With a new semester approaching comes several new and interesting academic courses at Siena Heights University.

The staff and faculty at SHU have worked extremely hard to create new courses and improve existing courses for students. Mark Schersten, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said, “Our objective for creating these courses is to continue to keep up with the current trends in higher education as well as, respond to a changing culture.”

Some new courses that will be offered for the Winter 2016 semester are “Physiology of Race and Gender,” “Special Topics Slavery in History and Literature” and “Oceanography.”

Professor Jennifer Kling will teach Physiology of Race and Gender. This course will be an elective that is available for ethic and gender study minors. This course will focus on students critically and creatively exploring the experiences of marginalized groups and develop a fuller and richer understanding of the exclusive and inclusive construction of community within the U.S. and around the globe.

Schersten said, ”This course will really focus on taking a serious approach to the topic of ethics and gender. This is a topic that the institution takes very seriously. That is why we have developed this class.”

Special Topics Slavery in History and Literature is a new English class that will be offered. Professor Mathew Barbee will be teaching the course.

Barbee said, “This course is cross-listed between English and history. In the class we’ll study the history of slavery in the U.S., read slave narratives, abolitionist tracts, and a few apologies/defenses of slavery, as well as contemporary novels about slavery.”

Oceanography will also be a new course that is offered as an environmental science course. This class will focus on the physical and biological properties and phenomena of the sea. It will also offer students the chance to go on a field trip to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in the spring of 2016.

Schersten said, “Students will have the opportunity to get a field experience. We have also taken into account student athletes so the trip will not be over spring break so that we do not have conflicts with athletics.”

Along with many new courses that are being offered, there are also many revamped courses, Schersten said. One of these courses is Nursing 101. This is a course that is for students who are aspiring to be in the nursing program. The course will focus on what to expect in the program and will be offered for one credit hour.

“This is just one minor modification that was made to help students,” Schersten said. “The strong points of SHU’s education are that we have a very close-knit community of faculty who are extremely focused on teaching. The faculty wants to interact with students in small classroom settings and be on a first-name basis with students so that they can really make a difference in the students’ lives.”