Introduction
Chapter 1 — Social Action: An Overview
Social Action’s Role & US College Social Action
Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class
Course vs Co-Curricular & Prerequisites
Creating a Social Action Syllabus
Teaching Style & Classroom Norms
Role of Place & Each Semester v Every Year
Chapter 3 — Teaching Social Action (TSA) Model
Chapter 5 — Where Do We Go From Here?
Our goal is to mainstream the teaching of social action so that every college campus is training the next generation of engaged democratic citizens by offering at least one course where students are learning-by-doing social action. The vision is that if social action is mainstreamed in higher education, our citizens and residents will be able to do democracy more effectively, while helping to preserve it at the same time.
The first step taken to mainstream TSA is train as many faculty as possible through our Institutes. By the end of 2026, we will have held 27 Institutes. As of the summer of 2026 ,we hav trained 500+ U.S. faculty from 286 colleges and universities in 46 states since 2023, while 51 faculty in 7 countries from 24 colleges have attended an Institute. The majority of faculty (73%) go on to teach social action by revising an existing course, while 22% develop a new course, with 5% leading a co-curricular workshop series. Below is a map of Social Action Courses by semester from Fall ‘24 to Spring ‘ 26.
The plan to mainstream TSA is both regional and by discipline. When TSA does an Institute in a state or nation, we contact faculty at all of the regional colleges might be interested in teaching social action. In this way, faculty will be able to contact each other BEFORE the class starts to discuss how their students might work together on a regional campaign.
TSA has created below map that shows all of the social action courses to be taught in Fall '26 in the USA and Canada. Hover over a dot, and the name of the faculty member, course title, and campus will appear. TSA hopes that faculty will use this map to discuss with regional faculty how their students can work together on an issue, and also to provide support to one another.
The below map shows all of the social action courses to be taught in Fall '26 in Germany. Hover over a dot, and the name of the faculty member, course title, and campus will appear.
TSA is also working to mainstream TSA by organizing by discipline. Currently, there are Social Work and Environmental Studies faculty are working to promote TSA in their fields. If interested in these groups, and you are a social worker, contact Dr. Sasha Klein at MSU: kleinsa@msu.edu; if you are an Environmental Scientist, contact Dr. Ellen Reese at U.C. Riverside at ellenr@ucr.edu. These two groups will be presenting at their discipline conferences, and will be reaching out in other ways to faculty in their fields.
More disciplines will follow! If interested in starting up a faculty group focused on mainstreaming TSA in your field, contact Scott at Scott@teachingsocialaction.org
Questions
To support the mainstreaming of social action across the nation's campuses (and world?), what might you do?
- Post on your social media account and professional list serves?
- Present at a conference?
- Write an article about social action for a journal?
- Host an institute at your campus, and focus on inviting regional campuses?
- Other actions?
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