TNDY 408V - Community Organizing for Social Change

The world is facing a number of complex, wicked problems that affect the health and well-being of communities around the world. Addressing the injustices of health disparities alone can seem overwhelming. Collaborating with partners and the communities that one serves can help generate effective and innovative solutions to these issues. This course introduces students to methods for community organizing— drawing from several disciplines including public policy, history, cultural studies, communication, health promotion and psychology. The service-learning requirement is a unique component of the course that allows students to build, apply, and reflect on their skillset for effective community organizing. Small, inter-disciplinary teams of students will partner with a local community organization to complete ten hours of service learning in-person or virtually. In addition to the service hours, reflection assignments give students the opportunity to explore what they have gained from their experience and how the skills they have gained cross-cut multiple disciplines. Through this course students will be exposed to a mindset for collaborative policy change that can be applied in multiple fields and have the opportunity to refine and reflect on their capacity to support advocacy and community collaboration. The tools students will learn in this course can be used in several settings to address a broad range of societal issues.
Units: 4
Course Type: Seminar