This required course forms the core of the Cornell in Washington program for students in the public policy option. The central course objective is to provide students with the instruction and guidance necessary to analyze and evaluate their own chosen issue in public policy. Toward that end, the course has three components: (1) weekly lectures providing background on the structures and processes of national politics and policy (with a particular focus each semester), as well as training in research methodology; (2) student externships; and (3) individual research papers or projects. All three components interrelate so as to provide students with a strategy and framework for integrating classroom based learning, field experience, and individual research. Fall 2012 focus: the election of 2012.

Required of all Cornell in Washington students pursuing the American experience option. The course attempts to understand the American experience by looking at the history and culture of the United States, using a wide range of historical works, memoirs, and literature. Each semester focuses on a particular aspect of the American experience. There are weekly discussions that investigate the American experience and explore the methodologies of the disciplines associated, such as American studies and history. Students pursue an individual research project based on the resources available in Washington. Fall 2012 theme: the history of the election of 2012.

This course is an examination and analysis of the major trends in art from Neoclassicism and Romanticism through Post-Impressionism and the dawn of the twentieth century. Lectures and readings will concentrate on the historical context of great masterpieces by seminal artists. The class will investigate the imagery and theoretical foundation of nineteenth-century European and American art using a selection of appropriate methodological approaches. Major figures to be discussed include David, Copley, Goya, Delacroix, Courbet, Cole, Manet, Morisot, Monet, Degas, Cassatt, Sargent, Eakins, Homer, Rodin, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Part of each class will be devoted to discussions of the readings. Two classes will be held in the National Gallery of Art at times and dates to be determined. Exams, two short papers, and class participation will be used for evaluative purposes.

An old immigrant saying translated into many languages goes, "America beckons, but Americans repel." Throughout American history, economic opportunities as well as political and religious freedoms have lured newcomers, especially from Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia. A growing country needed a plentiful source of skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labor. And yet, even as Americans of the 19th and early 20th centuries opened the door wide to immigrants, an equally strong impulse, nativism, caused Americans to resist newcomers. In the late 19th century, for example, the native born often saw Southern Italian, Eastern European Jewish, and Chinese immigrants as threats to their jobs, their health, and their cultural values. Restrictionists in Congress sought to close the door through legislation or administrative regulation. Others, such as settlement house workers, sought to "Americanize" newcomers and assimilate them into the American population. Immigrants were often aware of the double message and sought to negotiate a place in American society that allowed them to succeed economically while retaining their identities. The debate continues today as millions of migrants from Latin America and Asia, documented and undocumented, arrive.

After a discussion of indentured servitude and slavery (involuntary migration) this course seeks to examine the perennial debate over voluntary immigration through the eyes of both native-born Americans and through immigrants eyes to the present. While the nativist perspective was expressed through laws and procedures (such as those at Ellis Island), the voice of the immigrant will be captured through novels, and music and film. Readings reflect racial, ethnic, and gender differences among newcomers.

Seeks to illustrate the complexity of decision making in a nonprofit organization and to show how microeconomic analysis in general, and labor market analysis in particular, can be usefully applied to analyze resource allocation decisions at universities. Among the topics covered are financial aid, tuition, admissions policies, endowment policies, faculty salary determination, the tenure system, mandatory retirement policies, merit pay, affirmative action, comparable worth, collective bargaining, resource allocation across and within departments, undergraduate versus graduate education, research costs, libraries, athletics, and "socially responsible" policies. Lectures and discussions of the extensive readings are supplemented by presentations by Cornell administrators and outside speakers who have been engaged in university resource allocation decisions or have done research on the subject. This course will be taught via video conferencing.

Based upon the beliefs that Shakespeare's plays are for performing, rather than merely reading, and that they have lasted because they are capable of yielding up new and unpredictable meanings to changing ages and divergent cultures, this course considers questions such as: What do we learn about a Shakespeare play when we see it acted? How can two productions of the same play have completely different meanings? In what exciting and revolutionary ways is Shakespeare currently being performed in America and the wider world? Why are Shakespeare 'spin-offs' so popular?

This seminar-based course, in which we watch and share opinions on numerous clips from Shakespeare movies old and new, while also learning something about the history of Shakespeare in America, is for students who have no background in Shakespeare as well as those who are more familiar with his plays.

DC is a vibrant center for Shakespeare, and students will have the opportunity to see live performances at several theaters, including the Shakespeare Theatre's two downtown venues and the unique Folger Shakespeare Theatre.