Civic Engagement Minor

This course is designed to introduce students to their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition. It will also explore citizens' corresponding responsibilities and our frequent disagreements over these rights and responsibilities. Through course assignments students will develop a greater capacity to engage in civic activities by understanding the First Amendment, being able to more fully articulate their personal view of their First Amendment rights and responsibilities, refining their research and analysis skills, and developing their expertise in oral argumentation.

Full course description for Individual Rights and Public Discourse

The purpose of this course is to educate and encourage the development of globally competent and active citizens and leaders who will be able to contribute to improving social issues. The course is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be engaged, responsible, and effective members of a globally interdependent society. Students will reflect on their role as an active citizen in a democracy while exploring how social, racial, political, geographical, and other factors influence current and future challenges a community needs to address. This course will have a community engaged learning component.

Full course description for Citizenship: Community Involvement

This class focuses on the history and background of the social and environmental issues confronting racial and ethnic communities in the United States. Students learn about the practice and politics of ecological inequality, community initiatives which have developed to combat such inequality, and how environmental justice has emerged as a viable and powerful political movement. This course is useful to students interested in environment and public policy as well as racial and ethnic studies.

Full course description for Environmental Justice and Public Policy

There have been various efforts by individuals and communities of color as well as Native communities to challenge institutional racism, state oppression, and other intersectional forms of domination along with their devastating impact on the parameters of everyday life, the human psyche, families, and American society. These individual acts of protest and social resistance movements continue to play a central role in the construction of politicized racial/indigenous identities and they also inform our understanding of the histories of these communities as well as the structures of settler colonialism, enslavement, nation building, and white supremacy. This class will read personal acts of resistance alongside modern social movements, paying close attention to their relationships to and impacts on racial, ethnic, and indigenous identity; social consciousness; power and agency; and revolutionary freedom in the United States. Significant focus is given to issues of race and racism.

Full course description for The Politics of Racial Resistance and Protest in the United States

This course examines women's public activism in the United States from the Republican period to the social movements of the 1960s. Thematic emphasis is on an analysis of how women's position outside traditional politics determined the direction of their activism over time, with particular attention to the development of collective efforts to achieve legal, political, economic and social equality with men. Students consider how ethnicity, race and class differences among women affected these coalitions for social change. In addition, students learn to understand how the civil rights and women's movements created opportunities for women to change mainstream politics by the 1970s.

Full course description for Women and Public Activism

The Civil Rights revolution of the 1960s represents the culmination of decades of effort, a change in civil rights legislation and a touchstone for subsequent "revolutions." It changed the then current laws and it relied upon law to demand those changes. Many of the debates started then, and continue today. Through reading, discussion, lectures and videos, students study the people, the events (as well as their antecedents and their progeny), and the ideas of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Significant focus is given to issues of race and racism.

Full course description for The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

This course will explore working in community as a form of civic engagement and an arena of human service work. This is typically referred to as community practice. Community practice, whether by the volunteer or the professional, entails helping a community at-large solve its problems and achieve its goals. Insightful, grounded community practice enables helpers to impact the total milieu of peoples lives, improving the broader spectrum of peoples lives in ways that direct client-centered helping cannot. Through the theoretical component of the course students will examine different ideologies of helping and how those become expressed in various forms of community helping including: service, organizing and development, social change and empowerment, and advocacy. Through the experiential component of the course students will become familiar with the varied tools of this distinctive type of helping within a specific Twin Cities social movement. This course is presently designed…

Full course description for Working with/in Community

Older persons are increasingly defying stereotypes through their dedication to civic, social, and creative causes. In this course, students will examine how activism can be part of successful aging, as well as how older persons contribute to society through a variety of civic engagement activities, ranging from community involvement and volunteerism to participation in the political process.

Full course description for Civic Engagement in Later Life

This course introduces student to the concepts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and human rights, Western and non-Western conceptions of human rights, and the complex nature of human rights issues influenced by individual, cultural, and social values. Students will also gain a framework for analytical skills essential to human rights work and the complexity and interdependency of human family which will promote an understanding of the individual, local, and global forces that create abuses and potential solutions at the local, national, and international level. Through community involvement, students will be able to connect human rights theories and cases around the globe to our local community and vice versa and will develop an action plan for a local organization of their choice or in their personal environment. The course will also provide students a great opportunity to take concrete action on human rights issues and get involved in "change" or initiating…

Full course description for Human Rights and the Educated Citizen

This course investigates the theory and practice of citizenship in local communities, the United States and the world. Students draw on core concepts from political science to explore contrasting ideas about citizenship and the political, economic and cultural dimensions of critical issues facing the global community. Classroom inquiry is supplemented by field experiences and investigation.

Full course description for Citizenship in a Global Context

This course draws on key concepts from social theory to examine select social movements through a global perspective. Using case studies of movements that focus on such central themes as democracy, human rights, and economic justice, the course will explore how movements begin, the development of ideology and world view, and contrasting approaches to organization, tactics, strategy and leadership. On a broader level, students will examine the relationship between tradition and change, and movement and counter-movement, in order to evaluate how social movements have influenced-and continue to influence-the world we live in.

Full course description for Social Movements in Global Perspective

Democratic governments are assumed to be more legitimate than and preferable to other forms of government due to their openness and responsiveness to citizen influence. Yet many citizens and residents in the United States express feelings of powerlessness when it comes to influencing legislators and engaging in politics. In this course, students will learn about the state legislative process in Minnesota and develop a wide range of democratic skills necessary for becoming citizen advocates and influencing elected officials. Over the course of the semester, students will identify an issue area they want to work in; choose legislation related to that issue area to advocate for; identify and build relationships with community organizations working in the issue area; work in coalition with at least one community organization; develop a range of political communication materials for influencing legislators; and meet with state legislators to advocate for their preferred policies. The…

Full course description for Advocating and Making Change

This course focuses on the relationship between the individual and the government. By studying Supreme Court decisions and various pieces of legislation, freedom of speech, privacy, freedom of the press and discrimination are investigated. Responses to issues of equality and justice are analyzed.

Full course description for Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

This course, for the seasoned lobbyist as well as the newcomer, is designed to stimulate people to effectively assert power in the political arena. The structure and dynamics of Minnesota government and politics are examined. Students learn how to start with an idea and build a strategy to make that idea into law using the Minnesota Capitol as a laboratory.

Full course description for Lobbying: A Citizen's Guide to the Legislative Process

Discussions of 'religion and politics' or 'the separation of church and state' often fail to recognize the religious aspects of civic life itself that involve or suggest a sacred aspect of the state. This course explores the theory of 'civil religion' as an expression of the contemporary academic understanding of religion, involving symbol, myth, ritual, and sacred space and time; examines historical examples of civic religion (for example, in the early Roman Empire) and the history of civil religion in the United States; and inquires about evolving aspects of civil religion today as these relate, for example, to immigration and/or Muslims in America.

Full course description for Civil Religion: Theory, Practice, Analysis

This course examines the theories, current trends and practical dimensions of how people organize to effect change. Topics include the nature of community organizing, cultural and historical models, issue identification, leadership development, approaches to social power, campaign planning and implementation, and the relationship of community organizing to other forms of social action. The class is participatory and includes intense interpersonal and reflective exercises designed to increase students organizing skills. Students will supplement classroom learning with a case study of a Metro area community organization.

Full course description for Community Organizing and Social Action

This course explores the contrasts and inter-relationships between three approaches to organizing our public life: democratic politics, economic markets, and the multiple associations that make up civil society. Students will investigate the basic characteristics and underlying principles of each approach and apply what they learn to an analysis of contemporary public issues. Students will evaluate the basic strengths and limits of each approach to civic engagement and public problem solving, and reflect on the ethical dimensions of their roles as citizens, consumers and members of civil society.

Full course description for Capitalism, Democracy, and Inequality

Democratic governments are assumed to be more legitimate than and preferable to other forms of government due to their openness and responsiveness to citizen influence. Yet many citizens and residents in the United States express feelings of powerlessness when it comes to influencing legislators and engaging in politics. In this course, students will learn about the state legislative process in Minnesota and develop a wide range of democratic skills necessary for becoming citizen advocates and influencing elected officials. Over the course of the semester, students will identify an issue area they want to work in; choose legislation related to that issue area to advocate for; identify and build relationships with community organizations working in the issue area; work in coalition with at least one community organization; develop a range of political communication materials for influencing legislators; and meet with state legislators to advocate for their preferred policies. The…

Full course description for Advocating and Making Change