2021-2022 Course List

Refinement of technical skills, seeing, and critical abilities while producing a significant body of work. May be repeated.

Creative and technical problems or research in selected areas. All students must file a special form in department office at time of registration.

Continuing development of a strongly personal means of aesthetic expression in three dimensions. May be repeated.

This studio course focuses on the planning and implementation of advanced site-specific work. Students personal interests will be paramount in the development of works that address site and audience. Professional practices necessary to carry out installations will be emphasized, including proposal development, project planning, and documentation. Environmental impact, health, and safety will be addressed. May be repeated.

Specific problems in art emphasizing both individual research and contributions to the seminar group on advanced, in-depth topics appropriate for graduate students.

Alternate plan paper in lieu of thesis, done in cooperation with a major professor. (Credit is incomplete until final approval by student's graduate committee.)

Field experience in professional setting relating to the specialization: graphic design, museum or arts administration, etc.

Required of all candidates for the Master of Science or Master of Arts degrees. May be creative project or brochure exhibition option. (Credit is incomplete until final approval by student's graduate committee.)

Broad survey of astronomy: the night sky, seasons, moon phases, eclipses, light, telescopes, stars, stellar evolution, galaxies, cosmology, the solar system.

Goal Areas:

GE-03

Survey of our solar system: the sun, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids; history of the discovery and exploration of the solar system.

Goal Areas:

GE-03

The probability of extraterrestrial intelligent life; the chemical basis of life; planetary environments; habitable zones; the Drake equation; UFOs; space travel; interstellar communication; limits on technical civilizations. General Education Categories 2 and 3.

Goal Areas:

GE-02, GE-03

Techniques for observing with the naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes; constellation and star identification; use of star atlases and handbooks; observations of stars, binaries, clusters, nebulae, planets and the sun and moon, etc. Students will also learn how astronomical theories are formulated and tested by observing phenomena in the sky. Evening observing labs required.

Prerequisites:

AST 101

Goal Areas:

GE-03

The celestial sphere; coordinate systems; sidereal and solar time; diurnal motion; precession; proper motion; refraction; aberration; parallax. Requires a background in trigonometry.

Celestial mechanics; gravitational and tidal forces; stellar motions and parallax; radiation and matter; magnitudes and stellar spectra; binary stars and stellar masses; stellar structure and evolution.

Prerequisites:

MATH 121 and PHYS 221 

Stellar endpoints; close binary systems; variable stars; the Milky Way; normal galaxies; galactic evolution; active galaxies and quasars; cosmology.

Prerequisites:

AST 215, MATH 122, PHYS 222 

Operating the 0.5 meter telescope; operating the BRC 250 astrograph; learning to install and operate ancillary equipment for both telescopes.

Prerequisites:

AST 201 and AST 215, Consent 

Photometric systems; observational techniques of point-source photometry: methods of data reduction; interpretation of data.

Prerequisites:

AST 215 

Observations of extended sources; photometric calibration of extended sources; use of secondary standard stars.

Prerequisites:

AST 353 

Reduction of digital images to determine positions, proper motions, and parallaxes of stars; analysis of errors.

Prerequisites:

AST 201 and AST 215 

Line identification; radial velocity determinations; spectral classifications.

Prerequisites:

AST 225 

Students will conduct supervised research in astronomy.

Prerequisites:

Consent 

A course in a particular area of astronomy not regularly offered. May be repeated for credit on each new topic.

Prerequisites:

Consent 

Individual study under the guidance of an astronomy faculty member.

Prerequisites:

Consent 

Special arrangements must be made with an appropriate faculty member or the departmental office. May be repeated for credit on each new topic.