2024-2025 Academic Catalog

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American Indian Studies (AINS)

AINS 1104 - Introduction to American Indian Studies (3 credits) 

Introduction to the historical richness and complexity of American Indian societies. Examination of American Indian identities, worldviews, past and present sustainability practices, experiences with and resistance to colonial domination and policies, and cultural interchanges with non-Indians.

Pathway Concept Area(s): 3 Reasoning in Social Sciences, 11 Intercultural&Global Aware. 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
AINS 2104 - Oral Traditions and Culture (3 credits) 

Examination of the worlds great oral traditions, both ancient and contemporary. Emphasis on performance contexts, relationships among multicultural traditions, including American Indian oral traditions, and the relationships among orality, literacy, technology, media, and culture.

Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: HUM 2104 
AINS 2414 - Identity and Inclusion in Agricultural and Life Sciences (3 credits) 

Examines histories of persons representing different social identities, statuses, space, place, and traditions in agricultural and life sciences. Explores how differences influence experiences individuals may have in agricultural and life sciences. Apply ethical reasoning practices to recognize and addresses critical issues surrounding inclusion of diverse populations within agricultural and life sciences education and leadership.

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1106 
Pathway Concept Area(s): 1A Discourse Advanced, 7 Identity & Equity in U.S., 10 Ethical Reasoning 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: ALCE 2414 
AINS 2804 - Contemporary Native American Literatures (3 credits) 

This course offers a sampling of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction by the most influential American Indian writers since 1970, authors such as Momaday, Silko, Deloria, Welch, Harjo, and Alexie. Students will also learn about those aspects of cosmology and storytelling traditionally shared by all American Indian Nations, as well as about those aspects specific to the individual tribal traditions from which the authors and their characters come.

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1106 or ENGL H1204 or COMM 1016 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: ENGL 2804 
AINS 2974 - Independent Study (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course 
AINS 3174 - Native American History (3 credits) 

The Native experience in North America or Latin America from 1491 to present. Emphasis on social diversity and organization, resistance to colonization, leadership and cultural change, and political sovereignty among indigenous peoples. Methods for interpreting a variety of primary sources, including texts, material culture, and archaeological findings. Engagements with shifting historiographical perspectives and political movements for recognition of Native sovereignty.

Pathway Concept Area(s): 2 Critical Thinking Humanities, 7 Identity & Equity in U.S., 11 Intercultural&Global Aware. 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: HIST 3174 
AINS 3184 - Food Sovereignty (3 credits) 

Food sovereignty, the right to produce and consume culturally relevant food, as a set of practices and as a social movement through comparative case studies. Origins of food sovereignty in response to effects of colonialism, the green revolution, and the global corporate food system on peasant and Indigenous subsistence livelihoods and the concept’s transformation through dialogue with indigenous agricultural knowledge and poor peoples’ environmentalism. Food sovereignty’s challenge to the dominant food system and conceptions of development, how groups implement this vision of democratized social and productive relations through projects of agroecology and land reform, and its potential in the context of ecological calamity.

Pathway Concept Area(s): 3 Reasoning in Social Sciences, 10 Ethical Reasoning 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: HIST 3184 
AINS 3304 - The Languages of Native America (3 credits) 

Study of the structures of the native languages of the Americas; their interrelationships; their use in individual speech communities; contact with other languages; the interrelationships of linguistic structure, culture, and thought; their future survival.

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1106 or ENGL H1204 or COMM 1016 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: ENGL 3304 
AINS 3684 - Indigenous Peoples and World Politics (3 credits) 

A survey of the historical and contemporary struggles of indigenous peoples throughout the world. Examines the dynamics of colonialism (internal and external), identity construction, gender, cultural integrity, and the ongoing global indigenous rights discourse. In addition to covering broad global processes/theoretical approaches, comparative case studies of particular indigenous groups, such as the Maasai (Kenya, Tanzania) and Mayans (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize), are used to highlight the global, regional, and intra-community diversity among contemporary indigenous peoples.

Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Course Crosslist: PSCI 3684 
AINS 4004 - Topics in American Indian Studies (3 credits) 

A variable topics course in which students will engage an interdisciplinary methodology to pursue a critical and in-depth examination of various topics concerning and pertinent to American indigenous peoples. This course is repeatable for up to 6 hours credit with different topics. Must meet prerequisite or have permission of the instructor.

Prerequisite(s): AINS 1104 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
Repeatability: up to 6 credit hours 
AINS 4114 - Indigenous Foodways (3 credits) 

Examines American Indian worldviews and human-Nature relationships within the context of a dominant non-Indigenous society, through land-based learning including foraging and cultivation. Introduces and contrasts Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Scientific Ecological Knowledge (SEK). Encourages the equitable inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ practices in the human and environmental sustainability of our collective future, with attention to decolonization and global Indigenous struggles for justice. Student engagement opportunities in hands-on foraging, seed saving, cultivation, and projects around food sovereignty, food security, and revitalization of traditional foodways, in collaboration with local Native communities.

Pathway Concept Area(s): 4 Reasoning in Natural Sci., 7 Identity & Equity in U.S., 11 Intercultural&Global Aware. 
Instructional Contact Hours: (3 Lec, 3 Crd) 
AINS 4754 - Internship (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course 
AINS 4964 - Field Study (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course 
AINS 4974 - Independent Study (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course 
AINS 4984 - Special Study (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course 
AINS 4994 - Undergraduate Research (1-19 credits) 
Instructional Contact Hours: Variable credit course