UCLA undergraduate students can enroll in three new minor programs this fall in ancient and Near East Egyptology, global health and literature and the environment.
The Faculty Executive Committee approved the new minors last spring, said Kyle McJunkin, director of the committee.
Ancient and Near East Egyptology
The ancient and Near East Egyptology minor was the last to be created in a series of new programs introduced by the Near Eastern languages and cultures department as a part of plan to update their curriculum, said Bill Schniedewind, the department chair who helped create the minor.
“Everything that is happening now, in many ways, has already happened. Climate change, deforestation, political crises, fundamentalism – all of these things have happened in ancient times,” said Kara Cooney, an Egyptology professor and undergraduate adviser in the Near Eastern languages and cultures department who helped create the minor. “By using historical models as a benchmark, we are able to see the future more clearly.”
Cooney said she decided to create the minor after hearing from some students who had taken enough classes to qualify for a minor but were too busy to complete the major.
To complete the minor, students will have to take two lower division classes and five upper division classes, such as hieroglyphics, ancient Egyptian religion and archaeology of Israel.
Students wishing to enroll in the minor should make an appointment with Isamara Ramirez, the academic counselor for the department, at Humanities 378A.
Global health
The new global health minor will give students the opportunity to learn how to approach health issues in different parts of the world.
The minor was created as part of a cross-campus initiative to bring together students from different departments who are interested in global health, said Michael Rodriguez, the chair of the minor and vice chair of family medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine.
Classes incorporated into the minor requirements cover a variety of topics including art, nutrition, community health, health policy, engineering and a required course in global health and development.
The committee overseeing the minor is also planning to add fieldwork to the curriculum by next year, said Rodriguez, who is also director of the Blum Center on Poverty and Health in Latin America and co-director of the Center of Expertise on Migration and Health in UC Global Health Institute.
The new minor aims to encourage students to consider applying solutions to local health problems to similar problems on a larger scale, said Ninez Ponce, a health policy and management professor who served on the advisory committee for the minor and director for the Center for Global and Immigrant Health.
Jeneice George, a third-year human biology and society student who is hoping to join the Peace Corps after college, said she is interested in the minor because it might teach her about international issues such as global diseases and food scarcity.
Students interested in enrolling in the minor should contact Magda Yamamoto, an academic counselor for the UCLA International Institute Academic Programs via email or in person at 10373 Bunche Hall.
Literature and the environment
The English department is introducing a new minor to provide students with a new way of thinking about environmental issues, said Robert Watson, an English professor who created the minor.
“It’s important to recognize environmental degradation isn’t purely a technical problem, though we tend to study it almost entirely in life sciences,” Watson said. “What happens will be decided by what happens in human culture.“
Students enrolled in the new interdisciplinary program will have to take a combination of English, social science and science classes, and complete a capstone design project.
Harsimranjit Kang, a first-year business economics student, said he thinks the literature and the environment minor would be interesting because it would be able to broaden students’ perspective. Kang said this minor covers a topic that is more close to home, with environmental problems like the California drought.
Watson said he thinks studying the environment through literature will help people think about the problems in a different way.
“People tend to close their thinking based on what side they are on politically,” he said. “With literature, you can tell a story that allows people to think a little differently – an opportunity through fiction to imagine what could be.”
Students interested in finding out more about the program can do so at the English department open house on Friday in Humanities 193 from noon to 2 p.m. or by contacting the counselors for the English department in Humanities 158/160.
Contributing reports by Ian Stevenson, Bruin contributor, and Alejandra Reyes, Bruin senior staff.