James Madison University- General Education

09/01/2021

05/07/2021

Congratulation to the Class of 2021 graduates!

05/07/2021

Recipients of the 2020 Graceful Pivot Award for both spring and fall 2020 semesters

03/31/2021

Looking to fulfill any of your general education requirements over the summer.

Please check out a list of the gened classes being offered this upcoming summer session.

03/04/2021

The JMU General Education Program enjoyed participating in Kindness Week sponsored by The Madison Society!

11/05/2020

Here is our first 300-Level Integrative course we are going to highlight. This class will be offered this Spring Semester. They are unique in nature and are approved substitutes for the Cluster One Critical Thinking requirement.
The Science and Ethics of Human-Subject Experimentation - Dr. Mark Mattson
UNST 300E – Section 0001
Although amazing knowledge can be gained from human-subject experimentation, why is it so highly regulated? The history behind it is complex. For instance, following World War II the United States offered amnesty to enemy medical personnel who gained unique data through brutal human-subject experiments in exchange for their help to interpret the information. Was it right to reconcile the otherwise unobtainable information gained with the horrifying suffering of the victims? How is science used nowadays to justify “destructive research on human embryos?”1 Through the use of historical role-playing, debate, and project development, students will gain greater understanding of the intersection between ethics and human experimentation and how it may affect them in their career.
This is a 300-level interdisciplinary course anticipated to meet the needs of non-freshman students who still have to satisfy the General Education Cluster 1 Critical Thinking requirement. The anticipated enrollment of the course is approximately 20 students and class will meet face-to-face twice a week for 75-minute sessions. This course will introduce students of all majors and interests to the protocols and regulations of experiments that involve humans as subjects; it will also address the often horrifying history of human-subject experimentation that led to the development of these protocols. Students will engage with the subject by developing their own proposals for human-subject research and following a process that mimics the necessary steps to secure legal permission to engage in this research.

05/21/2020

Here is our third 300-Level Integrative course we are going to highlight. This class will be offered this Fall Semester. They are unique in nature and are approved substitutes for the Cluster One Critical Thinking requirement.

The Science and Ethics of Human-Subject Experimentation - Dr. Mark Mattson

UNST 300E – Section 0001

Although amazing knowledge can be gained from human-subject experimentation, why is it so highly regulated? The history behind it is complex. For instance, following World War II the United States offered amnesty to enemy medical personnel who gained unique data through brutal human-subject experiments in exchange for their help to interpret the information. Was it right to reconcile the otherwise unobtainable information gained with the horrifying suffering of the victims? How is science used nowadays to justify “destructive research on human embryos?”1 Through the use of historical role-playing, debate, and project development, students will gain greater understanding of the intersection between ethics and human experimentation and how it may affect them in their career.
This is a 300-level interdisciplinary course anticipated to meet the needs of non-freshman students who still have to satisfy the General Education Cluster 1 Critical Thinking requirement. The anticipated enrollment of the course is approximately 20 students and class will meet face-to-face twice a week for 75-minute sessions. This course will introduce students of all majors and interests to the protocols and regulations of experiments that involve humans as subjects; it will also address the often horrifying history of human-subject experimentation that led to the development of these protocols. Students will engage with the subject by developing their own proposals for human-subject research and following a process that mimics the necessary steps to secure legal permission to engage in this research.

05/18/2020

Here is our third 300-Level Integrative course we are going to highlight. This class will be offered this Fall Semester. They are unique in nature and are approved substitutes for the Cluster One Critical Thinking requirement.

ART 312e- 3D Printing – Creative Community

Prof. Daniel Robinson

In this class, students will use 3D printing as a way to explore a variety of creative communities and to produce creative work that moves out of the studio and into the public sphere. Through hands-on making, reading, writing, and discussion, students will critically examine themes of authorship, ownership and copyright, and the relationship between collaboration and individualism as it pertains to the Maker movement, DIY culture, and various online and local 3D printing communities.