A series of special courses for non-science majors at the university have rapidly grown in popularity and may be expanded as soon as next fall.

The “Marquee Courses in Science and Technology,” which started last year, have exceeded expectations, according to Donna Hamilton, the dean for undergraduate studies who created and pushed for the program. Since its creation, Hamilton said, the program has fielded more than 1,000 students, including 539 this semester, a 48-percent increase from the spring.

The six courses in the program take an interdisciplinary approach to science, making them easier and more engaging for those not inclined to study the sciences, students said.

“These classes are so much more applicable than the other non-lab classes that the university offers,” said Matt Miller, a sophomore history and criminology and criminal justice major. “The classes are not necessarily easier, but are easier to pay attention to.”

Miller and Emily Blumberh, a sophomore business major, have worked together this semester in ASOC200: Weather and Climate. Both agreed the Marquee courses offer much better alternatives for those not science-gifted.

“Now, when I walk outside, I know not just what the weather is, but why the weather is how it is,” Blumberh said. The discussion classes are very group-dependent and open, she added.

Hamilton, who is also an associate provost and an English professor, said she does not plan to stop with the six courses the university currently offers. She has created a request to invite the university’s science and engineering colleges to submit one to five new proposals for Marquee courses. These new courses could be offered as soon as the fall semester of 2009.

“We want to grow it, and we think it is a wonderful project,” Hamilton said. “We also want to recognize the faculty since they have done something innovative.”

The Marquee course faculty has been giving presentations on the project in conferences across the country, most recently at the Reinvention Center Conference in Washington last month.

Hamilton noted many other colleges have been “awed” by the inception of the program and said she could not believe how it united the behavioral and social sciences with physical and life sciences.

“Marquee courses often have a social aspect,” aid Steve Rolston, professor of PHYS105: Physics for Decision Makers: The Global Energy Crisis. “We expect students to gain a social awareness and see where science fits in,”

These courses include pressing topics such as “Making a Habitable Planet” and “Engineering Issues in Medicine.”

“The idea was to get courses where the relevance of science to some of the big social, economic and political issues would be breached,” Hamilton said.

The course also allows students to view science in a different way.

“You learn how to view science in so much detail on an everyday basis, rather than a textbook style,” said Kristen Miller, a graduate teacher assistant for the biogenesis class. Miller said she believed that, because the class is relatively new, there are some tweaks to be worked out, but, overall, the experience has been valuable.

Hamilton believes the Marquee program is an important one as the university moves to replace CORE with a new general education program. One of the administration’s goals for a new program is to make the new courses engaging, rather than boxes to be checked on a student’s transcript, a quality Hamilton believes the Marquee courses have.

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