This two-day, in-person institute is offered at the University of Washington as a pre-conference to the National Sustainability Society’s 2024 National Conference, and it is open to both faculty attending, and not attending, the Conference. This Institute will introduce faculty and staff to an experiential learning approach for incorporating social action campaigns into either a semester-long course or co-curricular workshop series. In this transformative experiential learning model, students develop and launch a social action campaign of their choosing during the semester the course is taught. The student campaigns seek to change a rule, regulation, norm, or practice of an institution, whether on campus or in the community.
Our long-term goal is to mainstream this model for teaching active democracy. The world needs more citizens who have developed their knowledge and skills in bringing about positive change through real world experience. While not all of the student campaigns are successful, many have been and those that haven’t succeeded have still taught valuable lessons to those who led them and those who were engaged in one form or another.
Submit your application here
Application Deadline: August 23, 2024
Institute Host
Dr. Arun Argawal
U. of Michigan Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability
“Teaching social action has been one of the highlights of my career, as it provides students with concrete tools with which to organize social action campaigns.
Institute Participants (Accepted To Date)
Teri Balser
Biological Sciences
University of Calgary
Angela Vincent
Earth Science
Santa Monica College
Holly Caggiano
School of Community and Regional Planning
University of British Columbia
Zoltán Grossman
Geography and Native American & Indigenous Studies
The Evergreen State College
Victoria Walsey
Native Environmental Science
Northwest Indian College
Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles
Department of Geography
University of Victoria
Anthony Levenda
N/A
The Evergreen State College
Lubna Alzaroo
Program on the Environment
University of Washington
Victoria Charles
Earth Sciene
Santa Monica College / UCLA
Beth Mercer-Taylor
Institute on the Environment (IonE) and Sustainability Studies Minor
University of Minnesota
James Patterson
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development
Utrecht University
Olivier Dangles
WASI LAB
French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development
Arvind Kumar
Urban cluster
Waste management
Gretchen Brien
faculty
Little Bighorn College (LBHC)
Michelle Pliske
Social Sciences
Pacific University
Margo Hill
Urban and Regional Planning
Eastern Washington University
Stephanie Aboueid-Hanna
Department of Social and Anthropological Studies
University of Ottawa
Beatriz Palmer
Camp Pendleton Military Base
Central Texas College
Prisca Gayles
Sociology and Gender, Race, and Identity (joint)
University of Nevada, Reno
Satang Nabaneh
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Dayton
Emily Tillotson
Social Work and Sociology
Walla Walla University
Cheris Brewer Current
School of Social Work and Sociology
Walla Walla University
Vernon Loke
School of Social Work
Eastern Washington University
Institute Preparation
During the two-day Institute, participants will begin drafting a syllabus and develop a teaching plan to support student campaigns which are launched by mid-semester. The Institute sessions will be led by Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at San José State University.
Participants will be asked to prepare for the Institute by reading CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action (2nd edition) and CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action. In addition, participants read the Companion Guide, which is a multimedia media presentation of the teaching guide. In the Companion Guide, there are "mini-lectures" of Scott speaking about each topic, as well as articles, in-class videos, and portfolios that Scott uses. The hope is that with the two books and Companion Guide, the Institute can be interactive with you and the other participants grappling with the challenges of doing a social action course, rather than just being taught the material.
At the Institute, we will discuss the pros and cons of revising a course to incorporate social action campaigns or develop a new course that complements an existing course, concentration, minor, major, or certificate program.
We will also share the process and lessons learned from prior student campaigns. We welcome participants who want to explore developing a co-curricular social action workshop series embedded into a fellowship or co-curricular or integrated program. Participants will leave the Institute with an overview for their syllabus.
Over the two-days participants will break into smaller groups for discussions about your goals, course models, teaching approach, and sharing examples and exercises that will help you plan your social action course or workshop series.
At the conclusion of the Institute, we invite participants to join a year-long support and networking community of fellow practitioners who are teaching or learning how to teach social action using this experiential, real-world model.
When you apply to the Institute, we will automatically add you to the socialaction@bonner.org email discussion list where we discuss active student campaigns, share successes and challenges, and announce future opportunities for training, education, and reflection.
Application
There is a small pre-conference registration fee for the September 7-8 Institute on Teaching Social Action. Importantly, we want to restrict participation in the Institute to those faculty, staff or students who are committed to implementing this experiential social action course model. Please note that preparing and supporting students to launch their social action campaigns generally takes at least half of the course content and assignments. Some courses are directly on social action and change, while others address a societal issue (e.g., climate change, housing, poverty, etc.) around which students develop their campaigns; importantly, these courses come from a variety of disciplines. From experience, the social action campaign dimension of these courses takes up roughly half of the course work (readings, assignments, and in-class teaching and group work).
As stated above,, there is no cost to attend the Institute. In return, we ask that attendees pledge themselves to complete these commitments.
Submit your application here
Application Deadline: August 23, 2024