Signature Courses

ART 290: History & Mission of Arts Institutions
This course provides a comprehensive view of visual and performing arts administration.  It provides an overview of management functions including planning, organizing, and managing within non-profit, public, and for-profit structures, and the interrelationship of organizational mission, vision, and leadership. 

ART 347:  Advanced Photography Studies Seminar 
Students take classes with professional photographers at our partner institution, the International Center of Photography (ICP) in midtown Manhattan. They meet weekly with the MMC professor to augment their experience. 

ART 362: Visual Arts Seminar: New York City
The class meets entirely off-site in galleries, museums, and other cultural and historic venues.  

ART 361: Curatorial Studies Seminar 
Students meet off-site frequently to see museums and galleries and meet curators. 

ART 392: Fundraising & Marketing for the Arts
This course covers several key areas of visual and performing arts management.  In addition to readings and lectures, students make use of New York City cultural institutions and government agencies as sources of research for assignments and projects. 

ART 411: Senior Art Seminar
This capstone course prepares students for a professional art exhibit in the Hewitt Gallery through field visits to galleries and studios in NYC and invites professional artists from the city to workshop with students. 

ART 480: Professional Portfolio
In this capstone course, students visit design studios, create a portfolio, website and business cards with which to apply for jobs and graduate schools, and are reviewed by NYC design professionals. 

BIOL 317: Nutrition and Health
In this class, students utilize the city as a learning laboratory, visiting community clinics, the New York Department of Health, the National Eating Disorders Association, as well as local food stores, supermarkets, and the Union Square farmers market to evaluate food options in these various locations.  Students also work with NYC-based experts through class visits and guest lecturers.

BUS 207: Entrepreneurship
New York City is at the cutting edge of entrepreneurship and has been since its emergence as a center for creativity and business four centuries ago.  This class incorporates lectures highlighting the academic study of entrepreneurship with guest speakers who are either emerging or seasoned entrepreneurs from a variety of disciplines and businesses based in New York City.  These entrepreneurs share their motivations, experiences, insights and knowledge with students opening their minds to a host of creative career opportunities.  In addition, students have the opportunity to visit New York City based startups and other small to mid-sized businesses to help them make more informed decisions about their futures. 

BUS 225: The Business of Fashion
This course provides students with an overview of the fashion industry and its economic, technological and social development.  Student learning is grounded in NYC – one of the fashion capitals of the world.  They utilize examples from the NYC fashion industry in their own projects and they visit various NYC-based fashion design and marketing firms.

BUS 331: Fashion Marketing and Branding
This course provides students with a hands-on understanding of fundamental principles of marketing and branding as applied to fashion products and services. Through readings, case studies, on-site visits and experiential assignments, students will learn how brands develop a distinctive image, and establish and maintain a relationship with their publics. Emphasis is given to key areas in fashion promotion, including advertising across channels, fashion PR, personal selling and brick-and mortar retail, sales promotions and packaging, e-commerce, digital marketing and social media, strategic brand collaborations, celebrity and influencer endorsements, and fashion films and events. Students will explore the marketing process from problem definition to market research to the planning, creation, execution, and evaluation of marketing and branding campaigns. To this end, students will work with small NYC fashion businesses to develop a strategic marketing communication campaign that integrates traditional, non-traditional, and digital media channels with attainable and measurable goals.

BUS 333: Business and the Visual Arts
The objective of this course is to analyze a collaboration between the art world and business and examine how it creates a system of new meanings within which individuals can experience art and creates new meanings for business. The course traces the use of the visual art in marketing mixes for various businesses such as fashion, retailing, branding and brand management. This course offers students an opportunity to take on an entrepreneurial role in developing an effective business plan to brand visual artists and manage artworks through the use of a business platform.

CHEM/ENV 105: Chemistry and the Environment
In this course, students use the city as their laboratory. The particular environmental challenges faced by New York City provide context for students to learn the foundations of chemistry and develop basic skills in experimental science. For example, the principles of acid-base chemistry are revealed in the waterways of Central Park and by investigating the effects of acid rain on city monuments. We examine drinking water quality and measure the chemical content of park soil. We investigate the chemistry of materials like aluminum and plastics through a visit to a Brooklyn recycling plant. By considering topical environmental issues in their own backyard, students will connect science with their daily lives in New York City.

COMM/JOUR 112: Storytelling Across Media
In this hands-on foundational course, students experience lectures, field trips, and workshops that immerse them in the researching, organizing, structuring, production, and publishing stages of digital storytelling.  Students go “in the field” across NYC as they explore contemporary social issues and trends in order to develop their digital storytelling skills.  

COMM 233: Video Field Production
Students engage in the craft of digital filmmaking through hands-on experience in production and editing.  Students work throughout NYC as they create films that reflect their critical engagement with contemporary social issues.

DANC 290: History & Mission of Arts Institutions
This course provides a comprehensive view of visual and performing arts administration.  It provides an overview of management functions including planning, organizing, and managing within non-profit, public, and for-profit structures, and the interrelationship of organizational mission, vision, and leadership. 

DANC 291: Music for Dance
In this class, students see three shows off site in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Students respond to the music in these productions, which enhances their ability to think critically about the use of music for dance.  Students then incorporate the knowledge they gain from these experiences into their own creations. 

DANC 294: Projects
In this class, students produce individual choreographic works for the department’s fall productions, many of which were created by professionals active in the field. Auditions and casting culminate in bi-weekly rehearsals that afford experimentation, creative practices and realization of both technical and artistic voices in performance. 

DANC 351: Dance Composition I
In this course, students see four shows off site in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Students analyze these dances along with reviews and this becomes the basis for thinking critically about dance. As a result, students bring the questions about dance making that are explored in depth in the classroom “into the field” as they incorporate them into their analyses of these contemporary productions. 

DANC 378: Producing Performance
This is a course for theatre and dance artists who want to learn how to produce their own work or form their own company.  Over the course of the semester, students engage in analyzing case studies from established companies and utilize the resources of New York City to research and create their own production plans. 

DANC 392: Fundraising & Marketing for the Arts
This course covers several key areas of visual and performing arts management.  In addition to readings and lectures, students make use of New York City cultural institutions and government agencies as sources of research for assignments and projects. 

DANC 425: Production
In this class, students create or restage individual choreographic works by renowned guest artists for the spring production. Auditions and casting culminate in bi-weekly rehearsals that afford experimentation, creative practices and realization of both technical and artistic voices in performance.

EWL 334: Literary New York
This course explores the historical and aesthetic intersections between New York City and the craft of writing.  In doing so, it introduces students to some of the City’s literary landmarks and to its vibrant contemporary creative writing scene. 

EWL 370: Professional Practices
Students in this class study and learn about many of the different careers available to EWL and CRW majors. Students visit rare book archives, literary clubs, poetry readings, storytelling competitions, conservation studios, book exhibitions, and art museums, and practice book making and printing. Students integrate academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences, utilizing NY City and its vast array of opportunities to chart individualized pathways to identify and fulfill career goals. The course includes guest lectures from professionals in various professions (copywriters, editors, journalists, etc.) who are grounded in Literature and Writing degrees.

RS 322: Exploring Religion in NYC
In this course, the study of major world religious traditions in the classroom is mirrored by group visits to representative religious sites in New York throughout the semester. In addition, students undertake individual site visits; complete a “shadow” assignment, which requires them to follow the work of a professional in an area of career interest and relate the experience to their work in the class; and engage in a final group project that requires in-depth engagement with a religious community or issue in NYC.

PSYCH 227: Introduction to Community Psychology
The course examines the causes of social problems and the interventions effective in preventing or solving them.  The course includes relevant case studies, field trips, and guest speakers, and the focus is on New York City.

SPCH 202: Phonetics
In this course, students sample the “Englishes” of New York City, selecting a NYC resident and recording that person’s conversational speech.  These audio samples are transcribed phonetically and analyzed for phonological patterns.  In a series of class presentations, students discover the rich diversity of voices in the city. 

SPCH 318: Language and Culture
This course looks at language as an integral part of a people’s culture and social structure. In other words, language reflects our culture but also shapes our cultural identity. A linguistic, sociological, and anthropological approach is employed to investigate language behavior and variation in different cultures. A term project will enable students to conduct fieldwork about their own culture and its use of language to better understand themselves as members of that culture and the use of language as a shaper of human society.  Students conduct both library and field work research into the language behaviors of their own speech communities within NYC. 

SPCH 476:  Practicum in Speech-Language Pathology/Audiology
This course offers a semester-long workplace experience in an area of communication need in NYC, including literacy, speech pathology, ESL.  Students have placements in NYC private and public schools, hospitals, and other institutions that provide services to individuals with communication disorders or concerns.

THTR 226: The Business of Broadway
New York City’s Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre industry serves as the basis for this introductory course that addresses current practices in commercial theatre producing. In-class work is supplemented by case studies, field trips, and projects through which students acquire an understanding of how a Broadway show is produced from concept to opening night. 

THTR 257: Exploring the Production Arts
Through readings, in-class discussions, and several guided tours throughout New York City, students are introduced to the fundamental principles behind the many elements that comprise a production.  Students gain a sense of the entire production process as it relates to theatre, dance, film, television and other various forms of media. 

THTR 290: History & Mission of Arts Institutions
This course provides a comprehensive view of visual and performing arts administration.  It provides an overview of management functions including planning, organizing, and managing within non-profit, public, and for-profit structures, and the interrelationship of organizational mission, vision, and leadership.  

THTR 346: Production Management
This course explores the interconnected relationships among the different management areas in theory and theatrical practice.  Study of production management, including an understanding of new directions and technologies, is supplemented by several field trips to New York City theatres and production companies.  In addition to readings and lectures, students make use of New York City cultural institutions and government agencies as sources of research for assignments and projects. 

THTR 378: Producing Performance
This is a course for theatre and dance artists who want to learn how to produce their own work or form their own company.  Over the course of the semester, students engage in analyzing case studies from established companies and utilize the resources of New York City to research and create their own production plans. 

THTR 392: Fundraising & Marketing for the Arts
This course covers several key areas of visual and performing arts management.  In addition to readings and lectures, students make use of New York City cultural institutions and government agencies as sources of research for assignments and projects. 

THTR 394: New Play Development
This one-semester course provides an overview of the myriad ways new plays are developed and produced in the American Theatre. Topics include: self-production, best practices for collaboration, communication and networking, agents, contracts and agreements, publishing and licensing and how writers, directors and dramaturgs have made the leap into TV/Film/New Media. Through written assignments, readings, guest speakers, NYC site visits and case studies students will acquire an understanding of how playwrights, directors, dramaturgs and producing organizations intersect and support each other in the creation of new work for the stage. Students will devise a plan for their individual career paths upon graduation.

THTR 412: History & Theory: New Media in Performance
This course explores the compelling interactions between live forms and mediated experiences, and the theatrical potential of new technologies.  Students are encouraged to think creatively about the use of media and performance in their final projects and they are required to use the resources of New York City for live performances and exhibits. 

THTR 418: Professional Preparation: The Business of Acting
This course focuses on the business aspects of the acting profession and the development of appropriate materials for showcasing to industry professionals.  Part of this work includes exploring audition material through in-class and out-of-class rehearsals and editing and rehearsing audition material to showcase for a select audience of casting directors and talent agents, who provide feedback on audition presentations. 

THTR 424: Musical Theatre Song Portfolio
This course focuses on creating an audition portfolio in musical theatre and includes two mock auditions in addition to private voice and daily dance labs. 

THTR 428: Professional Preparation: Musical Theatre
This course focuses on application of audition skills and the audition portfolio developed in THTR 424.  Students are guided through mock auditions with faculty and NYC-based professionals.  Students are mentored in professional auditions throughout the semester and they audition in showcase for a select audience of casting directors and talent agents. 

THTR 465: Advanced Study in Drama & Theatre
This course gives advanced theatre students an opportunity to acquire more advanced research skills and to explore a variety of NYC resources including specialized library and museum collections.