On Dec. 3, the University announced the Justice Brandeis Semester course offerings for the summer and fall of 2013, including two new offerings and two returning popular programs.

The two new JBS offerings are entitled "American Democracy: Version 2.0" instructed by Prof. Daniel Kryder (POL) and "Food, Lifestyle and Health" instructed by Prof. Elaine Lai (HSSP) and Rebekah Zincavage, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology. Both programs will take place on the University campus during summer 2013.

The JBS programs are offered in order for students to "gain real-world experience through experiential learning ... build close relationships with professors and small groups of students ... [and] acquire skills that will make them stand apart from their peers after Brandeis," as stated on the University website.

According to the University website, the Politics program, "American Democracy: Version 2.0," will allow students to "consider competing notions of citizenship and examples of social movements in the past and in today's 'new' age, seeking to connect their theoretical foundations and practical results to current experiments in making democracy work." The program will run from June 3 to Aug. 9 and involves an internship component in addition to learning inside the classroom.

Program Manager Amber Thacher commented on the origin of the course title. "The course title does not signify a second version of the program, but rather is a play on the technological aspect of the world today (i.e. Windows 2.0)," wrote Thacher in an email to the Justice. "Among other things, the course will look at how technologies like social media impacts citizens' participation in the political process."

The Health: Science, Society and Policy program, "Food, Lifestyle and Health," will run from June 3 to July 26. According to the University website, the course delves into "hands-on inquiry into the science of nutrition and the current health care system." Students will "delve into the diabetes epidemic as an embodiment of various social, biological, behavioral, and environmental factors." The program will involve hands-on food labs and visiting local health care facilities.

In addition to the two new course offerings, two returning programs, the Environmental Studies program "Environmental Health and Justice" and the Computer Science program "Mobile Applications and Game Development," will be offered again in 2013. "Environmental Health and Justice," which was previously offered during summer 2010 and fall 2011, will be offered in the fall of 2013, while "Mobile Applications and Game Development," which was previously offered during summer 2011, will be offered during the summer of 2013.

These courses have been selected to run again due to their past popularity. According to Thacher, 14 students participated in the 'Mobile Applications and Game Development' course in summer 2011 and 11 students participated in the 'Environmental Health and Justice' course in fall 2011.

According to Thacher, University students have already expressed interest in all of the upcoming JBS courses since the announcement of the offerings was released.

JBS is a recently developed program that began providing courses in summer 2010 and has continued to provided hands-on learning experiences during the summer and fall semesters. Previous courses have included "Filmmaking: From Script to Screen," "Health and Society," "Environmental Field Semester," "Web Services an Mobile Applications," "Web Services and Social Networks," "Ethnographic Fieldwork" and "Civil Rights and Racial Justice in Mississippi."
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