Teaching Social Action Meet-Up

Agenda

1. Welcome: Bobby and Scott welcomes folks.
2. Hear from faculty teaching social action this Fall:
1. What has been your biggest learning experience so far?
2. What have you learned about getting your students into teams/campaigns that can be passed on to other faculty? Successes? Challenges?
3. What have you learned about helping students to develop strong demands and targets?
4. What have you learned about setting the tone early in the semester? Did you have them create Group Agreements?

Who would like to respond? Say name, course title, department, & campus (2-3 minutes each)

3. Questions for Faculty
4. TSA Business
• If teaching social action this Fall, please have a student per team fill out the Student Campaign Form on this page
• Next virtual Meetup: Friday, October 30, 3 pm, EST
• Invite colleagues to an upcoming Institute.

Summary

This Teaching Social Action faculty meetup focused on early-semester experiences, what faculty are learning, how students are forming campaigns, and practical strategies for helping students move from broad concerns to actionable social action demands. Source: .[1]

Overall Takeaways

• Faculty are seeing strong student energy, but many students need substantial structure to move from broad topics to focused campaigns.
• A recurring theme was that awareness is not the demand; students need help identifying specific, winnable, policy- or practice-oriented changes.
• Online and hybrid formats can work, but several faculty noted that students often struggle to meet independently and need more facilitation.
• Student campaigns are already emerging around campus accessibility, juvenile justice, environmental sustainability, transportation, student resources, sex education, labor issues, and campus support services.
• Faculty emphasized flexibility, student ownership, and the importance of letting students experience real advocacy—including pushback.

Welcome & Context

Scott Myers-Lipton and Bobby Hackett opened the meeting by welcoming faculty teaching or exploring Teaching Social Action. They framed the session around two early-semester questions:

• What has been your biggest learning experience so far?
• What have you enjoyed about teaching social action?

They noted that the Teaching Social Action network has grown to around 50 courses this semester, with a long-term goal of scaling to many more courses by 2030.

Faculty Reflections

Early Learning Experiences

Faculty repeatedly said students need more guidance than expected:

• Nicole from Shenandoah University said everything takes longer than planned, but students are excited and forming creative collaborations.
• Janice from Florida Memorial University emphasized that students need help connecting readings to campaigns and understanding social problems deeply enough to act.
• Sarah Jane from VCU found that combining service learning and social action created complexity, especially in a hybrid format.
• Jessie, teaching asynchronously online, said students struggle to move from broad issues like homelessness to specific, actionable campaigns.
• Several faculty echoed the need for repeated reminders, scaffolding, and structured checkpoints.

What Faculty Are Enjoying

Faculty described the joy of watching students:

• Gain confidence as advocates.
• Connect course material to real-world action.
• Take ownership of campus and community issues.
• Move from uncertainty to early campaign formation.
• Discover that policy, advocacy, and social action are part of their professional preparation.

Emerging Student Campaigns

Faculty shared a wide range of student campaign topics, including:

• Campus accessibility initiatives and accessibility tours.
• Juvenile justice campaigns in partnership with local organizations.
• Environmental communication campaigns tied to UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Campus waste reduction, cafeteria sustainability, seed sharing, and plastic bottle bans.
• Student transportation and busing issues.
• Campus clothing access, family lounge restoration, and sex education resources.
• Social work licensure compact legislation in Indiana.
• Support for students with invisible disabilities.
• Protections for service industry workers experiencing harassment or assault.
• Campus pantry improvements and food insecurity resources.
• AI use policies in a high school setting.

Issue Development & Group Formation

Faculty shared several practical strategies for helping students form campaign teams:

Word Clouds

One faculty member used Microsoft Forms to create a live word cloud of student concerns. Larger words revealed shared interests, which helped students see common priorities and then rank possible issues.

Sticky Notes / Visual Sorting

Others used sticky notes, Miro boards, or movable visual tools to help students cluster ideas and narrow topics.

Discussion Boards

Sarah Jane used a Canvas discussion board where students posted their top three issue choices. This helped students see overlap and allowed the instructor to form groups based on shared interests.

Elevator Pitches

Omotola had students prepare two-minute elevator pitches on issues they cared about. Students then voted and ranked preferences, which shaped the final teams.

Organization-Driven Constraints

Some faculty used partner organizations’ policy agendas or existing issue areas to give students a starting frame while still allowing student choice.

Helping Students Build Strong Demands

A major theme was the difficulty of moving students from broad values or awareness efforts into concrete demands.

Helpful framing included:

• A demand is not a slogan.
• Awareness is not the demand.
• Service is not the same as social action.
• A strong demand should be specific, feasible, and tied to a decision-maker.
• Students need to identify targets, allies, stakeholders, and decision pathways.
• Worksheets and terminology guides help students distinguish issues, demands, targets, allies, and tactics.

Sue Collins shared that structured worksheets helped students refine environmental topics into clearer campus issues, demands, and possible allies.

Teaching Online, Hybrid, and In-Person

Faculty discussed the challenges of modality:

• Hybrid courses can be difficult when students do not use asynchronous or non-class time for group work.
• Fully online courses require strong facilitation, required meetings, or alternative assignments.
• In-person classes appear to make group formation and accountability easier.
• Some faculty still found online tools useful when paired with clear expectations and flexible facilitation.

A recurring point: students often need help learning how to work together, not just what to work on.

Student Leadership, Accountability, and Group Dynamics

Faculty discussed the importance of:

• Clear group roles.
• Students knowing each other’s responsibilities.
• Group agreements.
• Flexibility when students are absent or delayed.
• Peer accountability.
• Encouraging students to take responsibility for their own education.

Chevy shared that requiring everyone to understand each other’s parts helped prevent groups from collapsing when one person was absent.

Campus Leadership & Pushback

Several faculty discussed how to handle campus administrators and institutional resistance.

Key guidance:

• Inform your chair and dean that the course is happening.
• Let students identify and contact decision-makers themselves.
• Coach students on professional communication, but do not do the advocacy for them.
• Be prepared to explain that student outreach is part of the course’s learning objectives.
• Understand the campus organizational chart so students can identify appropriate targets.

Pam described pushback around a student campaign related to ICE notifications and campus safety, noting that the experience became a powerful lesson in advocacy, transparency, and institutional resistance.

Janice also reminded the group that the current political climate can affect what happens on campuses and how administrators respond.

Network Building & Future Institutes

Scott encouraged faculty to invite colleagues to upcoming Teaching Social Action institutes, noting that personal invitations are much more effective than mass outreach.

Upcoming or referenced locations included:

• Berlin
• New York City
• Virginia
• Indiana / Purdue Northwest
• Alabama and other regional institutes

The group also discussed the long-term possibility of regional or national student collaboration across campuses on shared campaigns.

Closing

The meeting closed with encouragement to stay brave and strong. The next meetup is on October 30, focused on the two-thirds point of the semester, including group dynamics, power-building, and preparation for student actions.