Teaching

So many of us want to do more in response to the problems we hear about, but where and how to participate can leave us feeling overwhelmed and, at times, helpless. This course offers a primer and introduction.  In this course, we will consider varying frameworks for the ethics of engaged citizenship—effective altruism, service, giving, and civil disobedience—to struggle with the relationship of the self to society within the college community and beyond. As part of our inquiry, students will also contribute to a community-based project with Cleveland Votes. Focusing on community asset mapping and civic equity, the project asks us to critically explore philanthropy and small-donor organizations in Cleveland. By discussing and debating key concepts and ideas of engaged citizenship while also developing a community asset map, students will develop: 1) a deeper sense of their roles and values as civic scholars and 2) identify where and how to critically and ethically participate as citizens in local contexts.

In this seminar, we will study the diverse ways civil rights activists attempted to forge solidarities that transcended national borders, taking time to interrogate how those transnational connections shaped activists’ understanding of political power and the goals of the movement. In the process, we will raise new questions about the legacy of the civil rights movement, the idea of “American” identity, and the politics of global citizenship. To what extent was the civil rights movement “home grown” and to what extent were its ideals and tactics imported from elsewhere? In what ways did a global identity for people of African descent change the way African Americans saw themselves? What was strategically similar and different about a civil rights movement that operated within the context of U.S. politics and a Human Rights movement that emerged out of and simultaneously transcended other political and legal traditions? To aid our inquiry, we will investigate a variety of primary documents, consider scholarly debates about the civil rights movement in the United States, and learn from local Cleveland organizations committed to racial justice and civil rights. 

How do you ensure that your research matters? And who determines what “matters”? In this seminar, we will examine the historical roots, philosophy and practice of community-engaged scholarship while also considering how its history can better inform what we do as scholars and citizens in and beyond the university. As part of our inquiry, we will partner with local organizations to conduct participatory action research projects that will center around community dialogue and knowledge exchange. In the process, we will participate in a broader academic and public conversation about the ethics and politics of community-engaged scholarship, with a particular focus on the complex intersections of charity, service, social justice, and current debates on the role of the university and research in the twenty-first century. 

The study of citizenship typically concerns matters of legal membership within a nation-state and associated questions related to allegiances to a particular community. Our understanding of citizenship instead derives from a distinct civic ideal and set of practices associated with the emerging, interdisciplinary field of civic studies. In the intellectual community of civic studies, the emphasis is on multiple ways of thinking about, and enacting, civic agency, with a particular focus on the relationship between ethics, knowledge, and the plurality of political communities. In this seminar, we will focus on the political communities of the university and efforts to promote civic agency and inquiry. Applying concepts from educational philosophy, political science, critical social theory, and digital humanities we will interrogate the historical roots, cultural assumptions and social formations of civic engagement efforts in the university, including: campus activism, volunteer service, applied research, and digital and public scholarship. Seminar discussions of texts will be accompanied with dialogues with university members; workshops with local and national organizations who work with universities; and digital civic labs that allow students the opportunity to experiment with different forms of civic agency. By discussing and debating key concepts and ideas of civic agency within the university and critically examining our own engagements as civic actors, students will develop: 1) a deeper sense of their roles and values as civic scholars and 2) their own argument about civic agency in the university.  

Geographers often distinguish between space and place. Space is the grid of reference that we use in making maps (e.g. 31.7833° N, 35.2167° E is a point in space). Place is the meaning that we make out of space. With new digital tools, scholars from different disciplines are now developing deep maps that combine space and place. In this course, we will critically analyze the digital and experiential texts of space and place. In doing so, we will construct a deep map based on our experiences and reflective writings on Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cleveland, and University Circle. Two guiding questions shape the course: What connects the various interpretations of our experiences at CWRU and in Cleveland? What story does our “deep map” reveal about ourselves, CWRU, and/or University Circle? Through different writing formats, including descriptive and analytical reflections, story mapping, and a short essay, students will begin to develop a sense of place at their new academic home. 

Americans have long understood schools both as mechanisms for developing communal values and as instruments for social reform. Schools have been alternatively described as pillars of democratic society and as authoritarian institutions for managing deviance. This course provides an introductory historical survey of American educational ideas and institutions. From debates in the 17th and 18th centuries over the proper balance of religious and secular education to fierce battles today over the role of the federal government in enforcing No Child Left Behind, citizens have been politically mobilized through their concerns about education. By understanding the complicated history of American educational ideas and institutions, this course prepares students to engage critically with ongoing debates about American education.  

This course will introduce you to the basic elements of American public policy making and its history.  Students will describe and analyze aspects of the development of public policy in the United States, focusing specifically on debates regarding civil rights, welfare policy, and immigration. For the purposes of this course, public policy will be defined as the making of rules and laws and their implementation by government in response to citizen advocacy efforts. This course assumes that the public policy landscape is complex but still comprehensible given the proper set of analytical frameworks and appropriate historical background. Particular emphasis will be placed on social movements and mass politics and the responses by state officials and representatives. This course asks two central questions: How have social movements shaped public policy? And how have governments responded to and/or limited social movements’ policy proposals? 

In this seminar, we will examine the history of student activism in the United States and around the world since 1945. The course will use select case studies to:  1) examine the philosophies and tactics of student activists; 2) analyze the relationship between shifting conditions of higher education and student activists’ ideas of political action and; 3) evaluate where student movements have succeeded and failed in achieving their social and political goals. In the spirit of the student activists we study, the course is structured around student agency. Students will lead their own workshops, facilitate in-class activities, and engage in an experiential component alongside the course. Such activities will prompt students to reflect upon their ideas of citizenship and activism. By taking this course, students will develop their own historical interpretations of student activism and the modern university and draw out relevant lessons for today’s world.