go un- or under-heard. We'll conclude with looks at how regimes and institutions try to close, limit, and guide voice to their preferred (and status quo-maintaining) positions. Students will engage in group inquiry together and develop a project on voice of their own: learning what it takes to get heard in the modern political space, and why voice isn't as simple and easy as we think.