Our institutes train and help faculty and staff develop their social action course syllabus or workshop series to engage students in creating and leading policy change campaigns. Currently, there is no registration fee for these Institutes. In return, we ask that attendees commit to the following:
- 1) Upon Acceptance to the Institute, Nominate a Few Colleagues to Attend an Institute
- 2) Before Institute, Read the Two CHANGE Books and Companion Guide
- 3) Upon Completion of Institute, Fill Out Post-Institute Feedback.
- 4) One-Month After Institute, Present Draft Syllabus.
- 5) One-Month Prior to Teaching It, Email Final Syllabus.
- 6) Three Weeks into Semester, Complete “Student Campaign” Survey.
- 7) At End of Semester, Encourage Students to Attend the College Summit on Social Action.
- 8) Upon Completion of Class, Fill Out End-of-Semester Survey.
1) Upon Acceptance to the Institute, Nominate a Few Colleagues to Attend an Institute
Please nominate a few colleagues from your campus to join the Institute you will attend or an upcoming Institute. If you send them an email and "cc" Scott Myers-Lipton (smlipton@sjsu.edu), he will follow up. It is important we get another faculty or two trained on your campus on how to teach social action so the student campaigns that get started in your class can continue the following semester, and don't die at the end of your class. If you know of folks at other campuses who might be interested, feel free to nominate them them as well! It is fun to have a buddy or two to go through the Institute together with, but it also helps us achieve our vision that every semester on every college campus there is a course where students learn about social action by doing it.
2) Before Institute, Read the Two CHANGE Books and Companion Guide
We ask all attendees to prepare for the Institute by reading:
- CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action (2nd edition)
- CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action
- CHANGE! Companion Guide for Teaching Social Action which includes video clips of Scott speaking about the various topics in each chapter of the faculty guide.
- Reading these two books and watching the "mini-lectures" in the Companion Guide allows us to make the Institute much more interactive, with you and the other participants grappling with the challenges of doing a social action course rather than just being taught the material. In addition, the Companion Guide includes all of the articles, in-class videos, and portfolios that Scott used in his social action course, and a Case Study of one student campaign, so you see how the resources are used by the students.
We also ask all attendees to watch the following videos on social action:
- Walk the Walk
- Four faculty speaking about their Fall ’24 social action courses.
3) Upon Completion of Institute, Fill Out Post-Institute Feedback.
Immediately after the Institute, we will invite you to complete a short survey to share your thoughts on what worked, what could be improved, and how we might expand the pool of faculty and staff teaching social action. We have used feedback from prior participants to make significant improvements in the design and delivery of the Institutes on Teaching Social Action. This is vitally important if we are to achieve our goal of mainstreaming the teaching of social action using an experiential learning model.
4) One-Month After Institute, Present Draft Syllabus.
One month after the Institute, we will host a Zoom call where you will present your draft syllabus to your Institute colleagues. On this call, you will have the chance to discuss your progress, as well as your challenges, and to hear from other Institute participants who are drafting their syllabi. As part of this process, you will fill out the below Course Syllabi Development form, which will allows us to help you develop your syllabus, as well as keep track of who is teaching social action when. Finally, it will help build our community of practice by allowing us to connect you to colleagues with similar interests or who teach near you.
5) One-Month Prior to Teaching It, Email Final Syllabus.
Ideally, we would like to receive your syllabus at least one month before you teach social action. We will add it to our social action course database, where interested faculty and staff can see how others in the field are structuring their social action courses. This should occur within 18 months of completing the Institute.
- Email your course syllabus to Scott Myers-Lipton: smlipton@sjsu.com.
6) Three Weeks into Semester, Complete “Student Campaign” Survey.
Four weeks after your social action class begins, we invite you to fill out a survey informing us of your student teams’ demands and targets. We also ask how you feel your course is going.
This information will give us the opportunity to help you connect your student teams with students on other campuses whose campaigns are addressing similar issues.
7) At End of Semester, Encourage Students to Attend the College Summit on Social Action.
Near the end of the Fall and Spring semesters, we organize a virtual College Summit on Social Action. Please encourage your students to attend the College Summit. Some professors have provided extra credit to encourage participation. These are a great opportunity for your students to get a sense of how they are part of a national movement. The summits also provide new faculty the opportunity to hear from students about their social action experiences.
8) Upon Completion of Class, Fill Out End-of-Semester Survey.
Two weeks after the class is finished, fill out an end-of-semester survey on your social action class. This survey will ask for more information on your student campaigns, including what type of campaign actions took place and where the campaigns stood at the end of the semester. We will document this information in the Student Campaigns database. This will provide inspiration to other students, as well as faculty and staff, who are seeking to make a positive change in the world.