April 10: Common Text Author Campus Visit and Book Signing

RSVP and join the First-Year Academic Engagement team for a day of learning after the Racial Equity Summit to hear from Common Text Author, Dr. Nnedi Okorafor. We encourage students, faculty, staff, and alumni to attend!

Headshot image of Nnedi Okorafor in black and white.

UCOR Section Descriptions

Browse UCOR section descriptions and explore Seattle University's academic writing seminars, course offerings, and faculty for upcoming terms.

UCOR 1200-03 Multicultural Mathematics (SUCCESS)

Course Type:

UCOR 1200 Quantitative Reasoning

Faculty:

Humphreys, Jim

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module I

Course Description

An introduction to mathematical ideas, emphasizing a multicultural, or global, perspective to studying quantitative methods, logical thinking, and algorithmic processes.

UCOR 1200-04 Mathematical Reasoning (SUCCESS)

Course Type:

UCOR 1200 Quantitative Reasoning

Faculty:

Robertson, Leanne

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module I

Course Description

An introduction to mathematical ideas used in the modern world, with an emphasis on quantitative methods applied to life experiences and on developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Topics include graphing, exponential growth, financial mathematics, probability, and statistics. Additional topics may include voting theory, graph theory, Fibonacci numbers, geometry, or other mathematical concepts and applications.

UCOR 1200-05 Mathematical Reasoning

Course Type:

UCOR 1200 Quantitative Reasoning

Faculty:

Yurasovskaya, Ekaterina

Term:

Winter

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

An introduction to mathematical ideas used in the modern world, with an emphasis on quantitative methods applied to life experiences and on developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Topics include graphing, exponential growth, financial mathematics, probability, and statistics. Additional topics may include voting theory, graph theory, Fibonacci numbers, geometry, or other mathematical concepts and applications.

UCOR 1200-05 Mathematical Reasoning (SUCCESS)

Course Type:

UCOR 1200 Quantitative Reasoning

Faculty:

Robertson, Leanne

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module I

Course Description

An introduction to mathematical ideas used in the modern world, with an emphasis on quantitative methods applied to life experiences and on developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Topics include graphing, exponential growth, financial mathematics, probability, and statistics. Additional topics may include voting theory, graph theory, Fibonacci numbers, geometry, or other mathematical concepts and applications.

UCOR 1300-01 Cell Phone Filmmaking

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Tran, Phan

Term:

Spring

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

This will be an introductory class that assumes no prior film making experience and is designed to encourage students to explore film making using accessible mobile technology. Students will develop their knowledge of basic video production, methods and terminology using their smartphones. Through hands-on, small-group assignments, students will learn and apply professional film concepts while using their smartphones to tell their own creative story. With available apps, students will learn how to turn their smartphone into a powerful film tool. Students will understand exposure, framing, audio, lighting, composition and more.

UCOR 1300-01 Cell Phone Filmmaking

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Davis, Benjamin

Term:

Winter

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

This will be an introductory class that assumes no prior film making experience and is designed to encourage students to explore film making using accessible mobile technology. Students will develop their knowledge of basic video production, methods and terminology using their smartphones. Through hands-on, small-group assignments, students will learn and apply professional film concepts while using their smartphones to tell their own creative story. With available apps, students will learn how to turn their smartphone into a powerful film tool. Students will understand exposure, framing, audio, lighting, composition and more.

UCOR 1300-01 Digital Imaging

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Li, Yiu Hung

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module I

Course Description

Digital Imaging is a course that explores working with photography outside the parameters of traditional darkroom photography. The focus is on post-processing images for ends, including compositing multiple images, combining text & images, and working to conceptually to develop a complex visual book of digital images. Artist presentations and readings serve as launching off points for class discussions regarding the nature of digital images in our media saturated culture and the ways we can work with them. With each new project introduced throughout the quarter there will be corresponding technical demonstrations dedicated to specific technical aspects of Photoshop, from basic to intermediate. No previous Photoshop experience is required for the class.

UCOR 1300-01 Digital Photography

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Mouton, Alexander

Term:

Summer

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

As a Core course, Digital Photography will involve equal parts making images, reading, writing, and analyzing/discussing. Assignments progress on a formal level from B&W to color and then to working with images in time, whether stop-motion or sequenced as short experimental films. The ideas students bring to the projects will be emphasized and the readings, films, image presentations, and discussions will provide direction to explore themes such as consumerism, the environment, gender, social diversity, imagination and dreams. The photographic medium has undergone changes in the last decade at a rate unparalleled since photography's invention during the latter part of the 19th Century. What does digital photography hold for the 21st Century? How is it different from working with film -or is it? What are artists doing within the medium today and what are their influences? These and other questions will be addressed over the course of the quarter as the technical, conceptual and formal properties of the medium are introduced.

UCOR 1300-02 Intro to Video Art

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Moriarty, Aunna

Term:

Spring

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

This course is an introduction to video production within the context of contemporary art history, theory, and practice. Students will examine video's formal elements and theoretical concerns through production and critique of their own projects as well as screenings and discussions of work by contemporary artists. With an emphasis on building experimental narratives and developing creative concepts, this course will provide students a comprehensive overview of production techniques. The course is conducted through a combination of lectures, demonstrations, screenings, and critiques of student work and videos by contemporary artists, class discussions, readings, and individual and collaborative video productions and presentations.

UCOR 1300-02 Virtual Reality Filmmaking

Course Type:

UCOR 1300 Creative Expression and Interpretation

Faculty:

Reub, Gavin

Term:

Winter

Year:

2025

Module:

Module I

Course Description

This course focuses on the art of telling stories for Virtual Reality. Students will immerse themselves in understanding the media through the technology available so they can learn about the challenges of telling a story using its specific attributes. In this hands-on class, students will create and produce a short film using 360 video, which will purposefully blur reality and fiction, and narrate a story. This course will include analyses of experiences and texts with an emphasis on immersive narrative and the nature of interactivity. The purpose of this class also includes intensive learning through collaboration and reflection on future challenges and our responsibilities of storytelling through new technologies.