New Courses for Spring 2027

How to read this list

Faculty Senate’s curriculum committee approved these courses last spring and this fall. Courses numbered x900–x990 are special topics. They can run twice before they need a permanent number, and each counts as an elective in its program unless noted. Spring 2027 classes begin January 25. The full schedule of classes posts in MyPorter on Monday, October 19, and continuing students register from November 2 by credits earned. Prerequisites are enforced at registration, and how to read them is explained in the course catalog.

Engineering, computing and technology

• CS 4810 covers attacks on microcontrollers and firmware and how to defend against them. Students take apart, and then harden, a device of their choosing. Anything with a USB port and a warranty that is about to be voided qualifies.
• CYBR 3650 takes place in the cyber range in Jarvis on a working conveyor-and-PLC rig built by last year’s capstone team. It is a lab course, and three hours a week are spent with the rig.
• DATA 3850 puts the ideas from DATA 3700 into practice. Teams audit a real hiring or lending model supplied by a regional employer, write up what they find, and learn what to do when the model is right for the wrong reasons.
• MFGE 3950 is a half-semester course on sand molding, melt practice and inspection. It ends with students running their own iron pour in the Founders Hall foundry lab. Enrollment is capped at 14.
• MFGE 4150 is taught in the Founders Hall high bay until the robotics lab opens in fall 2027. Teams design, guard and validate a robot cell that shares space with a human operator.
• PLE 3750 is the hands-on companion to PLE 4100. It covers sorting, reprocessing and designing products that are worth recycling. The course uses the injection molding line donated in September.

Health, education and the sciences

• NURS 2950 is the bridge course for the new 40-seat spring nursing cohort. It is taught mostly in the simulation hospital in the Health Sciences Center.
• ASL 2950 covers vocabulary and role-play for intake, consent and discharge conversations. It is cross-listed for nursing and rehabilitation students.
• ENVS 3650 involves sampling, flow measurement and macroinvertebrate surveys at four sites between the Millrace sluice gate and the Riverfront Trail. Students wear waders, and the department supplies them.
• EDUC 3850 covers classroom management where the furniture includes a lathe, and safety instruction that holds up with thirty 15-year-olds in the room.
• PSYC 3850 looks at trust, complacency and alarm fatigue in automated systems, with a project done alongside MFGE 4150.

Arts, humanities, business and mathematics

• HIST 3750 draws on the university archives and Dr. Martin Ekdahl’s new history of the channel. Ekdahl gives two guest sessions, and students record one oral history each.
• GRDS 3850 has students audit campus signage and propose a replacement system. Facilities has asked for the results before the Founders Hall renovation reaches its interiors.
• BUS 3850 pairs each student team with a Porter County family-owned shop whose owner is thinking about retirement. It counts toward the entrepreneurship minor.

Getting into one

If you are missing a prerequisite but have equivalent experience, ask the department for an override before your registration time. The instructor cannot add you from the waitlist on the first day. Talk to your adviser about how a special-topics course lands in your degree audit, because some programs cap the number of x9xx credits that count. Course codes link to subject lists such as Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering and Nursing.