“Wild and Interesting” Defines New Courses for the 2022-2023 Academic Year
June 6, 2022
As MBS students look ahead to the 2022-2023 academic year, there are many new courses in almost every department, bringing more innovation and creativity to Morristown Beard’s campus.
The highly anticipated and requested Ceramics 2 in the art and design department will be taught by Mr. Zachary Mazouat. Mazouat said, “I wanted a class to allow students to explore [ceramics] more in depth and expand their knowledge past what they learned in Ceramics 1.” Ceramics 1 teaches students the fundamentals of pottery. Ceramics 2 will take students who know the essentials from the introductory course, and assign them higher expectations with more in depth exploration. By establishing this class where students create on a larger scale, Mazouat hopes that students can obtain the “skills to work independently without me,” and perhaps do an independent study in the future.
Intro to CGI Animation is being offered next year through the computation and information sciences department. These semester-long classes will be taught by Mr. Paul Fisher. The fall semester classes will be more focused on scientific analysis, while the spring classes will highlight art, design, and media. Fisher said that the reason he created these classes was to educate students on how to think in a more numeric way about everyday life. He believes that narratives depicted by animation can teach this skill. Fisher hopes to start with an initial project where students would animate a block that moves from one end of the screen to the other while conveying an emotion. The student can’t change the physical form of the block, but by body language, they would have to express various feelings. Fisher also hopes to focus some of the class on the history of animation itself by watching older animations to see how, even when technology was not as advanced, animators could still illustrate passion and sentiment through simple lines. Fisher said,
The History of Ancient Greece and The History of Ancient Rome, are two academic electives that will be run by Dr. Amanda Gregory through the history department. These courses will allow students to explore in more depth the ancient history from the 9th grade curriculum. Dr. Owen Boynton, Associate Director of Curriculum and Professional Development, said, “[These courses] give an opportunity to give students a much fuller sense of these really fascinating cultures.” The fall semester course focuses on Ancient Greece. Students will study the Greek language, art, philosophy, and tensions between empires. Later in the year, during the spring semester, students will learn about the evolution of the Roman Empire, study Roman texts, and analyze Roman society up until its downfall. These elective offerings are open to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders.
There are a few new Advanced Seminars (AS) for the upcoming academic year as well. Advanced Seminars are typically reserved for juniors and seniors who have been recommended for the class, and students must have made the honor roll to qualify. AS courses are proposed by faculty members and approved by a committee of their peers. These courses highlight the vast interests and passions of the MBS faculty outside of their departments.
Fashion: Global Imperatives, Materiality, Embodiment is an AS being offered in the fall taught by Dr. Jack Bartholomew of the science department. This course will focus primarily on how fashion affects people on an individual to global scale. Students will analyze current fashion trends and examine how fashion impacts society as a whole. Additionally, the class will discuss if fashion is a hobby or an immense part of self expression. Boynton said, “this class will be a wild and interesting seminar.”
Explorations in Russian Language and Culture will be taught by Dr. Gabriel Guadalupe of the world languages department and will be offered during the fall semester. Since Russian is a complex language due to its use of the cyrillic alphabet, students will focus primarily on learning the basics of the language. By the end of the semester, students will be able to read, write, and speak simple ideas in Russian. Aside from learning about the language, the seminar will also highlight Russia’s culture, political history, and geography including the effects of modern day Russia on the world stage.
More information about all of these new courses can be found in the MBS Course Catalog online.