Community Development
Course Description This course examines methods of community development for a diverse democracy. It assesses the ways in which people join together, take initiative, and develop community-based programs, with or without assistance by outside agencies. It analyzes core concepts of community development, steps in the process, and perspectives on future practice in a society which values diversity as an asset. The course assumes that community members are active participants and competent citizens who mobilize resources and build upon strengths, rather than problems in society or passive recipients of services. Emphasis is placed on increasing involvement of traditionally underrepresented groups in…
Motivations and Movements: Exploring Careers in the Behavioral and Social Sciences
Required textbook: Focus on Community College Success , Constance Staley. Wadsworth. Description: This Learning Community Seminar is a 3-credit college level course designed to help incoming students make a successful transition to College. The Seminar enables students to reflect and explore college and career goals; introduce students to a range of college resources aimed at helping them establish academic goals; solve academic, personal and social problems; and overcome potential barriers to success; develop critical thinking, information literacy and communication skills; collaborate in active, diverse learning environments; and make connections between classroom learning and the larger community. Core Theme: “What is…
African American/Latina(o) Children’s Literature Service Learning Internship
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” -Benjamin Franklin PRIMARY COURSE OBJECTIVES Introduction to literacy education and practice with a primary emphasis on cultural diversity issues in contemporary U.S. society More comprehensive understanding of issues discussed in linked literature course Development of critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills SERVICE OBJECTIVE: According to the federal Reading Excellence Act of 1999, national assessments reflect “serious deficiencies in children’s ability to read, especially in high-poverty schools” such as those served by Service Learning Program internships. Even in wealthier schools,…
Intro to Political Science
COURSE DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVE: This course explores basic issues of political science including political theory, comparative political institutions, dominant ideologies and ideas, the importance of law, the domestic and Third World struggles for civil and political equality, and international relations. At the end of this course, each student will have: A. developed an understanding of the history of political science as well as the methods, concepts, and language which political scientists use to study and interpret politics, political regimes, ideologies, political institutions and public policies. B. developed an awareness of the structure and operation of the components of different political…
Secondary School Effective Instruction
Catalog Description 3 semester credits. A guided practicum experience including classroom instruction on learner characteristics, cooperative learning, management of student conduct, various domains of the Florida Performance Measurement System (FPMS) and the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAP). One day clinical practicum experience is required. Students are placed in schools according to the campus where the student has enrolled. Not offered in the summer. Course Connection to Conceptual Framework As reflective decision-makers, the students will make informed decisions, exhibit ethical behavior, and provide evidence of being capable professionals by appropriately interacting in the classroom with secondary school students and teachers, assisting…
Art: Elementary School
Catalog Description 2 Credits. Basic methods for teaching art in the elementary school. The development of skills and creative behavior in children. Course Connection to Conceptual Framework As a reflective decision-maker, the student makes informed and ethical decisions and provides evidence of being a capable professional by developing and presenting lessons that demonstrate a respect for the developmental characteristics of young children. Students demonstrate the ability to create artwork and evaluate historical and cultural artwork using knowledge of art elements and principles of art and aesthetic theory. Academic Service-Learning Due to the nature of the course content and the required…
Black Literatures
Course Description This course explores literature from the African diaspora – particularly West Africa, the U.S., and the Caribbean. A range of questions will guide our discussion including: What constitutes the African diaspora? What is the relationship between diaspora and nation? What are the connections between the African diasporas in the construction of a black identity? We will read fiction and drama from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Jamaica, Haiti, England, and the U.S. (among other countries) with protagonists who often look to Africa and/or the ancestors for renewal and empowerment. Among the themes we will explore are oral…
Urban Life and Culture
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE This applied anthropology course is a cross-cultural study of urbanization, urbanism, and human problems associated with metropolitan environments. Major emphasis is given to the ethnography of city life and its relationship to the practical applications of urban research, especially in the contexts of globalization and neoliberalism. Selected readings from recent, book-length urban ethnographies written by anthropologists will be used as models for presenting coherent and readable syntheses of theory, methods, and analysis of various urban issues and experiences of urban life. Documentary videos carefully selected to illustrate the diversity of urban life and culture will also…
Seminar in Nonprofit Leadership
The goal of Nonprofit Education Programs at WMU is to strengthen the capacity of leaders to carry out the missions of the organizations they serve. This is accomplished through education, community-service, and research designed to improve the contribution that public-serving organizations can make to society. Special emphasis is placed on individual and community development as the pivotal function of nonprofit organizations and collaboration as the central mode of public problem solving. Lester M. Salamon articulates the key educational and community challenge facing us today, “The central challenge, particularly the central management challenge, confronting efforts to solve our pressing societal problems…
Researching American Culture
Required Texts Lynd, Robert S., and Helen Merrell Lynd. 1929. Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. Lassiter, Eric Luke (ed)., 2004. The Other Side of Middletown. Alta Mira Press. Spradley, James. 1979. The Ethnographic Interview. Other Readings Spradley, James. 2000. “You Owe Yourself a Drunk” (optional text) **There will also be readings and other resources posted online which you can access via Blackboard Course Objectives and Learning/Service Learning Expectations Examine American culture from an anthropological perspective Identify the relation between ideals of American culture and people‘s diverse realities as Americans develop strategies and…
Industrial/Organizational Behavior
Course Objectives/Description This course offers a broad description and examination of the psychology of behavior at work, including the major theories, their applications in the work place, and research investigations of both. The course will examine job analysis, employee selection, employee training, the performance appraisal process, worker motivation, job satisfaction, worker stress, groups and teams, leadership, and human factors. A thorough understanding of social scientific research methods and current psychological research findings are emphasized. This course requires a service-learning activity. Service-learning is an educational philosophy whose goal is to enhance student learning in a more profound and lasting way by…
Interpersonal Communication
University Mission John Carroll is a Catholic and Jesuit University dedicated to developing women and men with the knowledge and character to lead and serve. Course Goals Our incredibly diverse society has changed the expectations for interpersonal competence. Continuing demographic changes in the United States are forcing us to recognize the we must become not only more culturally sensitive but also more culturally competent in our communication. In addition, increasing globalization requires that we be able to interact completely with people of different cultural backgrounds. The purpose of the course is to develop an understanding of some of the major…
Hispanic Cultural Studies
Course Description This class is a survey of pre-Columbian civilization and the impact of the Encounter with Europe, modern-socio-historical, cultural and political events which shape present-day Latin America. This semester the course will focus on cultural resistance to colonization and other forms of social injustice in Latin America. Participants will study a diversity of textual forms generated to resist oppression (poetry, songs, murals, films, tapestries). Topics for class discussion are the ownership of culture by the marginalized, cultural products as tools for empowerment; the way diverse socio-political contexts trigger different cultural responses, and political participation and involvement in human rights…
Public Engagement and Higher Education
Course Description and Objectives Welcome to Public Engagement and Higher Education! This course is designed to introduce students to the study and practice of public engagement in higher education. During this nine-week session, students and instructors will consider the civic roles of postsecondary education institutions both past and present. Special attention will be paid to contemporary philosophies and practices of engagement, and how engagement is expressed in various institutional contexts. This course is designed for both practitioners and scholars who seek to deepen their understandings about the ways in which institutions might become more productively involved with communities they serve….
Human Rights/Human Wrongs
Course Description: This course is a senior seminar on human rights. Students will be introduced to the theory and practice of human rights through the examination of human rights documents, key theoretical readings in the field and special guest lectures by human rights activists. A major component of this course will involve community-based learning (CBL). Students, with the help of our community partner, PIRC (Pennsylvania Immigrant Resource Center), will be required to work on a real asylum, Withholding of Removal, or Convention Against Torture (CAT) case. Students will work in teams of two. In the first week of the semester,…
Service-Learning in the Latino Community
Course Description: This course is service-learning based and provides an immersion opportunity in a real world Spanish-speaking environment. It is in keeping with the mission statement of the university “to educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community.” The student is required to perform hours of service as designated on the course calendar with a community partner. The American Association of Community Colleges defines Service-Learning as a combination of “community service with academic instruction, focusing on critical, reflective thinking and personal and civic responsibility. Service-learning programs involve students in activities that address…
Black Women’s Health in the Age of Hip Hop & HIV/AIDS
Overview This course will serve as the inaugural course offering under the newly established capstone service-learning course designation ADST 483. We will explore interchanges among critical race theory, black feminist thought, and black women’s health, with emphasis on the role that the HIV/AIDS crisis has played in networking these discourses at the site of hip hop-inflected literary, artistic, and musical representations of black women’s bodies. Required readings for the course will include Quinn Gentry’s Black Women’s Risk for HIV: Rough Living (2007); Tricia Rose’s Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality & Intimacy (2004); Dorie Gilbert and Ednita Wright’s…
Violence in Families
Course Description: This course explores various forms of violence in families including violence between spouses and violence of parents toward children. Factors contributing to the violence will be discussed as well as methods of preventing and/or ameliorating patterns of violence within families. Students in this course will develop an understanding of the reciprocal relationship between the family and society by exploring violence in families as a training ground for societal violence as well as how family patterns are influenced by the values and attitudes in larger society. (This course counts toward the CJS, NVS, & WGS minors.) Course Goals: The…
HIV/AIDS and Its Biological and Social Impact
PHILOSOPHY OF GENERAL EDUCATION A complex array of forces continually transforms our world. Marygrove’s general education program engages these forces, providing opportunities to examine them from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. Our objective is not only to disseminate information about forces that shape our world but also to intensify our critical thinking about them. At Marygrove we try to make certain that all the courses you take will help you develop skills that can be put to use in your professional and personal life. The classes are designed to assist you in: Strengthening writing, critical thinking, oral communication, and research…
Contemporary Issues in Youth Development and Youth Policy: International and Spanish Context, A Praxis Experience in Theory, Research, Policy and Practice
Course Prerequisites: Students should have completed one or more of the following courses: Introduction to Anthropology, Political Science. Psychology, Sociology, Economics, and/or related subject matter. In addition, students should be able to read at an intermediate to advanced level in English and Spanish. Much of the subject matter will require a high level of bilingual transferability and shifting back and forth between sources, literature, and research written in both languages. Students will also be asked to access Internet and web based sites in the United States and through resources within the European Union and European Council. Youth Development and Youth…
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