Dr. Mark Baskin, a Political Science professor at RIT Kosovo, challenges his students by giving assignments that foster independent thinking and an ability to address complex global problems in a systematic manner. 

Students think about the conflicting values and worldviews that underlay an ethical problem and examine possibilities for bringing together opposing sides through a focus on shared values. 

This assignment asks students to critically reflect on the ethics of their role in an in-class simulation. We simulate the 1999 crisis in Kosovo, especially the months leading up to the NATO decision to begin airstrikes over Kosovo aimed at preventing the wider spread of ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces of the Kosovar Albanian population. 

Students develop a financial model that calculates the Net Present Cost (NPC) of buying and operating an incandescent (the regular kind), compact fluorescent (CFL, the "swirly" kind), and an LED bulb and develop a summary of their model, including results and some discussion. 

Prior to writing the discussion paper students watched the first 25 minutes of the documentary film 'Human.'

Students are required to read 6 original psychological articles. This gives students the opportunity to gain an understanding of psychological research straight from the source (rather than through the filter of a textbook). Some of these writings are classic work from early researchers, and others are more contemporary work. All are aimed at giving students an understanding of how psychological research is conducted and reported.

The purpose of this assignment is to think more deeply about the conflicting values and worldviews that underlay controversies pertaining to ecosystem management, and to examine possibilities for bringing together opposing sides through a focus on shared values.

In an introductory sociology course, students learn that economic globalization creates differing experiences of people both within and between nations.  This assignment focuses on the uneven benefits resulting from globalization that shape migration decisions.