COURSES

Academic Program Offerings

A 2-course sequence, counting for AUCC credits, that introduces students to the complexity of Humanities-based thinking, and investigating the way such thinking can enter into STEM concerns.

IU174A-D: Questions for Human Flourishing
IU173A-D: Thinking Toward a Thriving Planet

A certificate in interdisciplinary learning that includes IU173 and IU174 along with 9 additional upper-division courses in the CLA that further the vision of the Arts & Humanities and the STEM fields as necessary partners

IU174A-D

Questions for Human Flourishing

We call Questions for Human Flourishing our “Gold” course—color of ripe wheat and the nourishing grain, precious metal that keeps its luster across millennia. These classes approach concerns that have been our deepest cares since humans have been human. Devoted to discussion and inquiry, recent Gold classes have examined “Truth & Beauty,” “Happiness,” and the roots of “Inspiration”

IU173A-D

Thinking Toward a Thriving Planet

We call Thinking Toward a Thriving Planet our “Green” class—color of the lush meadow, color of the summer leaf. Our Green classes merge the Arts & Humanities with concerns that prevail in STEM fields, furthering our belief that interdisciplinary learning leads to mutual thriving. Recent courses explore the ethical and aesthetic relation of humans to the more-than-human-world, and a class investigating the various ways in which knowledge can be built.

AUCC Credits

All our courses count for the AUCC in four different categories:

A = 1C Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
B = 3B Arts & Humanities
C = 3C Social Sciences
D = 3D Historical Perspectives

Fall 2025 Classes

Gold: Questions for Human Flourishing

Happiness Craving Experience A Creatively Examined Life Wikipedia & the Future of Knowledge

Happiness

IU 174B.001 – CRN 75083; MWF 9-9:50

Ashby Butnor

It is said that the pursuit of happiness is paradoxical—that is, the more we chase after happiness, the more elusive it becomes and the more dissatisfied we end up. Is this true? Or is it only true when we go after what we wrongly believe to be happiness? This course will explore different conceptions of happiness and a meaningful human life. We’ll begin by thinking about what happiness is and different ways it has been defined and understood, including well-being, tranquility, life satisfaction, desire fulfillment, and a balanced emotional core. We’ll also investigate what makes us happy and the roles of virtue, pleasure, wealth, success, relationships, gratitude, purpose, and spirituality in living a happy life. Our inquiry into this fundamental question will interweave wisdom from the ancient texts of Greece, India, and China with the most contemporary research in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and economics. We’ll read and talk, but also hike, farm, serve our neighbors, create art, and do yoga. In the end, we might be happier too.

Craving Experience

IU 174B.004– CRN 75095; T/TH 2-3:15pm

Stephen Fredman

What is it that allows us to create lasting memories that we cherish and that define who we are? Fully lived experience. What has been lost or drastically compromised by the virtual realities that have crept into every aspect of our world? Genuine experience. How can we change this and gain experiences that matter?

This course will explore the centrality of experience in human life. Through the arts and philosophy, we will consider together the requirements for having meaningful experiences, as well as the impediments to such experiences. We will explore multiple works of art as modes of intensive experience and we will create works—in whatever medium suits us (visual, verbal, performative, etc.)—that express and amplify our own experiences.

To help us see the power of experience, we will engage with an historical example of a community that was devoted to experiential knowledge, Black Mountain College. There, the intensive focus on lived experience within a community gave birth to many of the most exciting literary and artistic breakthroughs of the past century.

A Creatively Examined Life

IU 174B.003 – CRN 75085; MW 11-12:15

Andrew Meyer

The author and scholar Joseph Campbell wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are,” and understanding, examining, knowing, and learning how to be-in-the-world is a constant unraveling of adventure and contemplation. Putting oneself in accordance with the journey of self-discovery through the lens of creativity is a vital step in understanding what it means to be and to live. Venturing through forms of creativity both old and new, we will watch, read, listen, write, and investigate substantial creative endeavors and create our own to help us understand how various subject matters within creativity can foster self-examination and personal discovery. Each day of our existence all the gods, all the characters, all the heavens, and all the hells, are within each of us and we must figure out how this can nurture, stifle, or encourage our paths forward. This course will investigate how lived experience in conjunction with the personal creative investigation could unlock newfound understandings of personal meaning, creative purpose, and having a vision for life. We will investigate questions of truth, beauty, love, malice, conflict, tribulation, meaning, atonement, revelation, and many more to help foster a better understanding of what it means to be-in-the-world.

Wikipedia & the Future of Knowledge

IU 174B.005 - CRN 78196; MW 11-12:15

Mark Bresnan

How do we know what we know? Where can we go to look for reliable information, and who is responsible for maintaining, cataloging, and updating that information? In this course, we will explore the history and future of knowledge. We will study the development of modern schooling and the creation of the first encyclopedias, and explore debates about truth, certainty, and doubt. In the second half of the semester, we will turn to the 21st century, focusing on Wikipedia as a unique tool for both gaining knowledge and developing crucial information literacy skills. The final project asks students to work in small groups to draft and publish a Wikipedia article related to Colorado State University or the greater Fort Collins community.

Green: Thinking Toward a Thriving Planet

Elegy & Ode What IS Nature? The Perfect Intersection: Art-Making as a Way to Learn (& Do!) Anything Building Community with the More-than-Human World

Elegy & Ode

IU 173B.002 – CRN 75090; TR 9:30-10:45

Robin Walter

Our class will be interested in the modes of elegy and ode. As fall folds into winter and as deep winter gives way to spring, how might we attune ourselves to the seasons of grief and renewal?

As we place ourselves in relation to both the urgency and transformative possibility of our current moment, we may find it necessary to create a mode of being expansive enough to hold both apology and praise in equal measure. How might we remain wakeful to the hopes we have for our world when faced with the realities of ecological devastation? How do we cultivate resilience when our headlines hold such violence and terror? How might we learn to honor absence even as we celebrate renewal?

The scope of these questions will require us to be expansive in the genres and disciplines towards which we turn. We will draw from ancient and modern literary, artistic, and ecological traditions to support our effort, so offered by Parmenides, “to draw near the open question.” We will do our best not to theorize about the world, but rather learn to better live in it. We will hope to collectively engage an embodied way of thinking—one that asks us to deeply listen. By attuning our senses in such a way, we might move more fluidly between grief, celebration, mourning, and song and learn to tend to the chords that bind them.

What IS Nature?

IU 173B.005 – CRN 78197; TR 11-12:15

Paul DiRado

“Nature” is a very common word in the English language, and one of the most important. We go out “into nature,” we study it, enjoy it, exploit it, and try to protect it. However, the ways we use this word constantly seem to contradict one another. To pick just one example: we commonly describe nature as a place of peace and relaxation, and yet also describe nature as a site of constant violence and death. Our goal in this class will be to attempt to make sense of this (and many other) tensions in how modern humans think about, discuss, and relate to nature. Our strategy will be to trace out the development of the idea of nature in sources from around the world. Returning to these sources of our notion of nature will enable us to begin rethinking our understanding of nature and may allow us to conceive of alternative (better?) ways of thinking about ourselves, our environment, and our universe.

The Perfect Intersection: Art-Making as a Way to Learn (& Do!) Anything

IU 173B.001 – CRN 75089; MW 10-11:15

David Pyle

Art is far more than just making or performing. It creates context and meaning that serves as an extraordinary portal into science, culture and history. In this course, we’ll do paper-making as a way to explore the chemistry of hydrogen bonding. We’ll discuss quilting as an avenue into culture and identity. We’ll go as far back in time as we can, looking at the intersection of art-making, storytelling, carbon, and the physics of lightfastness. From there, you’ll have the opportunity to explore your own creative interests and how they can serve as an avenue leading to other disciplines and ideas.

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This course is drawn from nearly 40 years of work by the instructor, David Pyle, in the intersection of the arts, education, commerce, and chemistry. It’s based on the premise that the arts can metaphorically act as a "railroad roundhouse" allowing us to enter on the arts "track" and then, depending on how we rotate the turntable, we can exit on a chemistry track. Or physics. Or culture and history. Or any of a thousand disciplines.

During the first week, we’ll make paper by hand and use that as a track taking us to organic chemistry and hydrogen bonding. Next, we’ll discuss historical pigments and paint-making and crushed cochineal to make genuine carmine. From there, we’ll open a track to explore Aztec codices, history, and culture and then move into materials science.

We’ll explore the ideas around Temple Grandin’s most recent book, Visual Thinking, and her commitment to developing essential engineering skills through learning that comes from drawing and sewing and other arts.

The first ten weeks of the course feature an exploration of different intersections between the arts and science or culture. We’ll look at quilting and the Gee's Bend quilters as an intersection with history and community-building. We’ll explore intersections between painting, optics, and how pigments are being used in Biomedical Engineering. From there, we'll dive into the direct and powerful intersection between the work done by Josef Albers on the Interaction of Color which gives us a track to the Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach which opens a direct link with the Principle of Uncertainty by physicist Werner Heisenberg.

During the last five weeks of the course, the students will each present a unique intersection that they’ve explored.

Building Community with the More-than-Human World

IU 173B.003 – CRN 76700; MW 12:30-1:45

David McIvor

Aldo Leopold famously said that people should think of themselves as “plain members and citizens” of the biotic community. But what would that amount to? Is it possible to extend our understandings of community beyond humanity? This class will explore ideas of community in light of two related questions (1) What would it mean to think of community as including both humans and nonhumans? and (2) Will the rapidly shifting composition of communities (both human and nonhuman) caused by climate change diminish the usefulness of the idea of community? To help us think about answers to these questions, we will read Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, as well a number of supporting readings from environmental ethics.

The Green and Gold Initiative

About

Courses

Experiences

Workshops

People

COURSES

Academic Program Offerings

IU174A-D

IU173A-D

AUCC Credits

Fall 2025 Classes

Courses Taught

Questions for Human Flourishing

Mindful explorations: Art, The World, and Self

Happiness

Narratives of Crossing: Spaces of Transgression and Transformation

On Truth & Beauty

The Artist in the Expanded Field

The Artist in the Expanded Field

The Map & the Journey

To the Underworld & Back

Poetry, Politics & Place

Thinking Towards a Thriving Planet

Meeting the Universe Halfway

Encountering the More-than-Human World, Robin Walter, Animal Sciences

Community with the More-than-Human World

Being Ecological

Knowledge and Uncertainty

Injustice Unveiled: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Civil Rights, Environmentalism & the Humanities

Elegy & Ode

Staying with the Trouble: Poetry/Printmaking/Place