Global Education Oregon Menu

Since 1978 when China initiated economic reforms and opening up policies, the Chinese economy has been one of the fastest growing economies. China is now the world's second biggest economy and second biggest exporter. What are the impacts of China's rise on the global economy? How will other countries react to China's economic emergence? This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge of what has happened to China and its impact on global economy in the last three decades.

This course introduces to students the general Chinese civilization from the Neolithic era down to the present. It emphasizes the late imperial period to the contemporary world. The course covers a wide range of topics, such as history, philosophy, politics, women’s studies, local society, economy, environment, etc. The goal of the course is to provide students with general knowledge of China’s past and present, but at the same time encourage them to deeply investigate one or two fields that mostly attract them.

Beginners’ Class:Chinese language is regarded as one of the most difficult languages to learn due to its distinct pronunciation and pictographic characters. This course, students will learn elementary vocabulary and patterns. This entry-level Chinese language course will offer students a genuine vision of how Chinese people think and speak, thus helping students to pave the way for a more real and pleasant experience of Chinese culture.Intermediate Class:This class is designed to improve each student’s overall ability to understand and use Chinese language.

In this course, students will have opportunities to watch traditional Chinese dramas (Peking Opera, Kun Opera or Yue Opera) at downtown theatres as well as videos of Greek tragedies, Indian dramas and modern western plays (some western plays are shown in the style of traditional Chinese dramas). After finishing this course, students will have a good understanding of the similarities and differences between Chinese and western dramas, and acquire a special perspective to look at the intercultural communication between China and the rest of the world.

This course is to look at contemporary Chinese cinema as a visual art and to illustrate the ways in which it has been shaped by Chinese cultural, social and political tradition over the past three decades. Emphasizing on both film contexts and film texts, this course invites students to a broad cinematic analysis. In order to achieve such goals and inspire critical thinking, ten filmmakers and movies in diverse style and subject are carefully selected to cover a range of cultural, cross-cultural, intellectual, social, ethnic, and political issues.

 This course introduces students to contemporary Chinese literature produced after 1949, and particularly after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), by selecting literary works that are not widely taught outside China and that depict and directly affect life in China today. China has made some of the most dramatic changes in its history during the last thirty years, and the literary works created after 1976 are equally meaningful and certainly rival, if not surpass, many works produced during the Republic.

The course introduces basics of cross-cultural communication, including main theories of culture. The course lays out the effect of language, nonverbal language and cultural identity on communication. How people adjust in different cultures, their acculturation stages and strategies will be discussed. Effective and appropriate communication practices between Chinese and non-Chinese will also be discussed, such as communication between Sino-USA people, Sino-German, Sino-Japanese etc. This course will include case studies, games, role-plays and movie watching. 

This course is designed to introduce non-Twi speakers to the spoken language of Twi. The course content, covered by the student and instructor interactively, is structured to ensure that you gain a basic understanding of the Twi language.

Ghana experiences many of the same infectious diseases found elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and other tropical regions of the world. These include well-known diseases such as malaria, as well as the so-called ‘neglected tropical diseases’ that are marked by high morbidity but low mortality. This course focuses on infectious and parasitic diseases present in Ghana and will explore aspects of epidemiology; disease progression and pathology; challenges in disease control or eradication; and, as relevant, historical context. Course material accommodates students from all majors.

Students will enroll in Spanish for Heritage Speakers, and will then take an additional 20 hours of modules including: Spanish Business (10 or 20 hours), Spanish and Latin American Literature (10 hours), Spanish Art History and History (10 hours).