Don’t try to read the whole course catalogue – it’s waaaayyyyy too long, and you’ll get bogged down in a lot of classes with names like “Radiation
Oncology Physics” and “ST: NSMS GAANN.”
Instead, let the Daily Lobo guide you through our entirely unscientific survey of the best classes at UNM. Keep in mind this is based entirely on hearsay and anecdotal evidence, and be sure to register quick — you don’t want your geeky friends to take up all the spots in the good classes with the best professors.
Beats and Beats and Beats and…
Brenda Leyba is about to graduate with an English degree, but her heart is still stuck in her hip-hop dance class. She unconsciously moves to an imaginary beat while telling the Lobo about her funkiest class.
“It’s not like ass-shaking, you know, kind of club dancing. It’s like real dancing,” she said. “(It’s about) the art of teaching you not only the dancing, but the history of hip-hop. It’s very earthy and comes from African dance.”
Leyba said teacher Karen Price helps students bring out their creativity while staying within the confines of a not-so-rigidly choreographed routine.
“Our final’s coming up, and whatever she choreographed, you put your own style into it,” she said “It’s kind of like when you’re writing a paper. You can still put your voice into something, even though there’s guidelines.”
Students in Price’s hip-hop dance class learn to dance to old-school hip-hop as well as newer R&B tracks. And the best part? It’s the only class you’ll ever take where “groove” is an answer on the final exam.
The Rising Star
John Carr taught his first two classes in the geography department a year ago, in spring 2010. Between the two classes, he had about 15 students.
The next semester, there were 120 enrolled in his intro to human geography class.
“The word spreads, and for that to happen in this short a period of time is nice,” Carr said.
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His classes defy what students might think of as “geography.” There’s no studying maps, or the ethnic makeup of certain regions. Instead, Carr’s students spend their class periods discussing topics like the Seattle World Trade Organization riots of 1999.
Across all of his classes, from “Trans-Border Cities” to “The City as Human Environment,” Carr encourages discussion among his students about issues like globalization and free speech.
“Tuition prices, the world financial meltdown, whether and where my students can get jobs. I guess that’s one sort of big lump of things I’m interested in,” he said. “And the other sub-theme is that I’m really interested in this stuff. So having the chance to give students the opportunity to become excited and empowered about this is what sort of runs me.”
Ghosts, Aliens and JFKs – Oh My!
Bill Dewan is fascinated by strange beliefs.
That’s why he teaches classes with names like “UFOs in America” and “Urban Legends.” For the summer semester, he’s adding a conspiracy-theory class.
“America is a country where conspiracy theory has really gone mainstream. Culture, politics, everyday conversation,” he said. “These courses are designed to get at how do these beliefs arise, who believes in them, who disseminates these stories, and why do people so readily believe them? I think it’s a very complicated, nuanced topic.”
Unfortunately, Dewan’s classes won’t give you a definitive answer to whether the moon landing was faked.
“The hardest thing is to get students to move away from that initial question, ‘Are these stories real or not? Are UFO’s real or not? Did this really happen?’” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s an
important question to address. But I think it’s more important to talk about why people believe certain things.”
And a lot of students believe these “certain” things. Twenty-five to 30 percent say they’ve seen a UFO, and around 37 percent believe they’ve had contact with a ghost, according to a survey of about 600 UNM students Dewan recently completed. Dewan said these numbers reflect that students will interpret experiences in different ways.
“A strange light in the sky, depending on your belief system, could be a satellite, could be a weather balloon, could be a UFO,” he said.
Students wishing to explore the more mysterious side of the universe will have to endure a bit of a drive, because all of Dewan’s classes are taught at UNM West. Coincidence? Or is there something someone doesn’t want us to know?
From Agamemnon to George Clooney
“The Iliad” might not be the first subject that comes to mind when you think “party time.” But Monica Cyrino’s Greek mythology class will make you love the epic poems of Homer.
Cyrino delivers her classes like stand-up routines, finding humor even in the driest prose of ancient Greece.
Oh, and, for no apparent reason, you can expect to see lots of slides of George Clooney. Lots and lots of slides of George Clooney.
Cyrino’s wacky approach to classics proves popular among the students. Greek Mythology is regularly voted “best class” in the Daily Lobo’s Lo Mejor survey. In fact, she took the top two spots this year — her “Big Screen Rome” class took the number two spot and has 461 students enrolled.
Oh yeah, and that Greek mythology class wasn’t even offered this semester, and it still won “best class.” How’s that for popular?
