Residential Engagement in Academic Life (REAL) is a popular housing option open to 60 first-year students. Students live together on the 3rd and 4th floors of South residence hall and take one of four courses, which are taught by Hamilton's best professors. Your REAL professor is also your faculty advisor. Students have a chance to connect with faculty and one another meaningfully during their first semester on campus.
The following REAL courses will be offered this fall:
Discussion of contemporary moral problems, such as racism, environmental ethics, euthanasia, abortion, terrorism and war. Explores issues especially prominent for college students, including gender and sexuality, and political correctness. Extensive use of films outside of class. Writing-intensive. Oral Presentations. Open to first-year students only. Maximum enrollment, 16. Taught by Professor of Philosophy Rick Werner
An introduction to various theories and expressions of 19th- and 20th-century existential thought. Readings include works by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, deBeauvoir, Wright. Writing-intensive. Oral Presentations. Section 1 open to first-year students only. Maximum enrollment, 16. Taught by Professor of Philosophy Todd Franklin.
Students will learn the basics of good writing through writing about their own outdoor experiences and writing about the history of exploration and mountaineering. Readings will range from the 1804-06 journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition to books about contemporary Himalayan mountaineering. Students are required to take two class trips to the Adirondacks on Saturdays during the semester: a one-day canoe trip in September, and a one-day climbing trip in October. Writing-intensive. Open to first-year students only. Students may take only one 100-level course in Writing. Maximum enrollment, 16. Taught by Professor of American History, Maurice Isserman.
This course examines the ways pairs of works from different historical periods present the individual in relation to, or as separate from, the family--husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters. Focus on differences of genre, structure, and imagery. Close reading of plays by such authors as Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, and August Wilson, and narratives, novels, and autobiographies by such writers as Edmund Spenser, Frederick Douglass, Emily Bronte, and Kamila Shamsie. Writing-intensive. Open to first-year students only. Maximum enrollment, 16. Taught by Associate Professor of English, Nat Strout.
Contact Meredith Bonham, Senior Associate Dean of Students
Students enrolled in REAL - Academic Engagement will be assured registration in one of these courses. Maximum enrollment in each course is 16 students. Each course is writing intensive.
