May Term

The College provides a wide array of Intensive Learning opportunities, including travel courses as well as on-campus courses. The majority of these courses are offered in May, during a three-week term, although some travel courses may run a little over or a little under the three-week period.

Examples of Past Intensive Learning Courses:

The Broadway Musical: Evaluating the American Musical Theater and Its Role in Culture
An examination of one of the most privately subsidized and widely exported products of American culture: the Broadway musical. Works from American musical theater have been translated and produced in nearly every country in the world. But is it just spectacle, or is there something deeper that attracts audiences and investors? Is this art or just entertainment? Can it be both? Who are the artists, who are the producers, who is the audience and what are the compromises? This course will study the artistic and cultural traditions, the limitations and the possibilities inherent with the Broadway musical. Travel to New York City to experience productions from Broadway to off-off-Broadway is part of this course.

Introduction to sound sampling, synthesis and sequencing using Max/MSP
This course offers intensive hands-on training in MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) sequencing, sound sampling, and sound synthesis, using the leading computer digital signal processing software package, Max/MSP. Open to students with little or no background in music and/or computer science, the course culminates in a public presentation of original student works.

Art Foundry
This course focuses on the production of cast artwork from aluminum, brass and bronze using traditional lost wax and direct replacement methods. We will visit artists in their studios, commercial foundries using sand casting for cast iron as well as a working art foundry. Open to non-majors as well as majors. (1)

Renaissance Humanism: Texts and Arts of Renaissance Italy
This is a travel course to Italy with stays in Florence and Venice and trips to other Italian cities to study how the Humanist movement affected the arts in the 14th-16th centuries. 

Learn more about Intensive Learning (May Term).