Community Change

This course teaches students about the role of social media in social change. Students will explore research that demonstrates the ways that social media has changed/is changing the social world. This will include an exploration of the harmful changes that can result from social media (such as mental health issues, and increases in extremism, polarization, and misinformation), as well as the anti-oppressive changes that are possible (such as increases in social connection and community, and the use of social media for activism). Throughout this course, students will also develop their own

This course examines transdisciplinary methods of organizing people for social and political action on their own behalf or on behalf of others. Students will analyze different approaches to bringing people together for collective action, building organizational capacity, and generating power, with emphasis on the role of labor unions, coalitions, political organizing, and community-based policy advocacy. The course includes the study of skills in analyzing power structures, developing action strategies, conflict and persuasive tactics, challenging oppressive structures, conducting community

This course will introduce students to political social work, which is social work practice, theory, and research that focuses on the use of policy and politics to create social change. Students will gain an understanding of how politics impacts their lives as well as the lives of those served by social workers on both a micro and macro level. This course will prepare students for work in political settings, such as on advocacy and electoral campaigns, as staff for elected officials, and running for office themselves. Students will develop practice skills for policy advocacy and engaging with

This course will engage students in learning core cross-cutting skills needed for engaging in community change. It will use a framework of “Scan” – “Plan” – “Do” – “Review” to help organize skills. Learning to infuse cross-cutting principles including critical Praxis.

Scan: Assessment and Scanning Skills (individual to community) Illustrative skills may include: social identity assessments, individual skills assessments, story of self/personal motivational assessments, community power mapping, asset/strength assessments, organizational/community scans, and neighborhood mapping

Plan: Planning

This course will engage students in learning core cross-cutting skills needed for engaging in community change. It will use a framework of “Scan” – “Plan” – “Do” – “Review” to help organize skills. Learning to infuse cross-cutting principles including critical Praxis.

Scan: Assessment and Scanning Skills (individual to community) Illustrative skills may include: social identity assessments, individual skills assessments, story of self/personal motivational assessments, community power mapping, asset/strength assessments, organizational/community scans, and neighborhood mapping

Plan: Planning

This course is designed to prepare social work students for effective and ethical professional practice in global social work contexts.

This course works from a framework that acknowledges that global issues and practice are not bound by physical borders. Global contexts within the USA and abroad will be explored. These contexts will be within and across different cultural, geopolitical, socio-economic, organizational, and interpersonal settings.

Ongoing development of critical consciousness is the core of this course. Throughout the course, students will critically and reflexively

Social problems affecting individuals, families, groups, communities, and nations are globally interconnected. This course is designed to introduce students to an understanding of power in the global context and to help students develop a critical and reflexive understanding of how such power informs social work practice, utilizing decolonizing and social justice-oriented perspectives (e.g., feminist, participatory, liberatory/emancipatory). Students will gain an analytic de-centering framework for critical understanding and assessment of pressing social problems (e.g., human trafficking

The Understanding and Organizing Against Inhumane Immigration Policy course focuses on the impact of immigration-related public policy on individuals, families, and communities. In this course, we will identify and address sweeping national controversies around immigration and significant questions about social justice and racial discrimination. This course will focus on the problems undocumented immigrants face and the public policy strategies of enforcement, particularly at the border and in the interior of the country. Along with discussion of the policies and practices of enforcement, we

This course will be a rotation elective course focused on special and contemporary topics in community change. It will be faculty-driven and focus on specific and important issues in community change, including specific issues impacting community change, contemporary organizing efforts, specific skills in community change, and/or specific issues, policy, population, or contexts for community change.

Social impact organizations secure resources through a variety of methods, including fees, grants, contracts, financial gifts, in-kind (non-cash) contributions, and investments. This course involves assessing an agency’s resource mix and developing tactics and strategies to sustain or expand its revenue streams. Students will explore the range of possible income sources that organizations can allocate to advance social justice by expanding and improving services, empowering groups, reaching populations in need, improving social conditions or anticipating and responding to new challenges. The