It is the premise of this course that leadership is a concept worth trying to understand as a process in which all can participate to varying degrees.  The underlying philosophy can be summarized as follows:

1. we can identify characteristics of leadership;
2. These characteristics are “learned” in some way that we can understand; and
3. we can nurture this learning experience in a formal academic environment.

From the definition leadership printed at the top of the syllabus, it should be clear that this course has a strong civic engagement component.  Our understanding of leadership is grounded in the perception that all of us have the capacity and responsibility to contribute to the communities of which we are a part.  We will explore how we do this throughout the semester.

This raises two questions.  What will we learn?  How will we learn it?

Experts in pedagogy (the art or science of teaching) have classified learning into two general categories: deep learning and surface learning.  Each has its own characteristics, one matrix of these follows (Source: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/deepsurf.htm):

Deep  Learning vs. Surface  Learning

Focus is on “what is signified” vs. Focus is on the “signs” (or on the learning as a signifier of something else)

Relates previous knowledge to new knowledge vs. Focus on unrelated parts of the task

Relates knowledge from different courses vs. Information for assessment is simply memorized

Relates theoretical ideas to everyday experience vs. Facts and concepts are associated unreflectively

Relates and distinguishes evidence and argument vs. Principles are not distinguished from examples

Organizes and structures content into coherent whole vs. Task is treated as an external imposition

Emphasis is internal, from within the student vs. Emphasis is external, from demands of assessment

It is our intention to focus our attention on the practices most closely associated with deep learning.  Toward this end we will employ a combined lecture, discussion, and service-learning format.  I call this “triangulated learning.”  Students will play an active role in determining the quality of the course within the specified parameters.

Triangulated learning in this particular course is a pedagogical strategy used to undertake deep learning within the context of leadership education.  Objectives and expectations: this course is designed to help you reflect on elements of leadership within both theoretical and experiential contexts. This requires active learning and participation on the part of every student.

• Help develop skills of critical inquiry
• Learn about theories of leadership
• Participate in activities where you will practice leadership skills
• Use theory to inform practice and practice to inform theory
• Reflect on your understanding of leadership and how it may apply to your life

Finally, this is an interdisciplinary course.  As such, we will explore leadership and its implications across the domains of the humanities/fine arts, sciences, and social sciences throughout the course.

Meeting the Goals and Objectives

In this section of ID315 the three sides of the triangle that we employ are:

• Common readings
• Service-learning/experiential learning
• Discussion among peers and with the instructor

If we employ these sides successfully we have the opportunity to achieve deep learning about civically engaged leadership and about ourselves in the context of leadership.  At least that is our goal.

This is a goal that requires collaboration among a number of partners: the instructor, student colleagues, and community partners.  But by far the most important of these is you, the individual student, and your commitment.

For some students perhaps the least familiar aspect of triangulated learning is the service-learning/experiential learning component.  In this course we rely primarily on two venues: Community Builders and individualized service projects (ISPs).

What is COMMUNITY BUILDERS?

Community Builders:  Fostering Intergenerational Civic Engagement (CB) was established in 2001 by three collaborating partners: Wartburg college students enrolled in this course, the 6th grade classes of the Waverly-Shell Rock School District and a group of adult volunteers, mostly retirees in the Waverly community.  Since its inception two more collaborating partners have joined, the 6th class of St. Paul’s School in Waverly, and Self-Help International, a nongovernmental organization which works the local populations in Ghana and Nicaragua to address rural poverty.  CB was created to form intergenerational learning communities focused on understanding and appreciating the relationships of individuals to communities and being civically engaged in communities both in a local and a global context.  See the appendix for more information about CB.

What are Individualized Service Projects?

Some students prefer to work on specific projects they have identified that meet the criteria of connecting leadership and civic engagement with the triangulated learning model.  This is certainly an option with instructor approval.  Guidelines for ISPs are found in the appendix.

Required Reading

Heifetz, R. & M. Linsky.  2002.  Leadership on the Line.

Moses, R. & C. Cobb.  2001.  Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project

Waldstein, F.  Unpublished.  “Triangulated Learning: A Bridge for Deep Impact Pedagogy and Leadership Education.”

Additional articles and other materials will be assigned as needed.

Assignment-Graded/PDF-Point value

Personal def. of leadership-PDF-10

Triangulated Learning wrksht-PDF-10

LoL wrksht #1-PDF-20

ISP Placement forms -See “my.-Wartburg”

Journal entry-PDF-20

Journal entry-graded-20

LoL wrksht #2-PDF-20

LoL wrksht #3-PDF-20

Journaling wrksht #1-PDF-20

LoL integrative essay #1-graded-100

RE wrksht #1-PDF-20

Service proj. present. wrksht #1-PDF-20

RE wrksht #2-PDF-20

RE integrative essay #2-graded-100

SL-9 wrksht #1-PDF-20

SL-9 integrative essay #3-graded-100

CBI, CBII, ISP eval.*-graded-100

Final present. material- PDF-20

Peer evaluation-graded-80

- -720

* Community Builders & Individualized Service Project grading scale (100 pts total)

• Community Builders Evaluation materials provided by Bill Soesbeo
  • Personal journals (10%)
  • Journal replies (20%)
  • Community Builders surveys (10%)
  • Teacher and Adult Volunteer surveys (10%)
  • Evaluation by School Partnerships Coordinator (50%)
• Individualized Service Projects (ISP).  See appendices B-1 to B-3
  • ISP placement form (10%)
  • Personal journals (20%)   See Appendix C
  • Site supervisor evaluation (20%)
  • Self-evaluation/reflection (20%)
  • Instructor evaluation (30%)

The bulk of your grade for this course will be determined by a series of integrative essays which you will write, evaluation by peers in your class, and your service project (whether that be Community Builders I, Community Builders II or Individual Service Projects).

Other elements of the class are required and graded P/D/F and are not factored into your grade unless you fail to complete the assignment as required (including timeliness).  Elements graded P/D/F include but are not necessarily limited to worksheets designed to help stimulate conversation with respect to reading assignments, journal entries, and attendance at certain events.

Timeliness is an essential characteristic of leadership.  In addition, this is a fast-paced course with many different activities.  Administrative necessity requires that assignments be completed in a timely manner.  All assignments are due at 1:00^PM on the dates they are due unless otherwise noted.  Assignments must be completed in Microsoft Word and submitted to the “Coursework” section of “My Wartburg.”  The instructor reserves the right not to accept assignments that are late or to impose a point penalty at his discretion.  In addition, you are expected to be in your seat and ready to go at 1:00^PM.  Peer learning requires everyone’s commitment to this goal.

Timely Feedback

Evidence indicates that timely feedback is important for the promotion of learning.  But what constitutes timely feedback?  Much of it is dependent upon the instruments used for evaluation.  A bubble exam that is machine scored can easily be returned within a day.  Evaluating a group of 25-35 essays cannot be done in a day.  A week would be considered timely using this kind of evaluation tool.  Late work will be reviewed as it can be fit in.

In ID315 we use only those evaluation tools that are consistent with the principles of deep learning.  Consequently, the student is asked to appreciate that the feedback loop will necessarily be longer than would be the case for some other assessment instruments.

A NOTE ABOUT INTEGRATIVE ESSAYS

What is a good integrative essay?  Several factors determine the answer.  First, it meets meeting the minimum requirements Note: all writing assignments must be typed.  Normal margins (1” on all sides) and font sizes (10, 11, or 12) are required.  Second, it means employing the rules of grammar and usage that reflect the ability of an educated person to communicate effectively.  Third, it means proofreading and editing your work.  Fourth, and most important, it means demonstrating those skills which demonstrate integrative learning.  This includes employing the skills of critical inquiry to find relevant connections among different readings, experiences and activities, and bringing them to bear on the immediate assignment at hand.  If you follow the rubric and meet its specifications you will be successful in meeting the essay requirement.  Rubrics may be found in the “Handout” section of “My Wartburg.”

The purpose of these essays is to accomplish the following:

• provide you with the opportunity to write as a means for improving your writing skills;
• encourage you to use your skills of critical inquiry to evaluate the topic under discussion within the context of contemporary leadership theory as discussed in the readings and in class.

Students often ask, what is the appropriate length of an essay for purposes of completing the assignment?  This is difficult to specify with precision.  From reading literally thousands of essays over many years a general rule of thumb is that you should be able to satisfactorily address the assignment in approximately 1,000-1500 words of text.

See Appendix A for the evaluation rubric used for grading integrative essays.

A NOTE ABOUT PEER EVALUATION

Evaluating others and being evaluated by others is something we experience throughout our lives.  However, many of us do not have the opportunity to engage in responsible evaluation of our peers in college.  This course is designed, in part, to address that concern.  As the instructor, I will, of course, be responsible for grading student performance.  But it is appropriate in a course that focuses on peer learning and leadership to share, in a limited way, some of that responsibility to give students the experience.  In the past, some students have not demonstrated sufficient capacity to distinguish among contributions among peers (e.g., awarding each member of the group the same point value).  This is always obvious because it stands out in comparison with those students who do take this important exercise seriously.  Consequently, I retain the right to make adjustments to your peer evaluation score depending upon my perception of the seriousness with which you have evaluated your peers.  If you follow the peer evaluation  rubric you should not have any difficulty.

Students Working on Their Leadership Certificate Portfolios

This course is tailor-made for students working on their LCPs.  Students in the past have used it to fulfill any number of components including the group work component, the service component, and the diversity component.  Indeed, many of the integrative essays and journal requirements have been easily adapted to complete the reflective essays necessary to satisfy components of the LCP.  Take advantage of this opportunity and maximize the value of the work you will be doing by keeping the LCP focus in mind.

REMINDER:  This syllabus and schedule is tentative and subject to revision at the discretion of the instructor.All members of the Wartburg community are expected to conform to the Wartburg College Honor Code.

INTEGRATIVE ESSAY EVALUATION RUBRIC

Category:  Language Usage (spelling, grammar, usage, etc.)—25%

ID315 % points:  100-90 Almost no or no errors which clearly demonstrate proofreading and editing.  89-80 Some errors in language usage that could have been corrected with closer proofreading and editing. 79-70 Multiple errors in language usage which indicate little evidence of proofreading or editing. 69-60 Barely acceptable, difficult to determine writer intent.  <60 Not appropriate for college-level work.

Category:  Synthesis of ideas—20%

ID315 % points:  100-90 Use of multiple sources which are integrated into a coherent expression of connected ideas. 89-80 Use of multiple sources but they are not very well integrated or connected. 79-70 Only one or two sources are used and there is little connection between them. 69-60 Only one or two sources are used and there is no apparent connection between those that are used. <60 Not appropriate for college-level work.

Category:  Originality of Thought—20%

ID315 % points:  100-90 Ideas and concepts expressed link course content originally and creatively. 89-80 Ideas and concepts indicate familiarity with course content. 79-70 Ideas and concepts merely represent summarizing what was read or experienced with little critical thought. 69-60 The writing merely summarizes what was read or experienced without expressing ideas or concepts. <60 Not appropriate for college-level work.

Category: Completeness & Clarity of Thought—35%

ID315 % points:  100-90 The reader clearly understands what the reader is trying to communicate. 89-80 Reader generally understands writer’s intent although clarity and completeness could be further developed.79-70 Reader is left guessing at the writer’s intent. 69-60 The reader is unable to determine the writer’s intent. <60 Not appropriate for college-level work.

Appendix B-1

Independent Service Project Form

ID315 Community Service Site Placement Form(To be completed and returned electronically)

Term/Year:

Name of Student:

Name of the placement site:

Type of activity performed by the placement site:

Client group served by the placement site:

Size and nature of placement site (number of staff, number of locations, profit/nonprofit organization)

Name and title of the specific site supervisor with whom the student will be working

Site Supervisor Contact information:

The specific nature of the type of work the student will be undertaking.

Approximate number of hours per week devoted to the service project and total number of hours.

Appendix B-2

Community Service Self-Assessment

Community Service Project Survey for ID315

Your Name:

Brief description of the project undertaken:

Approximate number of service hours provided by each student (hours per week; total hours)

Name of adult contact associated with this project:

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 indicating strong agreement and 1 indicating strong disagreement, will you please answer the following questions:

The adult contact has demonstrated enthusiasm for this project.

The adult contact was helpful in providing guidance for the project.

I would be pleased to work with this person again.

Please address the following:

1. Identify that aspect of the project with which you are most satisfied and explain why.
2. Identify that aspect of the project with which you are least satisfied and explain why.
3. If you were starting over what would you do differently with respect to this project?
4. In what ways did this project encourage you to invoke your skills of critical inquiry?
5. What did you learn about leadership and civic engagement by undertaking this project?
6. What letter grade would you give yourself for this project (with a brief explanation why)?

Appendix B-3

Independent Service Project Form

Site Supervisor Evaluation of Wartburg Leader

Student Leader’s Name

Dates of service

Please respond to the items listed below.  A 5 means you strongly agree with the statement.  A 1 means you strongly disagree with the statement.  Write “NA” if the item does not apply.

Student was well prepared.

Student was dressed appropriately for the setting.

Student kept on task.Student was self-motivated and required little supervision.

Student worked well with others.

The student fulfilled his/her obligations in a timely and responsible manner.

I would be happy to work with this student again if the opportunity presented itself.

Other comments:

Signature

(Please return in the stamped, self-addressed envelope enclosed.)

Appendix C

Journal Evaluation Criteria

The criteria for evaluating journals are set forth below and include the following components:

Degree to which entries demonstrate the skills of critical inquiry and deep learning (25%)

Degree to which entries relate to Wartburg’s definition of leadership (25%)

Degree to which journal entries relate to the literature and theoretical frameworks used in class. (25%)

Frequency of journal entries (25%)

APPENDIX D

Community Builders Executive Summary

Community Builders: Fostering Intergenerational Civic Engagement is an ongoing collaborative experiential learning project designed to foster greater understanding of and appreciation for the importance of community both locally and globally.  Wartburg College students work with elementary students, a local nongovernmental organization (Self-Help International) and senior citizens to meet the mutually reciprocal needs of all the collaborating partners.  The purpose of this project is to use the assets of community members with different cognitive, social, civic, and intergenerational backgrounds and skills to build and strengthen the community they share both locally and beyond.  These “community builders” are individuals who learn from one another in the quest to attain this common goal while developing and enhancing their own respective skill sets, which add value to their individual lives and the larger communities of which they are a part.  Beyond the learning that takes place regarding the value of community, these engaged citizens contribute to the strengthening of community by undertaking the project goals articulated.  This creation of “social capital” is consequential to the health and well-being of a democratic society.

The project has three interrelated and mutually reinforcing goals.  The first is to build intergenerational learning communities designed to develop and practice the skills of civic engagement and appreciate the value that it can add to the life of the individual citizen.  The second is to address specific educational needs and interests of all participants in the project, including enhanced reading and mapping skills, social and civic skills, and the skills of critical inquiry—all significant attributes to sustainable democratic society.  The third is to recognize and use the multifaceted talents and skills that each participant brings to the project.  The rationale for identifying these three objectives is to help participants appreciate that healthy, positive communities depend on the recognition that all individuals have needs that communities can help satisfy.  Simultaneously, all community members have the capacity to contribute to the quality of community life and deserve the opportunity to do so.

Wartburg participation falls within two contexts: primary participants and secondary participants.  The primary participants are students working under the supervision of faculty.  These students are direct participants in the learning communities throughout the project.  The secondary participants are students who work under the supervision of the community service coordinator and faculty in the mathematics & computer science and communication arts programs to provide logistical and technical support to the work of the learning communities.  This includes the development and maintenance of an Internet home page which serves as a communications tool for the project.

Community Builders was initiated in the fall of 2001 through a grant from the Consortium for the Advancement of Private Higher Education.  Ongoing costs of the project are met by the various constituent partners. Community Builders has been the recipient of numerous recognitions and awards including a “MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship.”

As you work on your own research – the primary focus of the class – we will examine such research methods as interviews, observation, and focus groups.  You will have opportunities to practice using these methods in class in order to understand each method’s potential strengths and weaknesses.  In addition to learning how to design, carry out, and write up your own study, I would also like you to develop the ability to read research critically.

Your research will takes us behind the scenes of everyday life portrayed in what we read and introduces another level of complexity.  Just as it is useful to use different research methods than the ones you are accustomed to using, it is equally important to examine how people outside your field of vision have addressed the questions we raise.  These questions may not always be the same, but they may be similar.  For example, you might study inequities in education as an economic problem, looking at such factors as income in a particular neighborhood.  Or you might study educational inequities as a curricular problem; thus, you might analyze the content of different curricula within and across schools.  Or it’s possible to explore educational inequities as a social problem, which might lead you to visit students’ homes, observe the presence or absence of books, or ask parents how they go about preparing their children for school.

Finally, doing community-based research affords you the opportunity to do work that can be meaningful to community partners who will be anxious to apply what you learn together.  More than using others’ texts as sources of evidence for your claims, you can offer your own unique data to address a question or problem that others would not have access to.

Learning Goals

By the end of the term, you should be able to accomplish the following:

• Analyze existing research with a specific focus or rationale, questions asked, methods used, and conclusions drawn
• Formulate a researchable question
• Frame your question so that others see it as important and connected to a real problem in education
• Decide on an appropriate method (or methods) to use in collecting and analyzing data
• Explain the benefits and limitations of different research methods
• Write up a research study consistent with the standards of the field of inquiry (e.g., social science)
• Interpret your results appropriately, spelling out limitations and implications of your research
• Discuss and apply ethical standards to your research

Required Texts

Emerson, R., Fretz, R., & Shaw, L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Greene, S. & Lidinsky, A. (2008). From inquiry to academic writing: A practical guide. Boston: Bedford Press.

Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as Qualitative Research. A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences (3rd Ed). NY: Teachers College Press.

Assignments

Rhetorical Analysis Papers: I would like you to analyze the research articles you use to generate ideas for your semester-long study and that you will eventually use to write your review of the relevant research.  The primary purpose of these papers, 2-3 single-spaced pages, is to help you examine important components of empirical studies that you will need to address in your own research.

Summaries of Articles:  I would also like you to submit summaries of articles you are reading and that will be part of the literature review that you will write as part of your research project.  These summaries will be more focused than rhetorical analysis papers.  In your summary, you should describe the relevance of the article to your research, identifying the ways the author(s) has defined the problem, described the methodology used to answer the research questions motivating the study, and what the author(s) found.

Research Log.  This is an informal assignment that will serve as a vehicle for you to record, describe, reflect, and critically evaluate your action research experience throughout the semester.  More than a chronological log, however, the research journal entry should catalog observations, ideas, challenges, and successes of your project.  I’ll ask you to bring the log with you to meetings you have with me after you begin collecting data.

Research Project.  Your project is the central part of the course.  I expect that you will base your project on some type of original research, using one or more of the methods we will discuss during the term: observation, field notes, interviews, and focus groups.  You should develop what you write by reviewing current research related to the questions you raise, explain the theory that frames your study, and address the consequences of what you find for those you study and for yourselves.  The finished paper should be 25 pages including references but not appendices such as transcripts or consent forms.

You will work on this project in stages, submitting the following during the course of the semester. (See pp. 22 – 24 for a further explanation of this assignment):

• An idea sheet in which you explain the purpose, relevance, audience, and value of your study
• Research log in which you record what you observe and describe your impressions.  You will need to keep these two purposes separate, and we will discuss strategies for doing so.
• A research proposal with working bibliography in which you provide a rationale for doing your study.  The proposal includes:
  • A review of relevant studies
  • The research question(s) motivating your study
  • Methods for collecting and analyzing data
  • Implications
• A revised proposal with annotated bibliography
• First draft, second draft, and final draft
• Oral presentation of results

Grading

Participation includes contributing in each class, providing constructive responses in draft groups, and meeting all deadlines.  I will lower this grade for those who don’t meet deadlines (I am doing this for your own good!)  It is especially important to meet these deadlines because you are to complete a research project in a relatively short amount of time; sticking to the schedule is one way to support the quality of your final research effort.  One absence will be excused; please inform me if you will not be in class.

Rhetorical analyses (10%)

Idea Sheet (10%)

Research Log (10%)

Proposal (20%)

Research Paper (40%)

Presentation of Results (10%)

Office Hours

I will arrange regular meetings with you to discuss your work in progress.  You should also feel free to make an appointment to see me at any time.  The best way to reach me is via e-mail.

Academic Honesty

In 1989, Notre Dame undergraduates and faculty published an Academic Code of Honor Handbook to express their shared commitment to respect and honor the intellectual and creative contributions of each individual.   Honor Code Pledge: “As a member of the Notre Dame community, I will not participate in or tolerate academic dishonesty.” For more details, visit: http://www.nd.edu/~hnrcode

Special Circumstances

Please speak with me as soon as possible if you have a documented disability and have registered with Disability Services. Students who are not registered can do so by contacting the Office of Disability Services: http://disability services.nd.edu/

Calendar

Identifying Issues and Forming Questions

Wed. Aug. 25

Discuss Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohue, “Community-Based Research and Higher Education” and Stoecker & Beckman’s “Making Higher Education Civic Engagement Matter in the Community.”

Discuss issues identified by the Community-School Collaborative.

What is research?  What is research for?  What distinguishes community-based research from other types of studies?

What are some possible benefits and limitations or challenges in pursuing this type of inquiry?

Mon. Aug. 30

Attend Meeting at Robinson Center from 6 – 8pm to meet with representatives from the South Bend Community School Corporation.

Bring in a research article you locate on the Hesburgh Library database that focuses on an issue that you may be interested in pursuing.

Discuss the role that a review of relevant research plays and the notion of academic writing as “conversation” as discussed in Chapter One, “Starting with Inquiry: Habits of Mind of Academic Writers,” in Greene & Lidinsky, From Inquiry to Academic Writing.

Share in groups: How does the author(s) whose article you read define, develop, and address a given problem?  How would you characterize the “conversation?” What contribution does the article make to the discussion of the problem that others have addressed?  How would you address the problem?

Wed. Sept. 1

Discuss Chapter 4, “Identifying Issues and Forming Questions” in Greene & Lidinsky and Stoecker’s “The Goose Approach to Research” from Research Methods for Community Change.

What are some strategies for identifying problems, issues, and gaps?  What constitutes a “good” research question? What’s theory got do with it?

Mon. Sept. 6

One-to-one meetings.

Idea Sheets Due.

Share in groups: what is the writer’s topic?  issue?  question? What’s at stake in addressing this question?

Wed. Sept. 8

Submit Rhetorical Analysis of an article focusing on the issue you identify in your idea sheet.

Discuss the structure of article introductions in Chapter 5, “From Formulating to Developing a Thesis,” in Greene & Lidinsky.

Share in groups: Is the writer filling a gap? building on and extending prior work? correcting a misconception?  Is the purpose to build upon, extend, or challenge theory, methodology, or conclusions that researchers have drawn?

Mon. Sept. 13

One-to-one meetings.Discuss Madison’s “Do I really Need a Method”? in Critical ethnography: method, ethics, and performance.Submit Revised Idea Sheet with a summary of a research article you read that is related to your research.How do we decide what methods to use in answering our research questions? What methods can best answer the questions we ask as researchers?

Wed. Sept. 15

Start making contacts with teachers and principles, making appointments, and visiting the site.

Discuss both “Interviewing” and “Technique Is Not Everything, but It Is A Lot” in Seidman’s book, Interviewing as Qualitative Research and “Interviewing” in Weiss’s  Learning from Strangers.

Discuss transcript of interviews that I will distribute.

What is the value of stories in doing research?  What are some strategies for conducting an effective interview?  What do we need to account for in developing a script?

Mon. Sept. 20

Bring in a script of your own and conduct an interview with one person in class, focusing on an educational issue that you find important.

What are the strengths and limitations of conducting an interview? What principles can and should inform an interview script?

Wed. Sept. 22

Discuss “Focus Groups” in Chapter 11 in Greene & Lidinsky.

Discuss transcript of a focus group that I will distribute.

Submit summaries of at least two articles that are helping you to refine your research question and method for collecting your data.

Why use focus groups?  What does videotape reveal that a written transcript does not?  How would you describe the strengths and possible limitations of focus groups?

Mon. Sept. 27

Conduct a focus group outside of  class and report what you found in class.

What are some ways to initiate and sustain focus group discussion?

Wed. Sept. 29

Discuss Chapter 11, “Writing a Proposal,” in Greene & Lidinsky.

What are some guiding principles for writing a literature review and a method section?  How does one envision the discussion and implications before actually doing the study?

Mon. Oct. 4

One-to-one meetings.

Discuss Chapter 4, “Creating Scenes on the Page,” in Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw’s Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes

Submit summaries of at least two articles that are helping you to develop your research question and method for collecting your data.

What are some techniques for describing the settings you visit, presenting dialogue that you listen to, for characterizing individuals you write about?

Wed. Oct. 6

Start Collecting Data (Who do you still need to contact and get commitments from?)

Draft of proposal including working bibliography, consent forms, and drafts of questions or interviews, focus groups, and/or surveys due.

See Ch. 7 in Greene and Lidinsky for APA formatting.

Share proposals in small groups: What is the issue/question?  What methods would best answer the question?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of these methods?

Mon. Oct. 11

One-to-one meetings.

Discuss Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, “For Whom? Qualitative Research, Representations and Social Responsibilities” and Seidman’s “The Path to Institutional Review Boards and Informed Consent.”

What are the ethical concerns of doing research?  For example, what does “informed consent” mean?

Wed. Oct. 13

Discuss Caspe, Lopez, & Wolos’s “Family involvement in elementary school children’s education” and Seidman’s “Analyzing, Interpreting, and Sharing Interview Material.”

What principles can and should guide the analyses of data?

Mid-Semester Break,October 16-24

Mon. Oct. 25

Discuss Stoecker, Beckman, and Min’s “Evaluating the Community Impact of Higher Education Civic Engagement.”

How do we measure the impact of what we find in our research? How does CBR depart from traditional conceptions of findings?

Wed. Oct. 27

One-to-one meetings – Bring Research Log.

Revised Proposal with Annotated Bibliography due.

Present your research proposal to your group. Be prepared to talk about the research you are building on and the theory framing your study, your research question, its importance, why you are using the methods you chose, and the possible implications of doing your study.

Mon. Nov. 1

Workday for research and writing

Wed. Nov. 3

One-to-one meetings – Bring Research Log

Bring some data that you have collected.

Discuss Chapter 6, “Process Fieldnotes: Coding and Memoing,” in Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw’s Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.

What strategies can we use to analyze what we observe, especially as we try to identify themes and “code” data?

Mon. Nov. 8

Discuss Sample Research Project and Chapter 8, “From Ethos to Logos: Appealing to Your Readers” in Greene and Lidinsky.

What is the writer’s argument?  Has the writer fully contextualized this argument within a discussion of others’ research?  In what ways has the writer specifically appealed to readers’ expectations in developing the argument?

Wed. Nov. 10

Workday for research and writing

Mon. Nov.  15

First Draft Due

Your draft should include: an introduction; a literature review; your research question; a clear theoretical frame; and a method section (how you collected and analyzed your data)

Wed. Nov. 17

One-to-one meetings – Bring Research Log

Mon. Nov. 22

Workday for research and writing

Nov. 24-28

Thanksgiving break

Mon. Nov. 29

Workday for research and writing

Wed. Dec. 1

One-to-one meetings – Bring Research Log

Second Draft Due

Your draft should include:  an introduction; a literature review; a theoretical perspective; your research question; a method section; a results section; implications/Conclusion

Mon. Dec. 6

Presentations

Presentations will be 5 minutes and should include brief discussion of your research question, method, and results.  The primary emphasis should be on the two or three key points that you think are significant.

Mon. Dec. 13

Final Drafts Due

Include a 200-word abstract

References

Appleman, D. (2003). ’Are you makin’ me famous or makin’ me a fool’? Responsibility and respect in representation. In S. Greene & D. Abt-Perkins (Eds.), Making race visible: Literacy research for racial understanding (pp.71-85). NY: Teachers College Press.

Becker, H. (1998). Tricks of the trade: How to think about your research while doing it. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Bogdan, R., & Biklen, S. (1992). Qualitative research for education: An introduction.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Carspecken, P. (1996).  Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical perspective and guide.  London: Routledge.

Denzin, R, & Lincoln, Y. (2005) (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (2001). (Eds.). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

Dyson, A., & Genishi, C. (2005). On the case: Approaches to language and literacy research. NY: Teachers College Press.

Emerson, R., Fretz, R., & Shaw, L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Fine, M., Weis, L., Weseen, S., & Wong, L. (2001).  For whom? Qualitative research, representations and social responsibilities. In N. Denzin &  Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. Sage Publications.

Geertz, C. (1983) Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books.

Goodson, I., Sikes, P., & Sikes, P. (2001) Life history research in educational settings: Learning from lives. NY: Open University Press.

Lee, C., Spencer, M., & Harpalani, V. (2003). “Every shut eye ain’t sleep”: Studying how people live culturally. Educational Researcher, 32 (5), 6-13.

Lindlof, T., & Taylor, B. (2002). Qualitative communication research methods (2nd Ed). London: Sage.

Luttrell, W.  (2000).  “Good enough” methods for ethnographic research.  Harvard Educational Review, 70, 499-523.

Madison, D.S. (2005). Critical ethnography: method, ethics, and performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (Eds.). (2003). Community-based participatory research for health.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.

Peshkin, A. (2000).  The nature of interpretation in qualitative research.  Educational Researcher, 29, 5-10.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998) (Eds.) Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage Publications.

Stoecker, R. (2005).  Research methods for community change:  A Project-based approach.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications, Inc.

Stoecker, R., & Beckman, M. (2010). Making higher education civic engagement matter in the community. Retrieved from http://www.compact.org/news/making-higher-education-civic-engagement-matter-in-the-community/9748/

Stoecker, R., Beckman, M., & Min, B. H. (in press). Evaluating the community impact of higher education community engagement. In H.E. Fitzgerald, C. Burack & S. Seifer (Eds.), Handbook of engaged scholarship: The contemporary landscape (Vol. 2 Community-campus partnerships). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.

Strand, Kerry, Sam Marullo, Nick Cutforth, Randy Stoecker, and Patrick Donohue.  Community-Based Research and Higher Education.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Weis, L., Fine, M. Weseen, S., & Wong, M. (2000). Qualitative research, representations, and social responsibilities. In L. Weis & M. Fine (Eds.), Speed bumps: A student-friendly guide to qualitative research (pp. 32-66). New York: Teachers College Press.

Weiss, R. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.

Rhetorical Analysis Papers

The idea here is to pay attention to how writers develop their ideas.  In turn, you can apply what you learn from others to your own writing.

• What is the author’s purpose? (to correct a misinterpretation? to fill a gap?  to modify an existing position?)• What is the research question(s)?
• What methods (e.g., ethnographic, case study, focus group, text analysis) did the author use?
• Why did the author choose a particular method?  Would other methods have been more appropriate?  Why? Why not?
• Who are the participants? Why these participants?
• What is the context?
• Why has the author chosen this context?
• What were the results of the study?  Did the author answer the research questions?
• What claims does the author make?  To what extent are these claims supported?
• What limitations are there?  Did the author identify and successfully address them?
• What implications does the author draw?  To what extent are these implications based on the data?
• What ethical issues were involved?  Did the author acknowledge and successfully respond to them?

I’d like you to be as specific as possible in the references you make to the text you cite in answering these questions.

Possible Topics for Research Based on Discussions of the Community Education Impact Committee (Administrators from the South Bend Community School Corporation; Faculty from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s, Indiana University South Bend, Holy Cross, and Bethel College; and community partners.)

What can we do in our schools to support children and families who move from one neighborhood to another and, therefore, change schools?  What can we do for teachers and the students whose classes these students enter part way through the academic year?

How would we characterize the transition children make from programs like Head Start to kindergarten? Do students attending pre-school programs do better in school than those who do not?

To what extent does the Corporation’s “Explorer’s” program make a difference in children’s long-term achievement? (Students start this program in primary school and the first cohort is now in high school).

What issues do African American males face in school to explain low graduation rates?  What can we do to turn this around?

How can we characterize parent engagement in low-achieving schools?  How can the Corporation encourage increased parent involvement at schools?  What will motivate parents to be at school?  What do teachers need to do to welcome parents?

To what extent do current programs work? (e.g., English as a New Language; Magnet Schools at Kennedy Primary and LaSalle Intermediate; International Baccalaureate Program at Adams; Fine Arts curricula at Perley Primary, Dickinson Intermediate, and Clay High School; the Pre-College Program at Riley High School; and Parent University and Helping Hands in Title I Primary Schools).

What are some strategies that are in place (or could be in place) for rewarding teachers who achieve achievement goals set by the Corporation? What are strategies for helping teachers who do not achieve these goals?

To what extent has the Corporation implemented an effective research-based evaluation model that addresses specific instructional practice, cultural proficiency, and student growth?

Idea Sheets

The purpose of the idea sheet is to get you going.  Jot down some ideas about your area(s) of interest, explaining what in particular interests you, why you find this area of interest, and why it might be compelling to others.  For example, is there some situation or condition in teaching, teacher preparation, school finance, and the like that concerns you?  So what if we don’t understand the inequities of school financing?  So what if the drop-out rate for low-income minority students continues to grow?  So what that we don’t know the factors that motivate students to learn?  What if the situation remains the same?  What would happen if the situation changed?

Follow these steps in composing an idea sheet:

Step One: Explain your topic

Step Two: Detail the reasons why you are interested in the topic

Step Three: Describe what is at issue – what is open to dispute for you and others interested in education

Step Four: Describe for whom this issue might be significant or important (e.g., parents, teachers, administrators, policy makers)

Step Five: Formulate an issue-based question

Formulating an issue-based question can help you think through what you might be interested in writing about.  A good question develops out of an issue, some fundamental tension that you identify within a conversation. (See pp. 77-81 in Chapter 4 in Greene and Lidinsky).

For example, E.D. Hirsch believes that the best approach to educational reform (the topic or subject about which he writes) is to change the curriculum in schools.  In fact, he has argued that a curriculum based on “cultural literacy” is the one sure way to reverse the cycle of illiteracy that he has identified in urban cities.  This is Hirsch’s position.  So what is the issue?  The issue emerges in the presence of an alternative position.  As a social activist who has written extensively about educational reform, Jonathan Kozol presents an alternative: policy makers need to address reform by providing the necessary resources that all students need to learn.  He points out that students in many urban schools are reading textbooks that were published twenty years ago and the conditions in these schools make it impossible for students to learn.  In tension are two different views of what kinds of reform can reverse illiteracy.  One part of the issue is the view that educational reform should occur through changes in the curriculum; the second part is the view that reform should occur at the level of socio-economic change, change that would insure students have new textbooks and adequate conditions, such as windows that close in winter.

It is important to discuss an issue in the context of a current situation, so that readers will understand why you are raising a particular issue.  As a writer, you will need to familiarize yourself with what people are talking and writing about.  What is on people’s minds?  What is at issue for people?  What about for you?  What do your readers need to know about?  In turn, you will need to help readers understand why they are reading your essay and fulfill their expectations that what you are writing about is both relevant and timely.

Your issue-based question should be specific enough to guide inquiry into what others have written and help you accomplish the following:

• Clarify what you know about the issue and what you still need to know
• Guide your inquiry with a clear focus
• Organize your inquiry around a specific issue
• Develop an argument, rather than simply collecting information by asking “how,” “why,” “should” or the “extent to which something is true or not”
• Consider who your audience is
• Determine what resources you have, so that you can ask a question that you will be able answer with the resources available to you

You will have the opportunity to share your idea sheet with others in class and with me before you set out to write a more formal research proposal.

Writing a Research Proposal

Your proposal is an argument that justifies the reasons why you think your study is necessary and why others should be invested in the work you are doing.  You should include an introduction to the issue you are focusing on, a review of relevant research, the questions motivating your study, and some analysis of what you think the implications of your study will be.  What will your study help us to learn? Why will it matter?

Introduction

In the first several paragraphs of your introduction, you should (a) identify the issue that makes your study both relevant and timely; (b) provide a brief overview of the debate surrounding this issue, citing some prominent authors who have helped to frame the debate; (c) establish the presence of a gap in the knowledge we have about the issue you are focusing on; and (d) state the questions motivating your study.  (For an illustration of this kind of introduction, see pp. 89-97 in Chapter 5 in Greene and Lidinsky’s From Inquiry to Academic Writing).  Remember the criteria we have discussed for asking a “good question”:  (a) it should be specific enough to guide inquiry, (and know when we have answered the question); (b) it can be answered with the tools you have decided to use;  (c) it does not limit your answer to yes or no; and (d) it is organized around an issue.  (See pp. 77-81 in Chapter 4 in Greene and Lidinsky).

In your introduction, then, you should summarize the issue, explaining how this issue has led to the question motivating your research.  You should also explain why you are interested in this issue, why it is important, and what is at stake.  Why might others be interested in your attempts to answer the question?  Thus the introduction should help readers have a general understanding of the “conversation” you are entering and the ways that your research might contribute to that conversation.

Review of Research

Following the introduction, you should provide a review of the relevant research.  For a proposal, you should demonstrate that you have a firm grasp of the issue you are conducting research on as part of the argument you are making to justify your study.  The more effectively you convince readers that you know the issue, the more persuasive your argument.  Therefore, you will want to show that you have read widely, that you are aware of the most important studies conducted in your area of research – what I would call intellectual touchstones – that you are also aware of current research within the past 5 years, and that you understand the strengths and limitations of different approaches in justifying your own approach.

More specifically, you can use your review to accomplish some of the following:

• Define a key term (e.g., parent involvement) that is central to your study that others may not necessary agree upon
• Discuss the history relevant to your research (e.g., the impetus for testing in schools or the origin of a program such as Head Start)• Explain the strengths and limitations of different methodological approaches to answering similar research questions
• Analyze the different theoretical approaches that authors have used to frame the issue (e.g., psychological, sociological, socio-economic, racial)
• Identify trends in what researchers are finding or, perhaps, the lack of agreement
• Point to more comprehensive reviews of research that others have written

To organize your review, you can use “headings” that focus on themes or concepts (e.g., “Defining Parent Engagement,” “Understanding the Changing Nature of Families,” “Ways to Foster Parent Involvement,” “Challenges to Fostering Parent Involvement,” and “Methodological Issues in Research Focusing on Parent Involvement.”

Method

Your discussion of methods should be in the future. I will use (as opposed to “I hope to”).  First identify the participants in your study (e.g., principals, parents, teachers, children) by giving a brief biographical sketch, the context where your study will take place (e.g., a school), and the relevant demographic information (socio-economic background of participants, race, gender). The context is especially important since the site where your study takes place – the city, the school, and the neighborhood – shape the work and lives of the people you study.  Provide a visual description of the school and the neighborhood and offer a profile based on Census data.

Second, describe how you plan to collect your data. You will need to tell readers whether or not you will audiotape interviews and/or focus groups, and, if so, that you will transcribe the data.  If you are taking notes, you will want to explain whether or not you plan to take notes during or after the session.  Be sure to explain where you are conducting the interview or focus group and whether or not you are compensating participants.  If you are observing classes, you will need to explain how often you will observe, for how long, and whether you will be taking notes or transcribing data. And if you distribute a survey, be sure to explain how you will go about distributing the survey.

In this section on data collection procedure, you should also identify the types of secondary sources you plan to use (e.g., books and articles). What types of resources (e.g., library catalog, the Web) should you use to locate information? What search strategies (e.g., key word) will you use in getting the information you need?

Third, justify why you are using some methods of collecting data and not others.  Discuss the appropriateness of these methods given your research question.  Given the objectives you have set for yourself and the constraints of doing the research, are some methods better than others?  How will the methods you have chosen to use enable you to answer your question(s)?  These methods should reflect the theoretical perspective you are taking.

Finally, you should have some sense of how you will analyze the data you collect.  That is, readers will expect that you have done more than simply read your transcripts from interviews and focus groups to form impressions.  Therefore, you will want to explain the principles you will use to analyze the data in light of the research question(s) you are asking.

For example, your research might focus on the ways that families are involved in their children’s education.  Your interviews may include compelling narratives about the ways families get involved, but the challenge for you as a researcher is to create a conceptual framework for identifying the ways that families are involved.  This will require you to create categories based on the data you have collected and the research that others have done.  These categories may be cognitive (e.g., awareness of how their children are doing in school), affective (e.g., the relationships parents and other family members have with their children), social (e.g., the relationships families have with others in their community), and the like.

Implications

It may seem a little premature to talk about what you hope to find in your study, but it would be useful to say something about what you believe your study can help you (and readers) understand about the issue or question that has motivated your research.  More specifically, you can address how you believe your work can build upon, extend, or challenge what we know; how your work can affect teaching practice, theory, or policy; and how you study can raise questions that we have ignored.  It’s possible to say, even at an early stage, that policy, teaching, and the like can proceed if, and only if, we have studies of the sort you are conducting.

Timeline

Identify when you expect to complete specific tasks.  For example, when will you do the following:

• Contact participants and get their commitments
• Conduct interviews, focus groups, and the like
• Compile an annotated bibliography
• Transcribe the data
• Do the analyses
• Draft an introduction, methods, and findings

Consent Forms

This is what you must do if you will be working with children in your research.  I have included examples of the kind of form that you can use.  Richard Hilliard, the person at Notre Dame responsible for Human Subjects research, suggests that “at a minimum . . . parents [should] receive a letter explaining what . . . you will be doing and types of interaction.  It should have all elements of a Parental Permission form and give parents the option of not having their child participate.  I don’t think it would have to be signed and returned for the project to go forward.  Naturally, you would need permission from the schools.”

Basic Format of a Proposal

Begin with a title, followed by an introduction (no heading) in which you set up the problem you will pursue, and then a method section set up in the following way with these headings:

Introduction

Discuss Relevance of the Issue

Explain What We Know from Research and What We Need to Know

Define the Problem or Gap

Discuss How Your Research Will Address This Problem or Gap (Will you build upon and extend others’ research?  Fill the gap? Challenge prior assumptions?

Review of Relevant Research

Define Key Concepts

Give Historical Background

Discuss Methodological Issues

Reaffirm the Need for Your Study

Method

Summary of Methods

Participants

Context

Data Collection Procedure

Data Analysis Procedure

Implications

What the Study Should Help Us To Understand

Why What You Find Matters

Working Bibliography

**You should include the timeline and consent forms on separate pages.

Consent Form

You are invited to participate in a study of academic writing at the University of Notre Dame during the next four years.  You were selected from a random sample of all first-year students.  If you decide to participate, you will:

1. provide the researcher with copies of the writing you complete for every class and the assignment, when available;
2. provide up to four interviews during a given academic year;
3. allow the researcher to use excerpts from the writing you complete and interviews in publications about research with the understanding that your identity will not be revealed at any time.

In all, participation out of class will take no more than 4 hours during an academic year.

Participation is completely voluntary; you may stop participating at any time prior to completion of the project.  Should you have any questions at any time, you are welcome to contact the researcher at the above address or via e-mail.  Your decision to participate or not will have no effect on your grade in any course or prejudice your future relations with the University.  One benefit of participating in the study is that you will have the opportunity to learn important information about writing.

If you are willing to participate in this research, please read and sign the consent form below.  You will be given a copy of this form to keep.

I agree to participate in all of the procedures above.  I understand that my identity will be protected during the study and that instructors will not have access to the interviews I provide.  I also understand that my name will not be revealed when data from the research are presented in publications.  (Tapes from this study will be kept for 5 years and then destroyed.)  I have read the above and give the researcher, Stuart Greene, and his co-authors permission to use excerpts from what I write or transcripts of tapes without identifying me as the writer or speaker.

Signature

Signature of Investigator

Sample Focus Group Consent Form

Should colleges and universities take race and ethnicity into consideration when selecting new freshman from the applicant pool? What is the purpose of having preference to the minority status in admissions? What does a diverse campus offer to its students? These are some of the issues I want to discuss in today’s focus group. But before we start, let me tell you about the assignment and your involvement.

The focus group may be defined as an interview style designed for small groups of 5-7 participants. Focus groups interviews are guided discussions addressing a particular topic of interest or relevance to the group and the researcher. The informal group discussion atmosphere of the focus group interview structure is intended to encourage subjects to speak freely and completely about behaviors, attitudes, and opinions they possess. For the purposes of my research, focus groups are a way to include multiple perspectives in my paper.

This session will be recorded so that I can prove my research.  No names will be used in the final paper or in any drafts. Letters (A, B, C, etc.) will identify different speakers within the actual paper. Two focus groups–one for minority students at Notre Dame, and another for non-minority students–are being held so that I can attain opinions and viewpoints from both sides of the issue, and discuss the similarities and differences.

Some things to keep in mind during the session:

• Because I need to transcribe the dialog, try not to talk over another person
• Feel free to agree or disagree with a question, statement, or another person’s answer
• Don’t focus on the question, but on the discussion
• Avoid going off on tangents
• Be open and honest with all responses

Thank you for taking the time to be involved in my research. By signing below you give me permission to use the comments you provide for my paper. You understand that in no way will your identity be revealed, except by your minority or non-minority status. If you would like a copy of the results of the focus groups, please include your e-mail address and the documents will be sent to you.

Name                                                                               Male  Female (circle one)

Ethnicity                                                                        Class of_________

e-mail address

Research Log (From Jim Frabutt, Ph.D., Aliance for Catholic Education)

Conceive of the research log entries as a vehicle to record, describe, reflect, and critically evaluate your action research experience throughout the school year.  Each reflection serves as a project log, documenting your research activities.  More than a chronological log, however, the research journal entry should catalog observations, ideas, challenges, and successes of your project.

Below is a list of possible questions to keep in mind as you make entries:

a) What have you recently learned?

b) Are you satisfied with your progress?

c) What challenges are you facing, and how have you overcome them?

d) What do you want to do next?

e) What inhibits the outcome that you are trying to achieve?

f) Who might help overcome challenges?

g) What surprises you?

h) What, if anything, has challenged your assumptions about what is true?

References

Hendricks, C. (2006). Improving schools through action research: A comprehensive guide for educators. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

James, E., Milenkiewicz, M., & Bucknam, A. (2008). Participatory action research for educational leadership: Using data-driven decision making to improve schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Killion, J. P., & Todnem, G. R. (1991). A process for building personal theory. Educational Leadership, 48, 14-16.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Research Project Assignment

I would like you to do some research and write a paper on an issue or problem you identify in the area of education (at least 25 pages, including bibliography and appendices).  You will work on this in stages, and I will meet with you often to help you develop your project to its completion:

Idea Sheets: Sept. 3

Research Paper Proposal with working bibliography, scripts for interviews and focus groups, and draft of consent form(s): Oct. 6

Revised Paper Proposal with annotated bibliography: Oct. 27

First Draft: (introduction with a clear research question and method section describing the procedure for collecting and analyzing your data): Nov. 15

Second Draft: (Revised draft with results, discussion, implications, limitations): Dec. 1

Presentations: Dec. 6

FINAL DRAFT: Dec. 13

More than simply reporting what you find in your research, you should use your data to develop an argument that encourages readers to think one way or another about the issue out of which your study has developed.  The structure of your argument may vary, but there are several basic strategies that you need to consider.

• Formulate an issue and explain its importance. Remember, at the center of an issue (as opposed to a topic) is a fundamental tension that is open to dispute; this tension can lead to a clear research question.
• Identify a gap reviewing the relevant research. Your review should inform readers about the issue: define key concepts, provide historical background, discuss methodological issue.  Equally important, you should use your review to help readers see a gap in current research and to explain why your study is necessary.
• Justify your methodological approach. You should provide an argument to explain why the methodological approach you take is the best way to answer your research question.
• Analyze the evidence. Your reader will not automatically understand how your evidence fits into the larger picture of your paper.  By explaining how the evidence backs up your points, you reveal the logic of the argument and convince even the most skeptical reader.
• Make a claim. The claim is your thesis, and it is central to the argument.  What is your position, or what do you want to convince your reader of?
• Support your claim(s) with reasons or evidence. Reasons are the main points of your argument (the “because” part of your argument).  What is the basis of the claim you are making?
• Contextualize your claims. Explain how what you find fills a gap or builds upon and extends what others have found.  Refer to others’ studies in your discussion and consider how others might respond to what you argue.
• Help readers understand the implications of your study. In the end, you will want readers to understand what your findings mean for teaching, policy, learning, research, and/or theory.  You can also point to what you see are some next steps in the kind of research you are interested in, particularly if you think additional studies are necessary.

Getting Started

We will discuss the value of doing community-based research, so an important starting point is to identify an issue that you are not only passionate about, but which also grows out of a perceived need in the local community. You will have the opportunity to meet with local teachers and administrators in the South Bend Community School Corporation to discuss some of the pressing issues that they are facing.  I have listed a few of these issues on p. 11, which the Superintendant has expressed an interest in pursuing.

To get started, you can also consider the issues that you have read about and discussed in the introduction to Education, Schooling, and Society, as well as other classes: motivation as a factor in learning, school choice, the stratification of schools and the potential value of detracked classrooms, the promise of teaching and learning in democratic classrooms, the pressures of high-stakes testing on both teachers and students, the value of connecting service to disciplinary learning, and so on.

Alternatively, go to one of the electronic databases on the library homepage and type in some key words related to a topic that interests you (e.g., school finance, high-stakes testing, curricular reforms) or question (e.g., to what extent can school finance insure greater equity in schools?  How do low-income minority parents’ attitudes support or challenge the rhetoric used to make claims about the black-white achievement gap?)  After you locate relevant research, use the titles as additional key words for searches and look for bibliographies on each entry.

As you read and begin to take notes, you will find that the real work of writing occurs when you try to figure out the answers to the following questions.  Answering these questions is what makes inquiry central to the process of composing:

• What have people been talking about?
• What are some relevant concerns for those whose work I have been reading?
• What are the situations motivating people to write?
• What theories do writers use to construct their arguments?
• To what extent are the approaches others have taken adequate to assessing the problem?
• Have others provided sufficient evidence to support their claims?
• What gaps in knowledge exist in what researchers are finding? What do we still need to know about?
• Who will be interested in reading what I have to say?
• How can I connect with readers who may be both sympathetic and antagonistic toward my argument?
• What is at stake and for whom in my own argument? (what if things change? what if things stay the same?)
• What kinds of evidence might persuade readers?

Criteria for Assessing the Quality of Your Project

In coming to terms with what you find, you should address what your study teaches us and what you have learned.  You will find models of this type of writing in the studies that we will examine this semester.  A successful research project will:

• Include a relevant, timely, and important research question(s)
• Provide a substantial review of the research relevant to your study
• Justify the use of a particular methodological approach to answering the research question
• Provide a compelling analysis of the data
• Use evidence persuasively
• Place what you find in conversation with what others have found, showing how your study builds upon or extends what others have written
• Demonstrates a clear purpose and achieves it
• Effectively speaks to the target audience (appropriate “voice”, word choice, etc.)
• “Flows” well (i.e., has smooth transitions, logical organization, and effective intro/conclusion);

Sharing Writing in a Writing Group

In sharing writing with one another you need to be clear about the responsibilities each of you will assume in the group.  It’s helpful to distinguish between your responsibilities as readers and writers.

The Writer’s Responsibilities. Come to class with several specific things you want your group to listen for in your draft. Explain to your group members any concerns you have about the draft before you read.  Are you concerned, for example, about whether your ideas are developed enough to make sense? About whether your organization is easy to follow? About whether the tone you take toward your audience is appropriate? Always write down your concerns and questions before you come to class. When you’ve finished reading, ask the group to respond specifically to your concerns, in addition to raising new concerns of their own.

Here are some questions that you might ask yourself before asking your group for advice:

1. What is your goal with this essay? To fill a gap? To correct or modify an existing interpretation?
2. What is the issue you are responding to?
3. What motivates your research?
4. Have you adequately reviewed the relevant literature?
5. Have you spelled out the theoretical perspective you are taking?
6. What’s your thesis?
7. What evidence do you use to support your thesis?
8. Are your implications linked clearly to your data?
9. Have you acknowledged the limitations of your study?
10. What do you consider the strongest aspect of the essay – that is, what do you feel is working best? What aspect of the essay are you least satisfied with at this time? What kind of feedback do you especially want today?

Be open to suggestions.  You need not incorporate every suggestion your group makes in your revision of the draft, but you should make sure you at least understand their comments and concerns.  If you don’t understand what your group members are saying about your draft, ask them to clarify or give you an example. If you do not decide to take someone’s suggestion, you should have a good reason for doing so–– such as that following their suggestion would require you to change your purpose or intended audience in ways that are unnecessary (given the assignment) and unappealing to you personally.

The Readers’ Responsibilities. Follow along as the draft is being read, paying special attention to the concerns the writer has explained.  Take notes directly on the draft copy, circling or underlining sections you find confusing or have questions about, so that you can specifically refer to them in your discussion.

Offer both positive and negative criticism.  Starting the session by giving positive reinforcement on what is working well in the paper is extremely important, both so the writer knows when he is on the right track, and so that you provide an atmosphere in which it is easier for him to hear constructive criticism as well.  But don’t shy away from telling the reader what should be working better. It’s your job as a reader to offer honest and specific responses to the draft, so that it can realize its potential as a piece of writing; otherwise we’re all just wasting our time.

Try to have a conversation about your reactions to the draft (where confused you, persuaded you, and so forth), rather than just jumping in and telling the writer what he or she “should be doing” in the paper.  Your role as a reader is to give the writer a live audience, whose responses can help the writer decide what parts of the paper are successful and what parts need to be concentrated on in a revision.

A good strategy is to offer to paraphrase particular parts of the draft so that the writer can hear how you, the reader, have understood what he or she was trying to say.  This is especially helpful for early drafts and papers that are still in a confused state of organization.

Finally, make sure that the writer understands not only how the piece of writing affected you, but what, in concrete terms, she might do to make the writing even more effective. If the writer has no concrete plan for revising, help her brainstorm one.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the theoretical and practical bases for program evaluation.  Students will develop basic skills in a variety of approaches to evaluation, including techniques that are particularly suitable for evaluating health promotion, community health improvement, and related health and social services programs.  Course learning will be synthesized through design of an evaluation framework and methodology for a relevant program.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for this course.   It is assumed that students have some familiarity with health services delivery and the organization of the health system.  If you feel you do not have this knowledge, please contact me to discuss the suitability of this class for you.

Learning Competencies (OMPH Approved)

At the completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain how theory informs evaluation design and methods
   • Describe the linkage between theory and evaluation
2. Solicit and integrate input from program stakeholders in the development of an evaluation plan
   • Communicate with program stakeholders about their programs and about evaluation
   • Obtain program information from stakeholders and other sources
   • Integrate input from program stakeholders in the development of an evaluation plan
3. Critically assess evaluations and interpret evaluation findings
   • Evaluate major components of articles presenting evaluation results
   • Identify limitations of published evaluations
4. Design and prepare an evaluation plan
   • Describe the major types, concepts, strategies, and methods for evaluating programs
   • Formulate evaluation questions appropriate for a specific program
   • Design an evaluation appropriate for answering particular evaluation questions
   • Work in a collaborative team to develop the evaluation plan
5. Explain how ethical principles apply to evaluation
   • Explain procedures for protecting human subjects in evaluation
   • Describe potential ethical considerations for program evaluation
6. Critically analyze how power differences play a role in evaluation
   • Identify issues of power differences between and among evaluator, community and program stakeholders
   • Articulate role of economic and political power in influencing evaluation
   • Incorporate principles of cultural competency into evaluation design, methods, and language used

At the conclusion of the course, students will be asked to determine the extent to which they have accomplished each of these competencies through their own learning.

Methods of Evaluation

There will be multiple methods of evaluation that will determine both your course grade and the evaluation of the course itself.

1.  Evaluation of Students

The course grade will be determined as follows:

Short assignments 40%

Evaluation project 50%

Class participation 10%

2.  Evaluation of Course and Professor

I welcome your feedback on the class, and will conduct brief process evaluations periodically during the course to invite your input.  On the basis of your comments, we will make “mid-course corrections” as necessary to ensure that the class meets your needs and is responsive to your suggestions, while still fulfilling the course objectives set out above.  A final evaluation of the course and the professor will be conducted during the last class session.

Required and Supplemental Readings

There are two required resources for this course:

Daniel L. Stufflebeam and Anthony J. Shinkfield. Evaluation Theory, Models, and Applications. San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass, 2007.

Sherril B. Gelmon, Anna Foucek and Amy Waterbury.  Program Evaluation:  Principles and Practices.  2nd edition.  Portland:  Northwest Health Foundation, 2005.  (Copies may be downloaded from http://nwhf.org/resources/.)

Many other useful books and journals on program evaluation exist.  You are encouraged to reference these books and related materials, available at the PSU and OHSU libraries as well as at other public and private libraries, for additional information and relevant examples as well as for background information for your assignments.  I will provide assistance if you wish specific direction with respect to identifying particular resources.

Description of Major Assignments

There are three components to the grade for this course:  two short assignments, a team evaluation project, and class participation.

1.  Short Assignments (40% of course grade)

There will be two short assignments, each worth 20% of the course grade.

Assignment #1:  Critique of an Evaluation Article

This will be due at the beginning of the class session on January 31^st.  A late assignment will result in a reduction in course credit.  Graded assignments will be returned on February 7^th.  The purpose of this assignment is to reflect on foundational material covered in the first sessions of the course, and to use your learning from these sessions to critique an article reporting evaluation/research findings.  In class you will be given a set of guidelines for completing the critique.  You will have a choice of one of several articles from the American Journal of Public Health, available in the PSU, OHSU or other health-related libraries (or through on-line access).  You should obtain a copy of your selected article.  The list of articles is provided in Appendix 1; they have been selected to reflect a variety of topics as well as a range of uses of evaluation strategies and methodologies.

The critique should be completed independently, and may be no more than 5 pages in length (references are additional to the 5 pages).  It must be typed, double-spaced using a 12 point font, with standard 1″ margins, and proofread for spelling and grammatical accuracy.  No references other than the textbook, course materials and the article itself are necessary. Any citations should be presented using a generally accepted citation format (such as APA).  Please do not attach a copy of the article to your submission.

Assignment #2:  Critique of an Evaluation Model

This will be due at the beginning of the class session on February 14^th.  A late assignment will result in a reduction in course credit.  Graded assignments will be returned on February 21^st.  The purpose of this assignment is to consider and critique one of four commonly recognized models of evaluation (or approaches).  The four models are:

• Stufflebeam’s CIPP Model/Improvement-Accountability Approach (Chapter 15)
• Scriven’s Consumer-Oriented Approach (Chapter 16)
• Stake’s Responsive/Client-Centered Approach (Chapter 17)
• Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation (Chapter 18)

You should read all four chapters, and then select one of the models.  Using material covered in the class to this point, compare and contrast your selected model with the other three models.  Frame your analysis by drawing upon personal experiences with evaluation as well as any of the 26 approaches described in Chapters 6-10 that are relevant to your discussion.  Address the following points in your paper:

• Description of the core elements of the model/approach (no more than a ½ page)
• Benefits of this model/approach for health program evaluations (with comparisons to at least two of the other three)
• Limitations of this model/approach in health program evaluations (with comparisons to at least two of the other three)
• Questions or concerns you would have about using this model (with comparisons to all of the other three) (no more than a ½ page)

The critique should be completed independently, and may be no more than 5 pages in length (citations are additional to the 5 pages).  It must be typed, double-spaced using a 12 point font, with standard 1″ margins, and proofread for spelling and grammatical accuracy.  Any citations should be presented using a generally accepted citation format (such as APA).

2.  Evaluation Project (50%)

A major part of your learning in this class will be achieved through the application of theory and concepts to an actual program evaluation project.  Through this project, you will also participate in community-based learning (also known as service-learning) — working with a community organization to develop an evaluation framework that will respond to the organization’s needs and assets, and will be of future use to that organization. The objectives of this experience for the students are to:

• gain knowledge about the program/organization for which the evaluation design is being prepared;
• meet with program/organization leadership to identify program objectives, intent of the evaluation, and anticipated outcomes;
• design a realistic and comprehensive evaluation plan that is compatible with program/organizational assets, needs and resources; and
• present the evaluation plan to the program/organization, the professor and the class.

An important aspect of community-based learning is to provide service to the community partner (the organization or agency for whom you will design the evaluation).  Therefore, there are also objectives for the community partner; these are to:

• inform students about the program/organization;
• meet with students to identify program objectives, intent of the evaluation, and anticipated outcomes;
• provide consultation to students throughout the process as necessary, and provide relevant background information; and
• review the evaluation plan and offer periodic feedback to the students.

Other objectives may be defined between the students and the community partner at their initial meeting.  The intent of the project is not to conduct the evaluation, but to design an evaluation framework that the community partner can then use (frequently a student returns to the organization to conduct the evaluation during a subsequent field experience or special project).  It is anticipated that students will meet with their community partners at least three times — an initial information gathering meeting of the entire student team with the partner representative, a meeting to discuss preliminary ideas and collect additional information, and a final meeting for the entire student team to present the evaluation plan.  The second meeting could be a telephone discussion.  Additional contact is often necessary, either by e-mail or telephone.

A description of the projects will be provided at the first class session, students will rank their individual preference for the evaluation projects, and I will determine the assignment of teams to the various projects during that class.  A list of this year’s community partners is included in Appendix 2.  Each group will receive a contact name, with phone number and email address.  Within two weeks, each group must meet with its community partner to initiate the evaluation design process, and will report on this meeting to the entire class on January 24^th.  The protocol for the final evaluation paper, which identifies the expected components of your paper, is appended to this syllabus (Appendix 3).  The exact content will vary with the nature of the organization and the intent of the evaluation design.

Each evaluation team will make a brief presentation of its evaluation framework; presentations will occur in class on March 7^th and March 14^th.  Each presentation will be up to 15 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes for class discussion facilitated by the presenting evaluation team.  The presentation should provide a brief overview of the organization and the intent of the evaluation, and then focus on the proposed framework and methodology.  All members of the group must participate in the presentation.  Teams should provide handouts for all class members of your evaluation methodology and instruments (e.g. survey, interview protocol, focus group script, etc.) so that the discussion may provide feedback on possible ways to strengthen the methodology.  Teams should invite your community partner to attend the presentation (this may take the place of the formal presentation to the partner, unless they request a presentation at their organization); we will schedule the timing of the presentations to accommodate the partners’ availability.  Teams should email the PowerPoint slides for your presentation to me by 6:00 p.m. of the day before you are scheduled to present.

After your presentation you may wish to make minor changes in your paper prior to submission. One integrated paper will be submitted for each project team, following the guidelines in Appendix 2.  The paper should be typed, double-spaced (using a 12 point font), proofread for spelling and grammar, and no more than 20 pages in length (appended materials, sample evaluation instruments, and references are additional to the 20 page limit). All citations should be presented using a generally accepted citation format (such as APA).  Each student will also append an independently written 1-2 page reflection statement on lessons learned from working in the community (see Appendix 2).  Evaluation papers for those groups presenting on March 7^th are due no later than Wednesday, March 9^th; papers for those presenting on March 14^th are due no later than Wednesday, March 16^th.  Papers are due by 4:00 p.m. in hard copy to my office.

The 50% of course credit allocated for this assignment will be distributed as follows:  25% for the presentation and 25% for the written paper.  Each student on a team will receive the same credit for the written paper; the presentations will be judged individually by the professor (10% group evaluation, 10% individual evaluation), with 5% allocated for peer evaluation.  There is no grade assigned for the reflection statement, since this is a personal observation; nonetheless it is required and should be given careful attention.  Since much of the grade is a group evaluation, it is particularly important that you give careful attention to the quality of the group products, ensuring that the collective work is well integrated, the presentation is focused and within the time limits, and the paper reads as a coherent single work.  If you experience difficulties within your group, please contact me.

3.  Class Participation (10% of course grade)

Ten percent of the grade will be allocated to class participation; this includes preparation for each class session, active participation in class discussions, and general involvement in class activities.  Participation in the class sessions is an important part of your learning — to reflect on the reading and thinking you are doing related to the course content, engage in discussions with your classmates and professor, share your experiences with respect to your evaluation project, and ask questions and seek answers from all participants in the class.  You are expected to attend all class sessions; the proportion of course grade allocated to class participation will reflect your level of participation and demonstrated learning.  If you must miss a class, please let me know in advance so that we may discuss how you may make up missed material.

Inappropriate use of technology during class will result in loss of the entire 10% for class participation.  Inappropriate use includes:  texting, using your laptop for games or Internet surfing during class, cell phone/Bluetooth usage, Tweeting, updating Facebook pages, etc.

Expectations

A course syllabus can be considered as a contract between the professor and the students.  This syllabus includes all expectations for performance in the class, and you should now understand what is required of you, and the deadlines for assignments.  If you have questions about any of these expectations, I encourage you to discuss them with me sooner rather than later.  Any changes in the course requirements or schedule will be communicated in class.

Student Code of Conduct

In a graduate level course, students are clearly expected to do their own work, as stated by PSU policy.  Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty will result in the grade of zero for the work involved and may, if in the judgment of the instructor that the particular case warrants it, result in the grade of “F” for the course and/or referral to the University for further action. To learn your rights and responsibilities as a member of the Portland State Community, please review the Student Code of Conduct that describes behavior for which a student may be subject to disciplinary action (http://www.pdx.edu/dos/codeofconduct).

Accommodation for Disabilities

If you have a disability and are in need of academic accommodations, please notify me immediately to arrange needed supports.  If you are registered with the Disability Resource Center, please provide me with the paperwork they have given you regarding accommodations.

Course Schedule

The following is the anticipated schedule of class topics, readings, and assignments.  All readings are from the required textbooks (other than where noted), and should be completed before the class for which they are assigned.  NOTE:  Please bring both of the resource books with you to each class, as well as electronic or hard copies of other assigned readings.  Any other readings will be distributed/announced in class the week prior to their use.

Session 1:  January 3

Introductions and course overview

Introduction to program evaluation

Fundamentals, theory, standards, logic of evaluation

Overview of group projects and determination of groups for projects

Readings: Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapters 1, 2, 3; Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapter 1

Session 2:  January 10

Approaches to evaluation

Feasibility and value of evaluation, evaluability and needs assessments

Creating an evaluation matrix

Readings: Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (skim); Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapters 2, 3

B.A. Israel, C.C. Coombe, R.R. Cheezum, et al.  “Commnity-Based Participatory Research:  A Capacity-Building Approach for Policy Advocacy Aimed at Eliminating Health Disparities.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (November 2010): 2094-2102.

Session 3:  January 17

No class — Martin Luther King holiday

Session 4:  January 24

Evaluation designs (experimental, quasi-experimental, randomized control, case study)

Issues of reliability and validity

Ethical issues and protection of human subjects in evaluation

Readings: Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapters 13, 14; Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapter 4; Review “Research Integrity: Human Subjects” with specific reference to guidelines for determining nature of review at http://www.rsp.pdx.edu/compliance_human_process.php

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  “The Tuskegee Timeline.”  Available at <http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm>

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  “How Tuskegee Changed Research Practices.”  Available at <http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/after.htm>

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  “The Doctors Trial (the Medial Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings).”  Available at <http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/twoa.htm>

Groups:  Report on first meeting with community partner

Hand out short assignment #1 instructions

Session 5:  January 31

Methods used in evaluation #1:  Surveys

Readings:  Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapters 5, 6D.H. Odierna and L.A. Schmidt.  “The Effects of Failing to Include Hard-to-Reach Respondents in Longitudinal Surveys.”  American Journal of Public Health 99 (August 2009): 1515-1521.

Groups:  Bring evaluation matrices for class review

Due:  Short assignment #1

Session 6:  February 7

Methods used in evaluation #2:  Focus Groups, Interviews

Readings: Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapters 5, 6

Groups:  Bring sample surveys for reviewShort assignment #1 returned

Session 7:  February 14

Class critique of evaluation approaches

Readings: Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18

Groups:  Bring sample focus group and interview protocols for review

Due:  Short assignment #2

Session 8:  February 21

Methods used in evaluation #3:  Observations, Documentation, Use of Experts

Evaluation budgets

Readings: Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapters 5, 7; Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapter 22

Groups:  Bring final questions on evaluation design and methods

Short assignment #2 returned

Decide on group presentation schedule

Session 9:  February 28

Evaluation information collection, analysis, synthesis and reporting

Managing, completing, using and communicating evaluations

Pitfalls of evaluation

Readings: Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, Chapters 20, 24, 25, 26; Gelmon, Foucek & Waterbury, Chapter 8

Groups:  Bring evaluation budgets

Session 10:  March 7

Student presentations (four groups)

Due:  Final papers for these presentations to my office by 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 9th

Session 11:  March 14

Student presentations (two groups)

Due:  Final papers for these presentations to my office by 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 16th

Synthesis of course themes

Final course evaluation

Graded papers will be available for pickup from the PA office on March 28th.

APPENDIX 1

Articles for Short Assignment

T. Dumanovsky, C.Y. Huang, M.T. Bassett, and L.D. Silver.  “Consumer Awareness of Fast-Food Calorie Information in New York City after Implementation of a Menu Labeling Regulation.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (December 2010): 2520-2525.

R.C. Klesges, D. Sherrill-Mittleman, J.O. Ebbert, G.W. Talcott, and M. DeBon.  “Tobacco Use Harm Reduction, Elimination, and Escalation in a Large Military Cohort.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (December 2010): 2487-2492.

A.P. Martinez-Donate, J.Z. Zeliner, F. Sanudo, et al.  “Hombres Sanos:  Evaluation of a Social Marketing Campaign for Heterosexually Identified Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (December 2010): 2532-2540.

A.E. Maxwell, R. Bastani, L.L. Danao, et al.  “Results of a Community-Based Randomized Trial to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening Among Filipino Americans.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (November 2010): 2228-2234.

T.N. Nguyen, J.H. Tran, M. Kagawa-Singer, and M.A. Foo.  “A Qualitative Assessment of Community-Based Breast Health Navigation Services for Southeast Asian Women in Southern California:  Recommendations for Developing a Navigator Training Curriculum.”  American Journal of Public Health 101 (January 2011): 87-93.

A.M. Novoa, K. Perez, E. Santamarina-Rubio, et al.  “Impact of the Penalty Points System on Road Traffic Injuries in Spain:  A Time-Series Study.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (November 2010): 2220-2227.

S.E. Samuels, L. Craypo, M. Boyle, et al.  “The California Endowment’s Healthy Eating, Active Communities Program:  A Midpoint Review.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (November 2010): 2114-2123.

T.G.M. Sandfort, J.M.W. Bos, K.L. Collier, and M. Metselaar.  “School Environment and the Mental Health of Sexual Minority Youths:  A Study among Dutch Young Adolescents.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (September 2010): 1696-1700.

T.K. Takaro, J. Krieger, L. Song, D. Sharify, and N. Beaudet.  “The Breathe-Easy Home:  The Impact of Asthma-Friendly Home Construction on Clinical Outcomes and Trigger Exposure.”  American Journal of Public Health 101 (January 2011): 55-62.

J.F. Thrasher, R. Perez-Hernandez, K. Swayampakala, et al.  “Policy Support, Norms, and Secondhand Smoke Exposure Before and After Implementation of a Comprehensive Smoke-Free Law in Mexico City.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (September 2010): 1789-1798.

R.R. Wing, M.M. Crane, J.G. Thomas, R. Kumar, and B. Weinberg.  “Improving Weight Loss Outcomes of Community Interventions by Incorporating Behavioral Strategies.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (December 2010): 2513-2519.

P.A. Wyman, C.H. Brown, M. LoMurray, et al.  “An Outcome Evaluation of the Sources of Strength Suicide Prevention Program Delivered by Adolescent Peer Leaders in High Schools.”  American Journal of Public Health 100 (September 2010): 1653-1661.

APPENDIX 2

Community Partners for Winter 2011

1. Growing Gardens, Youth Grow Program – www.growing-gardens.org

2. Ladder to Leadership, Patient Navigator Program

3.  Friends of Zenger Farm, Healthy Eating on a Budget Program – www.zengerfarm.org

4.  Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, One Key Question Program – www.prochoiceoregon.org

5.  Preventive Medicine Residency Program, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Training Residents for Prevention and Policy Program – http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/departments/clinical-departments/public-health/education-programs/preventive-medicine-residency/index.cfm

6.  Portland Police Bureau, Crisis Intervention Training Program – http://www.portlandonline.com/police/index.cfm?c=30680

APPENDIX 3

Final Evaluation Paper Protocol

The group evaluation paper should be prepared as follows:

1.  Descriptive information about the organization where the program/activity is located

2.  Program description, goals and objectives, and scope of activities

3.  Purpose of the evaluation

4.  Literature review, documenting relevant evaluations that provide the basis for your design and choice of methods (include complete citations in a bibliography of all references)

5.  Conceptual matrix and discussion of core concepts and key indicators

6.  Evaluation design, including choice and justification of selection of design, other designs considered, costs/benefits of selected design, methods to address threats to validity

7.  Measurement methods and data sources identified in conceptual matrix; discussion of selection and design of data collection instruments; drafts of sample instruments (appended); issues of sample size (where applicable)

8.  Discussion of involvement of human subjects, including anonymity, confidentiality and socio-economic-cultural issues; need/procedures for Institutional Review Board review/approval

9.  Proposed methods for synthesis and analysis of data, as well as strategies for presenting results and findings

10.  Budget for the evaluation (budget statement and narrative), illustrating major categories of expenditures (human resources, operations, supplies, travel, etc.); indicate sources of funds (confirmed or potential) and alternatives for funding

11.  Anticipated uses of the evaluation; suggested alternative methods of reporting and dissemination of results to multiple audiences.

12.  Appraisal of the likelihood of completion of the evaluation by the community partner; resources needed for completion

Appended to the group paper from each individual group member:

13.  Reflections on community-based learning and lessons learned – each team member should independently write and submit a 1-2 page statement; these may be appended to the final paper

The copy of the paper you give to the partner should not include #12 or 13.

NOTE:  Since you will hand in one final paper per team, it is important that you allow sufficient time to prepare the paper so that your submission is an integrated, consistent report written in a single voice, rather than a series of fragments pasted together.  This should be a well-edited, error-free, professional report that the community partner will be pleased to receive.

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 economically disinvested and racially segregated areas.

The course will draw upon best practices and lessons learned from community-based initiatives involving education, environment, health, housing, and neighborhood revitalization, in addition to social work, public health, urban planning, and related fields.

Course Objectives

• Understand the changing context and core concepts of community development in a diverse democratic society.
• Recognize alternative concepts of community as pluralist and multicultural units of solution.
• Develop knowledge of steps in the process, e.g., bringing people together, assessing community conditions, building organizational capacity, making action plans, increasing intergroup dialogue.
• Critically assess case studies and lessons learned from community-based practice.
• Identify issues of underrepresented groups in economically disinvested and racially segregated areas.
• Examine questions of ethics and values arising in the field.

Course Design

Responsibilities include readings, participation in discussions, written assignments, and individual and group exercises related to course objectives. Community collaborators and resource persons will address specific topics in areas of expertise.

Relationship of Course to Curricular Themes

Multiculturalism and Diversity:

Students will identify ways in which community development can address race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, and other forms of stratification of inequality.

Social Justice and Social Change:

Emphasis is placed on how community development can strengthen social change and social justice through community building in economically disinvested and squirted areas.

Promotion, Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation:

The course will focus on how to prevent social problems and promote healthier communities rather than to take the frequent common curative model approach

Behavioral and Social Science Research:

Relevant research and best practices from diverse social science disciplines and professional fields will contribute to understanding of empirically-based practice.

Course Schedule

Date-Topic(s)

May 8-Opening and Orientation

May 15-Core Concepts I

May 22-Core Concepts II

May 29-No Class, Memorial Day

June 5-Steps in the Process, Entering the Community, Making Contacts & Bringing People Together

June 12-Getting to Know the Community I

June 19-Getting to Know the Community II

June 26-Building Organizational Capacity, Making Action Plans

July 3-Building Constituency Support, Increasing Intergroup Dialogue

July 10-Community Project

July 17-Community Project

July 24-Community Presentations, Youth Participation in Neighborhood Development, Closing

Reading List

Core Concepts

Checkoway, B., et al. (2003). Democracy multiplied in an urban neighborhood: Youth Force in the South Bronx. Children, Youth and Environments, 13, 1-19.

Checkoway, B., et al. (2006). Arab Americans Arising: Case Studies of Community-Based Organizations in Three American Cities. Dearborn: Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, pp. 23-37.

Pratt Center for Community Development CDC Oral History Project Studies

http://www.prattcenter.net/cdcoralhistory.php

Capraro, J.F. (2004). Community organizing + community development = community transformation. Journal of Urban Affairs, 26, 151-161.

Mattesich, P. & Monsey, B. (2001). Community Building: What Makes It Work? A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building. St. Paul: Amherst J. Wilder Foundation.

Grisgby, W.J. (2001). Community Vitality: Some Conceptual Considerations. University Park: Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development.

Murphy, P.W. & Cunningham, J.V. (2003). Organizing for Community-Controlled Development. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Chapters 3,4.

Chaskin, R.J. (1997). Perspectives on neighborhood and community: A review of the literature. Social Service Review, 71, 521-547.

Morrissey, J. (2000). Indicators of citizen participation: Lessons from learning teams in rural EZ/EC communities. Community Development Journal 35, 59-74.

Steps in the Process

Henderson, P. & Thomas, D.N. (2003). Skills in Neighbourhood Work. London: Allen & Unwin, Table of Contents.

Jones, B. (1990). Neighborhood Planning: A Guide for Citizens and Planners. Chicago: American Planning Association, Chapter 2.

Bopp, M. & Bopp, J. (2001). Recreating the World: A Practical Guide to Building Sustainable Communities. Calgary: Four Worlds Press, Part IV.

World Vision. (2002). Transformational Development & Community Transformation. Federal Way: Author, passim.

Entering the Community

Henderson & Thomas, Chapter 2.

Eng, E. (1988). Extending the unit of practice from the individual to the community. Danish Medical Bulletin, 6, 45-51.

Getting to Know the Community

Marti-Costa, S., & Serrano-Garcia, I. (2001). Needs assessment and community development: An ideological perspective. In J. Tropman, et al., eds. Strategies of Community Intervention. Itasca: F.E. Peacock Publishers, Chapter 14.

Henderson & Thomas, Chapter 3, Appendix.

Hope, A. & Timmel, S. (1995). Training for Transformation: A Handbook for Community Workers. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, Chapters 1-3.

Driskell, D. (2001). Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth. Paris/ London: UNESCO/Earthscan, Chapter 6.

Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (2005). Mapping community capacity. In M. Minkler, ed. Community Organizing and Community Building for Health. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, Chapter 10.

Making Contacts and Bringing People Together

Henderson & Thomas, Chapter 5.

Hope & Tisdale, Chapter 5.

Chambers R. (2002). Participatory Workshops. London: Earthscan, Chapters 5,11-12.

Building Organizational Capacity

Henderson & Thomas, Chapter 6

Hardcastle, D., et al. (2004). Community Practice: Theories and Skills for Social Workers. New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 10.

Chaskin, R.J., et al. (2001). Building Community Capacity. New York: Aldine De Gruyer, Chapter 2.

Making Action Plans

Henderson & Thomas, Chapter 7.

Hope & Tisdale, Chapter 7.

Driskell, D. (2001). Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth. Paris/ London: UNESCO/Earthscan, Chapter 4.

Murphy, P.W. & Cunningham, J.V. (2003). Organizing for Community-Controlled Development. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Chapter 8.

Building Constituency Support

Checkoway, B. (1986). Political strategy for social planning. In B. Checkoway, ed. Strategic Approaches to Planning Practice. Lexington: Lexington Books, Chapter 13.

Warren, M.R. (2001). Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Chapter 5.

Maurasse, D.J. (2001). Beyond the Campus: How Colleges and Universities Form Partnerships with Their Communities. New York: Routledge, Chapter 4.

Increasing Intergroup Dialogue

Zuniga, X. & Nagda, B.R. (2004). Design considerations in intergroup dialogue. In D. Schoem & S. Hurtado, eds. Intergroup Dialogue: Deliberative Democracy in School, College, Community, and Workplace. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Chapter 20.

McCoy, M. & McCormick, M.A. Engaging the whole community in dialogue and action: Study circles resource center. In Schoem, Chapter 9.

Youth Participation in Neighborhood Development

Medoff, P. & Sklar, H. (1994). Seeds of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. Boston: South End Press, Chapter 8.

Checkoway, B. (1998). Involving young people in neighborhood development. Children and Youth Services Review, 20, 765-795.

Frank, K. I. (2006). The potential of youth participation in planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 20: 351-371.

Assignments

The assignments for the course include memoranda based on the readings and proposal for a community development initiative.

Memoranda

Write a series of memoranda which enable you to critically analyze and refer to the readings, organize your thoughts, and come to class prepared to discuss your approach. Each memorandum should be no more than two typewritten pages, and is due on the dates indicated below.

The first memorandum should address: What is your definition of community development? What criteria would you use to assess it, and why?
(Due May 15, 10 percent)

The second memorandum should discuss: What are the key factors which facilitate successful community development. (Due May 22, 10 percent)

The third memorandum should compare various versions of community development, and formulate an approach of your own. Specifically, what are the “steps in the process” described by Henderson and Thomas, Jones, Bopp and Bopp, and World Vision. What are the steps in your own approach, and why? (Due June 5, 10 percent)

For the fourth memorandum, form a learning group around a method of community assessment, e.g., interviews, focus groups, asset mapping. Write a group memorandum which refers to relevant readings and addresses: What is the method? What are its features? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What is its potential for the class project? Come to class prepared to teach others about its practice. (Due June 19, 10 percent)

Proposal

Working in learning groups, prepare a 5-page proposal for a community development initiative in a specific neighborhood, and make a 10-minute presentation to class members and community leaders. More background on this project is below. (Due July 24, 40 percent)

Portfolio

Prepare a final portfolio of your semester’s work, including all assignments and a brief reflexive summary of your experience in the course. (Due July 26)

On-Line Resources

There are various on-line resources relevant for your work in the course, including Comm-Org and Community Tool Box.

Paper Revision Policy

You may revise and resubmit any paper for reevaluation until the last session of the seminar. Papers are due on assigned dates unless prearranged with the instructor. Late papers will be penalized.

Class Participation

Class participation contributes to individual and group learning. It might include involvement in discussions, volunteering, cocurricular activities, group leadership, or other initiatives. (20 percent)

Participation requires presence in class and submission of assignments on scheduled dates unless arranged in advance. Absence from class may result in lowering of your grade.

Class Project

Pastor Harry Grayson of Messias Temple Church in Ypsilanti has asked us to conduct a class project that will gather information and formulate an approach for a community development initiative in a neighborhood area, and present findings and recommendations to community leaders.

Overall, he wants to develop a vision and plan that will promote participation, build capacity, and strengthen development in an area served by the Ypsilanti Community Non-Profit Housing Corporation, bounded approximately by Congress Street, Michigan Avenue, Chidester Street, I-94, and South Hewitt Road.

Pastor Grayson has asked the following questions:

1. What do people inside and outside the area perceive as its assets and needs?
2. What kind of community development initiative would people most likely support in the area? What would you recommend?
3. What are some approaches to community development as a process that might accomplish this purpose? What are the steps in the process?
4. What are the key elements for successful community development? What are the factors that facilitate and limit work of this type?

Pastor Grayson is asking us to gather information and formulate ideas for consideration. He hopes that we will “look, listen, and learn” as a preliminary step on which to build a potential long-term initiative. The assignment is not to formulate plans or create change, but to gather information and formulate ideas for an initiative which they might undertake. He expects us to make a presentation to him and other community leaders at the end of the semester.

Because of the preliminary sensitive stage, he asks that we communicate and coordinate through me before entering the neighborhood. It might jeopardize the project if we were to make contact without checking with him first.

Pastor Grayson is interested in gathering information about assets and needs, groups and agencies, community leadership, perceptions of people inside and outside the area, etc. Assessment methods might include observations, documents, interviews, focus groups, asset mapping, and a session with young people.

Pastor Grayson is joined by colleagues who share his commitment. They have been impressed by World Vision’s approach to transformational development, which places emphasis on youth development and youth participation.

Proposals should include the following:

• Project name – name or title of the project
• Purpose statement – a one sentence description of what will be accomplished as a result of the initiative
• Project overview – a one-paragraph summary of the project
• Project goals – impacts to be accomplished
• Project objectives – key elements necessary for success
• Rationale – why the project is important and the approach is appropriate
• Project steps – steps that will accomplish the objectives
• Elements for successful community development
• Indicators for measuring success
• Your own methodology – what you did to come up with the proposal
• Realistic timeline

The proposal should utilize and refer to specific course readings and class discussions. The presentation should include a visual that illustrates the proposal.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

SW 650 Spring/Summer 2006

Name:

Address:

Telephone:

e-mail:

UM program:

Professional goal:

Childhood community:

Ancestral community:

Community experience:

Interest in course topic:

Something about you that might be useful to the class:

Group whose participation I care about:

Characteristic of the group:

Perfect day:

Do you have a car available for driving to the neighborhood?

In the event that additional scheduling is required, can you meet on the following: Monday, 12-1; Monday, 5-6; Saturday morning; Sunday evening

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 theories and principles of interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication concerns our interactions with others on a one-to-one or one-to-few basis. This type of communication can occur with family, friends, acquaintances, business associates, or intimates. We will examine peoples’ similarities and differences along ethnic, racial gender, socioeconomic, age, and sexual orientation. This course focuses on some of the distinct qualities of these types of interactions. This course fulfills the diversity requirement (D) for core.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe and define the basic interpersonal communication terms and concepts
• Explain the major theories of interpersonal communication
• Apply the theories of interpersonal communication to everyday interpersonal encounters
• Demonstrate understanding of the complexity of the interpersonal process
• Explain how meaning and identity are constructed collaboratively
• Explain how we make meaning during the perception process through the interaction and effective listening, and how this impacts interpersonal communication
• Explain how we provide messages verbally and nonverbally in our interactions, potentially moving relationships from being “social” to being “interpersonal”
• Think critically, constructing and deconstructing arguments form different points of view, demonstrating how conflict can be a productive part of communication.
• Demonstrate an ability to understand and interact productively with others in diverse communities with an informed awareness of their personal relevance.
• Demonstrate confidence in interpersonal encounters by articulating the values, assumptions, and methods of interpersonal communication
• Describe the ethical issues associated with interpersonal communication choices
• Demonstrate an understanding of the differences in verbal and nonverbal communication between varying ethnic groups
• Describe effective listening strategies in varied relationships
• Describe the various challenges affecting interpersonal interactions due to gender, technology, culture, and media
• Explain the nature of hidden stereotypes and bias in communication

Required Readings and Material

• DeVito, J. A. (2007). The interpersonal communication book (11 ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
• Applegate, J. L., & Morreale, S. P. (1999). Service learning in Communication: A natural partnership.
• In D. Droge & B. O. Murphy (Eds.), Voices of strong democracy: Concepts and models for service learning in Communication Studies (pp. ix-xiv). Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education

Course Requirements

• Exams: There will be four exams this semester- three during class time and a final exam. The exams will require analysis, recall, and application of the concepts we have studied both in class and in your reading. The texts, class discussions, supplemental readings, activities, and lectures will all be covered on the exams. (30%)
• Service Learning Project- Journal: see assignment at the end of the syllabus (30%)
• Class Presentation: You will present your learning from the service learning project in the last two weeks of the semester (5%)
• Homework: There will be homework assignment/exercises to complete (15%)
• Class Participation: Attendance at all class meetings is expected. The discussions, lecture material and class exercises are an integral part of learning the course material. (20%)

Service Learning Project

Consistent with the mission of Jesuit education, students should have an opportunity to learn to service others. Service learning provides students an opportunity to use the learning from their own coursework to enhance the lives of others. “Service learning presents each act of learning as a resolution of the dialectic between the individual and society. Each successful resolution enhances both the perspective of the individual and the fabric of society by strengthening the link between the two” (Applegate & Morreale, 1999, p. x). The service learning activity will be worth 30% of your final grade. The requirements are completion 1 ½ hours per week over a 10-week period beginning the week of January 29 continuing to the end of the week of April 2.

Service Learning
Specifically, students enrolled in Interpersonal Communication will have the opportunity to spend the semester working with a population or group that is significantly different from their own background. Through these interactions, you will have the opportunity to develop the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to be effective participants in a changing society. During this project you will work toward building and sustaining relationships with students from local schools (or through a community after school program), and to teach and to reduce stereotypes and prejudices. As a community partner, John Carroll University students will go to Caledonia Elementary School, St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School, or the Intergenerational School (preferred sites) once a week for one and one half hours over a ten-week period to tutor the children in the We the People Project. Transportation is provided. You must follow these guidelines:
Students must register with the Center for Community Service;

• The service must be completed at one service site for the entire semester
• You must visit the site one a week for ten weeks; you must be at the site for ~1 ½ hours each visit;
• The service must involve direct interaction with children enrolled in grades K-6;
• You must keep a service-learning journal that includes a complete a description of your responsibilities, a reporting of your activities while at the service site, and a description of how your service has enriched your understanding of communication, diversity, racism and fighting intolerance in today’s world.

Journal Entry Guidelines for service learning
Your journal must include the following information:

A. Use assignment one; Watch the Color of Fear and use the questions provided to guide your response

B. Weekly entries include the following information:

1. Describe briefly how your time was spent (one paragraph maximum)
2. Indicate what you learned from examining how you reacted. This is an important step because it indicates the result of your reflection-in-action; it records awareness and sensitivity. This is the critical analysis that moves learning beyond a description of the event/exercise or material. To accomplish this, you will have to attempt to step back form the situation and review what you saw or experienced, what you felt and recognized. You should integrate materials discussed in class to examine the theories and how they fit with what we have learned about interpersonal communication and cultural diversity. You will also be expected to question what you know or what you use believe. Discuss reactions to that particular day’s responsibilities. Your reactions can suggest issues to explore or think about. How did this relate to class readings?

Final Group Presentation
You individually or with classmates who volunteered or researched the same or similar service centers will have 30 minutes to present to the rest of the class. Every person must participate in this presentation. Your group presentation must be clear, concise and connected. In other words, each individual group member will present his/her own work, but these presentations must be integrated in a way that the class can see the connection in all of your work. Your presentation should include the following material:

1. What was your main goal/research question/hypothesis? In other words, what did you expect to find through service learning observations or research?
2. What did you find? (NOTE: remember…you don’t have a lot of time for this presentation so you should briefly outline your findings; however, also keep in mind that this is the only place that you will be able to report your actual findings so you should do a good job!)
3. Connect your results to the literature. How did what you observed “fit” with what you expected to find? Why do you think you found what you did? NOTE: this is the only place you will be able to integrate what you found with what you expected to find (i.e., Part II)…keep this in mind!! Your grade will reflect your ability to connect this information in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner!
4. The “overall” group presentation should be connected and should provide information to the class about interpersonal communication and diversity.

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 organizations in the U.S.A. as factors that impact both context and cultural products.
Service learning is an important component of this particular class, and it will take place at the Lennox Senior center. Students will share with people of the tercera edad, their knowledge of testimonial texts from Latin America. Students and participants will discuss political circumstances that generated those texts and they will help empower the residents to write their own testimonios. Loyola Marymount leaners will also discuss the origin and political context surrounding the making of Chilean arpilleras (cloth tapestries that tell a story of resistance to the dictatorship), and they will work with participants as they manufacture their own arpilleras.

Service Learning Outcomes

1) To be able to place within their socio-political, historical, and geographical contexts a variety of cultural products generated in Latin America as responses to political repression and economic oppression.
2) To be able to identify cultural products both in the Chican@/Latin@ community of Los Angeles and in Latin America.
3) To improve their analytical, and critical skills in order to understand the role those products play as instruments for resistance and community empowerment.
4) To improve Spanish language listening comprehension skills.
5) To improve Spanish language speaking (production) skills.
6) To improve Spanish language writing and reading skills.

Instructor’s Teaching Philosophy

Professor Partnoy adheres to the teaching premises outlined by Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogia del oprimido, which states that the educator and the disciple constantly switch roles in the learning process. In that sense, the classroom is not a place where the teacher tells the student the correct answers to all questions, and the student in turn repeats those answers back to the teacher when prompted to do so. While some of the original ideas and methods devised by Freire had to be adapted to our reality as a U.S. university, this class seeks to develop critical consciousness and social responsibility.

Required Books:
Daly Heyck, D.L. and Gonzalez Pagani, M.V. Tradicion y cambio. Lecturas sobre la cultura latinoamericana contemporanea.
Other readings:
Galeano, Masetti, Guevara (hand outs)
Documentaries:
Mi In: Dia Sereno
Threads of Hope
Las palabras que sobran
Senorita Extraviada
Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

Class Participation: Students will be evaluated on their preparedness and input during group and class discussion. The instructor will provide a set of questions to guide them in their reading and discussion of the texts. It is to the benefit of the student to bring the homework in writing in a timely manner. This will ensure more effective class participation.

Homework: Written homework is obligatory and due as assigned. This may include activities taken from the textbooks and/or worksheets. If the assignment is not a worksheet, it must be written on lined paper using double spacing, and have your name, date and the assignment written in the top right-hand corner. Late assignments are accepted but do not count toward the grade.

Midterm: It will be conducted in class and it will consist of one essay question, text identifications, and word/concepts definitions.

Service Learning/Internship Project: Community service (20 hours) 5 times during the semester students will be at the community center during class time. In those opportunities, the group will depart for the service location during convo hour. While working, class participants will do field research on the use of cultural expressions (songs, paintings, poems, testimonios) to resist oppression to be empowered as a community. In addition to the 10 hours that the class spends at the Lennox Senior Center, the student should work ten extra hours either at the location, individually with a participant, or at other locations, on a project to empower the elderly, and that helps further the work of the Lennox Senior Center.

Empower Project/Proyecto de accion social will be a project to empower the community. It must have a written component. Good examples are works that can be used for outreach, fund rising, and empowerment of a particular senior citizen participating.

Journal/Diario: The student will keep a journal in Spanish recording their experiences. Specific guidelines for the journal and the empowerment project will be provided by the instructor.

Oral presentation: The presentation of the results of the student service learning/internship projects will last 10 minutes, it should be delivered in formal Spanish, but not read from a paper or a power point projection.

Reflection paper/Ensayo reflexivo: To be written as a final exam, this typed 6-8 page essay will examine how the different class components have shaped the student’s vision of the cultures of resistance in Latin America and the USA Chicano/Latino Community.

GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM (GEP) ETHICS CATEGORY/COURSE OBJECTIVES & GOALS:
Successful completion of this course fulfills the General Education Program Ethics category. The course addresses the category programmatic goals and supports the GEP through the following course objectives and goals:

• Stimulating a culture of civic engagement, renewal, and advancement of the public good through curricular learning, teaching, and scholarship, and by developing an understanding of moral theories of western civilization.
• Preparing students for active citizenship and democratic participation by learning how moral theories affect our thinking about public life.
• Building the capacity of SSU to establish, maintain, and strengthen community partnerships.
• Providing students an opportunity for reflection on the nature of community involvement and the related contemporary societal, moral, and ethical issues.

REQUIRED CLASS TEXT AND MATERIALS:

• Marianne Larned. Stone Soup for the World: Life-changing Stories of Everyday Heroes. New York: Three Rivers, 1998. ISBN: 0-609-80969-5.
• Supplemental notes and materials for ROCI4485, as assigned.
• An e-journal for reflection. The journal will be due for instructor review every three (3) weeks, for a total of five (5) reviews for each student during the course.
• Community Involvement Covenant Form (copy attached) on-file with the instructor.

COURSE REFERENCE:
Laurent A. Parks Daloz, et al. Common Fire-Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World. Boston: Beacon, 1996. ISBN: 0-8070-2005-2.

INTERNET COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT RESOURCES:

• Ohio Campus Compact http://www.ohiocampuscompact.org/
• ServeOhio – The Ohio Community Service Council. http://www.serveohio.org/
• The Civic Mind http://www.civicmind.com/index.html
• What is Service Learning? http://www.mssa.sailorsite.net/define.html

WRITING REFERENCE:
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. The Elements of Style (paperback, numerous editions)

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT COMPONENT:
This course has an out-of-class component of engagement in the community. Engagement in the community is a response to a call into the community to help and assist others in need. Students will be advised of community needs where there might be a call for them to respond, or they can elect to seek their own call in the community. An objective in responding to a call is that a servant relationship exists between the responder of the call and the recipient (the individual or group being served), and not to serve in the abstract, at a distance.

Students currently enrolled in an SSU course requiring an internship, engaged with agencies or programs that provide services to community in any professional or non-ROCI capacity, or who are doing service through a religious, social, fraternal, organization cannot use these placements to fulfill the community involvement component of this course.

The thirty (30) hours of community service can be varied during the term. No more than eight (8) hours can be spent in activities such as blood drives, Operation Christmas Child, SSU Thanksgiving Dinner, Tour of Lofts, and similar functions where there is no direct and personal interaction with an individual being served.

An ROCI485S Reflections on Community Involvement Community Involvement Covenant Form must be on-file with the instructor as part of the student’s documentation for each community involvement affiliation.

The student’s community service component must be documented in a journal that records dates, times, locations, and the nature of the engagement. At the conclusion of each engagement, the student is expected to reflect on the experience, to discern patterns of lives that have been positively or otherwise affected by the engagement, and potential short-term/long-term outcomes.

The journal will be due for instructor review twice during the semester and at the end of the course for a total of three (3) reviews for each student during the course (REV:01/13/09).

The journal will be personal between you and me, and not shared with anyone without your express permission.

MIDTERM REFLECTION:
There will be an in-class mid-term reflection essay.

END-OF-TERM REFLECTION:
There will be an in-class end-of-term reflection essay.

ASSIGNMENTS AND OUT-OF-CLASS WRITING COMPONENT:
All written work (journals and in-class writing excepted) must be word-processed, spell-checked, and proofread. Please do not submit handwritten work. It will be returned un-read and un-graded. Assignments are due on the due date. Emailed assignments will be accepted if their time and date stamp are either prior to or on the due date. Emailed assignments should be in MS Office Word format so they can be opened and read. Email documents prepared in formats other than MS Office Word format should be sent either as .txt or .pdf files so they can be opened. Students are encouraged to responsibly read, critique, and revise their work as follows before it is submitted:

• Look at the content of the work with the intention to improve the choice of language, originality, organization, completeness, and coherence.
• Examine the work by editing it for style.
• Correct the work by looking for mechanical errors.
• Correct the work by looking for technical errors.
• Improve the work by applying new skills, understandings, and competencies.

My evaluation of written work will be by content, ideas, conceptualization, and synthesis. Mechanics and grammar, clarity and content, and conciseness will also be considered. Grades will be reduced for poor quality including sloppy workmanship, incomplete sentences, unintelligible answers, inattention to details, and not following instructions.

Students are recommended to retain a copy of all written work submitted.

Assignments rejected because of poor quality or those that are determined to be electronic copies will be returned to the student with a grade of zero (0). Generally, assignments will be read and returned within one-week.

HELPFUL ADVICE:

• Maintain a healthy balance in your life.
• Set a manageable schedule and stick with it.
• Do not procrastinate.
• Look for connections or applications of class materials and discussions that relate to other areas of your life.
• Find at least one thing this term that you can use in life and/or work.
• Do not miss this class unless absolutely necessary.

GENERAL COURSE OUTLINE:

• Topic 1: Introduction. Community Involvement Opportunities.
• Topic 2: Writing a reflective journal.
• Topic 3: Asking yourself, “Who am I?”
• Topic 4: Our Circle of Care: What faiths and philosophers say about community, ethics, and “Who is my neighbor?”
• Topic 5: People who made a difference. Communities, intentional or otherwise; people in community; activists (Jacob Riis, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, Rev. M. L. King, Jr.)
• Topic 6: Sweatshops and tenements.
• Topic 7: Making it by faking it: the loss of truth.
• Topic 8: More ethics (Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Kant) and some important words for the 21st Century.

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 community-identified needs, while developing their academic skills and commitment to their community.” Required readings focus on various aspects of Service-Learning within the Latino Community. Written journal entries in Spanish are required following each service date. A final written reflection paper in Spanish will be based on journal entries. Class discussions, in Spanish, focus on individual student experiences and readings as well as improvement of vocabulary and grammar.

Course Objectives:

To perfect language skills through practical application and observe cultural norms within the Latino community of Fort Worth, TX, in conjunction with an increased awareness of civic responsibility while developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. Through writing assignments students will demonstrate their improvement in the Spanish written word and through class discussions their improvement in oral communication in Spanish. Through the service-learning component students will build their confidence level in a foreign language and move toward becoming stronger communicators in that foreign language, better informed of the world in which they live, more ethically minded, and more globally oriented.

Service-Learning Component:

Students will work in pairs at the chosen service-learning site. They will select the community partner with whom they wish to work on a first come first served basis. Every attempt will be made to match students with their first choice. A list of community partners from which to choose will be made available the first day of class. A variety of community partners will be provided so that students may select one in their own area of interest. Students will provide service at the selected community partner location during class time on the dates indicated on the attached calendar. Following each service-learning experience the student is required to write in Spanish in a journal observations made at the site and thoughts about the service before and after the visit and compile a vocabulary list of new Spanish words learned at the site and words learned to use at the site.

The Journal:

Bring to each class meeting. The following elements must be included:

1. Name and location of community partner (only in first journal entry)
2. Name and contact information of supervisor at service site. (only in first journal entry, unless person changes)
3. Mission statement of community partner (only in first journal entry)
4. Your expectations before each service date and how were they met or not met
5. Date and length of service, including hours begun and finished
6. What you did at the site.
7. Whom you met at the site.
8. How did the day go? What experiences did you have?
9. What problems/frustrations did you encounter and how did you or someone else deal with them?
10. What can you do now to better prepare yourself for your next visit?
11. List of new vocabulary/expressions heard at site or found in reading for week with their English equivalents. If possible, include the context in which you heard or saw the words.
12. In Spanish answer the questions a) What did I learn? b) How does that compare with what I already knew? and c) How does that make me feel?
13. How have I changed as a result of this service?
14. How has knowing Spanish affected your ability to perform at your service-learning site? Were you able to communicate easily in Spanish? Did your language skills improve? Because of your Spanish skills could you recognize issues that arose as a result of cultural differences and how did you deal with them? Did they make you more aware of your own cultural background?
15. Write down any questions that occur to you as you read and work and reflect on your service.
16. Be thorough in your journal entries, as most of the content of your final paper will be drawn from this information. Ideally, you should write in your journal as close to the end of each site visit as possible so that you do not forget any elements of the experience. The purpose is to get your thoughts on paper as soon as possible.
17. In order to allow you freedom to express yourself, you will not turn in the journal. However, the professor will check to see that you are writing and answering the questions about the site visits.

The Vocabulary Lists:
Bring to each class meeting. The following elements must be included:

1. The lists should be typed and double-spaced. Size 12-font. You will hand in the list each class meeting. No late lists accepted for credit, including by email.
2. Create your own vocabulary lists based on your own service-learning experience. There will be three lists; one for words you hear at the community service site, one for words that you anticipate using that you think may help you better serve your community partner during your next visit but needed to look up in the dictionary before you went to the site, and one of any new words encountered in articles read in Spanish related to your service.
3. You should have at least 10 new words/expressions from the site each week plus words for the other two list categories. Be prepared to share these words with the class at each class meeting.
4. Process: Write down any words/expressions in Spanish that you did not know and look them up in a dictionary or other resource. If you are not sure how to spell what you hear, ask the person who used it to write it down for you. You may want to include sentences using the new words that either you write yourself or are quotes from how you heard them used at the site.
5. You should take a small notebook with you to the site to write your vocabulary in as you hear new words.

Class discussions:
Be prepared to participate in the following manner:

1. Have vocabulary lists and definitions ready to share with class members. They must be typed before coming to class. (See # 1 under “Vocabulary”)
2. Bring observations of your site to share with the class. What challenged you each week? How did you meet the challenge? These do not need to be typed but you should have your ideas organized and ready to share.
3. What did you learn that was unexpected? What was frustrating? What worked really well? Essentially, a summary of what you wrote in your journal.
4. How does your own site work compare with the reading for the week?
5. Be prepared to lead a group (large or small) discussion of the readings/topics/site visits each class meeting. Some discussions will be performed in a “rotating chair” format, meaning when you finish speaking you will call on someone else to continue the discussion. Be prepared to speak each class meeting!

Final Paper:

A term paper in Spanish based on your service-learning experience, journal entries for questions 4-14, readings, class discussions, and guest speakers is required to be handed in on the indicated date on the course calendar. The paper will be TYPED, DOUBLE-SPACED, 12 FONT SIZE, one inch left and right, top and bottom margins. Begin your paper on the top line and include the title of your paper, name of your site, and your name on a separate title page. Do not put this information on the first page of your paper. The last page will be a bibliography (MLA style) of sources. No late papers or emailed papers will be accepted. Your paper will be graded on correct use of Spanish language as well as content and your demonstration of understanding of Service-Learning and its impact on you as well as your impact on the community site. This paper is not just a list of what you did.

Grading of final paper:

• Correct use of Spanish grammar—35 points
• Brief (1-2 paragraphs) description of duties at site—10 points
• Questions 4-14 proposed above addressed in body of paper—25 points
• Demonstration of understanding purpose of service-learning—15 points
• Examples from written texts included related to your field—15 points

Power Point Presentation:

The purpose of this presentation is for the student to display his ability to communicate at an advanced level in Spanish and display his/her knowledge about a professional organization in the community in which he/she lives. You will give a power point presentation in Spanish to the class on the date indicated on the course calendar. This will be 10-15 minutes in length. You should plan to include a minimum of 15 slides but may include more as long as the presentation fits within the time limit. A copy of the power point presentation must be handed in on your presentation day. Much of the information for your power point presentation will be found in your final paper and journal entries. You should take a camera to your site each time to gather photographs for this presentation. Do not write paragraphs on your slides; only brief statements. Be sure to ensure that your presentation works on the equipment in the classroom before the presentation day and know how to set it up. We will be working on a very tight schedule. Practice your presentation. It should be memorized and professionally done. Points will be deducted for lack of preparedness.

The following items must be included on the slides:

1. Name of community partner, logo, and address
2. Map showing location of service site
3. Photograph of service site
4. Mission statement of the community partner
5. Purpose of the organization and how it functions
6. Name and photograph of site supervisor (with his/her permission)
7. Outline of your duties at the site
8. Photos and description of any persons you were involved with helping (with his/her permission)
9. In your opinion how does organization fulfill its mission statement or not
10. Highlights of your service (as bullet points)
11. Low points of your service (as bullet points)
12. Most interesting Spanish phrases/words related to your service
13. Briefly how this experience impacted you personally (as bullet points)
14. Current news items about the community partner or related issues either in print or in the television/radio media or brochures
15. Would you consider working/volunteering at this site in the future—why or why not?
16. ???— Other items of interest you would like to share with the class

Grading of Power Point Presentation:

Power point ready on time and working—5 points ________
Required slides and topics—20 points ________
Presentation memorized and natural use of language—15 points ________
Use of correct Spanish grammar on slides and speaking—25 points ________
Creativity in presentation—10 points ________
Demonstration of knowledge of service-learning site—15 points ________
PP Presentation copy turned in on time—5 points ________
Attendance at all PP presentations—5 points ________

Required text: TBA. Required chapter readings will be included in the syllabus upon
selection of text.
Published articles on Service-Learning (TBA)
A good Spanish-English dictionary

Attendance: Attendance is mandatory for all classes and service dates as well as your arrival on time. If you find that you must miss class on a service date (only official university excused absences will be accepted; see the TCU student handbook), you must inform the community partner in advance and arrange an alternate day/time to make up the service. If for some unforeseen reason you will arrive late to your site, please be courteous and phone to let your contact person know when you will arrive. The community partner will keep a log of your time and conduct and that will be factored into your final grade. 3 points deducted from final grade for each unexcused absence.

Service-Learning Sites: TBA upon confirmation of community partners. Names,
addresses, phone numbers, contact persons, and description of sites will be included in the syllabus.

Calendar:
This is a tentative calendar and subject to change.

Week 1: Introduction to course and service-learning sites.
Week 2: Selection of class partners and of individual service-learning site, any
required applications filled out. “How to be a Good Service-Learner”: Guest speaker from Center for Civic Engagement and Service-Learning office of TCU.
Week 3: TCU campus.
Week 4: Pairs report to service-learning sites and begin projects. Journals. Readings.
Week 5: Pairs at service-learning sites. Journals. Readings.
Week 6: TCU campus. Bring journals and vocabulary lists to class. Discussions based on journals and new vocabulary. Grammar issues addressed. Articles selected.
(Possible guest speaker from community.)
Week 7: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 8: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 9: TCU campus. Bring journals and vocabulary lists to class. Presentations/discussions of site work and relationship of readings to site work. Grammar issues addressed.
Week 10: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 11: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 12: TCU campus. Bring journals and vocabulary lists to class. Presentations/discussions of site work and relationship of readings to site work. Grammar issues addressed.
(Possible guest speaker from community/TCU alumni)
Week 13: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 14: At sites. Write journal entries and vocabulary lists. Read articles/text.
Week 15: TCU campus. Final paper due. Power Point Presentation. Bring journals and vocabulary lists to class.

Grade calculation:

• Journals 15%
• Vocabulary 20%
• Final paper 40%
• Power Point Presentation 25%

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 African American Women & HIV/AIDS: Critical Responses (2002); Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever (1999); Pearl Cleage’s What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997); and Sapphire’s PUSH (1996). We will also analyze the critically-acclaimed HBO film Life Support (2008) and the award-winning BET, Rap-It-Up/Black AIDS short film Walking on Sunshine (2005). Finally, we will review scholarly articles on K12 school-based service-learning in preparation for fulfilling the required service-learning project, “Let’s Get It Started: The Traveling Health Fair Project”.

The goals of the service-learning project are implicit in its title. “Let’s Get It Started!” strives to energize and inspire you, the students in ADST 483, as you apply what you learn over the course of the semester about black women’s health in the age of Hip Hop and HIV/AIDS to the design, organization, and implementation of a community-based project that fosters the health and wellbeing of K12 students throughout New Orleans. The community-based project is a health fair that will travel to three New Orleans public schools. Each student will be assigned to one of five committees: a clinical committee, a procurement committee, a site coordinating committee, a publicity committee, and an assessments committee. Committees will work from August through October meeting your various charges in relation to planning, implementing, and assessing the outcome of the health fair. A detailed description of this project follows the calendar for the course.

Objectives

This course aims to:

• Enhance students’ comprehension of the cultural dimensions of health and environmental issues impacting black women;
• Expand students’ problem-solving skills as they relate to health issues affecting local communities; and
• Prepare students to identify, design, and implement projects that foster healthy K12 student populations.

Learning Outcomes & Assessment

• Weekly quizzes will be administered to insure that students are keeping up with readings and to measure students’ reading comprehension.
• Every two weeks hypothetical questions will be posted to blackboard; the questions will incorporate factual data about HIV/AIDS and black women. Students will develop roadmaps, or plans of action, that point the way to solving the hypothetical. Class discussion will provide a context for students to discuss their roadmaps/plans of action with one another and learn from one another’s suggestions.
• Drawing from course readings & discussions, and using their roadmaps/plans of action as guides, students will organize and host a health fair at three different K12 sites. Students will document all phases of planning, organizing, and implementation and complete exit interviews about their experiences completing the project.

Required Readings

Gentry, Quinn. Black Women’s Risk for HIV: Rough Living (2007)
Rose, Tricia. Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality & Intimacy (2004)
Gilbert, Dorie and Ednita Wright. African American Women & HIV/AIDS: Critical Responses (2002)
Sister Souljah. The Coldest Winter Ever (1999)
Cleage, Pearl . What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997)
Sapphire. PUSH (1996)
Lakin, Rebecca and Annette Mahoney. “Empowering Youth to Change Their World: Identifying Key Components of a Community Service Program to Promote Positive Development.” Journal of School Psychology (December 2006): 513-531. (AVAILABLE ON BLACKBOARD)

Course Products and Weight:

1. Quizzes 20%
2. Hypotheticals 20%
3. Committee Reports 20%
4. Discussion 20%
5. Health Fair Report 10%
6. Exit Interview 10%
__________
TOTAL   100%

Course Requirements & Rules

1. All assignments must be completed to receive a grade in this course.
2. The service-learning component of this course is not optional and the product of your service-learning effort is non-negotiable.
3. No woman or man is an island. This course thrives on collaboration, candor, constructive criticism, creativity, and general good-spiritedness. If you do not like working in groups, thinking outside the box, receiving constructive feedback, giving constructive feedback, working with children, or young adults, and dealing with tough, sensitive issues, you should drop this course, because you will not enjoy it.
4. The University Honor Code applies to all activities, communications, and products of this course. If you are unfamiliar with the code, you need to read it, because you will be held to it this semester. The Code can be found at http://www.tulane.edu/~jruscher/dept/Honor.Code.html.
5. I am happy to accommodate students with registered disabilities; please contact me at your earliest convenience for further discussion. For more information on Disability Services at Tulane, please visit http://erc.tulane.edu/disability/.

Calendar

8/24 COURSE OVERVIEW; Lakin & Mahoney
8/26 Service-learning Lakin & Mahoney, continued
8/28 HIV/AIDS: Clinical Overview (Guest Speaker, School of Public Health)
8/31 Black Women’s Health: General Introduction (Guest Speaker, School of Medicine) 9/2 Black Women & HIV/AIDS: Cultural Myths, Facts, and Factors (Guest Speaker, Community Activist)
9/4 Hip Hop: Literature, Art, Music (listening and viewing set) *Hypothetical #1
9/7 LABOR DAY HOLIDAY
9/9 Hip Hop: Literature, Art, and Music (listening and viewing set)
9/11 Critical Race Theory: A General Introduction Rose
9/14 Black Feminist Thought: A General Introduction Rose continued
9/16 Hip Hop & HIV/AIDS: Discursive Interchanges & Overlaps Gentry
9/18 Black Women’s Health, Hip Hop, and HIV/AIDS Gentry continued *Hypothetical #2
9/21 Black Women’s Health, Hip Hop, and HIV/AIDS Gilbert & Wright
9/23 Black Women’s Health, Hip Hop, and HIV/AIDS Gilbert & Wright continued
9/25 COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
9/28 YOM KIPPUR
9/30 Life Support (viewing) *Hypothetical #3
10/2 Life Support (viewing & discussion)
10/5 Life Support (discussion)
10/7 COMMITTEE REPORTS
10/9 Walking on Sunshine (viewing)
10/12 Walking on Sunshine (discussion)
10/14 COMMITTEE REPORTS *Hypothetical #5
10/16 FALL BREAK
10/19 The Coldest Winter Ever
10/21 The Coldest Winter Ever
10/23 The Coldest Winter Ever
10/26 COMMITTEE REPORTS *Hypothetical #6
10/28 PUSH
10/30 PUSH
11/2 PUSH
11/4 COMMITTEE REPORTS
11/6 *Hypothetical #7
11/9 What Looks Like Crazy
11/11 What Looks Like Crazy
11/13 What Looks Like Crazy
11/16 Black Women’s Health, Hip Hop, and HIV/AIDS Summative Remarks
11/18 *Hypothetical #8
11/20 COMMITTEE REPORTS
11/23 THANKSGIVING
11/25 THANKSGIVING
11/27 THANKSGIVING
11/30 DRY RUN: “Let’s Get It Started!”
12/2 PROPOSED DATES FOR FAIR: 12/1-12/3 12/4

*EXIT INTERVIEWS LAST DAY OF CLASS
*Health Fair Reports will be due on the scheduled final examination date

LET’S GET IT STARTED!: THE TRAVELING HEALTH FAIR PROJECT

Let’s Get It Started!: The Traveling Health Fair Project is the required service-learning component of ADST 483: Black Women’s Health in the Era of Hip Hop & HIV/AIDS. The goal of this project is four-fold. First, it provides a context for students enrolled in ADST 483 to apply what they learn over the course of the semester to the development and implementation of a community-based project. Second, it provides a medium for me to assess student achievement in relation to the general objectives of the course as well as its specific service-learning requirement. Third, it provides a means for building synergy among Tulane’s schools of Liberal Arts, Science & Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health & Tropical Medicine, a synergy that strengthens ADST’s capacity to attract students of diverse professional interests, backgrounds, and trainings to the program as majors, minors, or partners in community engagement. And fourth, if successful, the project will serve as an easily replicable model for expanding the reach, effectiveness, and efficiency of service-learning opportunities offered through ADST.

Participation in this project is required of all students enrolled in ADST 483. After the ADD/DROP date, each student will be assigned to one of five committees: a clinical committee, a procurement committee, a site coordinating committee, a publicity committee, and an assessments committee. Committee members will work from August through October meeting your various charges.

The clinical committee will consult with Drs. Nancy Mock and Tom Farley, project advisors, to discuss liability management and to determine the structural organization of the fair. The format that I envision and have discussed with Drs. Mock and Farley is one where three things will happen at the same time.

1. Students will receive information about health issues, such as hypertension, HIV/AIDS, asthma, Types 1 and 2 Diabetes, anemia, and infant mortality, via brochures & pamphlets, video infomercials, and representatives from community-based agencies and organizations specializing in research and/or the delivery of services related to these issues.

2. Students will receive rapid tests for, among other things, blood pressure, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and HIV and have the opportunity to receive current immunization shots.

3. Doctors, medical researchers, and other healthcare professionals will be on site in rotating shifts to deliver “power talks” about the work they do and take questions from students. The format that I envision may not be appropriate for the partnering sites. If immunizations and screenings are provided, consent forms will have to be completed by parents/guardians of all student-participants. Thus, the charge of the clinical committee will be to consult with me and our advisors to determine appropriate formats for the fairs and to insure that the appropriate legal/ethical measures have been taken to protect K12 student-participants.

The procurement committee will plan for and obtain incentives, giveaways, brochures, door prizes, and other promotional items. This committee will be responsible for decorating the day of the fair and for securing and setting up supplies & equipments, including tables, tablecloths, audiovisual support, extension cords, surge protectors, pens, notepads, garbage bags, tape, scissors, and staplers. This committee will also manage all food on site for volunteers and school administrators.

The site coordinating committee will be responsible for all pre-fair communications with individual volunteers, organizations, and other service providers. You will meet & greet volunteers and agency/organization representatives; escort them to their locations at the fair; and be available to answer any questions that our volunteers may have.

The publicity committee will contact potential exhibitors and corporate sponsors, such as local health spa and health food store owners (I have been in touch with Raymond Addison, owner of a Smoothie King franchise in New Orleans about providing free smoothies on site during at least one of the fairs; we are working out the related logistics). The publicity committee will facilitate all media communications and insure that Tulane University is properly represented in these communications.

The assessments committee will collaborate with me to design evaluation instruments for each component of the fair to be completed by students, volunteers, and school administrators. The committee will be responsible for distributing and collecting all evaluations. The entire class will collaborate to generate a report based on the outcome of the assessments.

Let’s Get It Started! is a project within a course that involves undergraduate students in the formal study of health issues that impact black women. These issues are not without relevance to the lives of nonblack women and, I would add, men of all races and ethnicities. The course addresses two phenomena—hip hop and HIV/AIDS—that have broad-ranging cultural implications for men, women, and children throughout the world. By examining these issues through the lens of critical race theory, black feminist thought, and black women’s health, the course seeks to appeal to students with academic interests in public health, gender & sexuality studies, law, and critical theory. If successful in enrolling students from a wide range of disciplines, the course will also succeed by providing a context for students to collaborate with one another on a community-based project. The truly interdisciplinary nature of the course, coupled with the service-learning project, underscores the value of building alliances across departments, colleges, and schools and with the local community to foster undergraduate education at Tulane University.

Let’s Get It Started! will provide students enrolled in ADST 483 many opportunities for student-faculty collaborative learning. As previously noted, the clinical committee will require members to consult regularly with health professionals recruited to the project to insure legal/ethical compliances and to design appropriate fairs for each site. I will supervise all committees and consult with each committee throughout the planning, organization, and implementation of the project.

This course focuses on the intersect of disability policy, activism, and action research, and is grounded within a collaborative learning framework with disability communities. Our emphasis is placed on immersing into a critical examination of the policies, systems and practices utilized by people with disabilities to support community living and participation choice and control, as well as activism and social action initiatives to build collective power and critical consciousness.

A specific focus is placed on designing, conducting and evaluating action research projects in collaboration with community organizations, activists, policy makers and constituents with disabilities from the community. Community-based participatory research activities will center and reflect upon strategies to promote a praxis of education, research and activism to effect systems change, promote social justice, and build community and critical consciousness. To do this, our community partners will be key mentors, teachers and facilitators in and out of the classroom throughout this course. Credit Hours:4

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Critically examine epistemological and theoretical ways of knowing, participating in, and researching the social world and social issues experienced by people with disabilities as a collective social group.
• Utilize community-based, participatory action research to identify and prioritize key issues experienced by disabled people in the areas of community living and participation, including current and emerging sociopolitical, economic, and cultural forces, trends and power.
• Apply a systematic approach to analyzing policies and social systems related to community living and participation, and their influence upon the choice, control and power of constituents with disabilities.
• Participate in and evaluate collective activism and self advocacy initiatives to effect social justice, social action, and systems change.
• Analyze disciplinary fields of action research, comparing tenets and strategies affiliated with each and their relevance and application within disability studies research.
• Compare and evaluate participatory and action research methodologies and their fit to stakeholder and community needs, and contribution to effecting systems change and/or building critical consciousness.
• Adapt methodologies, communication and outreach to accommodate the access needs and preferences of diverse participants with disabilities.
• Design a participatory action research-based project in collaboration with community partners that focuses upon a specific community living and participation issue identified by community and constituents with disabilities.
• Critically examine issues of participation, the role of research/researchers, democratization of knowledge generation, rigor, praxis, and ethical dilemmas involved in participatory action research, activism, policy development and systems change.
• Utilize a community-based approach to synthesize and apply knowledge to future participatory action research projects with disability communities.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

If you do not already own them, we recommend these books. Both are very easy to get new or used online via Amazon or Half.com or other sources, and are available commonly in most book stores.

• Friere, P. (1970; anniversary edition 2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.
• Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (Eds) (2001). Handbook of Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Alinsky, S. (1971). Rules for Radicals.: A pragmatic primer for realistic radicals. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Visit the following websites with participatory action research resources:

• Action Research Resources: http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arhome.html
• ParNet: http://www.parnet.org/
• University of Bath, Center for Action Research: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/

Visit the following websites for national & global disability policy issues/actions & analyses:

• Center for the Study and Advancement of Disability Policy http://www.disabilitypolicycenter.org/
• Beach Center on Disability: http://www.beachcenter.org/?act=view&type=General+Topic&id=3
• Law, Health Policy and Disability Center http://disability.law.uiowa.edu/
• Center for Human Policy @ Syracuse University: http://thechp.syr.edu/
• National Council on Disability http://www.ncd.gov & National Organization of Disability: http://www.nod.org/
• American Association of People with Disabilities: http://www.aapd-dc.org/index.php
• NCIL: The National Council on Independent Living: http://www.ncil.org/index.html
• DPI: Disabled People’s International: http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/

EVALUATION METHODS AND ASSIGNMENTS:

Community Report: Policy Analysis & Action Research Project: The primary learning activity for this course is a Community-based Policy Analysis & Action Research Project. Based on your interests expressed in the first class session, we will coordinate working groups of 3-4 students, each of which will immerse into an ongoing action research in collaboration with a community partner, identifying and targeting one specific policy issue to work on this semester related to people with disabilities and their civil right to live in communities of choice and to fully participate as citizens. All students also will attend the event: “Housing… a Matter of Justice”: Forum on Disability Rights in Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing to be held in Chicago with hundreds of people with disabilities attending so you can learn effective advocacy and network with many people with disabilities and national leaders to learn from them and share your ideas with them. Your final class “product” here will be a Community Report on your issue that will be directly used by community partners in their ongoing education and advocacy efforts—make sure your “report” is accessible to and easily used by the community!

1) Issues & Policy Analysis: 15% of grade.

a. Issues Overview: Description of the community you are working with, constituents within it, and broad issues/current priorities related to community living and participation (5%)

b. Policy Analysis: Detailed analyses of the policies MOST relevant to informing and influencing this particular issue that you plan to research for your final project. Includes critical analyses of:

i. Policy: Detailed description of key policies and relevant systems informing and influencing this issue. Use the policy analyses materials provided in class to provide a critical analyses of all aspects of the policy and its influences on disabled people.
ii. Legislative & Judicial Analysis: Description of any legislative (national, state or other) and judicial cases/decisions relevant to this project and issue targeted, what they cover/do not cover, how they are enforced/issues with enforcement, and key challenges to them.
iii. Political implications/atmosphere: what are the current political climates (national, state, local) and how are these situations influencing policy and ability to effect systems change in the issue area.
iv. Economic & funding/resource allocation issues involved (political economy influences in this sociopolitical environment).
v. Stakeholder/power analyses: Who are the key stakeholder groups (e.g., those affected by the policy in everyday life, those who are gatekeepers to services, those who oversee the policy, etc.). Who has what power? Who are the decision makers? Who’s voice(s) are at the table/who’s represented in decisions?

2) Community Focus Group & Findings Report: 15% of grade

a. PRIOR TO GROUP: Design of focus group strategy (purpose/aim, where, when, who will participate, who will facilitate; focus group guide of big questions and potential probes; strategies for making this group accessible to all participants; strategies to promote voice, active participation, and power sharing).

b. AFTER GROUP: 1) Summary and synthesis of results/knowledge generated. 2) Issue Prioritization: Specific social issue/initiative the partnership chose to focus on and how that decision was made. This may start as a broader umbrella (e.g., affordable and accessible housing) but should also contain 1 or a small set of very specific issues under this that you will target (e.g., using Medicaid waiver funds toward housing rental costs)

3) Final Community-based Policy & Action Research Project Report: 55% of grade

a. Detailed presentation of the key issue/ priority & polices (related to community living and participation) upon which the project was focused (10%). This should include:

i. Background description of the issue (e.g. what is happening and how did this issue come to be including the history and forces (social, political, economic, cultural) affecting it). This should be more detailed than the midterm brief analysis as you should have gained additional information and insights into the issue via the project.
ii. Description of the social group(s), communities and constituents affected by/experiencing this issue and their needs and preferences as voiced from within = PRIMARY STAKEHOLDER GROUP
iii. Description of additional key stakeholder and/or gatekeeper groups involved or influencing this issue: who/what are they, what are their roles and positions relevant to this issue, which stakeholders have power at which levels

b. Activism analysis (15%): Provide a critical analysis of:

i. Description of the activism taking place “from within” to address this issue, including past strategies and current and future initiatives (history to date with progress/results, actions being planned and factors influencing these)
ii. To what extent are constituents actively participating in this activism? To what extent are activists “giving the same message”; that is, do they have a strong and focused, organized voice or are there different factions with differing messages? To what extent do activists have power? Is that power recognized by other stakeholders? To what extent are activists collaborating/allying with other social groups (e.g., racial or ethnic groups, economic, gender, age, etc.) to gain power?

c. Research analysis (20%): Provide a critical analysis of:

i. Literature review on any existing/previous research on this issue, including a critique of: What can or can’t we learn from this research? Does it reflect the voice of the community/constituents? To what extent was it participatory? To what extent did it contribute to action? Where are the gaps in knowledge?
ii. Overview of the action research design & methods you used in this project, summary of results/what you learned, and, description of what worked/didn’t work, and what you learned.
iii. Proposal for a long term action research agenda. This is where you get a chance to dream and vision. The communities you worked with are committed to and already involved in research activities which may or may not be organized or build upon each other. Provide a conceptualization of a long term action research plan that could be implemented to build community and effect systems change long term. Include: design & goals of the project, proposed methods/activities, recommendations for sustaining the partnership and ownership/control within it, recommendations for increasing participation and access of constituents within the project. To frame this, you might think about applying for a grant to support a specific project (could be seed funding, foundation funding, federal funding). What might a 2-3 year future approach look like?

d. Praxis: Discuss how you would promote a praxis between action and reflection within this project (10%).

i. Action Plan of recommendations on how to share the knowledge you gained back with the broader collective groups/constituents/stakeholders so they can retain ownership and use it to effect action/systems change.
ii. Recommendations for policy change and activism given your findings.
iii. Potential funding sources to pursue to continue community work and action research: could be grant funding, system level funding, match funding, development projects, stipends/fellowships, volunteer or other asset support
iv. Appendix of resources you found valuable or useful that you want to pass on to community partners

4) Reflection: 5%:

a. A reflection (2-3 pages approx.) on your community project experience, what you learned and how it changed you as a person and your understanding of the community with which you worked.

b. A brief paper (no more than 5 pages) on your specific area of scholarship and how you would apply community-based, participatory action research & policy analyses strategies to actively involve people with disabilities and community in your future scholarship.

5) Class Participation: 10%:

Active participation is critical in any social learning, particularly in a course on participatory action research! Your attendance and active participation is part of your grade. In particular, you will be expected to:

• have read, critically analyzed and reflected deeply on each assigned reading & share questions that emerged from these with each other and with community partners
• participate in discussions in class, in the community with partners, via email and the Blackboard site, and within virtual disability social networking sites related to community living and participation
• bring in what you are learning from your community project, and synthesize with your own expertise and experience,
• create a community of learning that is supportive, respects each other’s diversity, and scaffolds and mentors each other’s learning, in and out of the classroom, particularly with and in the disability community.

This course examines hip hop and HIV/AIDS for the insight each offers into the histories, cultures, and lives of black people. You will learn how to formulate viable research questions about the interrelated discourses of hip hop and HIV/AIDS. You will learn how to conduct research that explores answers to these questions. You will complete required service-learning assignments that provide opportunities for applying ideas and thoughts generated by class discussions to K-12 education. Through the use of instructional tools and resources derived from hip hop culture, and collaboratively designed by ADST 330 students, you will instruct students at the Langston Hughes Academy Charter School (LHA) in the clinical, social, and cultural definitions of HIV and AIDS; modes of transmitting the HIV virus; and best practices for preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS. ADST 330 and LHA students will also collaborate on two culminating projects: a social gala and a community-based project. By the end of the course, you should be able to:

Objectives

• Formulate research questions at the intersection among hip hop, HIV/AIDS, and African & African Diaspora studies;
• Conduct research relevant to answering these questions;
• Apply your findings to work with students at Langston Hughes Academy Charter School; and
• Apply your findings to the completion of a 12-page research paper.

Learning Outcomes will be measured through bi-weekly video blogs that reflect your thoughts and feelings about class discussion and work at LHA; the formulation and implementation of an age-appropriate HIV/AIDS curriculum for instruction at LHA; and a 12-page research paper that investigates any aspect of the theory, content, or pedagogy that organizes this course.

Course Products and Weight

1. Weekly input toward the production and implementation of an age-appropriate HIV/AIDS curriculum 10%
2. Weekly service at LHA 40%
3. 7 video blogs 35%
4. Research paper 15% (5% for oral presentation; 10% for final paper)

TOTAL: 100%

Course Requirements & Rules

1. All assignments must be completed to receive a grade in this course.

2. All written assignments and video blogs must be submitted on or before the due date to avoid late submission penalty. 2% will be deducted from these submissions for up to 5 late days. After 5 days, these submissions will not be accepted.

3. The service-learning component of this course is not optional and the hours of service are non-negotiable. If you currently have standing conflicts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the assigned service-learning hours, you should drop this course. Because of the nature of the work that we will do with students at LHA, regular completion of service-learning hours, as assigned, is a must. Please Note: You will fail this course, if you fail to meet the requirements of service-learning as described herein and as discussed during our first session of class. Please also note that I expect to offer this course again in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. Based on the outcome of this course, the service learning requirement may be offered during hours that can better accommodate your schedule in the future, if you have, or anticipate, conflicts this semester and, thus, need to drop the course.

4. You have the option of driving yourself or carpooling to LHA to complete your service learning hours. Otherwise, transportation will be provided by the Center for Public Service. The van will pick students up at Law/Freret at 2:45PM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It will return to LHA at 4:30PM to drive students back to campus.

5. No woman or man is an island. This course thrives on collaboration, candor, constructive criticism, creativity, and general good-spiritedness. If you do not like working in groups, thinking outside the box, receiving constructive feedback, giving constructive feedback, working with children, or young adults, and dealing with tough, sensitive issues, you should drop this course, because you will not enjoy it.

6. The University Honor Code applies to all activities, communications, and products of this course. If you are unfamiliar with the code, you need to read it, because you will be held to it this semester. The Code can be found at http://www.tulane.edu/~jruscher/dept/Honor.Code.html.

7. I am happy to accommodate students with registered disabilities; please contact me at your earliest convenience for further discussion. For more information on Disability Services at Tulane, please visit http://erc.tulane.edu/disability/.

Adopted Texts

Watkins, Hip Hop Matters (2005)
Asante, It’s Bigger than Hip Hop (2008)
Gilbert, African American Women & HIV/AIDS (2003)
Brown, Black Girlhood Celebration (2008)

Calendar

1/13
Ice Breaker: HIV/AIDS & Hip Hop: Facts and Fiction
Course policies & guidelines; introductions; CPS; intern; IS & assessments

1/20
Class Cancelled
View Historic Events, as they are happening!

1/27
HIV/AIDS 101: The Basic Facts;
Teacher and Mentor: Understanding the Goals & Objectives of the ADST 330-LHA partnership

2/3
“It’s All About the Benjamins”: The Class Factor in Hip Hop and HIV/AIDS

2/10
Tools in the classroom: using the aesthetics of hip hop and videos as PSA for HIV/AIDS awareness-raising, prevention, and treatment

2/17
Hip Hop Matters; Listening Set and analysis

2/24
Mardi Gras/No Class

3/3
It’s Bigger than Hip Hop; Music Video Viewing Set and analysis

3/10
Black Girlhood Celebration
Recreation and Risk

3/17
“Bad Bitches, Lollipops, and Hos”: The Gender Factor in Hip Hop and HIV/AIDS

3/24
Spring Break/No Class

3/31
African American Women & HIV/AIDS

4/7
Review and discussion of video blogs

4/14
Closing remarks; summative observations

4/21*
Oral Presentation of research project

*possible social date: 4/25

Course Goals: The one thing everyone in this class shares in common is their respective memberships in families. Regardless of families\’ shapes and sizes, they are the most volatile places on earth. The emotions one associates with family members are the strongest and most powerful that one feels. All too often we assume that families are safe havens, but the truth is that these strong emotions can often be dangerous, violent, and perhaps even deadly. The overall goal of this course is for each student to read, write, and grow as a person and a scholar. However, a more practical goal is for all students to have an increased awareness of how volatile families can be, and to recognize the signs of abusive behavior in their own relationships and those of others. The information from this course should build upon a strong knowledge base drawn from the social sciences, and should prepare one for work in the area of social work, sociology, or psychology.

Course Objectives:
At the conclusion of the course every student should be able to:

1. Identify and compare issues concerning violence in families.
2. Explain the complexity of defining “family.”
3. Provide clear and concise descriptions and analyses of the different types of violence in families that are taking place in American society today.
4. Develop skills to work in groups to analyze and offer policy recommendations to address a particular problem.
5. Interpret and critique contemporary social arrangements related to violence in families.
6. Discover and re-evaluate one\’s own ideas, positions, and values concerning family relationships and violence in families.
7. Make a sound argument in support of one side or the other of the “family violence” debate.
8. Write clearly, in both substantive and technical terms, and document sources properly.
9. I have constructed a syllabus that, I hope, will enable us to reach these objectives. I reserve the right to change any portion of the syllabus in order to meet the objectives of the course.

Required Resources:

Bancroft, Lundy and Jay G. Silverman. 2002. The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic
Violence on Family Dynamics. (selected chapters) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Sokoloff, Natalie and Christina Pratt, eds. 2005. Domestic Violence at the Margins: Readings on Race, Class, Gender, and Culture, (selected chapters) New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Wallace, Harvey. 2008. Family Violence: Legal, Medical and Social Perspectives, 5th edition. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Readings scanned into Blackboard:

Bancroft, Lundy. 2002. Chapter 3 from Why Does He Do That?: Inside the minds of angry and controlling men. New York, NY: Berkley Books.

Browne, Angela. 1987. Chapters 8 & 9 from When Battered Women Kill, New York, NY: The Free Press.

Cook, Philip W. 1997. Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Kurz, Demi. “Physical Assaults by Husbands: A Major Social Problem.”

Mellor, M. Joanna and Patricia Brownell, eds. 2006. Three articles from Elder Abuse and Mistreatment: Policy, Practice, and Research. New York, NY: The Haworth Press.

Renzetti, Claire. 1997. “Violence and Abuse Among Same-Sex Couples” in Violence Between Intimate Partners, Albert Cardarelli, ed. Boston, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.

Shamai, Michal. “Couple Therapy with Battered Women and Abusive Men: Does it have a future?”

Strauss, Murray. “Physical Assaults by Wives: A Major Social Problem.”

Tolman, Richard. “Expanding Sanctions for Batterers: What can we do besides jailing and counseling them?”

Weiss, Elaine. 2003. Checklists from Family and Friends’ Guide to Domestic Violence: How to listen, talk and take action when someone you care about is being abused. Volcano, CA: Volcano Press.

Weiss, Elaine. 2000. Chapters 1, 7, & 12 in Surviving Domestic Violence: Voices of Women Who Broke Free.
Agreka Books.

Williams, Oliver J., Jacquelyn L Boggess, and Janet Carter. 2001. “Fatherhood and Domestic Violence: Exploring the Role of Men Who Batter in the Lives of Their Children.” In Domestic Violence in the Lives of Children: The Future of Research, Intervention, and Social Policy, Sandra Graham-Bermann and Jeffrey Edleson, eds. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Two electronic articles on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Teaching Method: Each class session will focus on a specific topic identified in the class schedule. The primary teaching method will be small group work, class discussions, and films. Students are responsible for completing the readings and other assignments for each class session prior to the date they will be discussed.

Course Requirements and Evaluation:
Assessment of student attainment of the course objectives will include:

Assignments Due Date Points in Final Grade
1. Midterm 10/16  100
2. Research Paper (Critical Assessment of MVP, etc.) 11/25 100
3. Research Presentation 12/2,12/4, 12/9  100
4. Activity reports of school visits w/ MVP class day after visit  100
5. Group evaluation (MVP groups) last week of class  100
6. Professor evaluation of MVP work – - – 100
7. Service & Course Reflection Journal by 9/25  100
by 10/23  100
by 11/20  100
8. Comprehensive Final examination 12/12  100
9. Attendance, preparation & participation  100

TOTAL  900

Grading Scale:

783 – 809 = B+ 693 – 719 = C+ 603 – 629 = D+ Below 540 = F
837 – 900 = A 747 – 782 = B 657 – 692 = C 567 – 602 = D
810 – 836 = A- 720 – 746 = B- 630 – 656 = C- 540 – 566 = D-

Attendance, Preparation & Participation:
Your attendance is expected each time class is scheduled. Your preparation and participation are essential for the success of this class. If you are present but are clearly not prepared for class or engaged in the class discussion, you will be considered absent for that day’s class. I will assess your advance preparation for class by requiring you to provide 3 discussion questions each day, which you generate as a result of doing the assigned reading for that class. Your questions will be the basis for a portion of our class discussion, so it is most important that you are prepared. I will collect these questions at the beginning of each class, so be sure to bring 2 copies to class with you each time.

You are the only person who can turn in your discussion questions. Do not email them to me, or slide them under my office door. They are due, by you, at the beginning of each class period. For each set of discussion questions that you fail to turn in, you will be docked 3 points off your final grade, regardless of the reason for their omission. Please make every effort possible to be in attendance and prepared to discuss the assigned readings each day that we meet.

Finally, Classroom Atmosphere: Despite the fact that Violence in Families is a pretty heavy-duty topic to discuss for fifteen weeks, I want us to have a good time. So, we need to create an inviting classroom environment. We are going to discuss very sensitive topics throughout the semester, and while I hope none of you have first-hand knowledge of these social phenomena, I realize that is not likely. Therefore, we all have to be extra sensitive to our remarks in the classroom because we have no idea what may have happened to the person sitting right next to us. Please be considerate of each other’s feelings as we move through all of this material.

Details of each assignment are provided within a separate document posted on our blackboard site. Please take the time to review these instructions carefully, and let me know any questions that you may have.

Tentative Class Schedule:

Date, Readings (to be completed by date listed), Class Activities

9/2, Wallace 1 – Characteristics of FV, Welcome & Orientation,
Collect class & work schedules

9/4 Wallace 9 – Spousal Abuse, Bancroft, chapter 3 (BB), “Tough Guise” video

9/9 Training for MVP program

9/11 Training for MVP program

9/16 Straus & Kurz Debate (BB), Cook chapter (BB), Weiss, chapter 1 (BB)

9/18 Wallace 14 – Women & Sexual Violence

9/23 Browne, Chapters 8 & 9 (BB)

9/25 Weiss, Chpts. 7 & 13 (BB), First Journal Entry due

9/30 Sokoloff, Chpts. 2 & 5

10/2 Sokoloff, Chpts. 11 & 13

10/7 Renzetti article (BB), Wallace 12 – Gay & Lesbian Abuse

10/9 Wallace 10 – CJS Response to Spouse Abuse, Tolman article – Sanctions for Men (BB), Shamai article – Couple Therapy (BB)

10/14 Sokoloff, Chpts. 18 & 24

10/16 MIDTERM

10/21 NO CLASS due to Fall break

10/23 Williams, et al. article (BB), Wallace 2 – Physical Child Abuse Second Journal Entry due

10/28 Bancroft & Silverman, Chapters 2 & 3

10/30 Wallace 3 – Child Sexual Abuse

11/4 Article on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (BB)

11/6 Wallace 4 – Child Neglect

11/11 Bancroft & Silverman, Chapter 9, Wallace 7 – Professionals, Response to Child Abuse Speaker (Guardian ad Litem office)

11/13 Wallace 5 – Sibling Abuse

11/18 Wallace 11 – Elder Abuse

11/20 Readings on elder abuse (BB), Articles 3 & 4 from Mellor & Brownell (BB), Third Journal Entry due

11/25 Articles 1 & 2 from Mellor & Brownell (BB), Research papers due

11/27 NO CLASS due to Thanksgiving

12/2 Group project presentations

12/4 Group project presentations

12/9 Wallace 16 – Consequences of FV and Wallace 17 – Victim’s Rights Group project presentations

12/12 Exam: 8:30 – 11:30 am

If you have any questions about anything we\’re doing in class (e.g., material we\’re covering, assignments, etc.), please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail. I will either answer your question via that medium, or be happy to set up an appointment with you.

The MVP Program:

What is it?

We plan to implement a program called Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) in the local high schools to educate students about gender violence, alcohol/consent issues, and sexual harassment. MVP was developed at the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Northeastern University (http://www.sportinsociety.org/vpd/mvp.php), and has been utilized across the country in various settings to educate young people on these topics. The program empowers people so that they can overcome the urge to be a bystander when faced with a violent situation. They are presented with role-plays that illustrate viable options for responding to incidents of violence, abuse, or harassment. They learn that there are numerous ways to respond, and they take home valuable skills and the power to act when confronted by these situations.

FAS has a Community Educator / Volunteer Coordinator on staff, who goes into the schools and provides educational programs to various grade levels, but with only one person, her ability to reach as many young people as possible is certainly limited. By incorporating the students from HUS 349 into this process, we will be able to extend the current efforts of FAS and Crossroads and take this innovative program (MVP) into the high schools to reach young people who are experiencing some of their first intimate relationships.

The MVP program will accomplish several goals:

1. The program will empower young men and women to act when faced with violent, coercive, and harassing situations.
2. The program will educate young people about healthy enactments of masculinity and femininity.
3. They will learn that while many features of our culture (e.g., media messages) encourage male control and violence, this is not acceptable and it’s not “cool.” We will begin to work on changing the male peer culture, so that men who abuse women will lose status in the eyes of their peers.

The goals of this program and the messages embedded within the program’s structure are consistent with the theories and arguments presented for years by various scholars whose work focuses on issues related to gender and violence (e.g., Connell, 1987; Johnson, 2001; Martin & Hummer, 1989; McBride, 1995; Messner & Sabo, 1994).

How will we do it?

We plan to visit the health classes in all of the local high schools. This plan will include 5 – 6 high schools with 2 – 3 health classes each quarter, so all total this will be 36 – 48 class visits during our fall semester. With approximately 30 students enrolled in HUS 349, we will be sending teams of 3 – 5 students out to the high schools (hopefully teams comprised of female and male students). The classes are 90 minutes long, so Elon students will be spending between 6 – 12 hours in the field, actually providing the MVP program to the high school students. Students will be expected to meet outside of class time to coordinate and practice their presentations. All total the Elon students will complete a minimum of 20 hours of academic service learning for the course.

Course Description:

This course explores the balance in American life between personal happiness and civic virtue, individual freedom and community responsibilities, market capitalism and social justice, and consumerism and citizenship. The implications of these democratic (im)balances for our communities and ourselves in the 21st Century will be examined through the spatial lens of the decline of the city, the rise of suburban sprawl, and the potential for recovery of urban community. Macon will be our local case study in the civic arts and civilization, with Charleston, SC as a point of comparison. The course will require a team-based service-learning project.

You are finishing your careers as undergraduates at Mercer. This course is intended to help you reflect on the studies of the past few years and to think cogently and critically about issues that will affect you for the rest of your lives. You will bring to bear the knowledge and insight gained through your major subjects, as well as other academic and personal experiences, and through your fresh reading of the required texts. This is not a lecture course that seeks to provide right or wrong answers to the questions raised. Rather, you yourselves and the several other teachers and professionals involved in the course as guest speakers and mentors will be the primary instructors. My task is to guide you through some of the material, to keep the discussions focused and productive, and to serve as a resource for your service-learning projects. I am looking forward to a rich experience for all of us.

Course Objectives:

1. To understand the scope and complexity of the issues facing urban civilization in the 21st Century as a built environment and as a social, political, economic, aesthetic, and spiritual way of life, with a particular focus on the American city.
2. To read critically and interpret texts related to these issues.
3. To enhance research, analytical, interpretive, oral, writing, presentational, and collaborative skills.
4. To work together successfully in circumstances that mirror the demands and expectations of post-graduate study and professional practice.
5. To produce for key decision makers in Macon, Georgia, an analysis of Macon’s attractiveness as a destination for knowledge workers and strategies for enhancing that attractiveness.

Required Texts:

The Urban Reader (3rd edition), ed. LeGates & Stout
Richard Florida The Rise of the Creative Class
On Reserve:
Grace Paley The Collected Stories
John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever
Edward P. Jones Lost in the City: Stories

Attendance and Participation:

The success of a discussion class of this type depends on the active presence and prepared participation of all students. The degree and quality of your participation will determine roughly 1/3 of your final grade.

Since there is only one class meeting per week, you may not miss more than two classes for whatever reason. Exceptions may be made for University business, such as debate team, sports, Mercer Ambassadors, etc., but you still must clear these absences with me ahead of time. Each absence beyond the second one will reduce your final grade by one full letter grade.

Class Sessions:

Each class session will typically be divided into three distinct activities.

1. Class will begin with the analysis of the assigned readings from The Urban Reader. This discussion will be conducted on the model of law school classes. Each student will be expected to be able to answer any of the following questions: What is the author’s main point? What are two considerations given in support of it? What is one important secondary point made by this author? What is one consideration given in support of it? What is one critical question you would raise about the author’s argument? Why? I will conduct the examination of the subject by calling on students or asking for volunteers to answer these and other questions. Every student should also be prepared to explain why he or she agrees or disagrees with another student’s previous answer. Over the course of the semester, every student will have a number of opportunities to respond in class.

2. The second period of the class will focus either on a guest speaker, with a question and answer session following, or on short stories by the three authors on reserve at the library, with a student led discussion. Every student will have an opportunity to lead a discussion (sometimes as a team of two). Discussion should be Great Books style with the discussion leaders prepared with two opening questions to help start discussion and lead it deeply into the story.

3. The third period of the class will be devoted to the service-learning project, with teams working together to present their work as it develops.

Site Visit to Charleston, SC:

Each service-learning team will select two members to participate in a site visit to Charleston SC to interview professionals who are responsible for aspects of Charleston’s urban design and development and to analyze Charleston’s urban fabric and social history. Charleston is recognized as an exceptional example of urban renaissance. We want to know why and how it declined and recovered—and we want to bring back possible lessons learned for Macon.

The site visit will take place over fall break from Sunday, Oct. 8 through Tuesday, Oct. 10. All expenses for this site visit will be covered.

Papers:

You will write five short papers (2-3 pages) during the semester. These papers will be part of the electronic portfolio that reflects your understanding of and response to the texts, speakers, experiences, and issues of the course. They may take the form of analytic essays, critical responses, self-reflections, or summary statements. The five papers in your portfolio should reflect your best thinking and writing for the course. Two papers are due by September 29 and three additional papers are due by November 29. The earlier you submit these papers, the sooner you will have feedback from me as to their strengths and weaknesses. You will be allowed to substitute one additional paper for one of your submitted papers if you wish to improve a grade.

Service-Learning Project:

Service-Learning is a reciprocal exchange. Students should benefit by applying their knowledge and skills in a way that meets a community need. The student must benefit, and the community must benefit.

The service-learning project for this course will be set up as if we were a consulting firm working with urban communities to increase their competitiveness as good places to live, work, play, and raise children. The “firm” has three consulting teams who will each work with a different local client to analyze the competitiveness of the local community and to propose a strategy to improve that competitiveness. Each team will focus on Macon, but each team must satisfy a different client. The three clients are the City of Macon’s Economic and Community Development Department, NewTown Macon, Inc. (a nonprofit organization charged with revitalizing downtown Macon), and the Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce. Minimal deliverables for the client will include a 10-15 page report and a Powerpoint presentation of the report. You must negotiate the time and venue for your presentation to the client at their convenience—but, in any case, before the close of business December 15.

The service-learning project will determine roughly 1/3 of your final grade.

Final Exam:

As the course progresses, we will identify key urban issues. These issues will be posted as they are identified and articulated. (These issues are one possible topic for your papers in your portfolios.)

For your final exam, you will be given a choice of three issues. You will write a 750-1250 word essay on one of them during the exam period, accompanied by a 75-word abstract. The exam must be a typed, finished product. During the exam period, you will be free to write your essay at the location you choose—but you will be limited to the 3-hour block of time to complete it.

Criteria for Grading: Grading Scale:
Portfolio 30% A 90-106 points
Final Exam 10% B+ 86-89
Participation 30% B 80-85
Service-learning Project 30% C+ 76-79
C 70-75
D+ 66-69
D 60-65
F

“…the nature of the ‘overview’ changes depending upon ‘the politics of location’ of the ‘author’.”
Michele Wallace

“Yes I know my enemies/They’re the teachers who taught me to fight me/Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite/All of which are American Dreams…”

Know Your Enemy, by Rage Against the Machine

COURSE DESCRIPTION

ARC/BWS 427/527 is part of three Thematic Sequences: “American Life and Culture Since World War Two” administered by the English Department, “Cultural Studies and Public Life” housed in Educational Leadership, and “Urban Culture and Service Learning” administered through the Miami University Center for Community Engagement as part of the Over-the-Rhine Residency Program.

Using the generic American city and its transformation since 1940, this course explores epistemological questions as they are influenced by issues of class, race, gender, culture. What do we know of the American city? How do we know what we know? What are the theoretical and ideological parameters that constrain and expand our knowledge of the city, especially as that knowledge is modified by multicultural experience? What are the experiential parameters that constrain and expand our knowledge?

Given these questions, the course weaves together three strands to interpret the text we call the City: the social construction of the Self, the social construction of the Other, and public engagement. The first strand seeks to construct a theoretical frame in order to see how culture and environment are always dialectically intertwined, and more, that built environments can contribute to progressive expressions of diversity if consciously considered. This strand critically (re)assesses what we understand as history, culture, and identity.

The second strand studies some of the city\’s major political, economic, and spatial transformations. Readings from the fields of economics, political science, sociology, cultural studies, and urban geography analyze the repercussions of suburbanization, corporate concentration and deindustrialization, urban renewal, gentrification, displacement, segregation, and homelessness. The attempt here is to understand these spatial transformations from the vantage points of class, race, gender, and culture. For example, how have the conditions of urban renewal, or gentrification, or suburbanization been experienced and taken up by women as well as men, by different races, classes, cultures? The point is to explore the world through the multiple discourses which construct our public life, with particular attention to the position of the Other.

Miami University for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine
The third strand of the course turns toward Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati to conduct research and create knowledge that are socially relevant to everyday life in Over-the-Rhine. This research will represent the work of the Center for Community Engagement.

The uniqueness of the Center is its relationship with the Over-the-Rhine People’s Movement. It is a site for learning and for producing knowledge that intersects with the needs and demands of a social movement. The Center privileges human and ecological needs as leading priorities in urban development, and challenges the profit motive as the dominant arbiter in urban social policy.

The Center provides a setting for faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to work collaboratively with neighborhood organizations and residents on common projects for the community’s cultural and economic advancement. By providing such a setting, the Center creates opportunities for students, faculty, and community members, through the dialectic of research and social action, to share experiences about how the political system works, especially as it impacts the terrains of culture, education, architectural and artistic production, economic opportunity, and everyday life.

This part of the course entails students taking responsibility for developing and conducting a group, semester research project. The intent is to supplement typical classroom activities of reading and discussion by engaging the city itself. Students will collect data, interview representatives of different cultural groups, engage in oral histories, and conduct extensive library research. In short, the objective is to embrace an ethnographic method: to engage citizens and life beyond classroom walls as sources of knowledge for understanding the relation between culture and space. Just as importantly, the goal here is to advance the learning and historical understanding of the People’s Movement.

REQUIRED READINGS

Andrew L. Barlow, Between Fear and Hope: Globalization and Race in the United States (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003).

William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).

Labor/Community Strategy Center, Reconstructing Los Angeles from the Bottom Up (Los Angeles: Strategy Center Publications, 1993).

Eric Mann, Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Los Angeles: Frontlines Press, 2006).

Course Reader: A collection of selected essays available through electronic reserve at King Library. Password: “arc-city.”

EVALUATION

All students must attend and participate actively in class discussion (20%). This class is a seminar, which means students must do the readings and be prepared to engage each other in conversation. If you do not talk in class there is no way to receive an “A” or “A-.” Two unexcused absences will result in the reduction of one letter grade.

A typed reaction paper of 1-2 pages will be due each week (10%). Be prepared that I may ask you to share your paper with the class. I do not “grade” these reaction papers, but I keep note of the fact that you do them and I gauge general progress. These reactions offer an opportunity to engage a private conversation with me over the issues of the course.

A combined book review essay of When Work Disappears and Between Fear and Hope will comprise 20%. This will be 5-6 pages for undergraduates and 7-8 pages for graduates. The intention here is to thoroughly discuss a point or two prompted by the readings. I am not looking for a summary of these books. Due date: Tuesday October 7.

30% of the grade rests with the semester project. This project will encompass significant research that will be conducted in a team format and presented in class. Two things will accompany your presentation: 1) a written report; and 2) a visual report (i.e., poster, brochure, photographic collage, website design and/or addition, etc). In past courses, research topics have included a deep examination of the history and operation of institutions of the neighborhood, as well as provocative topics such as “black-on-black crime,” gender roles in the neighborhood, community education, and the Cincinnati Boycott.

There will be a self-assessment essay, worth 20%, which in part will examine how the theories of the course match up with your experiences of the community. Also, you will state the grade you feel you deserve.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Tuesday, August 26

C. Wright Mills, “The Big City: Private Troubles and Public Issues,” in Irving Luis Horowitz ed., Power, Politics, and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969).

VIDEO: Hybrid City

Tuesday, September 2

American Apartheid
Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, Chap. 2: “The Construction of the Ghetto,” American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Tuesday, September 9

Globalization and Race
Andrew L. Barlow, Between Fear and Hope, Introduction – Chap. 3.

Tuesday, September 16

Between Fear and Hope, Chaps. 4 – 7.

VIDEO: End of Suburbia

Tuesday, September 23

When Work Disappears
William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears, Introduction – Chap. 5.

Michael Moore, “Why Doesn’t GM Sell Crack,” in Downsize This! (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1996).

VIDEO: Roger and Me

Tuesday, September 30

When Work Disappears, Chaps. 6 – 8.

Robin D.G. Kelley, “Integration: What’s Left,” The Nation (December 14, 1998).

VIDEO: Tiger By the Tail

Tuesday, October 7

Cincinnati/Over-the-Rhine: Neoliberalism, Gentrification, and Displacement
Jason Hackworth, Chap. 1: “The Place, Time, and Process of Neoliberal Urbanism,” from his Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007).

Karla Irvine, “Over-the-Rhine: A Permanent Ghetto?” (HOME: July, 1991).

Roy Lowenstein, “Inner-City vs. Suburb: Locating New Housing for the Poor” (draft manuscript, undated).

Jonathan Diskin and Thomas A. Dutton, “Gentrification—It Ain’t What You Think,” position paper of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine (August 2006).

Thomas A. Dutton and Jonathan Diskin, “Rush to Judgment,” position paper of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine (August 2001).

McKim N. Barnes, “A Strategy for Residential Rehabilitation,” in Real Estate Review.

VIDEO: These Old Buildings Raised Our Many Children and Visions of Vine Street.

Tuesday, October 14

Cincinnati/Over-the-Rhine: Uprising
Thomas A. Dutton, “Violence By Any Other Name,” The Nation (June 18, 2001).

Manning Marable, Chap. 8 “Building Democracy from Below,” from his The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life (New York: BasicCivitas Books, 2002).

Jonathan Diskin and Thomas A. Dutton, “Cincinnati: A Year Later But No Wiser,” Shelterforce: The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building (May/June 2002).

Tuesday, October 21

The Search for Theory: Domestic Neocolonialism
Robert Allen, Chap. 5 “Corporate Imperialism vs. Black Liberation,” from his Black Awakening in Capitalist America (New York: Doubleday, 1969).

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, excerpts from Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1967.

Ron Baily, “Economic Aspects of the Black Internal Colony,” Review of Black Political Economy 3 (1973).

Michael B. Katz, excerpts from his The Undeserving Poor (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989).

Tuesday, October 28

Domestic Neocolonialism, Over-the-Rhine, and Econocide
Thomas A. Dutton, “Colony Over-the-Rhine,” The Black Scholar, v. 37, #3 (Fall 2007).

Thomas A. Dutton, “Indian Reservations, Trojan Horses, and Economic Mix.”

Thomas A. Dutton, “When Personal Responsibility Becomes Abusive.”

Robert L. Allen, “Reassessing the Internal (Neo) Colonialism Theory,” The Black Scholar, v. 35, #1 (2005).

Tuesday, November 4

Cincinnati and Corporate Hegemony
Dan La Botz, “Who Rules Cincinnati,” www.cincinnatistudies.org

Joseph Leibovitz and Scott Salmon, “20/20 Vision? Interrurban Competition, Crisis and the Politics of Downtown Development in Cincinnati, Ohio,” Space & Polity, v. 3, #2 (1999).

Tuesday, November 11

The Prison-Industrial Complex
Loic Wacquant, “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration,” New Left Review 13 (January-February 2002).

Don Mitchell, Chap. 6 “No Right to the City” from his The Right to the City (New York: The Guilford Press, 2003).

Daryl Meeks, “Police Militarization in Urban Areas: The Obscure War Against the Underclass,” The Black Scholar, v. 35, #4 (Winter 2006).

Tuesday, November 18

Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans
Saladin Muhammad, “The Black Nation’s 9/11.”

Cornel West, “Exiles from a City and from a Nation,” The Observer UK (September 11, 2005).

Eric Mann, Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Los Angeles: Frontlines Press, 2006).

VIDEO: When the Levees Broke

Tuesday, November 25

Los Angeles
Mike Davis, “The Hammer and the Rock,” New Left Review 170 (July/August 1988).

Labor/Community Strategy Center, Reconstructing Los Angeles from the Bottom Up (Los Angeles: Strategy Center Publications, 1993).

Mike Davis, “In L.A., Burning All Illusions,” The Nation (June 1, 1992).

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Summary of Report,” Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1968).

VIDEO: Voices from the Frontlines and Bus Riders Union.

Work Day.

Tuesday, December 2.

Presentations

Tuesday, Dec 9

Presentations

This HCP course substitutes for BA 304: Management and Organizational Dynamics. Although we cover many of the same topics as the undergraduate management course (BA 304), the honors section adds several important new learning goals related to leadership and leadership development. This course begins with an introduction to leadership and the management process, and then continues further to examine organizational behavior from a social science and behavioral perspective. HCPers focus on understanding and analyzing individual and group behavior in organizations, specifically related to how leaders implement strategy to impact people, policy and organizational culture. You will study leadership and organizational processes both theoretically and in an experiential environment through both simulations and in organizational fieldwork. HCPers are expected to integrate theory and concepts studied in their HCP classes with current business practices, engaging each other and the faculty in dialogue around key management issues. The service learning team project enables you to do fieldwork with a community partner in an organizational environment, having the opportunity to test these issues, apply the leadership and group skills you are learning in the classroom, on your team, and with your community partner. The course enables HCP students to achieve the following learning goals:

• Assess individual leadership strengths and weaknesses, culminating in a personal action plan for leadership development
• Conduct a multiple frames analysis to understand the managerial and ethical implications of individual and group behavior in organizations
• Use multiple frames to analyze leadership action and strategy.
• Articulate and understand a set of managerial and behavioral theories along with related assumptions underlying workplace dynamics in each of the following areas: leadership, perception/attribution, motivation, job design, group/team dynamics, power and influence.
• Determine how to apply a set of theories in an organizational context
• Enhance interpersonal and organizational skills in the following areas: communication; giving and receiving feedback; managing conflict; valuing diversity; managing individual differences; teamwork; leadership; and, using JCT in managing work design.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of organizational power and influence; develop and/or enhance influence skills
• Identify and understand the relationship between organizational strategy and corporate culture
• Reflect how course concepts play out in a real-world organizational environment through the service learning project, assessing personal and professional impacts on self and the organization; understand how the organizations you are working with (our community partners) affect the society at large from a business leader’s perspective.

Class Time and Student Role in the Honors Cohort*

The HCP operates in a seminar format with full expectation that students will be active participants in their own learning, engaging each other, the faculty and outside guests in full discussion on the issues and topics of the day. The Organizational Behavior and Leadership course is conducted using a variety of pedagogical methods including case studies, lecturettes, discussions, video, group work and experiential activities both in and out of class. Students are expected to participate and contribute meaningfully. The classroom and related activities for the HCP serve three important functions:

1. Provide a forum for the exchange of ideas;
2. Serve as a laboratory for experimentation and experience in the development and/or enhancement of leadership and team skills
3. Enable students to use the skills they develop in “real-world” practice

* HCPers will participate in a mandatory “day-long” Leadership Development Organizational Simulation on Saturday, Nov 22 (9:00 am – 5:00 pm), Please calendar this date as a program activity. “Participation/Contribution” points will be given to you for the 494 course.

Required Texts and Materials

• McShane & VonGlinow, Organizational Behavior Essentials (McGraw Hill Irwin, 2007
• George, B. True North (Jossey-Bass, 2007)
• Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader (Jossey-Bass-Wiley, 2008)
• Materials for DrakeBeamMorin Styles, MBTI (info to be distributed in class)
• Class Readings – distributed in class, posted on Blackboard or put on reserve in the Library

Service Learning Requirement and University Mission

All HCPers in BA 494 are required to participate in the Service Learning Team project—a semester long experience exploring course concepts in a community-based organizational environment while providing a value-added contribution to that organization. An introduction to the definition and purpose of service learning, along with related activities will take place in class. We will be working in project teams with a set of community partners. This experience meets the service learning graduation requirement of the University Core Curriculum and is a critical component of this course.

The service-learning project allows you to explore the course concepts in an experiential context, bringing course concepts alive, and, ideally, aids in your own personal and professional leadership development in concert with the university mission. By working diligently with your teammates and community partner, you have the opportunity to experience (directly and/or indirectly) “educating hearts and minds to change the world” in some small but meaningful way. Members of the cohort who would like to make a longer-term commitment with an international dimension are able to partner with student teams in Professor Seth Wachtel’s architectural and community design cohort. Our programs will be working together on project possibilities in Africa, Asia and Central America.

Service Learning Project Notes-Community Partner Opportunities

• Quesada Gardens Initiative
• Women’s Community Clinic
• Youth Leadership Institute
• Coalition on Homelessness
• Tenderloin Health
• Glide Memorial
• Housing, Business & Community Development-Int’l Opportunities* (TBA—Liberia, China, Nicaragua and Zambia…these projects may require participation in 2 phases—phase 1 in the Leadership Class and phase 2 in the Marketing class with potential opportunity to add summer internship in the country of the project

Service Learning Team Project: Components and Presentations (35%)

HCPers will choose a project management team at the beginning of the semester. Goals for the team are twofold: (1) engage in a meaningful service learning project linking the missions of the university and Business School to concepts explored in the BA 494 course, and; (2) experience and learn from the many aspects of project and team management. This semester long project culminates in a multi-media, dynamic management presentation presented to the class and organization representatives. Additionally, teams complete a consulting report and/or other clearly defined deliverables to be shared with their community partner. These deliverables may vary depending on the expectations of your community partner. I will work closely with each of the project management teams to clarify these expectations.

Required deliverables for the service learning team projects are as follows:

a.  Project Proposal Memo & Statement of Team and Community Partner Expectations (1-2 pages outlining project ideas, statement of team expectations & personal team learning objectives related to what you hope to learn from your community partner, and the experience overall; potential benefits to your community partner, a 2-3 sentence suggesting how your project might help you with understanding course concepts and enhancing your personal/professional development as a manager and/or team contributor). HCPers should have communicated with their community partner prior to submitting this deliverable. A copy of this deliverable should be shared with the organization).

Due: email on or before October 1 (ungraded). I will provide you with detailed feedback on your proposal prior to your team meetings with me.

b.  Team Meeting w/Professor (Project team meeting w/Professor to be scheduled at mutually convenient times; teams will have met with their community partner a minimum of 2 times prior to this scheduled meeting. Student teams should have all contact information with them (name of organization, contact person, telephone number and address). Our time together will be spent doing team reflections regarding service learning, linking your project to the concepts explored in the course, addressing concerns, identifying outside resources and other related issues to the service learning project)

Team Meetings Should Take Place on or before October 15. Sign ups for meetings will be available on Blackboard and updated to reflect team-meeting openings. Teams ready to meet earlier may do so at mutually convenient times. (ungraded)

c.  Progress Report (1-2 page Project Team memo confirming the following: project parameters, contact source(s)/contact information within the organization; description of activity with the community partner to date; and, summary of reflections and findings. Template for writing this memo will be posted to Blackboard.)
Due: November 12 (5%)

d.  Peer Review Instruments/Peer Feedback Meetings (The class will develop a peer review instrument in mid November that will be used in team peer review meetings where members share feedback regarding performance and team/leadership development). Additionally, as a class, we will develop an instrument that we can share with our community partners giving your organization an opportunity to give you and your team performance feedback.

Due: Meetings to be held December 3 (graded as pass/fail)

e.  Consulting Report and/or Other Agreed Upon Deliverable(s) for the Community Partner (7-10 page “client-centered” paper providing clear descriptions of the challenges and/or opportunities and issues you and your community partner wanted to address; complete analysis of these issues; findings/conclusions and/or other appropriate material based on the analysis and final team deliverables as negotiated with your community partner. Teams may work with their community partner defining “scope of project and specific deliverables” targeted to meet the needs of the organizations and adjust their reports as appropriate to the project parameters. Teams will work closely with their organizations to identify the specific deliverables and get final approval from me (the instructor) on the project report due. Teams will send a copy of this paper (and/or comparable substitute) to their community partner as well as turning in the report to the instructor. All teams are required to write a 1-3 page executive summary describing the deliverable(s), summarizing how the team accomplished it’s objectives and articulating realized and potential benefits to the community partner as well as what they learned from the experience. I will be asking your community partner/client organization to provide input on this grade by asking them whether your deliverables contributed value to their organization(s). See grading expectations outlined below.)

Due: Friday, December 12 (20%)

f.  Management Presentation (20-25 minute team presentation summarizing project results and findings. Presentations should report on what the team learned professionally and personally about their organization; how course concepts, theories, etc. provided insights on addressing community partner needs; and, other pertinent issues. Please invite your community partner to attend the presentation; Refreshments will be served!)

Due: Wednesday, December 10 8:30-noon (10%)

g.  Community Partner Feedback (Each community partner will be contacted by the instructor and asked to provide project teams with performance feedback and at minimum, communicate whether the projects provided “value-added” to their organizations. I will be confirming that all students on the team were actively engaged in the SL Project, spent a minimum number of hours working with the partner and, as a member of a SL team, acted professionally in its interactions with their community partner. Students not meeting the expectations, spirit and intent of the assignment will receive “penalty points” in determining what grade they will receive on the report and presentation.)

The grade earned for the Service Learning Team project components is the grade earned by all members of the project management team. If the team feels that one of its members has not pulled his or her own weight, then the team should decide how to manage the award of the grade, point penalties, etc. and let me know how the team wishes to proceed. As noted above (2g), individuals may be penalized if the community partner feedback suggests that individuals and/or the team as a whole did not meet project goals. Teams may fire non-contributing members but should make every attempt to use their management skills to resolve performance problems. My assumption is that the team will try to work out the problems with the team members in question first. Should a team wish to fire a member of the team, the non-contributing member must (1) find a team that will “hire” him/her; or, (2) do a make-up project on his/her own and take a comprehensive final exam for the course.

Note: Service Learning Placements and Process

The requirements for this project involve students using their management, leadership, networking, and partnering skills. We have several community partners who are interested in working with the HCP. Project teams may also identify their own community partners to work with through their own personal networks. Use your best judgment in determining an appropriate community partner. In choosing and working with your partner, be sure to adequately address issues of geographic convenience, flexibility, time frame and personal safety given the course constraints and potential personal risks. Traveling to and from a community partner’s location is your responsibility. The university does not provide transportation. Students may also use the resources of the Community and in hardship cases, choose a service-based project within the University community. In the past, my students have found that the most rewarding learning experiences come from work with a community partner outside the university and with a partner that addresses social justice issues and/or needs either directly or indirectly.

This seminar will be the final of three annual fall courses addressing the revitalization of Syracuse’s Near Eastside Neighborhood. Students and faculty will work hand-in-hand with Eastside Neighbors in Partnership (ENIP), a community development organization that works with a severely challenged neighborhood on the city’s east side.

The seminar is a component of the US/Brazil Design Research Consortia, which includes ESF, two Brazilian universities (the University of Brazil and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do SuI) and Perul State. These four programs have been working together for the past three years to explore the multi-faceted topic of “Sustainable Urban Design and Community-Based Resource Management in communities of poverty” through student exchange and faculty collaboration. This semester five ESF students are studying in Brazil and six Brazilian students will participate in this seminar. As in previous years, community residents and ENIP staff will also participate as active members of the seminar.

The FLA has been working with the Near Eastside Neighborhood on a periodic basis since 1999, partnering the skills and knowledge of ESF faculty and students with the experience and hands on expertise of community residents and advocates. The Faculty of Landscape Architecture (FLA) and ENIP have developed a collaborative relationship that recognizes the necessity of community based design and planning in the revitalization and rebirth of urban neighborhoods. Recognizing that community revitalization requires a long term commitment, the FLA has pledged the resources of the CCDR and the US/Brazil Design Consortia to work for three consecutive years on developing action strategies that will help solidify the neighborhood\’s future through participatory planning, action projects and sustainable development and planning activities.

Neighborhood Context

The Near Eastside Neighborhood is located at the base of University Hill and along East Genesee Street, a major traffic corridor that connects it to downtown Syracuse. The neighborhood is bounded by Almond Street and Interstate 81 on the west, Erie Boulevard on the north, Croly Street on the east, and East Genesee Street on the south. The neighborhood has two distinct character areas. The eastern portion is composed primarily single and multi-family residences while the western portion changes fairly abruptly to commercial and parking lots where the neighborhood intersects with university-associated medical and research land uses. The neighborhood also includes four subsidized housing projects that have been cited repeatedly over the past four years by community residents as the greatest challenge to neighborhood security, stabilization and revitalization.

The Near Eastside faces the challenges associated with urban neighborhoods in many northeastern US cities. It is a remnant neighborhood, formerly populated by a multi-ethnic middle class that, in the decades after World War II, left the city to settle the expanding suburban communities that ring the city. Parts of the neighborhood have been razed for the construction of medical and office buildings and parking lots while other lots have cleared during the selective demolition of abandoned houses. The current population of the Near Eastside is primarily African American and is relatively young, with many families and individuals living below the poverty line. Home ownership rates in the neighborhood are low and residential vacancy rates are high. Drug and gang-related crimes have been on the rise over the past 15 years.

Seminar Focus

In fall 2003 the first US/Brazil Consortia participants focused on components of an urban neighborhood open space system, including front yard improvement strategies, reclamation of vacant land, creation of a community market and community garden facility, and re-creation of public housing projects. Working closely with community members and staff of ENIP, the students developed outreach strategies, workshop activities, and methods to engage neighborhood residents, in addition to developing specific design approaches to identified action project areas.

In the fall of 2004 faculty, students, and ENIP staff worked on the refinement of landscape and architectural designs for a property owned by ENIP, at Eastside Commons — with an emphasis on design that leads to construction by citizens in the community. They prepared a refined conceptual and design development plans for Lexington Park and initiated “the Healing Project” in response to local resident’s desire to address the violence and community wide loss experienced in the neighborhood.

This semester the seminar will review the experience of the past two years, consider the lessons learned, and continue to explore the social, cultural political and physical aspects of sustainable neighborhoods. During the first third of the semester the class will explore urban processes through literature and conversations with individuals and groups working in the neighborhood.

These readings and conversations will address — health, safety and welfare, housing, environmental degradation and social capacity. In week seven, students and faculty will join research and/or design teams to work with community members to implement critical programs and projects developed over the past two years. These projects will be presented in the first two weeks of the semester and together (students, faculty, and community members) we will define the scope of work and consider which of the projects are priorities at this time.

Students will have the opportunity to work at multiple levels and scales, including the design and construction of actual physical interventions with community residents, as well as the longer term planning framework to guide future decisions that promote appropriate economic development, environmental health, and improved quality of life.

Process

Initial seminar orientation will enable students to become acquainted with the neighborhood, understand the sequence of planning activities that have occurred and review the findings and recommendations of that work. Our work this semester will build on earlier planning studies, reconfirm community concerns and opportunities, build the existing community data base, further design recommendations through refined studies that will enable community implementation and interventions

The faculty will act as advisors and facilitators; however, it will be up to the class participants to develop a meaningful dialogue with the community and to consider the design strategies that you feel will best address their needs and resolve their concerns. Each of you brings unique experience, interests and motivations to the class and we see this as a real strength of this class. Immersion, inclusion and openness will be essential to the success of this seminar. We expect that each student will be an equal contributor. Remember you are accountable to your fellow class members and to our community partners.

General Course Organization

The class will meet twice a week. For the first seven weeks we will meet in 327 Marshall for presentations, and seminar discussions. In week seven faculty, students and community members will form design and research teams to take on specific studies and projects. Teams will continue to meet regularly on Tuesday and Thursday to conduct research and participate in project work. These meetings will take place in 408 Marshall to assure adequate workspace. Following week 7, the full class will come together very third class period for continued seminar discussion related to assigned readings and project activities. Since this is the one time during the week that we can all meet and work together, participation in the seminar and research teams is critical and expected. Students should notify seminar faculty of anticipated absences prior to class. Evening and weekend sessions to attend public meetings and workshops will be required and information gathering at local libraries and public agencies will be expected.

In October, the class will travel to Philadelphia to meet with community groups and nonprofit organizations working on neighborhood revitalizations projects. We will have an opportunity to visit community project sites and speak with individuals involved in the projects. We will depart late afternoon on Wednesday, October 26th and will return in the evening on Saturday, October 29th

A full schedule of class activities will be distributed separately.

Course Work and Grading

Course work will be based upon understanding real community problems and developing applied research investigations and design strategies that can lead to meaningful community outcomes. Each student is expected to contribute to the group’s ability to conduct research, design and facilitate community participation and develop research and design proposals. Students will also be required to contribute to the documentation of consortia activities and complete assigned reflective writings.
Grades for the course will be based on both individual and group efforts and will be determined using the following breakdown:

• Seminar participation 20%
• Community research and design projects 40%
• Community engagement and participation 15%
• Regular reflective writings 15%
• Contribution to consortia documentation 10%

Because of the collaborative nature of this class, we anticipate grading to result in large part from the sincerity, and commitment each student exhibits through their participation and the care that they bring to their work. Students who work diligently and earnestly, who participate and interact effectively with the group, who experiment and take risks in generating ideas, and who take both direction and initiative in developing project work, will be very successful.

Texts

There are no required texts for the seminar; faculty will provide readings as appropriate. The following selected bibliography lists books that have direct relevance to the seminar. These books will be placed on reserve at Moon Library and some will also be available from the CCDR.

• Forester, Tom, 1999. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Hester, Randolph T, Jr. 1990. Community Design Primer. Mendocino, California: The Ridge Times Press.
• Kemmis, Daniel, 1990. Community and the Politics of Place. Norman Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Kretzmann, John P. and John L. McKnight. 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Chicago Illinois: ACT A Publications.
• Mendoff, Peter and Holly Sklar. 1994. Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. Boston Massachusetts: South End Press.
• Morrish, William and Catherine Brown. 1994. Planning to Stay: Learning to See the Physical Features of Your Neighborhood. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions.
• Sanoff, Henry. 1999. Public Participation Methods in Design and Planning. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
• Schneekloth, Lynda and Robert Shilbey. 1995. Place Making: The art and Practice of Building Communities. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

All of the Discover Chicago courses at DePaul University are part of the Liberal Studies curriculum. Liberal Studies at DePaul is the portion of the curriculum in which all students participate, no matter what their college or major. The Liberal Studies Program is designed to encourage students to engage in reflective intellectual activity and to become aware that questions of value underlie all human activities. The Chicago Quarter courses-Discover Chicago and Explore Chicago-ask students to reflect on some aspect of the intellectual, social. artistic, political, or economic life of the city and to probe the human values that underlie the topic being considered.

HIV/AIDS ’“ Special Learning Objectives:

• To learn about the history of the AIDS epidemic and its current epidemiological patterns.
• To learn basic information about the transmission of HIV and the progression of HIV disease and AIDS.
• To explore the multifaceted impact of living with HIV/AIDS within diverse populations.
• To discover the vast range of needs encountered by individuals living with HIV / AIDS.
• To learn about the current strategies for preventing the spread of HIV, and to explore how these efforts are being implemented with diverse populations throughout the Chicago area.
• To learn about the range of medical, psychosocial, spiritual, and housing support services that are available for individuals living with HIV / AIDS in Chicago.
• To learn about current policy and advocacy efforts being implemented by agencies in Chicago.
• To learn about the range of volunteer service learning opportunities that are available in Chicago through community-based HIV prevention and AIDS service organizations.

General Learning Objectives:

• To discover the multicultural nature of the Chicago metropolitan area.
• To develop an understanding of and appreciation for the benefits of community-based volunteer service.
• To experience and explore the Vincentian values of respecting “the God-given dignity of all persons, especially the materially, culturally, and spiritually deprived” and instilling a “dedication to the service of others.”
• To increase individual comfort in expressing views and perspectives on potentially sensitive issues in a group setting.
• To examine and hopefully deconstruct individual prejudices, especially those related to age, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation,
• To increase individual awareness of values.
• To develop an appreciation for the benefits of experiential and group-based learning.
• To improve writing skills through journal assignments and a final research paper.
• To learn how to utilize multiple resources, including community agencies, when conducting research for a paper.
• To orient students to the general resources available within the University.

In order to create an open, accepting, and safe learning environment we ask that students abide by the following course etiquette guidelines:

• TURN OFF All CELL PHONES, PAGERS, AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES BEFORE YOU ENTER THE CLASSROOM.
• Come to class with an open mind and be willing to listen to alternative viewpoints and perspectives. Since this course is guided by the General Learning Objectives listed above, we encourage students to respect diverse points of view and understand that each person’s background and life history has shaped who they are today. *Remember to think before you speak.
• Be on time for class. Coming to class late interrupts the learning process and can be disrespectful to whoever is speaking at that time.
• You are expected to attend every class, unless you are very ill or have an extreme unavoidable conflict. You are responsible for any materials missed and will have to make up any required activities that occurred on that day.
• You are expected to participate in class discussions. A major part of this course is reflecting on the material that is learned and exploring your individual values-this is very difficult to accomplish if you are not actively engaged in classroom discussions and activities.
• When sending e-mails to instructors or other classmates, please keep in mind that this is an academic institution and thus you should avoid overly casual or familiar terminology/language in your e-mails. Please put “DISCOVER CHICAGO” in the subject line of all e-mails to the course instructors.

Autumn Quarter Course Assignment:

Read assigned material prior to coming to class, participate in class discussions and activities, complete common hour assignments, write two papers, write two reviews, write reflection summaries, write a letter to an elected official, and give an oral presentation on some type of Campus Resource. The assigned readings for each class are listed in the syllabus, along with the tentative activities that will occur during that class period.

Review of Current HIV/AIDS Issues: Journal Article Review & Website Review

You will only have to submit two reviews of current HIV / AIDS issues using the electronic assignment entry procedure in Blackboard. The purpose of this exercise is to make sure that you are aware of current issues and events that are occurring in the area of HIV. You will do two types of reviews, The first will be a web-based article review (due September 20) and the second one will be a scientific journal article review (due October 11). You must have the scientific article approved prior to completing the assignment. Some journals to explore include: AIDS Education and Prevention, AIDS and Behavior, AIDS Care, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Journal of HIV / AIDS Prevention & Education for Adolescents & Children, and AIDS Prevention and Mental Health. The web-based article can be from any website that provides articles related to HIV / AIDS. The articles can be on any aspect of HIV / AIDS, and should have been published within the past year. After reading the article you need to type the name of the article, along with the complete reference for the article (for the journal article) or the URL address (for the web-based article) on the top of a MS Word file document and then type the following three headings on the page: 1) DESCRIPTION, 2) ANALYSIS/INTERPRETATION, 3) PERSONAL REACTION. You can either make three vertical columns or just type the heading at the beginning of each new section in a horizontal fashion. Under the DESCRIPTION column/section you should describe the information that was presented in the article. This should be in your own words (no plagiarism). In the ANALYSIS/ INTERPRETATION column/section you should write about your analysis and interpretation of the article. Tell us what you thought of the article, what you found interesting/controversial, what you agreed/disagreed with, how the information fit into (or didn’t fit into) what you learned during immersion week, etc. Try to be as analytical as possible in this column. In the PERSONAL REACTION column/section we want you to tell us how you felt about the article on an emotional level. Tell us how the article impacted you, what it made you think of, how it made you feel, etc. This part is all about your personal reaction to the article. Your entry for each article should be SINGLE SPACED AND BETWEEN 1 AND 2 PAGES LONG. After you have written your journal entry, you should submit it to us on the course Blackboard web utility.

Thought/Reflection Papers

Throughout the quarter you will be asked to write brief Thought/Reflection Papers based on material that is discussed in class. These papers are to be brief (1-2 double spaced pages) and are based on your own personal thoughts and reflections to various topics. The exact topic of the papers will be discussed in class.

Letter to an Elected Official

You will write a letter to an elected official regarding some issue that you learned about in the course. In the letter you should talk about the issue and suggest the action that you would like to see the person take. The letter does not have to be long, but should be logical, accurate, and directed. You will be provided with guidelines for how to write the letter. This assignment is due on October 18.

Class Presentations: Campus Resources

Each person in the class will give a brief (approximately 5 minutes) presentation to the class during the quarter. You will have a partner for the presentation, and your partner will be assigned by the course instructors (see course listing for your partner).
This presentation is part of the Common Hour component of the class and is designed to familiarize students with the various resources that are available to students on campus. In addition, since each presentation must involve a PowerPoint visual presentation, it will give you the opportunity to learn more about how to use this presentation tool. You will receive more specific instructions on the content of these presentations in class.

Reflective Writing Assignment: Due on September 27

You will write a 3-5 page reflection/response writing assignment based on your experiences during the course up to date. The assignment should adhere to the following restrictions: a) typed, b) double spaced, c) one inch margins on all sides, d) no font larger than 12 pts. In this assignment we are interested in hearing more about your emotional reaction to the information that you learned during immersion week
and beyond. We also want to hear about your thoughts regarding the societal impact of HIV / AIDS, either as you experienced it first hand or as you heard about it or read about it during immersion week. You have two choices for the format of this assignment.

Write a newspaper article for your hometown newspaper. This should be more of a public interest story than a scientific article. You should use information from the experiences you have gained as well as from the written material provided for the course. You must include all of the following areas in your article:

• Discuss the most important information that people should know about HIV/AIDS.
• Discuss common myths that people have about HIV/AIDS.
• Compare and contrast two different populations of people impacted by HIV that we have discussed in the course (e.g., women, gay men, adolescents, people of color. etc.), and include the following topics:
  • -Differences in terms of societal pressures.
  • -Differences in terms of ability to implement prevention practices.
  • -Differences in access to prevention and treatment.
• Offer recommendations for what people who are at risk for HIV can do to protect themselves from the virus.

Write a letter to a friend who does not have much of an understanding about the impact of HIV / AIDS. This should be a letter where you fully describe the emotional impact that your participation in this class has had on you and where you convey to your friend the societal implications of HIV / AIDS. You must include the following areas in your letter:

• Discuss the most important information that people should know about HIV/AIDS.
• Discuss the myths that have been dispelled as part of being a member of this class, and the most surprising/intriguing things that you have learned.
• Discuss how the information that you have learned thus far has challenged (or not challenged) your way of thinking or your way of viewing some aspect of society. Please explain why you think this has/has not occurred.
• Pick a particular place that we visited during immersion week that had a significant impact on you and explain why it had such an impact. In this section explain the impact it had on you in the following realms:
  • Emotionally
  • Spiritually
  • Behaviorally
  • Expectations of Others

If you chose the second option, we encourage you to write this letter so that you can actually send it. This will have the potential to impact another person as it will give them new information and insights that they did not have before. You can send it to a friend or family member, or you can send it to a “pen pal” in Kenya. We will discuss the “pen pal” project in class.

Final Expression Project: Due on November 1

You will present a final creative expression project that represents one or more things you learned in the class. This assignment is optional and will count as extra credit. It may be a poem, a drawing, or a photograph and can either be an original creation or one that you find from another source. During our final class period, each member will present and explain their expression project. You are encouraged to think of creative ways that you can make a personal contribution to the fight against AIDS.

Applied Community-Based Project Final Writing Assignment: Due on November 8

You will write a 6-8 page final paper based on your individual applied community-based project during the quarter. Papers should adhere to the following restrictions: a) typed, b) double spaced, c) one inch margins on all sides, d) no font larger than 12 pts. You are encouraged to visit the writing center as you move from the outline to your first and subsequent drafts.

You have two options for this paper. Both of these involve being involved in some community-based HIV-related applied experience, and then writing about that experience.

Service Learning

You must volunteer at on HIV / AIDS-related community-based organization for at least 15 hours during the quarter and write an integrative paper about your experiences. You should select an agency from among the list of sites that we attended during Immersion Week. If you wish to volunteer at an agency that we did not visit, you must get approval from the instructor. Once you select your agency, you must complete a service learning contract and have it signed by someone at the agency. The contract is due on September 20. You must have a supervisor at the agency write a brief letter on agency stationary stating that you completed the 15 hours.

The paper should focus on a specific aspect of the AIDS epidemic (e.g., mothers living with HIV, benefits of needle exchange, need for increased HIV / AIDS policy action). If your experience involved different populations or different issues (e.g” prevention and treatment). then you should select one issue that is of interest to you. Based on this specific aspect, you should develop a thesis statement that describes the focus of your paper. Put the thesis statement at the top of the paper in bold. In the body of the paper you must do the following:

• You should first state why you selected your specific focus and thesis statement. This section should be at least one to two paragraphs (but it can be longer). You should use data and statistics to support this. For example, if you are focusing on the need to have comprehensive sexuality education for all high school students as a form of HIV prevention, you may want to give statistics on the number of high school students who are becoming infected with HIV each year.
• You should briefly describe the agency, the types of people that are served by the agency, the types of services that are provided, the specific activities in which you were involved, and any other relevant background information.
• You should critically analyze the service learning experience, and integrate what you learned at the community agency with what you learned in the course. You should also integrate information from course readings and additional readings as well. You need to draw direct connections between what you’ve learned in class and in the readings with what you learned in your applied experience.
• You should talk in general about what impact the experience had on you and what you learned from the experience. This section is a little less structured than the rest so use it to let me now what you got out of the experience.

Community-Based Service Learning Contracts are due on September 20 and all of your hours should be completed by NOVEMBER 4. POINTS WILL BE DEDUCTED FOR HOURS THAT ARE NOT COMPLETED!!! You must have a supervisor at the agency write a brief letter on agency stationary stating that you completed the 15 hours.

HIV /AIDS Awareness/Education/Prevention Project

You must develop and implement some type of community-based HIV/AIDS public awareness/education/prevention project. There is a lot of flexibility with the type of project you can do, as long as it involves providing HIV-related information and awareness to a group of people. The work that goes into developing and implementing the project should be equal to or greater than the time required for the Service Learning project (15 hours). The proposal for this project is due on September 20.

Your proposal should address the following points:

• What will you do for the project?
• Where will you do it?
• When will you do it? How long will it take?
• Who is your target audience?
• Who else will be involved in the project? What role(s) will they play?
• What are your goals for the project?

The paper should focus on the population you served with your project, as well as the type of awareness/education/prevention approach that you used (e.g., small group HIV prevention sessions). You should develop an goal statement that describes the focus of your project (e.g., The goal of this project was to increase awareness of the personal risks of HIV among college students living in University Hall). Put the goal statement at the top of the paper in bold. In the body of the paper you must do the following:

• You should first state why you selected your specific project and your specific population. This section should be at least one to two paragraphs (but it can be longer). You should use data and statistics to support the selection of your population, and your approach as well if applicable. For example, if you focused on high school students, you may want to give statistics on the number of high school students who are becoming infected with HIV each year.
• You should briefly describe the project, the types of people that were served by the project, the types of services that you provided, the specific activities in which you were involved, and any other relevant background information.
• You should critically analyze the project, and integrate what you learned by doing it with what you learned in the course. You should also integrate information from course readings and additional readings as well. You need to draw direct connections between what you\’ve learned in class and in the readings with what you learned in your applied experience.
• You should talk in general about what impact the experience had on you and what you learned from the experience. This section is a little less structured than the rest so use it to let me now what you got out of the experience.

The Diverse Faces of AIDS: Education, Prevention, and Treatment Service Learning Contract

Dear Community Agency:

As partial fulfillment for the requirements of a First year Seminar course at DePaul University (‘The Diverse Faces of AIDS”’), this student will complete 15 hours of service at your agency. The student is required to work directly with a community-based HIV/AIDS service organization on a volunteer basis and will then write a 6-8 page paper about his/her experiences. Please attach a business card or letterhead for agency verification. If you have any questions about this project please feel free to contact me at 773-325-2056.

Sincerely,
Gary W. Harper, Ph.D.,M.P.H.
Professor
Department of Psychology

Student’s name:
Name of the agency:
Address of the agency:
Contact person at the agency:
Contact person’s phone number:
Specific population with which the student will be working:
Duties/tasks/activities with which the student will be involved at the agency:
Date that the student will start:
Signature of agency contact person:
Date:

This form must be completed and returned by SEPTEMBER 20, 2005, You may fax it to 773-325-2057.

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 Policy have become popular topics and emerging fields of study worldwide. In order to access the growing sources of information, students will be asked to research common youth-related topics on the Internet and in work groups. For example, many of the European Union and European Council reports and documents on youth are accessible via Internet and prepared in multiple languages. Partnering across disciplines, languages, and international experience will be an important component of this academic experience.

Course Summary:

This course is designed to prepare students in all majors, but those especially in Education and other public service disciplines, to a set of emerging global trends associated with framing youth issues in developmental terms and strategizing about how to support youth through state level youth policies. The idea that youth experience developmental stages is as old as the field of psychology but recent researchers, policy makers, and youth service practitioners in Europe and America have begun to emphasize the connection between positive youth development and federal, state and local policies to support. youth.

The course seeks to: 1) make students more aware of the basic conceptual and theoretical underpinnings associated with what youth development and positive youth development, in particular, means in the literature and current discussions among researchers and people in the field of youth work; 2) study, analyze and critique how youth development is emerging as a public policy agenda and philosophy; 3) compare youth policy frameworks in the United States with what is emerging in Europe and elsewhere; 4) investigate proposed model youth policy approaches advocated by national and international intermediary organizations; 5) research, discuss and write about approaches to youth development and youth policy in Spain, Andalusia and Granada, as practice areas for focused inquiry, research and ongoing study.

This course encourages active discussion, reading, reflection, writing and research on current problems and issues impacting young people worldwide, using the United States, Spain and Andalusia as the context for that process. Students will work independently and in small work groups to study special interest topics (youth problems, impact of popular culture, youth research, youth programming, state and local youth policy, youth as assets, youth participation strategies. public financing of youth programming, and other identified concerns). Working groups will be organized on the basis of federal, state, local, and community level issue analysis. This is done so students experience macro and micro levels of analysis about theory, application and practice. Research will also be done on Granada as a province and a community with specific youth issues, youth challenges, needs and opportunities investigated and mapped. Students will meet with regional and university researchers, community leaders, and youth program staff and advocates. These meetings will take place both on campus and in the community.

Course Readings:

There will be an extensive packet of articles and chapters to be purchased at the COE Publications Center. In addition, you will need to buy the following book(s), available by online orders or at a bookstore announced on the first day of class:

• Lerner, Richard (J995). America’s Youth in Crisis: Challenges and Options for Programs and Policies. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. ISBN: 0-8039-7069-2.
• Servicio Civico y Voluntario (2004). Published by the Global Service Institute. Free through the Internet at http://www.service-enquiry.org.za/

Due to the web-based research and study emphasis of this course, students will also need to continuously access the following web sites to review literature and constantly update their knowledge of current developments, reports and publications. Many of the listed online resources are posted in English, Spanish, and other languages. Publications and resources can also be downloaded free from most foundations, NGO’s and intermediaries. Internet sites to monitor include:

• Harvard Graduate School of Education.www.gse.harvard.edu
• The Center for Community Partnerships. University of Pennsylvania. www.upenn.edu/ccp
• Out of School Time Research. www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/afterschool/resources/issuebrief5.html
• Council of Europe. Education for Democratic Citizenship. www.coe.int/edc
• William T Grant Foundation Youth Initiatives. www.wtgrantfoundation.org/
• Youth Action Net. www.youthactionnet.org/
• Ashoka Worldwide Social Entrepreneurs Network. www.ashoka.org
• Inciativia para la movilizaeion de Recursos. www.moviliza.org
• Spanish Youth Council. www.cje.org
• European Youth Forum. www.youthforum.org
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation. www.wkk.org/
• Annie E. Casey Foundation Policy Magazine. www.aegf.org/
• Forum for Youth Investment. Leading Youth Policy Intermediary in U.S.
• www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/
• Soros Foundation Network Open Society Institute. Youth Initiatives. www.soros.org/initiatives/youth/
• Academy for Educational Development. Center for Youth Development and Policy Research. www.aed.org/Youth
• Ministry of Universities, Research and Information Society (Spain and International). Gencat. www.gencat.net
• European Commission Statistical Data. www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/
• International Network of Observatories in Cultural Policies.
• www.unesco.org/culture/development/observatories/
• International Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. www.childwatch.uio.no
• Columbia University Clearinghouse on International Development in Child, Youth and Family Policies. Focus on Spain. www.childpolicyint.org/countries/spain01.htm
• European Children Network. www.childrensnet.org/
• British Youth Council. www.byc.org.uk/
• lnternational NGO Youth Networks. www.infoyouth.org/
• Global Youth Action Network. www.takingitglobal.org/
• International Council on National Youth Policy. www.icnyp.net/
• Spanish Institute of Youth (INJUVE). Database and extensive publications. www.mtas.es/injuve/
• Institute for Social Studies of Andalusia. Spanish Council for Scientific Research. www.iesaa.csis.es/
• International Centre for Youth Policy. Netherlands. www.youthpolicy.ni/smartsite/
• European Youth Observatory . www.diba.cs/cyo
• Barcelona Youth Council. www.cjb.org/
• International Youth Foundation. www.iyfnet.org/

Students will be expected to weekly review their cluster web resources, note and download important developments, and share their discoveries and findings with the class as a whole. This is one means for working groups to function as a research team and the class a whole to become a learning community. Instructions will be provided on how to share resources, Jinks, publications and referrals with each other online and in class. The class will also co-construct a web analysis form to use for individual and team assessment of web site utility.

Course Requirements:

Your grade will be based on the following:

1. A take home essay of your initial assessment of what youth development and youth policy means to you, what the central assumptions are underlying a youth development approach, and your initial thoughts on how these concepts do or ought to actually connect to youth policy. Specific questions for the essay will be distributed the first week of class, February 21-23, 2006 and the essay will be due the following week, February 22, 2005. This submission will be worth 5% of your final grade.

2. Instead of a final exam, each class participant will be responsible for preparing or contributing significantly to two submissions – a case study summary on a critical youth development or youth policy of interest to them or a working group of classmates, including a brief explanation of the issue, major relevant literature and references, core elements and/or findings underlying the concern, programs and projects designed to address it, and organizational and web-based resources to follow-up with or contact for information. These youth development/youth policy briefings should be concise, to the point, factual, thorough, tightly written and not longer than 4-6 typed pages. The final briefing should be prepared in PDF format and on CD for final submission. The second submission relates to community/site observations, interviews, and service participation with a local youth serving organization, city project, and/or NGO. The format fur this submission remains virtually the same: brief explanation of the organization/site, program and/or projects main purpose; the key focus of their activities with and for youth; summary listing of major themes from your interviews with youth or staff, what you learned about youth participation from your observations and involvement with this group and the youth it serves. Again, this should not be longer that 4-6 typed pages, prepared in POI’ format and ready to load on a web site, submitted on a CD. The quality of these assignments will represent 50% of your final grade. Each submission will be worth 25%.

3. Preparation of a student journal covering thoughtful reflections on the class, readings, presentations, research and working group activities, field observations, and voluntary service experiences that captures your intellectual, group interactions, and personal insights on the entire course experience from start to finish. This document should record your private observations and lessons being learned throughout the entire academic experience. It should be typed with daily/weekly entries noted, given themes and titles to comments and observations, and thorough in terms of the range of learning activities engaged in (class, reading, observation, service). The Youth Development Youth Policy Journal will be collected at four intervals over the course of the semester as noted on the class schedule. Lateness and non-submissions will impact your final grade. 25% of your total class grade will be impacted by this reflection and self-learning tool. See syllabus for submission dates. Again, this can be submitted through the Internet as an email attachment, in a notebook, or as a diskette and/or CD.

4. Class participation, project activities, team involvement, actual engagement in service will all be important contributing factors for this course’s success. Students are expected to show up, be involved, give of their time and talents. Voluntary youth participation is a primary goal for the entire experience. Items 2 and 3 above are ways to submit products that demonstrate this involvement. However, actual participation — going to class, attending work group meetings, conducting youth research and preparing briefings, attending community sessions, spending time at youth field sites, volunteering your time to youth organizations (documented and verified) — represents 20% of the final class grade. Sign in sheets will be provided for all sessions to indicate your attendance. Actual attendance is but one way to measure participation. How you use your voice, raise questions and concerns (orally or in writing), and your willingness to help and serve the group as a whole, and/or the youth you volunteer with, are other indicators.

Class Activities and Assigned Readings

WEEK ONE:
Course Overview – Assignments, Requirements, Internet Cluster and Working Group Projects, Journals and Final Products. All Equal High Expectations!
Session Focus: Personal Explorations into Youth Development and Youth Policy
Reading Assignments
Secure Reading Packet and Books, Explore Web Sites, Identify Language Preference in Sites, Bookmark Favorites, Select Personal lnterest(s), Survey Youth Development and Youth Policy Issues – Come to Class Ready to Discuss What You Discovered and What You Want to Know More About

WEEK TWO:
Youth Development and Youth Policy from Student Perspectives – Class Small Group Exercise, with Follow-up Strategies for Students and Instructors
Continue to Research On-line Cluster Web Sites Assigned to You or Your Working Group and Be Prepared to Share What Relevant Information You Found. .

Framing Youth Development – American Perspectives
Reading Assignments
Lerner (1995). “The Contemporary Crisis of America’s Children and Adolescents,” and “Developmental Contextualism,” pp. 1-32 in primary text.
Pittman and Zedlin (1995). “Premises, Principles and Practices: Defining the Why, What, and How on Promoting Youth Development Through Organizational Practice,” pp. 1-30, in your reading packet.

WEEK THREE:
Session Three: Integrating Perspectives, Towards Framing Core Concepts – Ist Mapping Exercise
Reading Assignments
Lerner (1995). “Integrative Vision of Human Development Research and Outreach,” pp. 33·60, in primary text.
Juan Sebastian Fernandez Prados. (2002). La categoria social devoluntariado y su realidad Espana, pp. 181-198 in your reading Packet.
Servicio Civico y Voluntario (2004). Read the entire text over the next three class sessions.

WEEK FOUR:
Youth Development Examined in Multiple Contexts — Family, Community, Institutions, and Government – Small Group Class Exercise with Reports
Reading Assignment
Search Web Sites For References, Publications, Reports on Issues Related to Youth Development and/or Youth Policy That Address Family, Community, Institutions and/or Government Topics.
Background Readings:
Goran Therborn (1993). Los Derechos de los ninos desede la constitutcion del concepto moderno de menor: Un estudio comparado de los pates occidentales, pp. 77- 143 in the reading packet. Though this article deals specifically with children’s issues and child and family policy, it has great relevance as an overview on how youth as a subject, field of study, and subsequent policies emerged in modem Spanish society over the last 25-50 years. This is a major article for you to review and refer throughout this entire course.
Francisco Fernandez Palomares. (1992) “Sociologia y cambio educativo, escuela contexto, una experiencal en el poligono de cartuja de granda,” in the reading packet. Report by the current Dean of the College of Education at UGR on a community learning project dealing with school and community context in a barrio next to the UGR campus, the Cartuga neighborhood.
Columbia University (2001). Spain Report. Secure on line from the Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth and Family Policies website,
www.childpolicyintl.org/countries/spain01.htm
Check Update report, March 2003, same site.

WEEK FIVE:
Youth Development in Practice – Role of Research, Intermediaries and NGO’s
Reading Assignments
Zedlin (1995). “Opportunities and Supports for Youth Development: Lessons From Research and Implications for Community Leaders and Scholars,” in the reading packet, published by the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research, pp. 1-21, plus Appendix, in the reading packet. This is a thorough review of the field to the mid-1990′s. Not available on line, at this point.
Lerner (1995). “Designing Successful Prevention Programs,” pp. 61-76 in the main textbook.

Additional Reading Assignments
Hugh Frazer (2002). La accion voluntaria y los programas contra la pobreza, pp. 165-196, in the reading packet.
This is an introductory reading on the challenges of dealing with poverty through voluntary action, focusing on Ireland and Spain mostly, with some reference to Portugal as well. It clearly lays out the challenges associated with trying to solve large societal problems by dealing with local volunteer actions. It addresses the value of these strategies, only if they are tied to national level public policies.
Joaquin Susino Arbucias (2002). La sociedad urbana en andalucia. In La Sociedad Andaluza 2000, pp. 307-331, in the reading packet.
Manuel Fernandez Esquinas y Morcnte Mejias (2002). La juventud andaluza,” in Sociedad Andaluza 2000, pp. 497-521, in the reading packet.

WEEK SIX
Asset Mapping – What Really Needs To Be In Place To Support Young People
Reading Assignments
Barcelona Youth Council. Youth Participation: “Conference on Zones and Facilities for Young People–Tools for Debate,” on www.cjb.org web site. Download documents and relevant resources. Check links.
Search Institute (1998). J 50 Maneras de Mostrat a los Ninos su Interes por Ellos. Handout.

WEEK SEVEN
Impacting Public Agendas – TIle New Mexico Story
THIRD YOUTH DEVELOPMENT/YOUTH POLICY JOURNAL SUBMISSION
Morris (2001). Reframing New Mexico’s Assets: Toward A Sustainable Statewide Youth Initiative. In your reading packet.

Session Focus: Impacting Public Agendas – European Union and European Council
Reading Assignments
Research and Review the European Union Youth Program through the European Commission at www.europa.eu.int/comm/youth/program/
Also download the Commission of the European Communities (2001) White Paper – A New Impetus for European Youth. Pay particular attention to how the idea of youth as a field of work and services was framed, and the role education are to play in young people’s development.

WEEK NINE
The Universities as Sites — for Youth Work and Civic Engagement (CE)
Reading Assignment
Council of Europe (2002). Executive Summary Report on Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) 1nitiative. www.coe.int/TE/Culture_Co_coperation/education/Higher_education/Activities/Universities_as_sites_of_citizenship/Executive-Summary.asp
Among the main ideas this report raises is the fact that universities should be sites where young people learn civic engagement skills and volunteer, work and serve at the grassroots level of society as a way of building social capital and to develop citizenship skills and civic experiences.
Carey and Forrester (1999). Sites of Citizenship: Empowerment, participation and partnerships. A special report on all the pilot projects that were part of the first round of the Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) project. Council of Europe, Cultural Co-operation Documents and Publication section.

Session Focus; Initiatives From EO and Federal and Regional Government: Education for Democratic Citizenship – What Does CE Mean in Practice?
Additional Reading Assignments
Commission of the European Communities (2004). Making Citizenship Work: Fostering Culture and Diversity Through Programmes for Youth, Culture, Audiovisual and Civic Participation. This documents proposes a series of initiatives and special projects to develop a “European citizenship” based on a set of principles and supporting activities.
Audigier (2002). Basic Concepts and core competences for education for democratic citizenship. Another Council of Europe publication about what the core learning and practice are associated with education for democratic citizenship. Also in the document section of the www.coe.int web site.

WEEK TEN
Youth Mapping Preliminary Reports- Themes and Topics
FOURTH YOUTH DEVELOPMENT/YOUTH POLICY JOURNAL SUBMISSION
No Reading Assignments
Lessons Learned from Civic Engagement and Youth Participation – Insights from Observations, Reflection, Immersion and Service

The current era of globalization has generated the apparent contradiction between the free flow of capital across borders and restrictive immigration policy. In order to gain a greater understanding of these trends, this course will examine changing patterns of Latino immigration in the US-Mexican border region and in Colorado Springs. The course will consider a range of issues including: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the multifaceted nature of integration between US and Mexican economies, economic development in Mexico that has generated emigration to the US, the nature of the Mexican migrant journey to the US, the role that Latino labor plays in the US economy, and US immigration policies including the militarization of the US-Mexican border. The class will travel for seven days to the Tucson/Nogales region of the US-Mexican border.

(Prerequisite for class: Any Sociology 100 Course)

Course Goals:

1. To demonstrate to students an understanding of the dynamics associated with the current era of globalization that propel migration from the global south to the United States
2. To demonstrate to students an understanding of the role Latino immigrants play in the U.S. economy
3. To demonstrate to students an appreciation of the difficulties both immigrants and community institutions confront as immigrants integrate into urban communities such as Colorado Springs

Course Objectives:

1. Describe the steps involved in the immigrant journey from Mexico to the United States
2. Develop an understanding of sociological theory that focuses on causes and effects of international migration to the U.S. including an understanding of the relationship between globalization and migration
3. Develop an understanding of theoretical work focused on border militarization
4. Demonstrate an ability to weave personal reflection from the border trip into literature reviews on migration and globalization
5. Demonstrate an understanding of skills needed by immigrants and community agency personnel to negotiate the U.S. immigration system
6. Develop an analysis concerning immigrant integration into urban communities in the U.S. and the possibilities that this process will contribute to social change

Service Learning Placements:

Students will choose between two service learning field placements for the course. The first placement involves a Public Achievement Project in Wasson High School. The second placement involves teaching English as a Second Language to adults through the Adult and Family Education program in local school district 11. See the guidelines on these projects at the end of the syllabus.

Field Trip to U.S.-Mexican Border:

The class will travel to the Tucson/Nogales region of the border from Jan. 14-21, 2005. We will concentrate specifically on Mexican migration to the United States and actually trace the migrant journey from northern Sonora, Mexico to the border region and into the U.S. A tentative itinerary is included at the end of the syllabus.

Reading Journals:

Students are required to turn in critical summaries of 150 words or less on each of the readings during the first and last weeks of the course. Each book and article is a separate entry (please note: these summaries are not a substitute for a student’s own personal system of taking notes). For each entry, include the citation and a brief description of the central argument and main points. Concentrate on your own critical reaction to the piece. See the examples at the end of this syllabus. I will grade these assignments with a check, check plus, or check minus. See examples at end of syllabus.

Class Writing Assignments:

There will be three papers in this class. The first paper is due on Friday Feb. 4, the second paper is due Feb. 26, and the final paper will be due on Friday May 6. The first two papers will both require a literature review of the relevant theoretical and empirical work that we will have considered in the class as well as a reflection on your observations/findings/thoughts from the border trip. In order for you to be best prepared to answer this question, I suggest that you keep a journal during the trip. Suggested guidelines for the journal are included at the end of the syllabus and will be discussed on the first day of class. The final paper will focus on your field placements. Guidelines for the papers are included at the end of this syllabus.

Class Format/Attendance/Deadlines

The format of the class will emphasize discussion. I will look for evidence of daily preparation for class discussion and engagement with the course materials. All of the readings are important, but I will not discuss every point from every reading. Class time will not be limited to repeating the material in the readings; rather class time is an opportunity to extend the readings to the questions and issues that interest us as class members. To a large extent which readings we discuss and the level of detail of our discussion is up to us as class members You are responsible for making sure that any reading that you thought was particularly interesting, fantastic, totally misinformed, confusing, etc. is discussed to your satisfaction.

Scrupulous attendance is assumed for classes held at CC and meetings during the trip to the border. For class, you should always arrive prepared and having thought about the readings. You are obligated to submit your work by the date and time specified in the syllabus. Handing in assignments late disadvantages you in getting on with other work in the course. Late assignments will be penalized one grade per day.

Honor code and good faith agreement:

In addition to adhering to the college honor code, students in this class must adhere to the following good faith agreement:

1. We assume that our colleagues are not motivated by hate, unless we have definite evidence to the contrary. If we learn of attitudes or positions colleagues hold that contribute to or reinforce wrong, we assume that these arise out of ignorance. Ignorance is educable.
2. Until or unless we have definite evidence to the contrary, we assume each of us is educable, and that each comes to our shared task with good faith.
3. We assume our colleagues, like ourselves, desire for the world to be a more humane and just place, unless we have definite evidence to the contrary. Ensuing disagreements, then, constructively focus on different visions of how this may be accomplished rather than whether it is of interest.
4. We assume that there will be people here with more and less experience and knowledge than we hold; we assume that there are those among us who are more “enlightened,” and those who are more “ignorant” on specific points, and that there are diverse standards for what constitutes enlightened or ignorant. We agree to start from where we stand, in our lives, each day.
5. We, therefore, seek to avoid creating hierarchies amongst ourselves: more-politically-correct-than-thou, more-committed, more-experienced, more informed.
6. This is not a muzzle, nor is it intended to suggest that anger, passion, vehemence, or other powerful expressions do not have a place in what we come together to do. Indeed, we wish to encourage those kinds of expressions by providing baseline understandings for a constructive atmosphere.

Grading:

• Reading Journals, Class Participation, and Class Trip: 20%
• First Paper: 25%
• Second Paper: 25%
• Final Paper: 30%

Grading Criteria:
I will evaluate both written and oral work on an overall basis: while separate ratings are not made on each, the following are the major criteria I use:

• ORIGINALITY: Is your topic or position significant? Do you suggest new interpretations or are you merely rearranging old ones? Do you present a fresh organization of material or are you merely regurgitating what you have read?
• CONTENT: Is your paper a careful analysis of the issues or does it represent unsubstantiated personal opinion?
• ORGANIZATION: Is there a logical structure to what you are presenting or are you merely throwing a number of unrelated things together without demonstrating their connection? Have you presented a compelling argument?
• DEPTH: Do you just note issues or do you develop and analyze them in some depth? BREVITY: Have you edited your paper to make your argument as tight and succinct as possible? Note: Achieving this will require several rewrites.
• STYLE: Do you write with some grace? Are your sentences and paragraphs designed to communicate your ideas or are you simply stringing words together with no thought on their impact on the reader? Have you written for a general, well-educated audience or is your paper so specialized that only an “expert” can understand your argument? Have you avoided sexist language? Papers should be typed and well-edited for grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Pages should be numbered. Persistent errors will count against you.
• HONOR CODE: You are encouraged to discuss your work with your peers, but the papers and the exam must be individually thought-out and written. If you do not know how the Honor Code applies to a particular assignment, be sure to ask. Honor Code violations result in an automatic “NC.”

Class Trip Evaluation Criteria:

I will take a number of things into account when evaluating your participation on the border trip including degree of participation during class reflection sessions, quality of participation during these discussions including ability to make connections between the different trip meetings and reading material covered in class, punctuality to meetings and activities, and willingness to work as a group with your fellow students (colleagues).

Reading material:

All of the readings for the course have been posted on the course web page.

Course Schedule:

Monday Jan. 10: Causes of International Migration: Poverty, Capital Accumulation, Globalization, Relative Deprivation, Political Violence, Migrant Networks
Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, Immigrant America, (Berkeley: University of California), 1996, pp. 1 -92
Douglas Massey, et al., “Theories of International Migration: Review and Appraisal,” Population and Development Review] 9(3):431-466, 1993
Douglas Massey et al. Return to Aztlan: the Social Process of International Migration (Berkeley: University o(California Press), 1987, pp. 139-171
Class meets from 9-12

Tuesday Jan. 11: Causes of International Migration Continued: Role of Latino Labor in the U.S. Economy
Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents (New York: New Press), 1998, pp. 31-53
Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (New York: Monthly Review Press), 1997, pp. 1-8,265-285
Aristide Zolberg, “Wanted But Not Welcome: Alien Labor in Western Development,” in William Alonzo (cd.), Population in an Interacting World, 1987, pp. 36-73
Paul Ong, Edna Bonacich, and Lucie Cheng (eds.), The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring, (Temple University Press), 1992, pp. 3-35
Urban Institute, “Undocumented Immigrants: Facts and Figures,” 2004
Dawn Thilmany, “The Hispanic Labor Force in Colorado’s Agricultural and Rural Economy,” 2002
E. Helen Berry and Almabel Kirschner, “Rapid Growth of Hispanic Populations in Western States, ” WRDC Information Brief, 2002
National Immigration Forum, “Immigrants and the Economy”, 2003
National Immigration Law Center,”NILC Reflections on President Bush’s Immigration Reform Proposal,” 2004
Class Meets from 9:30-12:30

Wed. Jan. 12: Economic Integration and Immigration
Oxfam, “Dumping Without Borders,” 2003 Walden Bello, Deglobalization, pp. 1-31
Dani Roruik, “Globalization for Whom?”
Oxfam, “Rigged Rules and Double Standards” and Assorted Responses Food article – New York Times
Class Meets from 9:30-12:30 and 1:30-3 :30
*Field Project Orientation from 11:00-12:30
*Exercise in Altar, Mexico

Thursday Jan. 13: U.S. Immigration Policy and the U.S.-Mexican Border
Douglas Massey et al., Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in An Era of Economic Integration, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), 2003, pp. 105-141
Peter Andreas, Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 2000, pp. 85-103
Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: the Bracero Program, Immigration and the LN.S. (New York: Routledge), pp. 1-41
Class Meets from 9:30-12:00

Friday Feb. 4: 5:00-7:00: Why Border Militarization?
**Paper #1 due
Peter Andreas, Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 2000, pp.1-39; review pp. 85-103; 103-112
Joseph Nevins, Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (New York; Routledge), 2002, pp. 1-37; 95-149; 165-188

Friday Feb. 25: 5:00-7:00: Restricting Latino Immigration in the US
Brenda Walker, “Save the Sierra Club From the Treason Lobby – Act Now.” 2003
Stanley A. Renshon, “Dual Citizenship and American National Identity,” Center for Immigration Studies, 2001
Roy Beck et al., “Outsmarting Smart Growth: Population Growth, Immigration, and the Problem of Sprawl,” 2003
Steven Camarata, “Immigration From Mexico: Assessing the Impact on the United States,” 2001
Huntington article

Friday March 11: 5:00-7:00: Immigration, Urban Restructuring, and Ethnic Tension
Roger Waldinger, “Black – Immigrant Competition Reassessed: New Evidence From Los Angeles,” in Sociological Perspectives, v.40, no. 3, 1997, pp. 365-386
Paul Ong et.al., “The Korean-Black Conflict and the State,” in Paul Ong et.al., The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring,(Temple University Press), 1994, pp. 264-294
George Sanchez, “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America,” in International Migration Review, v.31, Winter 1997, pp. 1009-1030

Friday April 1: 5:00-7:00: Immigrant Networks: Social Capital and Ethnic Niches in the Labor Market
Roger Waldinger, Still the Promised City? African Americans and New Immigrants in PostIndustrial New York (Harvard University Press), 1996, pp. 1-32
Mary Waters “Ethnic and Racial identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City,” International Migration Review, 1994
Sarah Mahler: American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins, (Princeton University Press), 1995, pp. 83-158

Friday April 15: 5:00-7:00: Immigration and Gender Dynamics
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press) 1994, pp. 53-147
**Possible Presentation by a CC alum who has been working in Guatemala

Friday May 6: 5:00-8:00
Final Presentations on Field Projects – Wasson and Hunt ESL folks will be invited
**Final Papers Due

This course will explore “the family” in relation to cultural identities and political policies in the United States and around the world, combined with a unique opportunity to reach out to and interact with diverse families nearby. With topics including the “Holy Family” to “Father Knows Best,” from Freud’s “Oedipal Complex” to current debates on “Family Values,” from children with AIDS to international adoption, students will analyze changing family socio-economic and psychological structures and the evolving representations of motherhood, fatherhood and childhood in the past and particularly in the present. We will compare public and private efforts to aid families in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world, including the origins and evolution of social work and volunteerism as a form of democratic engagement. Students will grapple with complex “real world” issues as well as their own family identities.

This course will meet only 2 hours a week and require a commitment to volunteer regularly (2-3 hours/week) during the semester. At the request of Project Hospitality, students will provide child care, tutoring and other support to children in immigrant families, including at meetings to discuss labor and social welfare issues and in afterschool programs. Students will write a research paper linking their experience to a public policy initiative.

Finally, students will apply these insights in campus-community dialogues on diversity and democracy, including “Passport to Diversity: A Celebration of International Cultures in Our Community” and the National Dialogue Project “Journey to Democracy: Power, Voice and the Public Good.” Dialogues will involve civic associations on Staten Island in discussions of immigrant families, themselves given a voice, compare resources within a culture of participatory democracy, ret1ect on the college\’s and students’ responsibilities and analyze the structures of power in promoting the public good.

Students in all disciplines are encouraged to enroll.

Books Required:

• Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
• Colin Heywood. History of Childhood: From Medieval to Modern Times. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
• Jonathan Kozol. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience ala Nation. New York, Harper Collins, 1996.
• Jimmy Breslin. The Short, Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez. New York: Crown Publishers, 2002.
• Barbara Bergman. Saving Our Children from Poverty: What the U.S. Can Learn from France. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Reed Ueda, Post-War Immigrant America: A Social History St. Martins Press, 1994.

Course Requirements:

Attendance
Your ability to raise questions and express opinions, drawing upon the readings, will be an important component of your grade. You are expected to contribute regularly and to prepare informal presentations. Attendance is required, including at film screenings and designated lectures of the Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) program or Dialogues on Democracy project. More than 2 unexcused absences will be penalized as follows: for each additional absence, your final grade will drop by one-third.

Reflective Essay (10%)
Trace your own American family saga, in dialogue with democracy and diversity. Suggested guidelines will follow.

Journal Reflections (10%): During the semester, you will attempt to link specific issues raised in class discussions and readings with specific issues confronted in your placement. Using either the placement or readings as a starting point, write at least 5 journal entries (2 pages each), spaced throughout the semester.

Research Project (40%)
Each student will choose a topic related to democracy or diversity as a lens by which to reflect on their service-learning experience. Research is expected to be of high quality with at least three refereed books or journal articles published since 1985 and at least one oral history interview. You willlikely need to order materials inter-library loan-plan ahead! Tins is a semester-long project: Students will submit a bibliography, thesis, outline and first draft over a period of several weeks. Presentations will be both in-class and, as part of the Dialogue on Democracy project, for invited community members.

Mid-term (20%) and Final (20%): Essay questions. Final exam will be cumulative and include questions on placements.

Course Outline:
Additional readings or videos may be added and other changes made as needed)

1. Week 1-3: Family History: Immigration and Generations

Mon. 8/25 Introduction: Why engage families?
Children’s public/private lives around the globe
Read handouts; discuss research and service projects.
Wed. 8/27 Melting Pot or Mosaic? Integration vs. Assimilation
Read: Gonzalez, Introduction and Chapters 4-5
AND use internet to learn about Hispanic children in NYC and USA
Fri. 8/29 Read: Gonzalez, Ch. 11-12
Video: The Immigrant Experience: The Long, Long Journey (1972)

Mon. 9/1 No Classes (Labor Day)
Plan to visit Port Richmond Area this week
Wed. 9/3 Why History Matters: Creativity and Conflict
Read: Gonzalez, Ch. 1-3
Wed. eve Film screening: My Family/Mi Familia (1995)
Fri. 9/5 Discuss Film. Visit with Terry
Ueda, Post-War Immigrant America, Ch.3

Mon. 9/8 More than Kissing Babies: Economics and Politics of Democracy
Gonzalez, Ch. 10, 13 and conclusion
Wed. 9/10 Essay # 1 due:Your American Family Saga (3-4p.)

II. Week 4-6: History of Childhood

Mon. 9/15 Happy Mothers, Fallen Fathers
Read Heywood: pp.1-40
Wed. 9/17 Read Heywood: ppAl-82 (Guest: Dr. Alison Smith)
Sat. 9/20 Port Richmond Civic Association Picnic (optional)

Mon. 9/22 Brothers, Sisters and Peers
Read Heywood: pp.83-118
Wed. 9/24 When does Childhood End? Labor and Education
Read Heywood: pp.119-l72

Mon. 9/29 Review Family Policy from Nazism to the Present
Read handout
Wed. 10/1 Midterm Exam Due
Sat. 10/4 Freedom Walk

III. Week 7-10: Children in NYC

Mon. 10/6 Classes Cancelled: Yom Kippur Begin Kozol, Amazing Grace
Tues. 1017: 4:15: Dr. Lee Knefelkamp (required)
Wed. American Democracy and Children Left Behind Read Kozol, Ch. 1-3

Mon. 10/13: Columbus/Indigenous Peoples\’ Day Tues. 10/14: Kozol, Ch. 4-5
Wed. Finish Kozol, Ch. 6 and epilogue

Mon. 10/20 Buildings and Fences: Whose Responsibility?
Read Breslin, Short Sweet Dream, 1-53 Wed. 10/22 Read Breslin, 53-103

Fall Break-Work on Projects
Finish Breslin
Late October: Port Richmond Harvest Fair, Veterans\’ Park

Sun. 11/2: Celebrate Diversity! 12-5 (attendance required)
Mon. 11/3: Discuss Celebrate Diversity!
Read: Ueda, Ch 3-4

Weeks 11-15: Public Policy and Children

Wed. 11/5: Begin Bergman, Saving Our Children, 1-49

Mon. 11/10 Bergman, 50-91
Wed. 11/12 Finish Bergman, 91-153

Mon. 11/17 Research Projects Due
Wed. 11/19 Debate:Why Americans are For and Against Family Policy
Review Bergman

Mon. 11/24 International Family Policies: Adoption, Refugees, AIDs Read: handout on International adoption, web research
Thanksgiving Break
Late November/Early December: Dialogue on Democracv: Required

Mon. 12/2: Debate: Why Americans are For and Against Immigration and web search pro and con (eg. Pat Buchanan)
Wed. 12/4: What\’s Next?

Final Exam: Date TBA

Your American Family Saga A 3-4 page essay
Due: Wed. 9/10 (Bring to class)

Using the examples of the Gonzales or Sanchez Families, trace your own family’s evolution in contact with democracy and diversity. If possible, discuss these issues with a family member (but remember to handle oral history evidence with care.) Read all the questions below but focus on those most revealing of your family saga.

Discuss a family member’s voyage to America and adjustment to the new culture, society and economics. Consider issues such as housing, employment, push/pull motives, discrimination, gender, age, language, education, employment, health/abuse, voting, reliance on public support, socio-economic mobility, intermarriage, contemporary political and economic context.

How did gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and/or religion affect their adjustment and that of the second, third and/or later generations? Review issues listed above. What is their most important accomplishment? What was their greatest barrier to success? How did they change over time as America and the world has changed?

What changes in cultural values and socio-economic concerns can you trace between first generation immigrants in your family and their descendents?

Are your ancestors’ ethnicity, language, religion or culture still important to you?
Do you or other family members speak to each other in a language other than English? How informed are you of the culture and politics of their country of origin, past and present? Give specific evidence: for example, can you name the top political leader in that nation today?

How have democracy, diversity and the public good affected your family? What do these terms mean to you and your family? How do you benefit or how has your family benefited from government spending on family policy?

How do you and/or your family view immigrants today? Do you and/or your family see America/New York as a melting pot or mosaic?

Final Exam:
Please answer both questions, in 3-4 pages each (total 8 pages).

In both questions, please refer to your own civic engagement experience this semester when possible and show if and how it affected your learning. Exam is due Monday by 3pm.

Your grade will be based on the quality of your argument: the clarity and persuasiveness of your thesis, your organization and the thoroughness of your evidence. Refer whenever possible to primary sources and to specific persons, events and terms (for example, Bracero program, Family Allowances, Mother’s Pensions, TANF).

I. To what extent is an understanding of family policy in France useful in shaping public opinion and proposals (like those of Bergman) that could address the most urgent problems of American children?

In your answer, be sure to answer the following questions: How significantly do Bergman’s proposals (and their intended impact) differ from those of the National Commission on Children (NCC)? Which of France’s family policies does she find most relevant to the United States? Why does she reject Family Allowances and make minimal reference to maternity leave? Why are Bergman, Cherilyn Davidson and the NCC concerned about the shortcomings of AFDC (now T ANF)? What objections do you think the NCC would have raised had they heard Bergman’s suggestions? Finally, whose recommendations (if any) have a better chance in becoming law? Be sure to identify AFDC, T ANF and EITC in yom answer.

II. You are teaching a tenth grade class about the problems currently facing children and families in our American democracy.

First, indicate at least 3 specific problems identified in Kozol, Amazing Grace and/or Breslin, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Guttierez (which the students have just read). Use at least 3 quotations as well as statistics to back up your argument and analyze these sources critically.

Then, explain how the issues relate to the struggle for power, voice and the public good in our democracy. In your answer, be sure to define “public good.”

Briefly indicate what action, if any, the students could take to address the crisis facing America’s children.

What objections and questions might the students raise in response to your presentation? Please consider race, ethnicity and economic status of the children you are addressing in your answer.