Back by popular demand, Innovation Incubator is excited to announce its fall 2023 pop-up course called “Lies, Damned Lies, and Politics: Confronting the Threats of Misinformation, Conspiracy, and Polarization” (CPU 1540). This course will tackle how to navigate media bias, the psychology of why people believe in misinformation and conspiracy, and the technologies and politics driving us apart.
The 3-unit course will be taught by a team of experts from across campus: Shonn Haren, coordinator of instruction at the University Library; Randy Stein, associate professor of marketing; and L. Lin Ong, assistant professor of international business and marketing. The three faculty will teach portions of the course during the semester, so students can learn about the subject from the different perspectives.
Each section of CPU 1540 will be taught hybrid format on Tuesdays, from 1 to 2:15 p.m.. Students will register on BroncoDirect for any one of the three sections.
“Studying misinformation is a great gateway toward learning about all sorts of other great things, like psychology, social media, the political landscape, and the nature of reality itself,” Stein said. “During the pop-up course, students get all that, in addition to a heavy dose of learning how to navigate the media well. Plus, misinformation can also be simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, which only makes it more engaging to study.”
Pop-up courses provide students with the opportunity to examine a topic of societal importance through multiple disciplinary lenses. These courses address the latest developments in academic fields and in society that have the potential to impact the personal, educational, and professional success of students. The solutions to the major issues that confront society transcend disciplinary boundaries and require a diversity of approaches. Students and faculty come from multiple academic disciplines and collaborate to examine complex and perplexing problems from diverse disciplinary views.
Pop-up courses provide faculty with the flexibility to quickly cover new developments that cut across multiple disciplinary boundaries and to collaborate with colleagues from other colleges and departments to design and teach a course. Faculty can prototype and testing ideas in a pop-up format that may eventually become permanent parts of the curriculum.
Interested in learning more about the current pop-up course or teaching a future course? Visit the Innovation Incubator website or email innovationinc@cpp.edu.
