Reflections Magazine Issue #57 - Spring 2002 | Page 11

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nimated Philosophy and Religion (aka the Simpsons Class see page 13) has garnered
lots of attention this year, but it’s not the only unusual learning opportunity at Siena
Heights. Professors and students are constantly exploring fresh approaches to academia. Check out a few of our diverse curricular and co-curricular offerings!
Play Ball! Read Books
Literature and Baseball is an English class
that starts with the recognition that the allAmerican sport is more than a game. Taught
by Brother Frank Rotsaert, CSC, the class
explores some of the myths about baseball as
they occur in fiction and poetry: Is baseball
the American game? Is it a meritocracy? Was
baseball better before the ‘60s? Is it a rural
or urban game? Is it truly inclusive now?
Is baseball about teamwork? Has it been
tainted by over-commercialization?

Bird Brains
Every day is a field trip for students in Field
Ornithology! Taught by biology professor
Carl Kaster, science program coordinator and
a birdwatcher for more than 30 years, field
ornithology is a new summer class meeting 8
hours a day, four days a week, for the month
of May. Students spend mornings observing, identifying and studying the behavior of
birds in their natural habitat. Afternoons are
devoted to discussion of bird anatomy and
physiology, migration and plumage, conservation, ecology and other topics.

Everything Old is New Again!
Greek and Latin are among the world’s
ancient languages. But they are new additions to the Siena Heights curriculum, making
return appearances in academic life thanks
to revived student interest. Daniel
McVeigh, professor of English,
teaches Greek, absent from the
Siena Heights campus since the
1960s. Focusing on New Testament Greek, the once-weekly
class is a non-credit option
for now, but may be
offered for credit in the
future. Introductory
Latin, on the other
hand, carries four
credits, meets four
times a week and
counts toward the
foreign
language
requirement
for
Humanities majors.

Chemistry professor Anthony Scioly, who
teaches the Latin class, already is scheduled
to offer both Latin I and II next year.

Reading between the Covers
Several campus reading groups meet regularly to explore new ideas through books.
These groups exemplify the Siena Heights
philosophy that teachers can
be learners and learners can help teach, by
bringing faculty and
students together as
equals for in-depth discussions unrelated to the
curriculum.
The most firmly established is
ScIENtiA, aka the science reading
group, which has been meeting with
an evolving cast of characters for close
to 20 years. ScIENtiA is an eclectic group
of faculty (not just science professors) and
students (mostly but not exclusively science
majors) to discuss science related readings:
whole books, chapters of books, essays, and
magazine or journal articles. Selections have
included biography and science fiction as
well as philosophy, ethics, and contemporary developments in the sciences. Sometimes the whole group reads the same text;
sometimes they explore a sing