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Summer College for High School Students

Three Week Session

Drugs, Crime and Rock 'n Roll

Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, Assistant Professor
(3 credits)

This course is an introductory interdisciplinary course exploring the relationship between drugs, crime, and popular music. Students will read the popular novel, Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson, as well as additional readings to better understand the role drugs play in popular culture and how society views legal and illegal recreational drugs.

This course promotes critical thinking about many implications of the use of mind-altering drugs within our society. An interdisciplinary approach is used to study aspects of social, cultural, mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health as it relates to drugs, crime, and music. The course will assess what role popular culture has in how drugs are regulated, used, abused, and criminalized.

Specifically, we will examine multiple generations and genres of music from the Grateful Dead and The Beatles to Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross.

Topics and objectives include:

The history of drug laws in the United States
Understand how drugs effect the body and brain
Assess how different types of crime impact the drug culture
Examine how media portrays drugs in popular culture
Understand the relationship between music and drug use
Understand the societal impact of psychoactive drugs including alcohol, tobacco and other psychoactive drugs
Recognize differences in drugs of use and abuse based on sex, age, socioeconomic status and race
Critically evaluate the cost and benefits of drug enforcement, treatment and incarceration
Understand the biological, psychological and social impacts of psychoactive drugs
Understand addiction as an illness that impacts the entire
Recognize new drugs in American culture

Students will engage in a number of learning tools including lecture, small group discussion, media analysis, and ultimately listening to music while evaluating how drugs are characterized. Students will leave the course with a critical understanding of how to analyze visual, audio, and written texts.

How to Apply

Submit the online application found under Application and Fees. Supporting Documents are also provided, including instructions for writing a brief personal essay explaining your preparation and interest in this program.

After submitting your online application, make a request from your high school for your transcript, and send it with your personal essay to: Summer College for HS Students, Ithaca College, Office of Extended Studies, Ithaca, NY 14850.

There is a $25 application fee which can be made through our online system at the end of the online application. The application fee can also be paid by check, made payable to Ithaca College, and mailed to the address above.

The application deadline is May 1. Students will be notified of their application status on average two weeks after submission of their completed application, and all accompanying documents.

953 Danby Road, Ithaca, NY 14850

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