Students looking to cross physical and academic borders have a new tool to use.
Culture and foreign language departments are actively promoting course offerings through Culture Shock, a new online service that makes exploring lesser-known courses on culture an easier and more accessible venture during the bookbagging and registration periods.
“We are a language department but also a culture department,” said Beth Holmgren, Slavic and Eurasian studies department chair and a leader behind the site’s creation. “When students are shopping for courses, they might... say, ‘Oh, I have to fill my language requirement,’ and the [area studies] departments do teach languages fabulously, but they also teach culture.”
The program is intended to promote overlooked courses by targeting students who are thinking about going or returning from overseas programs such as study abroad or DukeEngage, Holmgren said.
“We all have enrollment issues in the humanities,” said Carla Antonaccio, classical studies department chair and professor of archaeology.
Culture Shock features an interactive world map that allows students to browse what courses are offered regarding the culture, customs, literature, arts and politics of different countries. Other search filters include religion, translated literature and film and visual or performing arts. The current participating departments offer many courses taught in English that use accessible materials such as translated readings and films with subtitles that students without a related foreign language background may take, Holmgren said. Participating departments include Asian and Middle Eastern studies, classical studies, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Romance studies and Slavic and Eurasian studies. Students outside the departments participating in Culture Shock who are interested in exploring cultural themes often choose interdisciplinary or profession-oriented initiatives instead, Antonaccio added.
“Humanities everywhere are making their stand in liberal arts education, one that’s not just about having a job but about getting an education, but sometimes it’s difficult in this present economy,” she said. “Duke and places like it are expensive to attend and parents and families are concerned with how [students] are going to make a living after, especially if they’re in debt, as many people are.”
There are plans to include courses from more popular departments such as history and cultural anthropology that offer courses related to the topics highlighted by the program, Holmgren said.
Although cross-listing can help increase enrollment, Antonaccio said convincing faculty to agree to share listings for courses housed in other departments is challenging because they typically prioritize increasing enrollment in their own departments. Greater student interest in courses leads to greater allotment of resources to the host department, making it difficult for other programs to maintain strong faculty, she noted. Culture Shock lists the course number, title and any areas of knowledge or modes of inquiry requirements fulfilled for easy evaluation of courses by browsers.
“We let them know… what [courses] pertain to aside from culture—something that would help them connect it to what they’re doing in their program,” Holmgren said.
In the future, the site collaborators hope to provide links directly to course listings in ACES to encourage more students to enroll and not forget what they find, Antonaccio said.
“It was very easy to work through and get information quickly,” sophomore Rebecca Holmes said after using the site to receive a free promotional t-shirt. She did not register in any of the classes she looked at on the site, however, because none fulfilled the graduation requirements she needed.
Holmgren added that it would be helpful if each course listed programs where the coursework could be applied, such as related study abroad, DukeEngage and DukeImmerse offerings.
Culture Shock went live last Fall during registration period and is currently hosting a t-shirt contest for the first 250 individuals to explore the site. So far the site has had nearly 1,000 page views and 57 students have claimed t-shirts, Deborah Hill, associate dean of communications at Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email Tuesday.
Currently the most explored courses on the website are Russian 310S: The Russian Fairy Tale and its Cultural Legacy, AMES 471: World of Korean Cinema and Romance Studies 204: Soccer Politics, Hill wrote. The site will only be live during bookbagging and registration periods and will be taken down in the interim periods.
Holmgren said it is rewarding for students majoring in social sciences and natural sciences to take courses in the humanities for the worldly insight they provide.
“It’s all about learning about life,” Holmgren said. “The way I see your Duke experience, some of it is going to be pride and you’re going to use it for your future career and a lot of it is the good for the long journey to come—something that will nourish you intellectually and spiritually for the rest of your life.”
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