Deborah Bensadon
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Advanced Spanish Conversation - SP 302
Spring 2012
Community Partners (PDF)

This course is aimed at advancing students’ oral proficiency by providing the necessary tools to communicate in diverse settings. In addition to classroom activities to enhance Spanish language skills, such as current events presentations, debates, and films, students will engage in service with community-based organizations serving Spanish-speaking populations. Communication with native speakers in a service setting will not only improve language proficiency, but will also expose students to issues facing that population and the solutions proposed by different agencies. Through tying the community experience with critical reflection in the classroom, students will draw connections between the academic material and work with community agencies, in turn enhancing their learning from multiple perspectives.

Lauren Highfill
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Biopsychology - PS 309
Spring 2012
Community Partners (PDF)

Through this course students will learn to apply neurological and neurophysical principles to understanding human behavior and thought, emotion and motivation, and learning and memory. While exploring concepts of biopsychology in the classroom, students will engage in service-learning partnerships with community agencies addressing neuropsychological disorders (e.g. dementia, Alzheimer’s disease), sleep disorders, neurodevelopment disorders (e.g. autism), and drug addiction. The course will connect the academic material to community work through critical reflection activities and assignments in order to increase student learning.

Nancy Janus
Associate professor of Human Development
Cross Cultural Counseling and Communication - HD 328
Spring 2012, Fall 2011
Community Partners (PDF)

The goal of this course is for students to increase their understanding of the ways in which their cultural lenses have shaped their attitudes and assumptions and to help them build an awareness of multicultural issues in the context of cross cultural communication and counseling. The course explores elements of culture and their influence on worldview, language, and contextual expectations in communications. It also discusses different dimensions of communication, along with theories of cultural identity development and multicultural counseling. An integral part of the course, students will partner with relevant community-based organizations in order to help meet the learning objectives of the course. Through interacting with cultural groups different from their own and coupling the service experience with critical reflection assignments, students will draw connections between the academic content and their work in the community, in turn enhancing their learning. This course will target the QEP student learning outcomes 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3. View the course syllabus.

Alexis Ramsey-Tobienne
Assistant Professor of Rhetoric
Writing for Social Change - CO 202
Spring 2012
Community Partners (PDF)

Writing plays a crucial role in the success of nonprofit organizations, as it is a vital tool for groups to promote their cause and gain financial support. In this course students will develop their ability to recognize and analyze examples writing that advocates for social change, while also sharpening their writing skills and rhetorical awareness. Students will explore a variety of texts that are explicitly connected to change, such as blogs, manifestos, editorials, issue essays, and letters. To further enhance the learning outcomes, students will partner with community organizations throughout the semester to create effective, thoughtful, and useful pieces of writing for social change. Through writing a feature article to publicize the agency, a grant to help secure funding, a publicity piece, and a reflective paper, students will have a greater understanding of writing for social change and the strategies for addressing issues in our community.

Amy Speier
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Medical Anthropology - AN 341S
Spring 2012
Community Partners (PDF)

This course provides an introduction to the broad sub-field of medical anthropology, including the study of culture and the political ecology of disease, ethno-medical systems, critical medical anthropology, as well as gender and women's health. The focus will be the relationship between health and culture in various social contexts, with primary attention given to questions of power and inequality on the one hand, and culture and identity on the other. Students will supplement course material through serving relevant community agencies related to healing, including biomedical, ethno-medical, drug industry, or gendered health organizations. Combining the service-learning experience with critical reflection, students will be able to identify, explain, and apply concepts of medical anthropology to community-wide contexts related to health and healing.