Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Business and Society
Business and Society is the first course in the Social Impact Core Curriculum required for Stern students. It introduces students to the evolving role business plays in society and challenges students to explore how it can and should create value. The course includes a weekly plenary session in which thought leaders present their distinct perspectives on current and historical issues related to business and society. It also includes small group discussion sessions in which students reflect critically on multiple perspectives. Students then select issues they are passionate about, conduct research and analysis to develop their own perspectives, and present them in writing.
Commerce and Culture
MULT-UB.0100
This course will explore representations of business in novels, short stories, plays, and films. By considering markets and marketing, economies and institutions, work and wealth through these cultural texts, the course will ask you to consider the impact of business within society from the experiences of individuals rather than from the perspectives of companies or economics. Through this process you will also develop your writing and critical thinking skills. The course material builds through three thematic units that we will use to frame our analyses of the texts, starting from the broad level of social institutions and how they may shape individual identity, then considering the power of culture to construct meaning, and finally narrowing to individual efforts to shape and change organizations and institutions. Each unit will culminate in a final essay.
Organizational Communication
SOIM-UB.0065
Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing
Organizational Communication and its Social Context (“OCSC”) uses a stakeholder approach to introduce and reinforce the strategic implications of communication for modern organizations. Students apply communication strategy to oral and written deliverables, engage in team projects to develop their leadership capacities, and regularly receive instructor feedback to enhance their communication effectiveness. By bridging foundational theoretical principles with active learning practice, OCSC gives students the opportunity to uncover and discover the dynamically interactive contexts in which individuals, groups, and organizations communicate.
In short, students will:
• Examine communication in society.
• Experience leadership in action.
• Explore communication strategy in practice.