Provost Academy participants have the unique opportunity to work closely with Pitt faculty members and their peers on fascinating experiential academic projects.
Throughout the week, students will get to meet with their faculty members to engage in interdisciplinary lectures, cohort activities, field studies, research, and informational workshops.
Each project culminates in a group presentation at the end of Provost Academy. This experience prepares students to enter their first day of classes with confidence!
All Provost Academy projects are interdisciplinary, and each will provide you with skills and resources to help you succeed in your Pitt classes.
Choose which projects sound the most interesting to you! You will select up to 3 projects that you are interested in when you register.
The projects you choose do not need to be related to your intended major.
- Fight Bravely: Stage Combat for Everyone — Category: Theatre Arts
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Let’s admit it: we love a good fight. Whether it’s Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the latest kung fu film, or The Empire Strikes Back, a lot of the time, we are just waiting for the moment when negotiations break down, voices are raised, lightsabers ignited, and the combatants come out swinging.
In this course, we are going to talk about theatrical and cinematic combat: what we like (yes: you will weigh in with your favorites), how it works in terms of the larger story, character, and movement. But it gets better.
After we spend some time talking about the fights we love in film and on stage, it’s swords out. You will learn the elements of safe stage combat in a week of training that will culminate in choreographing with your partner(s) your own original stage fight.
It’s wonderful if you have theater or martial arts experience, but this course is open to people of all backgrounds, genders, and basically anyone who wants to mix it up.
Led by:
- Jeff Aziz, Teaching Professor, Advisor, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Studies, Department of English
- Tonya Lynn, Richard E. Rauh Teaching Artist-in-Residence, Department of Theatre Arts
- From TV to TikTok: Using Media to Promote Health — Category: Medicine/Health Science
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Have you ever stopped to think about the extent to which your interest in medicine, science, or healthcare has been influenced by what you see on television? Or how your health behaviors are related to what you see on social media?
This course will explore these questions through a mix of class discussions, presentations from medical and public health professionals, and analyzing some of your favorite television programs and social media platforms.
Spend a week with us looking at health information, health care, and health science through the lens of prime time television and social media. What you learn might surprise you — maybe even inspire you.
Led by:
- Beth Hoffman, Assistant Professor, Behavioral and Community Health Sciences
- Make an Impact: D.I.Y. "Outsider" Publishing — Category: Political Science
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We live in a world where it seems like media is controlled by everyone else. A world where someone has to be born into access, or have the money to buy access, or have a great idea that they then "sell out" in order to even have a shot at access.
This week-long session pushes against that. Together we will explore the material history of Do-It-Yourself (D.I.Y.) media, particularly print media, and see how alternative "outsider" voices can use those pathways to claim space in their own communities.
Then we'll collaborate together on writing and design to make our own D.I.Y. media and learn how to distribute it. Get a publication before anyone else in your class, and learn about how many more opportunities exist to share your writing and your ideas when you think "outside" the system.
Led by:
- Andrew Lotz; Teaching Professor and Academic Advisor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Studies; Department of Political Science
- Neuroscience of Human Movement: Do We Sense to Move, Move to Sense, or Just Act? — Category: Health Science/Neuroscience
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Explore a brain’s view of sensing, moving, and thinking in action. While we might listen to music or watch a video to relax and "do nothing" or go for a walk or run to "get away from thinking," our brain continually integrates sensing, moving, and thinking for our intended actions.
We will review brain regions and functions through "previously real" (neuroanatomy lab, brain specimens) and brain models, engage in interactive "brain challenges," and apply behavioral measures to observe and record, and maybe acquire a new motor skill behavior.
Explore and experience the brain’s decision-making, for action in a planet full of opportunities; experience your brain’s talents and ability to rise to challenges in action.
Students use course experiences to bring brain function to act ‘"alive" in the creation of a model of the brain and neural processes that enable human movement behavior—senses, moves us, and acts.
Led by:
- Jessie VanSwearingen, Professor, Department of Physical Therapy
- Painting Large — Category: Studio Arts
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Join us for a fun and engaging week-long beginner-friendly course that combines your passion for painting with building connections in the community.
In this course, you'll have the chance to create minimalist posters that will add a special touch to the Covestro-hosted Halloween party for Variety—The Children’s Charity of Pittsburgh.
Don't worry if you're new to painting: This class is designed for beginners.
You'll get to paint a big poster that matches the party's theme, which in the past featured cool ideas like Star Wars, Disney Characters, Super Mario Bros., and Snoopy.
Through hands-on learning and friendly discussions, we'll dive into the techniques behind mural painting, how to make sure your artwork lasts, and the different materials used for large-scale projects. We'll also explore interesting topics like design, color theory, and using copyrighted images.
You don't need any previous painting or drawing experience, just a willingness to get a bit messy and enjoy the creative process.
Save the date for the early October bash, happening at the Covestro LLC headquarters right here in Pittsburgh. It's going to be a fantastic mix of art, community, and celebration that everyone can be a part of!
For more information on the, company, charity and party please visit:Led by:
- Gianni P. Downs; Teaching Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies; Department of Theatre Arts
- Social Justice in College and Beyond — Category: Africana Studies
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When we first meet, we'll spend time exploring, questioning, and discussing notions of social justice. We'll look at a brief history of social justice on campus. We'll also ask what tools you can use to improve social justice in your community, city, state, or country.
Essentially, in this section of the Provost Academy, we will look at short films and documentaries, listen to music, and consult archival materials to discuss notions of social justice in America and beyond.
We will also have guest speakers, including community activists and faculty members engaged in community work in the United States and Africa.
Led by:
- Felix Germain, Department Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Africana Studies
- Unwrapping Pittsburgh: Mapping Class, Race and History — Category: History/Social Science
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What do you think you know about Pittsburgh? Whether you are from the city, from the region, or from further afield, histories change over time based on who tells or writes them and when, what they are trying to accomplish, and what readers/students already think they know or believe.
For those less familiar with the city or with less experience here, this course will provide a primer to the history of Pittsburgh. For those who are from the city or the immediate region, it will challenge them to complicate decades-long narratives of Pittsburgh as among the most “livable” cities in the country.
Through a combination of physical mobility (walking tours/museum visits), archival documents (virtual and/or in person at the Heinz History Center and the University’s Archives Service Center), and discussion, we will unwrap Pittsburgh in its complexity and examine counter narratives that Pittsburgh’s “renaissances” were experienced universally and necessarily positive.
Led by:
- John Stoner, Teaching Professor and Undergraduate Advisor, Department of History
- Urban Ecology and Sustainable Food Systems — Category: Ecology/Sustainability
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Imagine planting a fruit tree or shade tree seedling in your first week on campus that allows you to harvest fruit or enjoy shade when you return to Pitt as an alum.
This course is focused on the native paw paw (Asimina triloba). This tree that grows nearby in Panther Hollow within Schenley Park; on Vera Street on campus in the new Plant2Plate Garden adjacent to Pitt’s Charles L. Cost baseball outfield wall, where the 2021 and 2022 Provost Academy classes planted seedlings; and on Pitt’s School of Public Health lawn, where the 2019 Provost Academy class planted seedlings, including one that flowered this spring.
This course will involve:
- visiting urban ecosystems near campus including service learning with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy;
- learning about the importance of the paw paw fruit to indigenous communities (including the Cherokee, Shawnee, and Seneca), European colonists, and African Americans;
- discussing the steps taken to grow food in urban neighborhoods; and
- learning about sustainability initiatives on campus.
Most importantly, students will contribute to Pitt's sustainability plan through service learning by planting seedlings.
Students will create individual and group photo essays of their experience to share with the Pitt community.
Led by:
- Corey Flynn, Sustainability Program Manager, School of Medicine
- Voices Coming from Below: Understanding and Doing Oral History — Category: History/Social Science
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Oral history allows us to uncover, tell, and preserve the stories of those long ignored: the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed.
For some time, even historians, who were among the first to use oral tradition to study the past, looked down on oral history. Today we know better. Oral history is a tool we can use to unearth exciting histories, to tell more complete truths, and to understand our elders and ourselves.
It also allows us to ask big, fundamental questions about our world: Who really makes history? How do ordinary people effect change? Who and what do we as a society choose to remember—and forget? What is truth?
Here, we will discuss these and other questions and attempt to understand our histories and ourselves better by hearing, processing, interpreting, and DOING oral histories.
Led by:
- Eladio Bobadilla, Assistant Professor, Department of History
- Water Quality in Pittsburgh — Category: Ecology/Sustainability
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Could you imagine a day without water? Water is an invaluable asset to our daily lives, ecosystems, and economy. Spend the week dipping your toes into regional water with the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory (water.pitt.edu)!
In this hands-on interactive course with field trips, you’ll learn about Pittsburgh water assets and opportunities, explore the power of your voice to make positive change, and connect with water leaders at Pitt and within the community.
We’ll also dive into exciting water specific environmental careers including water scientists, engineers, hydrologists, chemists, biologists, green building professionals, GIS analysts, science policy and communication professionals, and more!
Join us for an exciting week of curriculum and opportunities to connect.
Led by:
- Megan Lange, Outreach Coordinator and Data Analyst, Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory
- Patrick Shirey, Assistant Professor, Department of Geology and Environmental Science
- Your Voice is Your Power — Category: Civic Learning and Social Justice
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More than 90 percent of eligible University of Pittsburgh students are registered to vote, and of those, nearly 80 percent voted in the last Presidential election. University of Pittsburgh students give more than 460,000 hours of service to the community annually. Affecting the world around them through civic and community engagement is just what Pitt students do. Are you ready?
This course will help you to tap into YOUR voice and to learn how to work with others to create real and just social and political change.
We will talk about how factors like race, age, and poverty can affect who gets heard, and whose voices are marginalized, from the ballot box to the service organizations to the streets.
And we will draw on what Rev. Martin Luther King called our “inescapable network of mutuality” to help us build the tools to be heard, to listen to one another, and to take our places as social activists, on the Pitt campus and beyond.
Led by:
- Ron Idoko, Associate Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems, Founding Director of the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute, and Research Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
- Kristin Kanthak, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science