Taught By:
Anthony Siracusa
Assistant Professor of History and Community Engagement
St. John Fischer University
asiracusa@sjfc.edu
Read LinkedIn profile here.
Course Description:
This class, a required core class in the Fisher curriculum, prepares students to be active participants in a democracy by applying classroom knowledge to community collaborations. Students will connect and extend classroom knowledge and civic engagement that informs student participation in the community through planning and executing a community organizing campaign. These activities foster a student’s civic identity & commitment to the community by helping them understand and name a community or campus problem and develop collective action strategies to address this specific problem. Students will learn about the vibrant history of community organizing in Rochester by studying Frederick Douglass and the abolition movement, Susan B Anthony and the suffrage movement, and the work of FIGHT and Saul Alinsky during the civil rights movement. Students will draw on this historical knowledge, as well as information gained from contemporary activists who will speak to our class, to identify techniques, messaging, and strategies that they might use to build a contemporary campaign around a problem they collectively identify and attempt to address through a social action project in this course.
Student Campaigns:
Campaign Name | How's course going? | Course | School | Publish | Issue Area | Target | Demands | Size | Image | Semester Taught | Submitted By | Submitted By Email | Course Taught By | Courses | Created time | Date | Faculty Email | Highlight | Last edited time | Semester | Status | Taught By | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Activism In Rochester - HIST 2100 | St. John Fisher University | Energy | Michael Patterson | St. John Fisher Students for a Public Utility demands that Rochester Gas and Electric is converted to a public utility by 2028. St. John Fisher Students for a Public Utility demands that Rochester adds two citizen representatives on the public utility board by 2026. | 4 | Spring semester 2025 | Jeremy Raymond | jr01068@sjfc.edu | Anthony Siracusa | Apr 1, 2025 7:25 PM | Apr 2, 2025 10:43 PM | Spring | In progress | 2025 | |||||||||
Activism In Rochester | St. John Fisher University | Health | Derek (Director of ResLife, Terry (Dean of Students) and potentially President Rooney. | The goal is to have extensive mental health training for safety & security and additional training for Resident Directors in Residential Life. We want mental health first aid training implemented on campus as a resource for students, faculty, and staff. Our last demand is to get more than one mental health professional on campus besides health and wellness to ensure that student's needs are met and so that health & wellness staff don’t get burnt out. | 4 |    | Spring 2025 | Brandon Davis | Anthony Siracusa | Mar 11, 2025 7:59 PM | Apr 2, 2025 10:40 PM | Spring | In progress | 2025 | |||||||||
Activism in Rochester | St. John Fisher University | HealthPoverty | Governor Kathy Hochul | Give mothers in poverty $1,000/month for the last trimester of pregnancy and first 9 months of baby’s life, then $500 for the next 9 months. | Spring 2025 | Molly Greenough | Anthony Siracusa | Feb 26, 2025 7:02 PM | Sep 28, 2025 1:32 PM | Spring | In progress | 2025 | |||||||||||
HIST2100-01 - Activism in Rochester | St. John Fisher University | Food | Andrea Maccarone, Director of Dining Services | -Bring healthier options to late night -Increase nutritional information -Add more dietary restriction options | 5 |  | Spring 2025 | Matthew Clair | mec09800@sjfc.edu | Anthony Siracusa | Feb 25, 2025 2:31 PM | Apr 2, 2025 10:34 PM | Spring | In progress | 2025 | ||||||||
HIST2100 - 01 Activism in Rochester | St. John Fisher University | Homelessness | Monroe County Legislature, CE Adam Bello, Rev. William Leone, Dc. Dermot Loughran, Bishop Salvatore Matano | -Persuade legislature into printing a new set of Code Blue posters (attached below) and mobilize them throughout affected communities in English and Spanish to spread awareness of the centers -Push to end “sweeps” in Rochester (specially in the winter) as the people affected are losing their only belongings to the county -Recruiting a Code Blue task force amongst Fisher students and advocating for another warming center at St. Jerome’s Church by connecting with alumni | 4 |  | Spring 2025 | Joseph DeGroat | jrd09839@sjfc.edu | Anthony Siracusa | Feb 22, 2025 1:21 AM | Apr 2, 2025 5:57 PM | Spring | In progress | 2025 |