University Bulletin (2014-2015)

BUS 154aj Branding Strategy
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Prerequisite: BUS 152a.
Examines strategies to build and sustain brands, from development of highly differentiated value propositions, through promotional, pricing and distribution strategies. A competitive, online team-based simulation exercise is used to enhance case studies and provide a competitive learning environment. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 157aj Marketing Communications
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Prerequisite: BUS 152a.
Explores the activities a company undertakes to educate, engage and prompt to action its various target consumer segments. Topics include advertising, promotions, event sponsorship, internet marketing, social media marketing, corporate blogs, word-of-mouth advertising, and marketing communications for social initiatives. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 195aj Field Projects in Business
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Provides students with the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge to solving actual client problems, assessing client challenges and opportunities and generally adding value to the client's operations. The course culminates in a final client presentation before the semester ends. The instructor will serve as project manager for all projects. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Chazen and Ms. Zimmerman

SOC 97bj Group Readings and Research
Beginning in week 3 of the JBS, students will work in pairs in one of six county field sites. In collaboration with students from the University of Mississippi and other local colleges and universities, as well as with local community partners, JBS students will undertake interviews, archival research, and content analysis of digitally-recorded community proceedings. This field work will be supervised by Brandeis faculty and graduate assistants as well as by Winter Institute staff, and each JBS student will be required to attend a weekly individual debriefing session. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Cunningham

SOC 104aj Sociology of Education
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Examines the role of education in society, including pedagogy, school systems, teacher organizations, parental involvement, community contexts, as well as issues of class, race, and gender. Offered as part of the JBS program.
Staff

SOC 156aj Social Change in American Communities
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Provides a theoretical foundation for understanding social movement dynamics, with a particular emphasis on the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. Topics will include modes of civil rights organizing, the mobilization of social, cultural, and material resources, the development of strategic and tactical repertoires, determinants of individual participation, and varieties of anti-civil rights enforcement. The central aim is to provide a historically-contextualized and theoretically-informed sense of the trajectory of the civil rights struggle in the U.S. South. We will pay particular attention to sources of local variation, to understand the interplay among community-level contexts, individual action, and socio-political legacies. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Cunningham

BISC 4bj Food, Nutrition, and Health
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Does not meet the requirements for the major in Biology.
Nutrition is the science of food and its role in health and disease. This course will introduce the biological background to provide students with tools to better understand everything from how we choose food to how our diet influences our long-term health. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Lai

BISC 10aj Diabetes
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Does not meet the requirements for the major in Biology.
Studies the rising prevalence of diabetes that has taken an alarming human and societal toll. This course explores the science behind Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes plus gestational diabetes, the contribution of modern Western lifestyle to disease development, current diabetes treatments including insulin and non-insulin drugs and bariatric surgery, future treatment such as stem cell therapy, the increasing diabetes treatment cost and impact on current healthcare policy. Emphasis will be placed on discussion of molecular genetic research that has illuminated our understanding of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. A new food lab is included to further inform about the importance of food and nutrition (together with exercise) in the management and prevention of Type 2 diabetes. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Lai

HSSP 120bj Health Care Landscapes
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Focuses on developing skills and understanding of health care landscapes, with an emphasis on experiential learning in specific communities. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Zincavage

LGLS 98bj Independent Research
Through experiential fieldwork, students will engage with policy makers, providers, insurers, advocacy groups and regulators, as well as health care consumers and patients confronting complex health care choices. These hands-on experiences will enable students to ask critical questions about “what comes next for American health care?” The choices that we make - as individuals, groups, and policy makers - influence the kind of society we have today and in the future. By interacting directly with stakeholders, students--as future leaders and global citizens-- will gain the experience, confidence, and connections to promote positive changes in both policy and practice. Offered as part of the JBS program.
Ms. Curi and Ms. Noble

LGLS 114aj American Health Care: Law and Policy
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Emphasizes the interplay of law, public policy, and social justice, focusing on health care reform. After considering the background leading up to passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the policy innovations it promotes, particularly with regard to cost, quality, and access, students will consider the current challenges to implementing this ambitious law. By examining the complex structure of the American health care system, in contrast to systems in other advanced countries, we will explore to what extent the ACA promotes the just distribution of quality health care. Offered as part of the JBS program.
Ms. Noble

LGLS 131bj Patient Autonomy: Law, Medicine, and Ethics
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Focuses on patient rights, examining how difficult health care decisions are made, and by whom. Together, by examining the law and a range of ethical theories, we will explore current issues in biomedical ethics, including informed consent, reproductive rights, physician-assisted suicide and the right-to-die, personhood, end-of-life care, and genetics and other emerging technologies; consider the conflicting roles and responsibilities for medical professionals, caregivers, and family members; analyze hard and often tragic choices involving life, quality of life, and death; and assess the ability of the legal system to set meaningful standards and resolve conflict. Offered as part of the JBS program.
Ms. Curi

BUS 137aj Real Estate Finance
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Prerequisite: BUS 135a.
Examines real estate finance from the perspective of the users of capital (developers and property owners) and the sources of capital (lenders and equity investors). Also considers the role of the public sector in using tax payer funds to advance public purposes by offering various kinds of subsidies to developers, and evaluating the relative success of such programs. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Chazen

BUS 138aj Real Estate Development
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Prerequisite: BUS 135a.
Focuses on the real estate development process, including zoning and planning, permitting, site analysis and acquisition, design and construction, financing, leasing, and value enhancement. Also considers the role of the community and regulators in supporting or objecting to a real estate project; and, the role of the public sector in using tax payer funds to advance public purposes. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Chazen

BUS 195aj Field Projects in Business
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Provides students with the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge to solving actual client problems, assessing client challenges and opportunities and generally adding value to the client's operations. The course culminates in a final client presentation before the semester ends. The instructor will serve as project manager for all projects. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Chazen and Ms. Zimmerman

COSI 115bj Spoken Dialog Design
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Prerequisites: COSI 11a and COSI 12b or the equivalent.
Explores fundamental concepts underlying spoken dialog applications. Topics include principles of human dialog, speech recognition and synthesis, and VUI design. Students will use industry standard tools in speech recognition, natural language, and dialog design to build interactive applications. Offered as part of JBS program.
Ms. Meteer

COSI 152aj Web Application Programming
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Prerequisites: COSI 11a, 12b, and 21a.
An introduction to web programming that covers the fundamental languages and tools, including HTML/CSS for page layout, javascript/ajax for client-side integration, and server-side programming in Java, Ruby, and SQL. The course also discusses security, scaling/optimization, and multi-tier architectures. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Hickey

COSI 154aj The JBS Incubator
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Prerequisite: COSI 11a.
An introduction to software engineering for web and mobile applications. Covers agile programming techniques, rapid prototyping, source control paradigms, effective software documentation, design of effective APIs, software testing and analysis, software licensing, with an introduction to business plans for software entrepreneurs. Offered as part of JBS program.
Mr. Hickey