Course Listing

CSP 615: Cultural Partnership (3 credits) 
What are effective strategies for scholars and organizations to work with communities to help develop the capacity for those communities to make choices about what matters to them? This course explores approaches to capacity and leadership development for community cultural sustainability.  It suggests ways that effective enduring partnerships and programs can be developed that reflect the voices and aspirations of communities, their stakeholders, and the cultural organizations that serve them. This course will introduce students to community-organizing skills, leadership development, facilitation, and collaboration and advocacy.  

CSP 625: Festivals, Events, and Performances (3 credits) 
Culture is enacted and re-enacted through the creation and experience of events large and small.  By understanding what makes events meaningful to their participants, students are better able to work with communities to enhance existing events or to develop new events that help communities to thrive. Students will learn how to manage performances, festivals, and other events.  

CSP 630: Community and Economic Development (3 credits) 
A critical feature of cultural sustainability is the development of strategies that align with economic vitality and benefit cultural practitioners. This course surveys, analyzes, and evaluates efforts of this nature: cultural tourism, schools, marketing initiatives for cultural products, and other forms of entrepreneurship.  

CSP 640: Exhibits, Real and Virtual (3 credits) 
Museum exhibitions, publications, websites, and other media provide powerful tools for sustaining, strengthening, and showcasing the cultural assets and practices of communities for purposes of education, advocacy, and preservation.  Students explore the use of text, image, video, and sound in effectively telling the story of themes and issues that matter to communities.    

DA 560: Camera Techniques (1.5 credits)
An introduction to editing techniques, and develops critical listening and viewing skills by experiencing and discussing historic and contemporary examples of time-based media. Individual projects in digital editing are created and critiqued. Each student will come away with an understanding of industry language, basic production skills, and a historical overview.  

DA 610: Media on the Internet (3 credits) This course is an examination of how audio and video can be produced for Internet use, including digital audio formats, real-time streaming, and commercial issues of distributing media on the Internet. Special attention is given to developing distributed, asynchronous audiences, and issues including related intellectual-property rights and licensing. Students will also explore emerging technologies and new financial models for distributing media on the Internet.  

DA 650: 2D-Design for Print and Web (1.5 credits)
This course introduces students to the role of digital photography and illustration in making art.  Students broaden their understanding of topics such as visual composition, color theory, typography, and narrative flow.  Possible areas covered include various perception and notation techniques, expression, time, symmetry and asymmetry, proportion, perspective, dimensions in space, visualization, illusion, rhythm, and typography.  

DA 515:  Digital Imaging (1.5 credits)
The ability to generate and manipulate imagery is fast becoming one of the primary literacies of the 21st century.  This course ensures that graduate students who may have come from a non-visual arts background or who require review of Photoshop techniques have the necessary skills to participate in the contemporary visual culture.  

DA 617: Contemporary Storytelling (3 credits)
Narrative in the 21st century is defined not only in literary terms, but also across numerous kinds of media including film, game, the Web, and even oral tradition. This course explores the numerous overlapping vessels for narrative, develops a syntax for the discussion of narrative across media, and identifies typical elements of the construction of successful modern narratives. While the theories of this class are applicable across all multimedia, students will focus their efforts into the creation of video works.  

DA 635: Composition & Sound Design for Multimedia (1.5 credits)
An examination of artistic and technical approaches to conceiving and preparing music for film, video, radio, and theater. Included are a historical survey of successful multimedia composers and an examination of the repertoire and literature of the field. Throughout the course, students will produce short multimedia works that can be added to their practicum portfolio.  

DA 665: Interactivity (3 credits)
This course will give the student an understanding of the technical components of Web design and developing interactive projects. Focus will be on the understanding of Web-based languages, interactive design models, and animation as it is seen on the Web. Possible areas covered include HTML, design practices for the Internet, and Web languages (AJAX, JQuery, Actionscript, CSS).    

DA 670: Web Development (3 credits)
Students will learn advanced techniques for creating on the Web. They will learn to develop content for a wide variety of Web-enabled devices, how to develop sophisticated Web applications, and how to employ cutting-edge Web-centric techniques.  

ENV 615: Environmental Communications (3 credits) 
Offered in two sections-Environmental Communication and  Critical Analysis-the common core of this course introduces students to the role of the media and communications in articulating environmental claims, issues, and challenges.  Environmental communication will explore techniques for communicating across social and political differences, expressing complex technical issues, mediating contentious issues, and managing crisis rhetoric.  Students will investigate effective and innovative strategies of communication through both traditional and new media formats and outlets.  Critical analysis will be focused on understanding multiple points of view, developing scientific literacy, and identifying sources and forms of bias and misrepresentation.  Students will evaluate popular environmental discourse and analyze environmental rhetoric.

ENV 621: Environmental Governance (3 credits) 
This course approaches environmental governance from a multi-level perspective, including community-based environmental management, and policy and governance structures formally represented in institutions as well as adaptive and emergent forms shaped in response to decentralized negotiations over decisions and access to resources.  In addition to this multilevel framework, the course will focus on the process of policy making, decision analysis, the problem of scaling, and the techniques of scenario planning.  It will present basic concepts and illustrate real-world concerns in case studies.  

ENV 622: Environmental Justice (3 credits) 
This course examines environmental inequity, in particular how race and socioeconomic status are related to environmental problems faced by communities. We will investigate patterns of environmental inequity, injustice, and racism as well as grassroots and community-based efforts to deal with environmental threats. 

ENV 623: Environment, Culture and Community (3 credits)  
This course explores the interrelations and interdependencies of environment, culture, and community.  Beginning with the current state of the world and its sustainability crisis, we will explore global environmental issues and topics, focusing on cultural and community impacts.  Students will be exposed to a range of domestic, international, rural, and urban theaters of conflict and change, as well as the complex political, social, scientific, and methodological challenges of working at the intersection of environment, culture, and community.

ENV 630: Public Participation (3 credits) 
This course introduces students to the critical role of public engagement with issues that have a bearing on communities directly affected by adverse environmental impacts, such as environmental health, food security, and resource allocation.  It will build upon approaches and topics studied in other offerings in this curriculum on social science methods, governance, and environmental justice.  We will examine power and stakeholders, learning to map the scope of interests and spheres of influence of stakeholders and developing the practical skill at managing a stakeholder process.  We will survey different types of public participation in the political process, including public comment, community organization, citizen science, and the co-production of knowledge.  This course emphasizes practical application of public engagement and participation techniques in the context of heterogeneous communities with different cultural worldviews and priorities.  

ENV 634: Environment, Development, and Economics (3 credits) 
This course examines how natural resources intersect with social and economic-development initiatives.  We will review the different kinds of natural resources and review case studies of both successes and failures in regard to sustainable use and community benefits.  Special attention will be paid to community-based initiatives and examples of inclusive decision making and policy design.

PMGT 675:  Practicum (6 credits) 
The practicum is a culminating six-credit educational experience that provides students an opportunity for synthesis and demonstration of their capacity to work in the field of management effectively.  Under the mentorship of a faculty committee, students will develop a project or thesis. Students build a portfolio of work that draws on their management courses as well as from their choice of coursework from Goucher's other professional master's degree programs, including cultural sustainability, digital arts, or environmental studies. This work culminates in a final project that reflects the students' business acumen applied to a specific context. Students present and defend to the committee a portfolio of work accomplished at the end of the practicum experience.