Course Orientation:

Studying:  You are starting on a wonderful journey.  College is all about exploring the accumulated thinking and experience of others and exploring the confines and possibilities of your own mind.  This course is here to help you start on that journey. We will read three fascinating and well-written books--Frederick Douglass' Autobiography , Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.  The first is by an escaped slave who becomes black America's most articulate pre-Civil War spokesperson against slavery and for civil rights.  Sinclair writes The Jungle about the struggles of immigrants in Chicago meat packing in the early 1900s.  Steinbeck writes a fictional history of the Okie migration to California in the 1930s.  So in these three books you will be able to think about the plight of immigrants in three types of situations--forced immigration through slavery, voluntary but impoverished Eastern European immigration after new lands in the West were no longer freely available, and internal immigration of white Anglo Saxon Protestants who were forced off the land in Oklahoma (and elsewhere) finding themselves second-class citizens in California.  When you see my bio-slide-show, you will see that I grew up in Pomona.  In the 50s, Pomona was white, black, Mexican and still agricultural.  Today, Pomona is home to immigrants from all over the world and is an urban economy.  Big Questions:  how does reading Douglass, Sinclair and Steinbeck help you think about the city of Pomona and the immigrants and natives that live there today?  How does Claremont and these five colleges fit into the picture you are putting together about Pomona?  In what ways have the history of people coming to this country changed?  How has it remained essentially the same?  Last, how do you and your family fit into this picture?  We will return to these questions regularly in class discussion during this semester.

We will also keep an eye on current economic events.  On my Pitzer home page you will see links to the Utah coal mine disaster of this August and the China-Mattel dangerous toy scandal.  These sorts of issues will allow you to consider opposite sides of an issue--Was the Utah mine cave-in an "act of god?" or the carelessness of mine owners and operators?  Is the Mattel toy story an example of what's wrong with globalization, or is it a form of China bashing racism?  We will follow other stories too.  Maybe the home mortgage meltdown.  Maybe something we don't know about yet.  You will see that I have posted many newspaper articles on these topics.  It's easy these days to plow through electronically newspapers from around the world using search terms for your topic.  We will learn this handy research tool.

Like any adventure into the unknown, the path you are about to take will be both exciting and scary.  Your job is to grab onto the excitement.  My job is to help you with the scary stuff.  You are to come to me with any issues you have in this class or in any other course you are taking this semester.  You have an advisor and you can go to her or him for advice.  But you can come to me also.  I am an ace at helping students work their way through things.  Really.  I can be reached on my cell phone--(801) 599-2374, and at some point I will have an office assigned to me.  My email is leighlakeranger@yahoo.com.  All your emails to me should have as the beginning of the subject "freshman seminar" so I don't lose you amongst the junk that courses through the internet.  If you explore around my overall web page, you will see that I am a very experienced teacher, an accomplished economist and a long-time academic.  You (or someone) is paying big bucks for your Pitzer education.  It would be a shame to pay all that money and not take advantage of the resources made available to you.  I am one of those resources.  Give me a call.  Let's get together.

Last.  This web site will continue to change and evolve with the class.  Get to know the sight and revisit it often.  Show the sight to your friends or family and discuss what is happening in this class.  This is an "open" sight for a reason.  Learning is a social activity, not something done (just) late at night in your dorm room by yourself.  The more you can get others involved in your learning, the more you will learn--from them!