New College, comprised of an on-campus program and its LifeTrack program for adult students, is The University of Alabama’s commitment to providing personalized higher education. It is an interdisciplinary liberal arts program where highly motivated undergraduate students craft individualized courses of study, or "depth studies," consistent with their interests, aptitude, temperament, and skills. Each student, with the assistance of a dedicated advisor, builds a depth study that includes coursework from across the University, supplemented by study abroad, community-based learning, research opportunities, and independent or self-directed study. Both on-campus and distance students have the opportunity to learn in highly interactive seminar environments.
Programs
The major objective of New College is to create an opportunity for a highly individualized education that allows students to draw from the resources of all University classes and faculty. New College's Interdisciplinary Studies curriculum has two principle elements. The first element is the depth study, which is the student’s area of concentration. Students are also expected to develop their own independent or self-directed studies and out-of-class learning experiences to enhance their understanding of the subject of their depth studies and to add to their learning experiences. The second element is the general education component, which provides students with opportunities to integrate humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences beyond their depth study. The interdisciplinary experience in New College affords excellent preparation for students with ambitions for graduate study or for professional careers in various areas, including law and medicine.
Faculty
Director
- Cherry, Julia A.
Assistant Director
- Miller, John C. H.
Assistant Director, Applied Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Espy-Brown, Amanda S.
Professors
- Adams, Natalie G.
- Cherry, Julia A.
- Dewar, Andrew R.
- Galbraith, Marysia H.
- Miller, John C. H.
- Roach, Catherine M.
- Steinberg, Michael K.
- Trost, Theodore L.
Associate Professors
- Brickman, Barbara J.
- Hopson, Holland G.
- Willis, Vincent
Assistant Professors
- Elliott, Emily
Professors emeriti
- Blewitt, Harry L.
- Spears, Ellen G.
Instructors
- Caputo, Jennifer L.
- Colburn, Kimberly R.
- Connell, P. Leah
- Dzhurova, Albena
- Espy-Brown, Amanda S.
- Jones, Scott
- Pirkle, Amy L.
Courses
Designed to help current and prospective New College students become more informed about the University and about the interdisciplinary studies degree so that they may maximize their opportunities in their undergraduate programs through New College.
American society today features more cultural acceptance and legal protection than ever before for sexual and gender diversity, but we don’t always know how to live out these changing norms and how to talk about controversial sexual material in the public sphere. This course engages debates around sexuality as central to human behavior and to social structures, in both America and the world. It provides an overview of the “new sexual revolution” and the growing interdisciplinary field of sexuality studies. The course adopts a consent-based model of sexual wellbeing. Its approach is sex-positive—aiming toward sexual justice, responsibility, and pleasure—within a classroom that functions as an open and affirming space for discussion and learning. Students gain the knowledge, critical thinking skills, and cultural competence to evaluate for themselves issues of sexuality in society.
This interdisciplinary seminar uses creativity as an organizing principle. Human culture and consciousness are explored through reading, writing, the arts, projects, studios, and discussion.