In the News Discussion Guides: February 2017
The Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University is offering a series of resources that will act as framings for a few issues that developed over the past several weeks, including possible readings, sources, and discussion questions. Think of these as starting points for purposeful, educational classroom and co-curricular discussions. Read more about the importance of these conversations in our blog post on the power of these teachable moments Read More from the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University More on the In the News Discussion Guide Series from IDHE
Realizing Place-Based Strategies (Institute 1 – Princeton)
Steve Dubb, Senior Fellow at the Democracy Collaborative shared this presentation on place-based strategy at the Civic Action Planning Institute in Princeton, NJ.
History Course on Race Inequality in DC
Washington, DC is “a city where the American dream and the American nightmare, pass each other daily, on the street and do not speak,” wrote an anonymous American some time back. Today she could be speaking about the plight of many in the nation’s capital: African Americans, Latin Americans, the homeless, many of them veterans, and others who had not benefited from the American Dream, in this city. In fact, DC is only capital city in the world where voters do not select their own voting representative to the national Congress. In this course, we will explore the “other Washington”…
Sociology SL Course: US Poverty, Welfare & Social Justice
Student Course Learning Goals: Students will be able to define poverty and identify the underlying causes and consequences of poverty in the US. Students will gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of poverty on people’s lives, particularly in the Cleveland area. Students will learn to critically evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of social welfare policies & programs. Students will be able to discuss various strategies for reducing poverty, including the programs at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) Students will work together in research teams and learn how to conduct a program evaluation for LMM Connection to the Department Student Learning…
Community Issues SL Course
Course Description and Objectives The course will draw from students’ collective learning experiences in their community-based service learning. Core concepts about democracy in America, the land-grant university’s historic mission, and about how everyday citizens collectively can build a strong democracy will be introduced. Students will also be introduced to the range of ways that citizens participate in democratic decision-making and will practice some of these forms. The course is based on the reciprocal relationship between practice in the community and readings, reflections, and exercises in class. Assignments ask you to reflect on your community-based practice and apply concepts in the…
Campus Election Engagement Project – Engagement Needs Assessment
Campus Electoral Engagement Needs Assessment
Towards the recognition and integration of action research and deliberative democracy
This article asserts that the shared underlying value systems of action research (AR) and deliberative democracy (DD) can mutually reinforcing, with the former especially being a powerful means for engaging the academy in the latter. AR and DD are both grounded in principles of inclusion, equity, the co-generation of knowledge, and action. In making the case for the integration of AR and DD, the authors describe their commonalities and place AR in the context of other forms of engaged scholarship. They review outreach scholarship, community-based research and other forms of participatory research, examining each in terms of their alignment with…
Public Policy: The Homeless
The University of San Francisco’s public policy course on the homeless integrates service, participation in the political process and community needs and concerns. Guided by Professor of Politics, Roberta Ann Johnson, and SIster Marie Ignatius Clune of campus ministry, students serve the San Francisco homeless population for a minimum of four hours per week for eleven weeks in addition to the accompanying 3-unit course. The course also included readings and guest lectures by a government agency representative, shelter coordinators and advocates for the homeless. Students kept journals to evaluate their efforts and to relate their volunteer experiences. According to Professor…
The Great River Greening Project: urban land restoration projects
The Great River Greening Project, a non-profit community-based organization, where biology students will participate in urban land restoration projects. This project is paired with the “”Race to Save the Planet”” learning community, an integration of the Environmental Science, Ethics, and Environment, Politics and Society courses into one interdisciplinary course. The Great River Greening Project
Public policy and social change
A key element of citizenship is the knowledge that work in the community is connected to larger issues of policy and social change. Students enrolled in POLS 320 Problems in State and Local Politics at Valparaiso University assist in the development of a measuring tool which they use to gather and analyze data related to particular public policy issues. The data is then utilized by public planners in Valparaiso, highlighting the connection between the students service and the future policies of their community. From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American…
Community and Political Power
Course Objectives This course is really about sources and uses of power in civic or public life. What is common and what is different between political power (power exercised by an elected government (executive, legislative and administrative) and community-based power, i.e., power derived from civic associations, formal and informal, intended to affect civic life? What is the interaction between political and civic power? The focus will be on local government and community – where decisions often seem to have a more proximate and immediate impact on our lives. Political Power will look at: What does it take to get elected…
The Age of Reform: America from 1876 to 1920
THE HONOR TRADITION: Like all your classes at Converse, in this class, you are bound by the Converse Honor Tradition. You may review the honor tradition in the Student Handbook. With regard to class work, remember that you are honor-bound not to cheat or plagiarize, not to lie about your work, and to report others if they violate the honor tradition. Remember that you must pledge all written work. I will not grade work if it is not pledged. COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES: This course examines American history from 1876, the end of Reconstruction, to the end of World War…
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…
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,…
The Road to the White House 2008
Course Objective: To study the history and politics of U.S. presidential campaigns, including an intensive internship in New Hampshire leading up to the first-in-the-nation primary. In our seminars we will discuss topics such as the history of the presidential nominating process, the national conventions, voter turnout, campaign finance, third party and independent candidates, the electoral college, and the nature of presidential campaigns. This is a six-credit course: three credits for the presidential campaign internship and three credits for the seminar about presidential campaigns. Course Meeting Times and Locations: Note that this is a by arrangement course. We will have our…
Environmental Politics
Political Science 326 Environmental Politics Ecological Ethics/Activism/Justice University of Hawai’i West 0ahu Instructor: Joshua Cooper Classes: Thursday 7:00 p.m. 9:45 p.m. Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday 12:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. or upon appointment Office Phone Number: 984 3331 Email: Joshua@hawaii.edu “Only when the last tree has died and the last river poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” -Cree Elder “This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites family. All things are connected. Whatever…
Strategies for Sustainable Development
STANFORD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE POLS 104. URBAN POLICY: STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WINTER 2002 Luis Ricardo Fraga, Associate Professor Office: Encina Hall, Rm. 444, 723 5219, Luis.Fraga@stanford.edu COURSE DESCRIPTION This course focuses on the identification and consideration of strategies for sustainable development in contemporary central cities in the U.S. Sustainable development is understood to include at least five distinct types of resources: human capital, social capital, fiscal capital, policy capital, and political capital. When major cities began to develop in the U.S. in the 1840s, the concentration of peoples, fiscal capital, industries, businesses, and political power presented…
Gender and Global Politics
Dr. Neathery-Castro (jneathery@mail.unomaha.edu) ASH 378 5:30-7:10 M/W My Office Hours: M/W 4:30-5:30pm, or by appointment University of Nebraska at Omaha ASH 275, 554-3611 Spring 2000 Course Overview This course examines to what extent women participate in the decisions that shape the political and economic world and the goals of women in politics. While an existing course at UNO looks exclusively at female political participation in the United States, this course connects gender politics to both comparative and international relations literatures. We will examine gender s impact on political interests and how foreign domestic and international institutions shape policy results in…
The Politics of San Francisco
San Francisco Political Issues: Housing and Economic Development (Political Science 475.1) San Francisco Urban Institute San Francisco State University Instructors: Dr. Brian Murphy, Political Science, Urban Institute Mr. Hadley Roff, former Deputy Mayor, San Francisco Mr. Calvin Welch, San Francisco Information Clearing House Ms. Sharen Hewitt, San Francisco Housing Authority Mr. Gordon Chin, Chinatown Community Development Corp .Introduction: This course offers San Francisco State University undergraduates an opportunity to study the recent political history of San Francisco, with a particular focus on the economic and social context within which policy debates and political engagement have emerged. More critically, the course…
Human Services Practicum I and II
A year sequence (may be less extensive for students not majoring in Social Work or Society and Justice) designed to prepare students to become entry-level human service practitioners, the practicum is an intensive field experience in human services and community agencies. The field experience will be supervised by agency field instructors in cooperation with the Director of Practicum Programs. The student will be expected to spend sixteen hours each week (two full days) in a specified human services agency. Non-majors may enroll in a 3 credit hour practicum which requires them to be in a placement for one day or…
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