Core Courses

Core Courses (COR)

COR 105
Foundations for Success on a Naropa Journey (1)
Foundations for Success on a Naropa Journey is designed to enhance student learning both in the classroom and beyond. The content and the format provide support on intrapersonal, interpersonal and community levels. The topics were designed by students and staff to offer students an opportunity to deepen the Naropa experience and transition into college life.

COR 110
Writing Seminar I: Art of the Engaged Writer (3)
This course is designed to meet students where they are as writers and stretch their thinking and writing in new directions. Students focus on the creative alongside the critical, the imaginative next to the academic. Conducted in workshop format, the course helps students develop skills in both first-person inquiry and formally constructed essays. Students explore a number of generative and probative writing experiments to locate, identify and develop ideas, employing different registers of critical thinking and reasoning about the topics. Finally, each written piece goes through multiple drafts as students become objective workshop readers who critique in a supportive manner.

COR 115
Writing Seminar II: Art of the Scholar (3)
This course emphasizes scholarly writing in the particular area of the humanities named in the course subtitle by building a set of research, writing, and critical thinking skills. Students will begin their practice of scholarly precision and delight by engaging assigned texts in the humanities and then deepening that investigation via a multidisciplinary research investigation while learning research strategies, writing, and presentation skills along the way. Students enrolling in Writing Seminar II must have taken Writing Seminar I or its equivalent. Writing Seminar II is a prerequisite to declaration of a major.

COR 130
Contemplative Practice Seminar (3)
The Contemplative Practice Seminar introduces the tradition of contemplative education as it has been developed at Naropa University, with an emphasis on its vision, purpose and application to the academic, artistic and psychological disciplines taught in the various majors. Students are introduced to contemplative practices that have shaped these disciplines, especially emphasizing mindfulness-awareness and sitting meditation practice. This course is designed to integrate the personal journey of the entering student with the rest of his or her Naropa educational experience.

COR 150
Diversity Seminar (3)
The Diversity Seminar emphasizes the development of knowledge, critical thinking, analytical skills, and interpersonal and intergroup interactions necessary for living and working in a society characterized by diversity. Students engage in inquiry and analysis of the complexities of multiple and competing theories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexuality, nationality and religion, and how they shape and are shaped by social and cultural life in the United States. Through diversity and contemplative education, students can awaken a greater understanding of others, develop self-understanding and develop understanding of self in relation to others in order to promote ethical behaviors and values that support a diverse world.

COR 205
Orientation Leadership Training (3)
This course provides a unique opportunity for current students to learn lifelong skills and co-create an intimate community by helping new Naropa students begin their journey. Prior to fall orientation, students become skilled at communicating and group facilitating, building intimate communities, discussing diversity issues and activity planning. Upon completion of training, students serve as orientation peer leaders and facilitate groups of new students for one week by providing support, resources and activities during their transition.

COR 220
Civic Engagement Seminar (3)
Taken in a student’s second year, the Civic Engagement Seminar adds a public dimension to academic learning developed by students in the first-year seminars. Each seminar section focuses on a unique topic chosen according to the expertise of individual faculty. Through community-based learning, students develop skills that allow them to act effectively in the world. Prerequisite: COR 130 and COR 150.

Community and Leadership Studies (CLS)

CLS 350
Advanced Community-Based Learning
Practicum I (3)
Advanced Community Based Learning Practicum I is designed to provide students with an opportunity to broaden and deepen their engagement in the community. Through course work, contemplative practice and a sustained program of student-selected volunteer work, students engage one another along the path of the bodhisattva This course provides opportunities for students to extend their experiences in the core seminars to the public realm in a sustained and generative way, and to hone a set of skills for engaging courageously in a complex world. Students acquire an understanding of the role of public work in relationships and in human ecological systems; develop skills for sustainability; and gain experience working through fear, uncertainty and compassion fatigue. CLS 350 is the first semester of a two-semester course. Students are encouraged to commit to this program for the entire academic year. Students who stay with the program for two semesters are eligible for a $1,000 Americorps award. Prerequisite: COR 130, COR 150 and COR 220, or consent of instructor.

CLS 360
Advanced Community-Based Learning
Practicum II (3)
Advanced Community-Based Learning Practicum II is the second half of a yearlong sequence designed to provide students with an opportunity to broaden and deepen their engagement in the community. Students in CLS 360 continue to build on the theoretical perspectives developed in CLS 350, but this second semester has a specific focus on the acquisition of conceptual and practical tools for building sustainability in community settings. Students acquire skills in networking and coalition building; conducting needs assessments and program evaluations; marketing and advertising; fundraising; budgeting; grant writing; and report writing. Students are encouraged to commit to this program for the entire academic year. Students who stay with the program for two semesters are eligible for a $1,000 Americorps award. Prerequisite: COR 130, COR 150, COR 220 and CLS 350, or consent of instructor.

Humanities (HUM)

HUM 235
Western Philosophy I:
The Fox and the Hedgehog (3)
Western philosophy begins with the thought of ancient Greeks and Romans. The nature of being itself and constructing a rational world were examined as they moved from a mythological worldview to one of science and logic. With a special focus on Plato and Aristotle, we read primary sources to discover the problems they considered and the impact their answers have had on three thousand years of Western history and thought, in particular linguistics, Christianity and modern culture. Students produce a portfolio of their philosophical vocabulary and contemplation.

HUM 245
Western Philosophy II: Of Goths and God (3)
Western Philosophy continued developing after the fall of Rome: from Augustine of Hippo to Thomas Aquinas, through medieval time up until the 1600s Enlightenment; establishing an intricate matrix of Christian, Islamic and Jewish thought. Using primary source readings, we examine the attempts to construct all-encompassing and symmetrical systems of thought. Students produce a portfolio of their philosophical vocabulary and contemplation.

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