Community Participants
The Bridge Year Program will continue to offer community participants a highly engaging Humanities for Everybody experience that they have come to expect from our classes.
Our mission continues to be bringing together passionate and intellectually curious people from all backgrounds and all school experiences to collectively wrestle with relevant ideas and issues in literature, history, philosophy and contemporary culture.
We will continue our conversational approach, which invites participants to ask questions, take intellectual risks, explore issues in depth, develop new academic skills and habits of mind, and gain a public voice.
Moreover, participants in the program will receive free books, tuition and snacks. There are no age or citizenship requirements for this program. Active participants are also encouraged to request assistance with their college or job applications, including references and letters of recommendation written by Humanities for Everybody faculty.
To the left is a short documentary of our program created by talented Kalamazoo filmmaker and H4E alumna, Theresa Jackson.
2017-18 schedule
Courses
Session 1–Sept. 19 to Oct. 19
"Michigan places, Michigan childhoods" taught by Dr. Thomas Bailey
Session 2–Oct. 24 to Nov. 21
"The Black image in the White mind" taught by Dr. Ben Wilson
Session 3–Jan. 16 to Feb. 15
"The city on a hill? An exploration of American exceptionalism" taught by Dr. Mitch Kachun
Session 4–Feb. 27 to March 29
"Women, globalization and social change" taught by Dr. Mariam Konaté
Days/times and location
Classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at our off-campus location located in the white building right across the street from Fourth Coast Café:
811 S Westnedge Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA
Opportunity for mentorship
Some H4E community participants have expressed an interest in mentoring our younger college-age students in our new Bridge Year program. One of the strengths of this model is that it brings together the young with experienced and committed members of the community.
If you are interested in participating as a community participant or mentor, please fill out our H4E contact form.
2018-19 Bridge Year schedule
Courses
Course I–Sept. 4 to Oct. 18
ES2800–"Human Flourishing and the Pursuit of Happiness" taught by Dr. Dini Metro-Roland at our off-campus Westnedge site.
Course II–Oct. 23 to Dec. 6
"First Year Experience" course with college writing emphasis taught by Lauren Carney and Ron Dillard at our Western Michigan University site in the Trimpe building.
Course III–Jan. 8 to Feb. 21
AFS3010–"The Black Experience from 1866 to the Present" taught by Dr. Mariam Konaté at our off-campus Westnedge site.
Days/times and location
Classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. either at our off-campus or on-campus locations.
Our off-campus Westnedge classroom is located in the white building right across the street from Fourth Coast Café:
811 S Westnedge Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA
Course descriptions
ES 2800-Human Flourishing and the Pursuit of Happiness is an invitation to explore the rich and multifaceted question “What is human flourishing?” Drawing from philosophy, literature and the social sciences, students will be introduced to conceptions, visions, and conditions of human flourishing, its changing nature across many periods of Western history, its manifold expressions in contemporary life, and its pursuit in the local community. This is a three credit-hour course that fulfills the Area II general education requirement.
Some questions we are likely to entertain in this class are:
- Is happiness the same as human flourishing?
- What role does pain and pleasure play in our conceptions and experiences of human flourishing?
- Are there ways to measure happiness?
- Is flourishing and happiness a question of feelings, judgment or objective conditions?
- What is the relationship between virtue and human flourishing?
- How do experience, purpose, narrative, and service contribute to human flourishing?
- What is it to flourish in terms of work and leisure, love and care?
- What is the relationship between flourishing and morality?
- What does community contribute to human flourishing?
AFS 3010–The Black Experience from 1866 to the Present aims to provide an analytical, critical, interpretative and chronological perspective of the major roles played by Africans and their descendants in the social, economic, cultural, political, and other institutional developments of the Americas, especially of British America from the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century. Special attention will be paid to ancient African civilizations; West African and European relations to 1510; the transatlantic slave trade, and its causes and legacies; the Africans in British colonial North America; Americanization of the Africans and the Africanization of America; the cultural survival argument; African Americans’ reactions to the American Revolutionary War and their experiences in the new nation to1865; and their new encounters and accomplishments from 1865-1877 will be examined. These issues will be examined from the perspective/standpoint of African-Americans. This is a three credit-hour course that fulfills the Area III general education requirement.
Course Objectives:
- Apply race theories and concepts to the history of slavery in America.
- Apply intersecting racial, gender, sexuality and class identities to Africans’ experiences.
- To know Africa’s contribution to world history.
- Explain how intersecting identities have shaped not only the experiences, but also the everyday strategies of resistance and theoretical/creative writings, of Black people in America.
- Recognize and articulate the correlation between slavery and race in the U.S.
- Navigate through the myths and misconceptions about race and be able to recognize the function of the stories that we tell about race.
- Understand how Blacks’ experiences and responses force us to rethink basic concepts about U.S. society (including ideas such as race, gender, equality, liberty, freedom).
- Scrutinize some of the assumptions and notions we hold about race.
- Identify the key players and events in African-American history and assess the struggles and accomplishments of African-Americans.
Interested in our program?
If you are interested in participating in our Bridge Year Program, please fill out our H4E Contact Form.