SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Cruise the News in Biology
Rudi Berkelhamer, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Th 4-4:50pm, DBH 1420
Course Code 87600

This seminar will focus on several new biological findings and/or areas of interest that have been in the news in the past year with an eye to critically evaluating them. Students in the class will choose those on which they would like to focus and will read and discuss recent findings and how to learn more about the questions they raise. For several of the topics, the class will compare the popular press version (newspaper, magazine, online reporting) with what is found in the scientific literature. Techniques for reading and understanding difficult scientific articles will be presented and practiced.

Rudi Berkelhamer is a faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education. She has designed and taught a broad range of Biology courses at UCI including the Experimental Biology Laboratory Class (Bio Sci 100LW), a problem-based learning class on Current Issues in Biology, and several Upper Division Writing in Biology classes. As Associate Dean of the Division of Undergraduate Education, Dr. Berkelhamer's responsibilities include oversight for the new student programs for both freshmen and transfers.

COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES

Introduction to Immunology
Anshu Agrawal, Medicine & Immunology
W 3:00-3:50pm, TBA
Course Code 87602

This seminar aims at providing the students with a basic overview of immunology via discussion about current immunology news and articles.

There are no assigned readings. Students will be asked to read and discuss articles in the news related to the topic of discussion for that week.

Anshu Agrawal is a faculty member in the Division of Basic and clinical immunology in the Dept. of Medicine. Dr. Agrawal is a Ph.D and involved mainly in research. The primary focus of her laboratory is innate immunity in the context of aging and autoimmunity. They study the alterations in the functions of dendritic cells of the immune system and how they change with advancing age and the consequences associated with the change.

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES

Sex, Race and Crime in Early America
Sharon Block, History
W 12-12:50pm, TBA
Course Code 87603

This Transfer Seminar focuses on how colonial Americans treated sex crimes and used criminal prosecutions to create and enforce racial boundaries.  We will read an array of colonial criminal documents, include legal statutes, testimony in bestiality, rape, or fornication cases, as well as historians’ publications of sex, crime and race in early America.  Students may also get a chance to do small research projects, such as finding court testimonies or looking up the colonial legal definition of particular crimes.

Sharon Block is an Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean of Humanities. Dr. Block has published extensively on rape in early America, and has taught classes on Colonial History, Women’s history, Crime in Early America, Sex in Early America.  Her current research focuses on the construction of race in colonial America.

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION & COMPUTER SCIENCE

Beyond Java and C++: Functional Programming in Scheme
David G. Kay, Information and Computer Science
Tu 4-4:50 pm, TBA
Course Code 87604

In the 55 years we've had high-level programming languages, we've learned some things about how to write reliable software quickly, cheaply, and accurately. Some of those things are part of common programming languages like Java or C++, but some aren't: The technique of functional programming and the programming language Scheme provide a perspective on programming and a set of advantages that's different from what you get in Java or C++. (UCI lower division students see this material in ICS 22 or Informatics 41. This seminar gives transfer students the same experience in a manageable package.)

Readings will include excerpts from:

Introduction to Scheme and Racket,
http://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/index.html

How to Design Programs, second edition, online at http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/

Students will be encouraged to bring laptops to class for brief mini-lab sessions; there will also be modest suggested exercises for them to try (typically in pairs) between class meetings.

David G. Kay came to UCI from UCLA in 1990. He has been teaching computer science in one way or another since 1971, so he has seen a lot of programming languages come and go. Besides computer science, he holds degrees in linguistics and law; at UCI he teaches courses in introductory computer science (for majors and for non-majors), human-computer interaction, programming languages, technical communication, pedagogy for TAs and for undergrads, and computer law.