Besides the Core Course in the fall term, Kresge College offers additional classes each academic year.

Classes that will be offered for the 2009-2010 school year are (tentatively):

Fall 2009

Krsg 12A: Service Learning — 3 credits
Students will find an independent field placement with the instructor’s assistance, work in the placement, meet weekly, read appropriate texts, keep a journal, and write a final reflection on the experience.

Winter 2010

Krsg 15A: The Writer as Witness — 3 credits
Students become involved in a community service project in order to produce a portfolio of social action writing that situates the writer as witness in the community.

Krsg 60F: Writer’s Read — 2 credits
Students will attend weekly creative writing readings by fiction writers and poets, read excerpts from the writers’ works, participate in questions and answer sessions and write short creative and/or analytical responses to the readings/writings. This year the theme is Women Writers Re-Vision History.

Krsg 60K: The Art of Comedy: Literature & Performance — 3 credits
Students analyze comedic writing and practice writing comedy. Students will develop pieces to be delivered in a performance at the end of the quarter.

Krsg 62: Transformative Action — 5 credits
The course is devoted to learning the skills, strategies, and ideas of effective social change advocates in the 21st century. It will introduce students to many case studies of success in restoring the environment, resolving conflicts, overcoming poverty, and addressing other problems of social injustice. The course is not a traditional lecture course. It is highly interactive, experiential, and dynamic. It is about empowerment, leadership, and action.

Krsg 75: Sustainable Food Systems — 5 credits
Introduces students to fundamental food system issues and opportunities. Topics covered include: hunger, environmental sustainability, race and gender, food and agricultural policy, local food systems, gardening, and farming models, social movements, and approaches for analysis and change.

Spring 2010

Krsg 15B: The Writer as Witness — 3 credits
Students become involved in a community service project in order to produce a portfolio of social action writing that situates the writer as witness in the community.

Krsg 24: Imagining Utopia — 2 credits
Students explore possible futures by studying several utopian visions, projects and manifestos. Students imagine a future by writing a manifesto and other creative non-fiction pieces that embrace a utopian imagination.

Krsg 63: Kresge Garden Cooperative —2 credits
The Kresge Garden Cooperative course offers students hands on gardening skills within a student-run space. The focus of the class is to continue to develop a strong cooperative garden on campus, with special attention to the documentation of this process.

** More classes will be added to this list as our program develops; details will be available in the quarterly Schedule of Classes. For your interest, here's a sampling of some of Kresge's offering from previous years:

Film and Politics - This course introduces students to the study of film and focuses on both form: the terminology and techniques appropriate to such a study and meaning, the broader political implications of film and its impact on postmodern America.

Memoir and Autobiography Workshop - Students will read excerpts of memoirs, autobiographies, and semi-autobiographical short stories, and write sections of a memoir or autobiography which we will workshop in class, and a final self-reflection/evaluation on the course.

Student Leadership - This course takes a holistic approach to examine leadership as it relates to personal and institutional ethics, spirituality, personal accountability, group dynamics, and the effects of culture on leadership.

Literary Journalism - This course is an introduction to literary journalism, emphasizing contemporary issues in California. Students read and analyze articles that use creative strategies to grip readers, and develop their own narrative style by writing their own pieces.

Natural History and Research Methods - This student-directed seminar is a field-based course studying and experiencing UCSC campus from a Holistic tracking perspective. Practice “reading” the landscape, develop observation/interpretation skills applicable to any environment, and learn local flora and fauna. Assignments encourage expanded awareness, questioning, present moment learning and active participation in nature. Permission of instructor