Each semester, we shadow and write about all kinds of interesting courses taking place in every corner of Mac’s campus. Here we look back over the last several years, and share a handful of our favorite course stories.

Being Human: An Introduction to Language

In this introduction to the field of linguistics, one of Macalester’s distinctive first-year seminar courses, Professor Christina Esposito introduces students to some of the amazing facets of language, before inviting students to perform the work of linguists themselves.

Powers of Observation

Advanced biology students at Mac can take Ornithology with Professor Jerald Dosch. In addition to research and writing, students learn about ecology and conservation by studying Minnesota’s common bird species on birdwatching trips across the state, where they practice identifying species by sight and sound.

The Nature of Sculpture

In Professor Stanton Sears’s Sculpture I course, students learn to think creatively, solve problems, and pay attention to detail as they develop skills handling various sculpting materials—including molten bronze.

The Meaning of a Meal

What does food and the way we discuss it communicate about people’s values and attitudes toward concepts like gender roles? Students dug into this and similar questions in Professor Arjun Guneratne’s food-focused seminar.

Acting out Ancestry

To better understand the experience of international immigrants, students in Professor Claudia Tatinge Nascimento’s course, Acting Theory and Performance II, researched the immigration stories of their own family members, and then turned those stories into original acting performances.

Geology Class Goes Camping

Students in Professor Kelly MacGregor’s Dynamic Earth and Global Change course, a first-year seminar, got to see geology concepts in real life on a trip to northern Minnesota, where they studied the local topography and visited an underground iron mine.

Language of Diplomacy

After a semester of studying diplomacy and brushing up on their French, students in the Language of Diplomacy course embarked on a two-week trip to Europe to meet with and interview international diplomats, lawyers, and other leaders about their work.

January 10 2019

Back to top