A Side Quest Summer — That Counts!

SLAM 2031: Applied Data Analysis

Instructor: Knud Berthelsen | 3 credit hours | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 11 am–12:30 pm, online

Sooner or later someone hands you a spreadsheet and asks what it means. This course is ten intensive days of finding out, with AI and without it. You’ll turn a real question into a testable one, design a survey, collect your own data, clean it, and run descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analysis. AI does some of this well and some of it badly, and you’ll learn to tell which. You’ll also see how data goes wrong: bad samples, statistical fallacies, correlation mistaken for cause, charts made to mislead. Then you’ll design, analyze, and defend your own project, and one with a team. By the end, you’ll know what your numbers do and don’t show, and how to say so.

SLAM 2911: Introduction to Non-Profits

Instructor: Erica Larsen | 3 credit hours | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 9–10:30 am, online

Course Description TBD

SLAM 2912: The Art of Conversation

Instructor: Ko Bragg | 3 credit hours | Maymester, May 10–21 | M–F, 10 am–3 pm, hybrid

Every great story starts the same way: an introduction, an invitation to sit down and talk. Whether you’re sharing your personal narrative in a job interview or pressing a public official about a new ordinance, it all comes back to “the art of conversation,” a craft that can feel like it’s disappearing behind screens. This course teaches you to hold and prepare for conversations with experts, for accountability, as oral history, with your neighbors, and internally. You’ll learn how to do outreach, cold call, follow up, show up, ask the question behind the question, how to pivot when things veer off script, and tell what’s verifiable from what sounds true. Every conversation starts as a seed. This course will teach you how to sow.

SLAM 2913: Artificial Intelligence in American Politics

Instructor: Scott Nolan | 3 credits | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 11 am–12:30 pm, online

Artificial Intelligence is reshaping American politics quickly and dramatically. We will explore AI using current news events, real-world case studies, data, and hands-on work with tools like ChatGPT and Claude. We will explore deepfakes, political campaigns, government surveillance, civil rights, privacy, data centers, environmental impacts, criminal justice, and the regulation of AI. You will ask big questions about power, democracy, law, and technology while completing five research and writing assignments designed to build strong analytical skills and useful professional writing samples. If you are interested in politics, law, public policy, elections, technology, civil rights, environmental politics, or the future of democracy, this course will give you plenty to explore and examine in depth. No formal coding or technical background is required.

SLAM 2915: Say Yes to the Dress

Instructor: Eloise Petro | 3 credits | Maymester, May 10–21 | M–F, 10 am–3 pm, hybrid

Why do so many people spend so much money on a garment they’ll only wear once? By studying how wedding dresses are designed, produced, marketed, and sold, you will begin to understand the fashion and wedding industries’ influence on our culture. When you examine this artifact’s power to produce both revenue and tears (who doesn’t cry at weddings?), you begin to see the interplay of global economies with local traditions that inform every creative and business decision we make. Please only take this class if you are interested in one or more of the following topics: fashion, business, parties and partying, production economics, pretty things, history, ugly things, anthropology, shiny things, how to make money, how to save money, the global supply chain, luxury mindset, entrepreneurship, and the age-old question: satin or lace?

SLAM 2916: Southern Women’s Leadership

Instructor: Sina Lee | 3 credits | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 1–2:30 pm, online

This course examines how women, particularly Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Latina, and working-class women, have built and sustained grassroots leadership in the American South, with a focus on New Orleans. Moving from slavery and Jim Crow through the Civil Rights Movement to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, students will trace recurring strategies of survival, mutual aid, and coalition building that emerged outside of formal institutional power. Rather than treating leadership as a matter of titles or conventional top-down hierarchies, the course foregrounds alternative models: crisis management rooted in community networks, solidarity across racial and economic lines, and organizing as an everyday practice. The course treats New Orleans as a living archive, incorporating guest speakers from local organizations, site-based learning (e.g., the Historic New Orleans Collection’s exhibit on Black women’s voting-rights activism), and contemporary case material on reproductive-justice and public-health organizing (e.g., Women With A Vision (WWAV)).

SLAM 4560-01: Internship

Instructor: Christina Armstrong | 1 credit | Special Offering, asynchronous, May 3–August 23 (rolling enrollment) | Instructor approval required

This course helps students connect their internship experiences to the skills, relationships, and habits that drive workplace success. Through flexible, asynchronous modules, students explore topics such as workplace communication, time management, organization, professional relationships, technology, inclusion, and career development. Students apply concepts from strategy, leadership, and analytics to real-world workplace situations while reflecting on their own performance, preferences, strengths, and professional goals. Through applied assignments and reflection, students develop practical skills to navigate workplace expectations, communicate effectively, build professional relationships, and make intentional choices about their future career pathways.

For more information

SLAM 4820: Business of Sports

Instructor: Peter Kunze | 3 credit hours | Special Term, May 24–June 11 | M–F, 1–4 pm, online

This course offers a critical overview of the sports business. We will draw upon research in business, communication, economics, geography, legal studies, media industry studies, and sociology. We will talk about labor, management, and marketing as well as the structure of the sports industries and their convergence with the media industries, in particular. Special attention will be paid to how the sports industry intersects in varying contexts, including locally, nationally, and globally. Finally, special attention will be paid to how race, gender, sexuality, and ability shape the business of sports, media, and culture.

EVST 3591: Screening the Anthropocene

Instructor: Felipe Gómez Trejos | 3 credits | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 1–2:30 pm, online

We watch, analyze, and discuss American, Latin American, European, African, and East Asian films that address environmental disaster, environmental rights, ecological crisis, and climate change. We approach all films from an “ecological perspective,” considering how they characterize environmental crises in terms of raising consciousness and promoting activism, and how they contribute (or not) to them through shooting, production, and distribution practices. The course asks questions such as, How do mainstream American films speak about the risks of an environmental crisis? How do they choose to represent it? What kind of responses do they expect from the audience? Does “exoticism” play any role in the telling of these stories? Is the environmental crisis different from other catastrophes featured in “disaster movies”? What other genres intersect in the telling of environmental crisis stories? What do these “imagined futures” tell us about the present?

EVST 3952: Space Race and Louisiana

Instructor: Philip de Mahy | 3 credits | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 9–10:30 am, online

This course explores Louisiana’s evolving role in the space industry and the environmental questions surrounding its expansion, from the state’s role in the twentieth-century Space Race to the recent expansion of SpaceX. We will consider how Louisiana’s distinctive environmental, political, and economic conditions are shaping the future of the commercial space industry. Students in this course will work together to:

• Learn how federal, state, and local governments interact with private firms to promote and regulate space development;
• Assess how Louisiana’s environmental vulnerabilities influence decisions about industrial development, infrastructure, and investment;
• Gain experience communicating with local stakeholders about the opportunities, risks, and policy challenges associated with the expansion of the space industry;
• Evaluate how the transition from a largely government-directed space program to a state-supported private space industry changes environmental governance.

EVST 3953: Earth, Race, Power: Black Ecologies, Extraction, and Speculative Futures

Instructor: Jerome Dent | 3 credit hours | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 2–3:30 pm, online

When did the Anthropocene begin? While environmental science dates the “Human Age” to mid-19th century industrialization, geographer Kathryn Yusoff argues that the Anthropocene began in 1492 with transatlantic slavery and colonial extraction. This course examines the entanglement of environmental degradation, geology, and racial violence across five centuries. Drawing on environmental humanities, Black cultural studies, and visual media, students analyze how sub-surface extraction (gold, coal, oil) bound Black subjectivities to material property. Through readings, films, and digital media analysis, including local Gulf Coast ecological histories, we map alternative ecological futures that exist outside of planetary doom. The course helps you evaluate the historical timelines and scientific definitions of the Anthropocene through the lens of racial capitalism and colonial geology, examine the intersections between visual culture, environmental justice, and subterranean resource extraction, and interrogate local Louisiana and Gulf Coast environmental histories (such as Cancer Alley) using critical environmental humanities frameworks.

EVST 4210: Environmental and Social Justice in New Orleans

Instructor: Christopher Oliver | 3 credit hours | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 3–5:30 pm, online

Environmental and social justice are deeply intertwined and require rigorous theoretical, conceptual, and empirical analysis. This intensive five-week course combines classroom instruction, guest speakers, practitioner demonstrations, and professional development with hands-on field research in Greater New Orleans communities. Students gain experiential learning by working in teams within a university-partnered organization on an ongoing real-world project, developing, applying, and enhancing practical professional skills in an applied field setting. By course end, students will understand how public policies, socio-economic conditions, and organizational behavior shape the disproportionate environmental burdens borne by working-class and often racially diverse individuals, households, and communities amid economic development.

Optional 20-hour service-learning – EVST 4890

COMM 3810: Race and Prison in Public Policy

Instructor: Jerome Dent | 3 credit hours | Late Summer, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 9:30–11 am, online

Course Description: TBD

POLA 3012: Gun Policy in the U.S.

Instructor: Michael Jones | 3 credit hours | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 12–1:30 pm, online

Course Description: TBD

POLA 3240: How to Make Public Policy

Instructor: Scott Nolan | 3 credit hours | Maymester, May 10–21 | M–F, 9:30 am–1:30 pm

How do decisions shape our world? Why do some issues dominate headlines while others fade away? Who really drives policy—and why do specific solutions succeed while others fail? This course dives into the U.S. policy-making process, exploring the actors, values, and strategies behind domestic policy decisions. Learn how to analyze agendas, evaluate outcomes, and understand what makes policy effective.

POLA 4110: Policy-Making Research Shop

Instructor: Brian Brox | 3 credit hours | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 10:30 am–12 pm, online and in person

Students who want to take this course online can do so with instructor permission – contact Prof. Brian Brox to obtain permission.

Real impact, real experience. Work directly with city leaders to tackle pressing issues in New Orleans! In this hands-on course, students partner with local government, research real policy challenges, and craft professional policy briefs. You’ll present your findings at official forums—like city council meetings—to gain practical experience and make a tangible difference in your community.

Mandatory 20-Hour Service-Learning POLA 4890-01

HISU 2100 / BEMH 6521: History of Medicine in the US

Instructor: Jacquelyne Howard | 3 credit hours | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 12–1:30 pm, online

Uncover how pandemics, medical breakthroughs, and shifting ideas about health care have shaped everyday lives in the U.S. From economic and political forces to social transformations, this course reveals the powerful connections between medicine and society—and how they continue to influence our world today.

HISU 3542 / BEMH 6810: Reproductive Health in the US

Instructor: Karissa Haugeberg | 3 credit hours | Maymester, May 10–21 | M–F, 10 am–3 pm, online

How have ideas about reproductive health, bodily autonomy, and reproductive justice evolved over time? Examine the history of reproductive health in the United States from the seventeenth century to the present, exploring the experiences of patients, practitioners, policymakers, and activists. Through scholarly readings, memoirs, films, and conversations with leading scholars, students will investigate childbirth, contraception, abortion, reproductive technologies, and the movements that have shaped reproductive rights and access to care.

BEMH 6006: The Doctor as Author

Instructors: Valerie Holliday, Cathy Lazarus, Ben Saxton | 3 credit hours | Special Session, May 31–July 23 | TR, 1–3:30 pm, online

Open to undergraduates and graduates—discover the human side of medicine through the eyes of doctor-writers! Explore how figures like Mona Hanna-Attisha, Paul Kalanithi, Ivan Turgenev, Adam Kay, and David Small merge science and humanity in their reflections on care. Through their work, you’ll examine what it truly means to practice medicine with a purpose.

GESS 2190 / BEMH 6590: “Disability Justice & Health Care”

Instructor: Krystal Cleary | 3 credit hours | Special Session, June 28–July 30 | M–F, 11 am–12:30 pm, online

Explore the politics of medicine and care through the lens of disability as culture, civil rights, and lived experience. This interdisciplinary course introduces Disability Studies and Justice frameworks to examine intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and class, engaging with academic scholarship, public-facing literature, memoirs, commercial and independent media, and guest speakers. Perfect for students interested in gender studies, public health, and medical ethics.

Optional 20-hour service learning, GESS 2890.

SLAM 3910 / BEMH 6811: AI, and Medical Ethics

Instructor: Chara Kokkiou | 3 credit hours | Early Summer, May 24–June 25 | M–F, 12:30–2 pm, online

How is technology reshaping medicine? Explore the ethical challenges of AI-driven care, Big Data, and digital platforms in health care. Through real-world case studies, you’ll tackle questions about patient privacy, data security, and the unintended consequences of cutting-edge tech. Perfect for students interested in ethics, medicine, and the impact of technology on society.

LING 3000: Tunica: Louisiana’s Sleeping Language

Instructor: Judith Maxwell | 3 credits | Special Term, May 31–June 11 | M–F, 9 am–12 pm, in person

A language dies every two weeks, taking with it unique ways of thinking and living. Join this immersive two-week course to explore language death and revitalization. Week one: On Tulane’s Uptown campus, learn the history and methods behind saving endangered languages. Week two: Through LING 3890-01 Service Learning, travel to the Tunica-Biloxi Reservation in Marksville, LA, where you’ll work alongside tribal members continuing their decades-long effort to revive Tunica, a language whose last fluent speaker died over 50 years ago. Experience hands-on cultural engagement while contributing to a living legacy.

Mandatory 40-hour service learning, LING 3890.