Soling Classes

What is the Soling Program? The Soling Program was founded in 1984 to foster creative and independent work across academic boundaries. We focus on interdisciplinary and collaborative work based on problem-solving, experiential learning, originality, and creativity. Students involved in the program work as multidisciplinary teams to explore potential solutions to unique and relevant real-world problems.

Got a great idea for a new creative, interdisciplinary class that you just can’t find in the catalog? Have a community-based project that you’d love to do and get course credit for? These and many other innovative opportunities are welcomed and provided through the Soling Program. Below are some regular offerings of the Soling Program that engage students with creative thinking, collaboration and community involvement. Try one with our groups of exceptional faculty and instructors as part of your academic plan.

If you’d like to learn more, contact the Soling Office at 443-3133 or register for a class!

Classes, Fall 2008

SOL 300 M002 Web Projects for Novices, Volunteers, and Community Outreach
encourages students to volunteer to work on projects for university departments, local non-profit organizations, and public interest groups. Students learn to interview clients to develop design specifications for the web site. These specifications include:

information design
writing copy for website
creating web graphics and photographs for web pages
creating the web pages
creating animations and rollovers

Students are encouraged to develop a second website for any purpose during the class.

Click Here for syllabus. Links to websites by former students are found at the top of syllabus page.--Dick Waghorne

SOL 300 M001 Animation for the Web
This course introduces students to a variety of methods employed to create animation using Flash, the premier software for Web animation. With an emphasis on production, this class offers hands-on experience in which students create a number of projects culminating in a short animated presentation. Click Here to view Larry's business homepage.--Larry Royer

SOL 344 Creativity & Art of Crossing Borders
Historically, small puppet companies traveled from one community to the next, and from one culture to the next, creating, mixing and sharing in miniature the stories of those peoples. Always mixing the folk and fine arts, the bawdy with the sublime, the satirical with the politic, the art of puppetry has often been considered subversive for it's tendencies to cross over the border. "Creativity and the Art of Crossing Borders" will first explore the international folk and fine art of puppetry and then through hands on studios and workshops be an incubator for the students creative self expression. Taught by the internationally renowned Open Hand Puppet Theater. The course will consider the role and history of puppets as agents for social change.--Geoffrey Navias

SOL 360 M003 Quilts and Community - This interactive course explores the role of quilts and quilting communities in the US and elsewhere. Each class begins with one and a half hours of discussion, films, and exploration of quilts and their makers—and the communities that result. Then class shifts to Hendricks Chapel where we will join the Hendricks Chapel Quilters and learn the process of quilt making through making our own “community” quilt. No sewing experience needed!--Susan Wadley

Hospice Legacy Project
Would you like to use your artistic talents to create a family treasure? This project celebrates the lives of patients of Hospice of Central New York and will link students with Hospice patients and families. Students will work collaboratively with Hospice care team members to help patients document their life experiences and tell the stories that have shaped their lives to provide the gift of a “Legacy”; capturing and celebrating a life.

Hospice Outreach Project
This class involves video production for Hospice of Central New York. You may select from three different projects. One project focuses on Hospice Grief Services and may involve productions surrounding Grief Work seminars, Camp Healing Hearts (a day camp for children coping with loss of a loved one), “Helping Hands, Healing Hearts” (an after school program for children and teens), and Grief Write (a writing-through-grief program). Another project centers on the creation of a series of Public Service Announcements about Hospice of Central New York (including "How to Volunteer at Hospice"; "When is the Best Time to Call Hospice?"; "Hospice, It's About Life!”). The third project involves the production of a video to tell "The Story of Hospice".

Elder Legacy Project
In the Elder Legacy Project, students use their academic, writing, and/or artistic talents to create a family treasure and work with a unique group of people who have experienced a long life in many ways. Students work with elderly residents and families collaboratively to help them document their life experiences and tell the stories that have shaped their lives to provide the gift of a “Legacy”; capturing and celebrating a life. Students will have the opportunity to spend time with the elderly participants and families. Students may decide to creatively capture their stories via writings, photographs, videos, journals, memory books/collages, or in other fashions. The experiences are also enriched by a seminar series presented by professionals with expertise in related fields.

GEO 314: Mineralogy Workshop - Earth sciences mineralogy course with a focus upon designing teaching units for middle school students. The course describes the distribution of minerals within the Earth and processes that form them. Methods used to identify minerals are also described.--Suzanne Baldwin
Click Here to see pictures of their visit to fourth graders.

SOL/FSC 406: Seminar in Forensic Science - Course is designed to explore selected topics of forensic science and their place in the criminal justice system. The students will study case histories and present these studies to the class for discussion. The students will also design and oversee a culminating forensic science experience by working in small groups.--James T. Spencer

SOL 100 M002/ ANT 100 M001:--The culture and history of Upstate NY provide a lens to key events in our national history, whether we consider the Erie Canal and its role in opening up commercial traffic to the Midwestern states; the religious movement of the 1800s; the Underground Railroad and the home of Harriet Tubman; the movement for Women’s Rights located in Seneca Falls; the Temperance movement throughout the late 1800s; the Art Deco movement in the 1920s; Native American land claims and casino building; or the burning of a Sikh temple after 9/11. Field trips to selected sites and numerous guest lectures will be included. This course is part of the “Explore Syracuse” learning community. In this community, you will join students and faculty from across the University in exploring the cultural and historical richness of Syracuse and the surrounding area. The Upstate New York: Lens to the Nation LC is taught by Associate Dean Susan S. Wadley, Professor of Anthropology. Professor Wadley is an anthropologist and student of folklore and oral traditions whose primary interest has been South Asia and more recently immigrant communities. Her family has roots in Upstate New York dating to the early 19th century, and her great great uncle lost his life fighting for the Union in the Civil War.

Spring Classes, 2008

SOL 345 M001 Puppetry and Community
An active hands on course exploring the role of art in the formation of community in human societies. This grassroots approach involves SU students with the internationally famous Open Hand Theater. Students will design, build and operate giant puppets in collaborative projects working with the theater’s artistic director Geoffrey Navias. This course will collaborate with 5th grade students at a city elementary school to create giant puppets for use in a puppet pageant that will capture, celebrate and unify the diverse groups of that community.

This class looks to involve students from a wide range of disciplines. The willingness to experiment, be creative, and be involved are important attributes. Aspects of arts in education and professionally working with children and creativity will be explored.--Geoffrey Navias

information design
writing copy for website
creating web graphics and photographs for web pages
creating the web pages
creating animations and rollovers

Students are encouraged to develop a second website for any purpose during the class.

Click Here for syllabus. Links to websites by former students are found at the top of syllabus page.--Dick Waghorne

SOL 260 M002 Hospice Legacy Project
Would you like to use your artistic talents to create a family treasure? This project celebrates the lives of patients of Hospice of Central New York and will link students with Hospice patients and families. Students will work collaboratively with Hospice care team members to help patients document their life experiences and tell the stories that have shaped their lives to provide the gift of a “Legacy”; capturing and celebrating a life.--Peter Sarver

SOL 260 M004 Folk Arts, Festival and Public Display
The goal of this interactive course is to design a community folk arts festival component for Mayfest 2008. Students begin by exploring aesthetics in everyday life, i.e. those group experiences created by humans that are regarded as aesthetically pleasing to a particular community. Our emphasis will be on the process of recontextualization and hands-on collaborative projects in which students work as teams to plan and implement a folk arts festival.--Felicia McMahon

PRACTICA COURSES (meeting time is tba)
All of the Following Courses Require Permission of the Instructor (instructor: staff)
SOL 240 “Practicum in the Humanities”
SOL 250 “Practicum in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics”
SOL 260 “Practicum in the Social Sciences”
SOL 340 “Practicum in the Humanities”
SOL 350 “Practicum in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics”
SOL 360 “Practicum in the Social Sciences”
SOL 450 "Independent Study"

A series of Soling Program “practica” courses are available to students in three disciplinary areas with the goal of providing an efficient mechanism for supporting cross-disciplinary project-based courses mentored by faculty within the context of their departmental experience. These courses may be elected as individual courses for full academic credit and provide a high-quality, goal-oriented intellectual challenge for talented and motivated students. Credit earned through the Soling Program is credited towards a student’s degree in their home college. These courses allow students to gain very practical experience, with the guidance and supervision of faculty members, in broadly defined disciplinary areas through problem solving, collaboration and community engagement. These practica courses also facilitate Honors students in the completion of their collaborative and Interdisciplinary core requirements while receiving academic credit. One of the primary ways that Honors students will be able to fulfill either or both of their collaboration and Interdisciplinary requirements is to complete an approved course or extended project through the Soling Program. The practica courses provide mechanism for the Honors students to receive divisional credit while completing their Honors requirements.

Past Classes--Click Here