Your Commitment to the Teaching Social Action Community of Practice

1) Upon Acceptance to the Institute: Nominate 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 Books & Companion Guide, Watch Documentary, and Fill Out Course Planning Doc

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 fill out the Course Planning Doc, and watch the following videos on social action:

• Walk the Walk
• College '24 Summit: Listen to last 30 minutes

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) Summer and Winter Zoom Calls to Discuss Progress on Your Syllabus

In the Summer and Winter, we will hold Zoom calls where you will present your draft syllabus to 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, please 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 Social Action Course, Email Us Your 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) Four to Five Weeks into Semester, Students Complete “Student Campaign” Survey.

Four to five weeks after your social action class begins, we ask that you pass this link on to the student Social Media Coordinator for each campaign. In addition to filling out this form, which will tell us the campaign group name, demands, and target, this student will be responsible for uploading additional campaign materials (fliers, social media, organizational rap, press of campaign actions, etc.) 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. It will also let our community know what is happening on all campuses in real time.

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.

Spring ‘25 Summit on College Social Action

Spring ‘25 Summit on College Social Action

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.