CBL Course Listings

FALL 2008

NEW: Akwesasne Learn and Serve Experience
The Center for Civic Engagement and Leadership is proud to announce two Akwesasne Learn and Serve experiences for the Fall 2008 semester. These experiences offer students the opportunity to combine working with children in a community service setting with their academics in a way that enhances both learning and personal development. Students will take two classes on the reservation and volunteer at two of following three community sites: The Freedom School (a full immersion Mohawk education), The St. Regis Mohawk School and/or the Akwesasne Boys and Girls Club.

Akwesasne Learn and Serve Experience I: Race, Nation and Memory
Monday/Wednesday: Class 12:30-3:30, Community Service 3:31-5:15
The M/W Akwesasne experience brings together the issues of race and ethnicity with Nationalism and memory, while reflecting on how they manifest in the student’s community experience. Student enroll in two one unit class and an on-line .5 course that integrates the learn and serve experience.

Akwesasne Learn and Serve Experience II: Language, Culture and History
Tuesday/Thursday: Class 12:30-3:30, Community Service 3:31-5:15
The T/TH Akwesasne experience brings together an examination of and appreciation for Native culture, language and history, while reflecting on how they manifest in the student’s community experience. Students enroll in two one unit classes and an on-line .5 course that integrates the learn and serve experience.

Akwesasne Learn and Serve Experience I: Race, Nation and Memory
Community Based Learning 147A: Reflections on Service at Akwesasne Instructor: Ronald Flores Course On-line & Service 3:31-5:15pm, Units: 0.5
Global Studies 230A: Secrets and Lies: Nationalism, Violence and Memory Instructor: John Collins  Monday 12:30-3:30 Distribution DIV	Sociology 228A: Racial and Ethnic Groups Instructor: Jeremy van Blommestein Wednesday 12:30-3:30 Distributions DIV, SSC
Akwesasne Learn and Serve Experience II: Language, Culture and History
Community Based Learning 147B: Reflections on Service at Akwesasne Instructor:  Ronald Flores Course On-line & Service 3:31-5:15pm, Units: 0.5
Mohawk 101A:Introduction to Mohawk Language and Culture Instructors: Elvera Sargent and Diane Mitchell Tuesday 12:30-3:30 Distribution MFL	History 229A: Introduction to Native American History Instructor: Melissane Parm Schrems Thursday 12:30-3:30 Distribution: HUM,  DIV

Course Descriptions
Akwesasne Learn and Serve: Experience I:

Community Based Learning 147A: Reflections on Service at Akwesasne
Instructor: Ronald Flores
On-line,  Units: 0.5

This course will provide the framework for student reflection on their community placement experience.  The primary mechanism for the reflections will be a community learning journal where students will integrate their course work and their community experience.  Students will also examine issues of power, privilege and social justice and how their role in the community is a form of democratic action.  The course will also examine the broad, structural issues affecting the populations students are working with and the development of empathy and appreciation of difference. This course will be conducted primarily on-line with occasional meetings held during the semester. May include field trips.

Global Studies 230: Secrets and Lies: Nationalism, Violence and Memory                               
Instructor: John Collins 
Monday 12:30-3:30, Distribution DIV

This course explores the complex, power-laden, often painful processes through which nations come to grips — or fail to come to grips — with their violent pasts. All national communities are, on some level, established and maintained through violence; consequently, the complex question of how to remember (or forget) especially intense periods of violence is as widespread as the phenomenon of nationalism itself. The question becomes even more complex when we recognize that every national community contains within it multiple sub- and transnational communities, each of which contains a multitude of experiences of violence. The fact that all of these experiences are intertwined makes the question of memory all the more pressing and difficult. Truth commissions, war crimes trials, museums, memorials, debates about reparations, new outbreaks of violence, local efforts to overcome the legacies of violence — all of these testify to the central role that nationalism, violence and memory continue to play across the globe.

Sociology 228 Racial and Ethnic Groups.                                                
Instructor: Jeremy van Blommestein
Wednesday 12:30-3:30 Distributions DIV, SSC

This course introduces students to race and ethnicity from a sociological perspective. The focus is on racial and ethnic stratification in the United States. Basic concepts and theoretical frameworks that provide the foundation for the sociological study of racial, ethnic and other minority groups are stressed. The first half of the course covers topics such as the social definitions of race and ethnicity; the American immigration experience; patterns of racial and ethnic integration in the United States; theories of prejudice; and the multiple forms of discrimination.The second half is devoted to an examination of specific racial and ethnic minorities, such as African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and Asians. The experiences of Jews and women in the United States are covered. Also offered through U.S. Cultural and Ethnic Studies.

Course Descriptions
Akwesasne Learn and Serve: Experience II:

Community Based Learning 147B: Reflections on Service at Akwesasne
Instructor: Ronald Flores
On-line,  Units: 0.5

This course will provide the framework for student reflection on their community placement experience.  The primary mechanism for the reflections will be a community learning journal where students will integrate their course work and their community experience.  Students will also examine issues of power, privilege and social justice and how their role in the community is a form of democratic action.  The course will also examine the broad, structural issues affecting the populations students are working with and the development of empathy and appreciation of difference. This course will be conducted primarily on-line with occasional meetings held during the semester. May include field trips.

Mohawk 101:Introduction to Mohawk Language and Culture              
Instructors: Elvera Sargent and Diane Mitchell
Tuesday 12:30-3:30, Distribution MFL

The introduction to Mohawk language and culture is designed for students with no previous knowledge of the Mohawk language. The Ohenten Kariwhatekwen (Thanksgiving Address) is the foundation of this course will introduce students to the Mohawk Language grammar and vocabulary, and provide the opportunity to practice speaking Mohawk. The course will be a highly oral class. In addition, throughout the semester, students will be visiting a number of historical site on the reserve and speak with tribal elders and officials to enhance their understanding of Mohawk culture and life.  Students will also read selected texts such as John Mohawk’s The Creation Story and a variety of tribal publications that speak to important issues of the day.  This is a community based learning course where students will work at the Freedom School, a full Mohawk immersion education experience, as tutors for student beginning the transition to mainstream schooling. The tutoring sessions will combine Mohawk and English as, in addition to helping Freedom School Students with their English, students will be practicing their Mohawk language skills.

History 229: Introduction to Native American History                                       
Instructor: Melissane Parm Schrems
Thursday 12:30-3:30,Distribution: HUM,  DIV

With the abandonment of earlier perspectives grounded in romantic and evolutionary stereotypes, Native American history represents today one of the most exciting, dynamic and contentious fields of inquiry into America’s past. This course introduces students to the key themes and trends of the history of North America’s indigenous peoples by taking an issues-oriented approach. We will cover material ranging from the debate over the Native American population at the time of first European contact to contemporary social and political struggles over casino gambling and land claims. The course stresses the ongoing complexity and change in Native American societies and will emphasize the theme of Native peoples’ creative adaptations to historical change. Also offered through Native American Studies and U.S.Cultural and Ethnic Studies.

OTHER CBL COURSES:

CBL 101A: Leadership & Developmental Skills (8/28-10/17)
Instructors: Matha Thorton and Joshua Drake
W: 7:00-10:00pm
This course will examine the role of leaders and leadership from historical and theoretical perspectives. In both class discussions and select assignments, students will be asked to develop an understanding of leadership from a historical theoretical perspective, and to apply theories of leadership to communities both on campus and beyond. Building on history and theory, the course will examine the process of leadership development, with a focus on relational models of leadership. Students in this course are required to participate in on-campus leadership and will actively practice the leadership skills and material discussed in class in their leadership roles. Reflections, both oral and written, on those experiences will be primary learning tools, as will the readings and class discussions. Written reflections will be on a weekly basis and will link co-curricular experiences with learning objectives.

CBL 147C: Independent Study
Instructor: Ron Flores
Independent projects in Community Based Learning are geared to students who are already involved in some form of community service and/or civic engagement with a local agency, program or organization. The emphasis of an independent research projects is on the investigation of a concern specific to that community placement and the development of a University-Community partnership that aims to address that concern.

CBL 247A: Independent Study
Instructor: Ron Flores
Independent projects in Community Based Learning are geared to students who are already involved in some form of community service and/or civic engagement with a local agency, program or organization. The emphasis of an independent research projects is on the investigation of a concern specific to that community placement and the development of a University-Community partnership that aims to address that concern.

ENG 243D: Intro to Creative Non-Fiction
Instructor: Paul Graham
T/Th: 2:20-3:50pm
An introductory study of basic technical problems and formal concepts of the literary essay. Students read and write essays on various topics, including travel, personal experience, landscape, natural science and politics. Weekly written exercises and student essays are read aloud and discussed in class.

PSYC 443A: Intro to Clinical Psychology
Instructor: Pamela Thacher
T/Th: 8:30-10:00am
This course provides an examination of the field of contemporary clinical psychology. The course focuses on the problems and procedures related to psychological diagnosis, the problem of “labeling” in particular; various therapeutic methods and systems; and assessments of the different systems that are or have been used in other cultures and during other eras. This course will also be available with the possibility of an internship, which would involve regular visits to a regional site that utilizes clinical psychologists or some aspect of clinical psychology to help people address mental health and how it may be contributing to their life situations. Permission of instructor is required to enroll in internship. Prerequisites: Psychology 100 or 101 and Psychology 317.

PSYC 480B: Working w/ Vulnerable Populations
Instructor: Jennifer MacGregor
W: 7:00-10:00pm
This seminar-internship course has two objectives: to develop an understanding of the bioecological perspective in psychology, and to further that understanding through an internship placement in a community setting (eight hours per week). Our focus will be on children and adolescents who are at risk for developing academic or psychological difficulties. Possible internship placements include Headstart, residential homes for juveniles, crisis intervention centers, Planned Parenthood, local elementary and middle school counseling centers, and a neuro-rehabilitation center for children with brain injuries; a small number of students may participate in a community research project as their internship placement. Current issues in the field (e.g., child abuse and neglect, school bullying, alcohol and substance abuse) will be analyzed using a systems approach, recognizing that individuals operate within families and communities, and these systems exert their own pressures on the individual’s behavior. Prerequisites: Psychology 100 or 101, Psychology 205 and permission of instructor. Psychology 207 highly recommended.

SOC 238A: Social Services Agencies and Advocacy
Instructor: Karen Dillon O’Neil
T/Th: 10:10-11:40am

SSES 320A: Coaching Theory
Instructor: Jeffrey Pier
This course is designed to provide an overview of the philosophies and practices of coaching. Professional responsibilities, management styles and coach/athlete interaction styles are examined as they pertain to all aspects of the coaching challenge. Prerequisites: SSES 115 or SSES 216 and SSES 319.

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