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New Minors - School of Arts, Humanitties and Social Sciences
The Lake Erie College School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences has introduced four new minor programs in 2021! Students can now minor in Ethics, Sociology, Photography or African American Studies alongside any major.
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Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Anthony Ezzo noticed a growing interest on campus in photography. Inspired by the photo studio in Royce Hall for the Fine and Performing Arts and the constantly filled Photography I course, he recommended the addition of a photography minor to Dean of the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Jennifer Swartz-Levine. The minor will include a class that dives into traditional black and white developing technology along with commercial photography. The photo minor is a suggested minor for marketing and visual communication and graphic design majors.
According to Dr. Swartz-Levine, a number of students had expressed interest in developing a minor in African American Studies over recent years. Wanting to fulfill this desire for further study, she proposed the African American Studies minor.
“Given the Black Lives Matter marches and larger Black Lives Matter movement that have illuminated issues and sparked a larger national conversation, LEC has the opportunity to lead by promoting a minor that helps our students think through and engage with events in our nation’s history that led to the concerns of the current moment,” reads Dr. Swartz-Levine in the course catalog description. Another way LEC students can gain a better understanding of the social world around them and everyday experiences of others is the new sociology minor. It also opens up discovery and the investigation of social issues and problems that impact individuals, groups and larger society. The minor pairs nicely with a wide variety of majors, including psychology, criminal justice, history, and political science, but sociology is an area of study that complements all majors.
Lastly, ethics is a new minor program recently approved. This interdisciplinary minor will enable students to grapple with the moral and ethical questions that face our society and that they may encounter in either their personal or professional lives. Students will explore significant moral and ethical debates as well as examine how those issues are connected to and influence contemporary cultural issues.
“Given LEC’s history as a female seminary with a strong commitment to suffrage and abolition, this minor fits the institution’s values where ethical behavior is a foundation of our interactions with our student body and with each other,” Dr. Swartz-Levine said.
Dr. Swartz-Levine wrote up the Education Planning and Policy proposals to get approval for the new minors in spring. This fall has seen the launch of ethics, photography and African American studies. Sociology launched the previous year. These new programs open up more opportunities to help LEC students become well-rounded individuals and global citizens.
