Economics 234 "Urban Education: Poverty, Ethnicity and Policy"
(4 credits) Spring 2014 and alternate years. Diette.
Students explore the determinants of education achievement and attainment in urban education through three weeks of fieldwork in schools in the Richmond area and seminar meetings in Lexington.

Economics 235 "The Economics of Social Issues"
(3 Credits) Winter annually. Professor Goldsmith
Prerequisites: Economics 102 and sophomore standing. This seminar focuses on the use of economic theory to construct models that are used to understand the likely causes and consequences of a wide range of contemporary social problems. Interdisciplinary perspectives are woven into every aspect of the course, and the validity of hypotheses is examined. Topics covered include issues pertaining to: poverty, education, health, race, ethnicity, property rights, fiscal policy and crime. Emphasis on discussion of readings from economics journals and articles from the popular press, along with discussion of relevant films. Evaluation entails exams, essays, maintenance of a personal journal, and a term project that requires economic analysis of a social problem selected by the student.

Economics 236 "Economics of Education"
(3 Credits) Fall 2013. Professor Diette
The course is an introduction to the economics of education. We investigate the role of education on outcomes for both nations and individuals. We examine the determinants of education and the multiple factors in the production of education. The course primarily focuses on challenges for pre K-12th grade education faced in the United States with secondary coverage of postsecondary education. One common theme that will guide our discussion is the impact of existing policies and potential reforms on the achievement and opportunities available to poor and minority students. Additional specific topics to be considered include: school vouchers, class size, teacher quality, merit pay, school finance, early education programs and the black-white test score gap. Through discussion, and written and oral assignments, the course will promote further development of your ability to apply economic analysis to public policy debates.

Economics 237 "Economics of Health"
(3 Credits) Winter 2013. Professor Diette
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the field of health economics. The course examines the determinants of health. In addition, the course will provide an overview of the existing institutions and policies in the United States health care system as well a comparison to health systems in other countries. We will apply standard microeconomic tools, such as models of imperfect competition, to analyze how the current structure influences the allocation and distribution of health care. Students will also consider the appropriate role of government in health care provision given the potential of market failure and government failure. We will also investigate public health issues in the United States and across the globe. Finally, we will focus on a broad range of economic policies, many of which will be separate from the health care system, to understand their potential influence on health outcomes. Throughout the course will evaluate the effect of existing policies and proposed reforms on the economically disadvantaged and both the education-health and socioeconomic status-health gradients. The course includes an optional service learning component that will give the students direct experience with health issues and/or health care services in Rockbridge County.

Economics 280 "Development Economics"
(3 Credits) Fall 2012 and annually. Professor Casey
Prerequisites: Economics 101, 102 and sophomore standing. A survey of the major issues of development economics. Economic structure of low-income countries and primary causes for their limited economic growth. Economic goals and policy alternatives. Role of developed countries in the development of poor countries. Selected case studies.

Education 369 "Urban Education and Poverty"
(Four credits) Spring 2013 and alternate years. Professors Ojure and Sigler.
Prerequisites: EDUC 200 and 210; and either ECON 236, POV 101, an upper-level education course, or instructor consent. Not open to students with credit for ECON 234. In this course, students explore pedagogy, curriculum, and social issues related to urban education by working in schools in the Richmond area for three weeks. Students read about and discuss the broader social and economic forces, particularly poverty, that have shaped urban schools and the ramifications of those forces for school design. The Richmond schools provide the opportunity to observe critical components of teaching and learning in the urban classroom. Housing is provided with alumni during the week. Students return to Lexington for Friday seminars and for the fourth week of the term for seminars and discussion.

English 260 "Literary Approaches to Poverty"
(3 Credits) Not available in the near future. Staff
The seminar examines literary responses to the experience of poverty, imaginative representations of human life in straitened circumstances, and arguments about the causes and consequences of poverty that appear in literature. The critical consideration of dominant paradigms (“the country and the city,” “the deserving poor,” “the two nations,” “from rags to riches,” “the fallen woman,” “the abyss”) augments reading based in its cultural contexts. Course readings will be drawn primarily from the literature of Victorian Britain, but also from the Appalachian and African-American experience, and the postcolonial world.

History 354 "History of the American Welfare State"
(3 credits) Winter 2015. Professor Michelmore
This course surveys the history of the U.S. welfare state from its origins in the poorhouses of the nineteenth century to the “end of welfare as we knew it” in 1996. We will cover the historical development of the American welfare state, touching on such key policy developments as Progressive Era mothers’ pension programs, the Social Security Act of 1935, Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Although this course will focus primarily on the United States, students will also be asked to compare the U.S. case with the welfare states of other western democracies – including Great Britain, France and the Scandinavian nations – to understand how and why the United States took such a different path. Moving beyond simple policy history, students will engage with such questions as how the U.S. welfare state has reflected, reinforced and in some cases produced class, racial and gendered identities.

Journalism 241: "Media and Poverty"
(4 credits) Spring 2013. Professor Mitchell
This course offers an in-depth examination of portrayals of poverty, chiefly in the United States, from the late 19th century to the present through an intensive review of distinguished print journalism, nonfiction books, documentary film, and movies.

Philosophy 242 "Social Inequality and Fair Opportunity"
(3 credits) Winter 2014. Professor Bell
An exploration of the different range of opportunities available to various social groups, including racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, women, and the poor. Topics include how to define fair equality of opportunity, the social mechanisms that play a role in expanding and limiting opportunity, legal and group-initiated strategies aimed at effecting fair equality of opportunity and the theoretical foundations of these strategies, as well as an analysis of the concepts of equality, merit and citizenship, and their value to individuals and society.

Politics 215 "International Development"
(3 credits) Fall 2012 and Winter 2013. Professor Dickovick
A study of international development and human capability, with a focus on Africa, Asia and Latin America. The course analyzes theories to explain development successes and failures, with a focus on the structures, institutions and actors that shape human societies and social change. Key questions include measuring economic growth and poverty, discussing the roles of states and markets in development, and examining the role of industrialized countries in reducing global poverty. The course explores links between politics and other social sciences and humanities.

Psychology 235 "Effects of Poverty on Families and Children"
(3 credits) Winter 2013. Professor Margand.
Prerequisite: Psychology 113 or Poverty 101. This course will explore the problem of child and family poverty in the United States and the implications that it has on parents’ and children's psychological well-being. Due to factors such as changing family demographics, homelessness and educational inequalities, or exposure to various forms of violence, children’s perceptions of the world or their place in it is likely to be altered from the trajectory expected in less economically stressed contexts. The goals for the semester include exploring how the various contexts of development (family, neighborhoods, schools) are affected by, or mediate, the outcomes of growing up in poverty; how the psychological consequences of experiencing poverty might alter children's short-term development; and how the self-perceptions derived in poverty can effect one’s future interactions within family, peers group or the larger society.

Sociology 202 "Contemporary Social Problems"
(3 credits) Staff. Fall 2013 and alternate years.
This course will study the relationship of social problems to the cultural life and social structure of American society. It will analyze the causes, consequences and possible solutions to selected social problems in American society.

Sociology 228 "Race and Ethnic Relations"
(3 credits) Fall annually. Professor Novak
Our concern in this course is to examine racial and ethnic minorities as they help us to understand the social and cultural organization of groups in American society as well as ethnic sources of individual identity. Initially, we shall study various theories of ethnicity with special emphasis placed on recent changes affecting their applicability (e.g., black and African-American pride as related to middle class and underclass life situations). As part of this analysis, we shall focus on the comparative importance of race and class in the lives of African-Americans. Next, we shall examine the recent contro­versy surrounding supposed racial differences in intelli­gence as formulated in The Bell Curve, focusing too on the heated debate involving the relevance of social class. As we move toward the end of the term, we shall study class and ethnicity, especially as these factors help us comprehend the behaviors and attitudes of “white ethnics” and Native Americans. Our last topic will be an examination of the strategies employed by subordinate groups to bring about change.

Sociology 290 "Special Topics: Culture and Poverty"
(3 credits) Winter 2013. Professor Eastwood
In this course we consider the relationship between culture, stratification and economic development. Drawing on both ethnographies and quantitative studies that attempt to tease out the causes of multi-generational poverty, we ask whether and to what extent “cultural” and “institutional” factors matter. As such, students will also learn about distinct methodological approaches in social science and some of their relative advantages and disadvantages. The central goal of the course, though, is to move beyond debates in the popular media about who is “responsible” for poverty, towards understanding its causes and considering the implications of social science research on this subject for policy.