Interdisciplinary Problem Solving (Law)

SW741, Section 002

Through a team-based, experiential, and interdisciplinary learning model, small groups of U-M graduate and professional students work with faculty to explore and offer solutions to emerging, complex problems. This course is offered through the Law School’s Problem Solving Initiative and the topics vary by semester.

Topic Description / Additional Information

This class is an interdisciplinary problem solving class offered at the Law School through the Problem Solving Initiative (PSI). The Human Trafficking Lab is a social justice innovation space where multidisciplinary student teams use design thinking to research, incubate, and build replicable, scalable, and disruptive solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking. Our focus for Fall 2023 will be reducing vulnerability to trafficking in supply chains. In November 2022, the U.S. government found that over half of the sugar produced in the Dominican Republic resulted from forced labor. Actions to address this exploitation must be taken. The Lab, along with a coalition of NGOs, is working to respond to these findings to create long-term worker-led oversight of this supply chain to reduce labor trafficking.

This class is open to all University of Michigan graduate and professional students. Please note: Non-Law students are responsible for checking with their own schools, colleges, or units to learn if a PSI class will count toward graduation or other departmental requirements.

Non-law graduate/professional students may apply for the course using the PSI application system (https://michigan.law.umich.edu/problem-solving-initiative) March 13-26, 2023. After the initial application period, students seeking to apply can contact problemsolving@umich.edu.

Course Codes