If you find yourself tired of taking the same classes as all your friends, the College of Liberal Arts plans to offer new courses in the fall of 2006 that are sure to stand out from the rest.

There will be 15 new liberal arts courses beginning next semester.

Offering new classes and adapting to the needs of the students “is an important part of the university mission,” said Jean Blue, the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

She explained that new courses are often introduced as “special topics,” meaning that this is their first time being offered. The rest are catalogue courses, or courses that replace a course formerly offered in the catalogue.

If the special topic classes are a success after their introduction, they may be added to the catalogue at a later date.

“This is something we do every year,” Blue said.

One of the most interesting and talked about new classes being offered in the fall is Introduction to Puppetry. This is a 200-level drama course and is taught by Adjunct Professor Robert Bresnick. The course will focus both on the construction and performance aspects of puppetry.

Bresnick stressed that puppetry is a very up and coming form of performance, citing popular examples such as Crank Yankers, Team America: World Police, and The Lion King on Broadway. Along with its growing appeal in mainstream media, Bresnick says puppetry “is still completely useful in terms of educational theater.”

If puppetry is not appealing, there are still a host of other new and interesting classes to choose from.

The math department is offering a 200-level course entitled Baseball and Statistics. This course is designed to help students learn statistics by using data from professional baseball instead of data from the business or science worlds.

The legal studies department is offering a 300-level class called Immigration Law in the 21st Century. This topic is especially important given the recent events and demonstrations involving immigration in our country.

The art department is offering a 200-level course in ceramics.

“We don’t have the facilities to do this here on campus, but students will be able to travel to the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven to do their work,” Blue said.

The goal of every department is to adapt to the needs of their students, and this is exactly what the College of Liberal Arts is trying to do by offering students these new classes for the fall of 2006.