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Sidecar Courses


An innovative curricular initiative, conceived of and organized by the IDEAS fellowship, sidecar courses bring together two faculty members who are teaching courses in different departments and on different topics to teach a short interdisciplinary class that focuses on a point of connection. For example, a history professor might be teaching a class on the Middle Ages, and a biology professor might be teaching a class on communicable disease; together, they might teach a sidecar course on the plague. Sidecar courses carry one credit hour, and all students take the course pass/fail.

IDEAS Fellow Involvement

IDEAS fellows participate in these classes in a number of ways:

  • connecting two professors and suggest a sidecar course;
  • participating in course planning;
  • helping to manage the details of the class;
  • serving as teaching assistants;
  • leading class sessions.

Proposals for Fall 2024

We invite applications from Emory College and Oxford College faculty members interested in developing a sidecar course as part of a team that includes a faculty member in another department or discipline and two IDEAS fellows (see description below). If you are interested but you don’t have a partner, please email us at the addresses below.  If you don’t know any IDEAS fellows, please see, as noted below, that we will match you with fellows. Each faculty member in the team receives $1000 (before taxes).  No more than six sidecar courses will be funded in Fall 2024.

Proposal Deadline: To Be Announced 

Submit your proposal

Your proposal must be submitted online using the form and include the following information:

Submit your proposal

  1. Names and contact information for both faculty members.
  2. One-paragraph description of your proposed class, including a course title.
  3. A short statement describing how you will involve your IDEAS fellow TAs in planning and teaching the course.
  4. (Optional) Name of IDEAS fellows to serve as Teaching Assistants. If you already know IDEAS fellows that you would like to work with, please include their names. This proposal needn’t be fully developed at this point, as we would like to see IDEAS fellows involved in the planning process.
  5. Meeting time. Include a time that will work for both faculty members. We strongly suggest that you avoid times between 10 and 2 on Mondays-Thursdays. These times are fully scheduled by regular classes, so enrollments are likely to be low, and it is difficult to find spaces or TAs during these times. If your course will require outside activities in the evenings or on weekends, please specify this in your course description.
  6. If you require the course be Permission Only, explain why this is necessary for your sidecar. Because issuing permission numbers places an undue burden on our staff, we request that courses be open enrollment if at all possible.

Applications will be reviewed by the IDEAS Sidecar committee.

Successful applications will be paired with IDEAS fellows by the IDEAS Sidecar committee if you have not indicated fellows who would like to participate in the course. 

Successful applicants will meet with their full team, including IDEAS fellows, and submit a course description for OPUS and a full course outline.

A sidecar course brings together two professors from different departments who bring different perspectives to a particular topic, question or problem to create a short interdisciplinary course. As an example, a history professor interested in the Middle Ages might partner with a biology professor who focuses on infectious disease for a sidecar course on the plague. Sidecar courses are meant to add something to the curriculum that helps students integrate ideas from different fields and allows them to explore a topic both more deeply and more creatively.

The sidecar course will be listed as Open Enrollment unless instructors request otherwise, allowing any interested students to register. These courses are meant to be small and pedagogically innovative. Students take the course S/U, and each sidecar course carries one credit. Schedules for the class could be flexible, as long as the class meets often enough to justify receiving one credit (a total of 15 hours over the course of the semester). While courses can meet on an unconventional schedule, the registrar asks that they conform to the published schedule whenever possible and avoid “prime time” period, between 10 am – 2 pm; also, please avoid scheduling across two defined slots in the published schedule. Courses that require non-standard schedules should be held on Fridays.  Course content can be innovative and creative; courses could be run as a seminar, or they could be project or community service based, or they could include visiting discussants or lecturers, or whatever your imaginations conjure up.

Questions? Contact Kim Loudermilk or Peter Wakefield

  • Attend an instructor and TA luncheon 
  • Offer sidecar course once during Fall 2023
  • Submit a brief report upon completion of the course, which addresses positive aspects of the experience, aspects of the program that were less successful and suggestions for improving the program. 

Spring 2024 Sidecar Courses

 

IDS 290R-1

Preformance on Demand 

Instructors

Mark Risjord (ILA), Gary Motley (Music)

Teaching Assistant(s)

Sean Malhotra , Jane Chakraborty, Ahana Narayanan

Meeting Time

M 4:00pm - 5:25pm


IDS 290R-2

Demystifying Gut Microbiome

Instructors

Arri Eisen (ILA), Amanda Freeman 

Teaching Assistant(s)

Sean Malhotra , Saanvi Nayar 

Meeting Time

M 2:30pm - 3:45pm 

 

IDS 290R-3

Dreams: Theories of Interpretation and Reflection

Instructors

Cynthia Blakeley (ILA), Anastasiia Grigoreva (Psychology)

Teaching Assistant(s)

Elizabeth Martin, Kennedie Black

Meeting Time

F 1:15pm-2:45pm

 

IDS 290R-4

Reading for Pleasure 

Instructors

Kim Loudermilk (ILA), Sonal Nalkur (Sociology)

Teaching Assistant(s)

Paige Scanlon, Sarah Lim, Miranda Wilson 

Meeting Time

F 1:00pm - 2:15pm

IDS 290R-5

Emergency Poetry 

Instructors

James O'Shea, Peter W Wakefield (ILA) 

Teaching Assistant(s)

Giang Dang, Vrushali Thakkar 

Meeting Time

F 1:30pm -4:00pm

IDS 290R-6

Ancient Medicine 

Instructors

Louise Pratt, Bradley Wallace 

Teaching Assistant(s)

Ryan Donovan, Audrika Chattaraj 

Meeting Time

F 10:00am -11:15am

 

IDS 290R-7

Green Gentrification and the Atlanta Beltline  

Instructors

David McMillon (Economy) , Michael Rich (Political Science) 

Teaching Assistant(s)

Benjamin Cho, Grace Regnier 

Meeting Time

Th 1:00pm - 2:15pm