Advocating for Social Justice Minor

Introduction to advocacy through communication and mass media, including principles, theories, practices, and ethics.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-09

Survey of current practices and problems in the field of public relations. Emphasizes successful case histories and planning techniques.

Prerequisites: none

Interpersonal communication skills are applied to psychological, social, and cultural theories of leadership to investigate how to successfully achieve goals through the establishment of relationships with others. Strategies of social influence, relational competence, equity and inclusion are discussed relative to the roles formal and informal leaders play across society.

Prerequisites: none

This is an advanced course in public presentation focused on improving presentational skills of speech delivery and language choice.

Prerequisites: none

This is a special interest course devoted to the development of students' understanding of the strategies and practices of communication in cultural contexts. The course is an experiential course involving travel, typically outside the United States.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Gold

Grassroots campaigning is a proven strategy of civic discourse, engagement, and advocacy. Grassroots organizing works from the bottom up and is uniquely suited to engage historically marginalized constituencies and to amplify the voiced of traditionally excluded populations. This course emphasizes a practical, skills-based approach grassroots advocacy using communication strategies and tactics.

Prerequisites: none

Students in this course will learn concrete examples of feminist and other social justice activism. Students will conceptualize, plan, and implement their own feminist activism project, and use research skills to contextualize their action within feminist scholarship. This course will give students a deeper introduction to contemporary feminist activism and its connections to other social justice movements in the United States.

Prerequisites: none

Students will learn about the legal, cultural, and political factors that contribute to sexual assault and gendered violence. This course will combine hands-on training in activism from course instructors and community members in the field of sexual assault advocacy, as well as a background in theories of gender and sexual assault. Sexual assault advocates provide confidential services to victims of sexual violence, including hospital and legal advocacy, crisis counseling, and emotional support. Students who satisfactorily complete 40 hours of training will be certified as sexual assault advocates at the end of the semester.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will focus on ways that sociological concepts and research skills can be applied in practice settings to address human concerns and promote social justice. Students learn how sociological skills can be used to identify, investigate, and implement solutions to problems of social organization, social process, and social change. Through the course of the semester students will engage in experiential and/or project based learning, and collaborate in identifying and executing research in service of addressing a community problem or supporting a community organization.

Prerequisites: SOC 301W or equivalent; Senior Standing.

Students explore storytelling and other communicative practices to create and sustain the communities in which we live. Students explore rituals, symbols, and places perceived as mundane. Students analyze and reconstruct why community practices make up the foundation of our civic lives.

Prerequisites: none

A focus on the theory and practice of developing advocacy campaigns. Topics include audience research, message creation, message distribution, network analysis, and campaign effectiveness.

Prerequisites: none

A critical analysis of contemporary social movement discourse and the means for advocacy by a movement. We examine communication theories, issues, trends, social movement processes, advocacy strategies, and how it all ties back into the field of contemporary communication studies.

Prerequisites: none

Students learn about active citizenship from readings and discussions on the theory and practice of democracy. Students should become more motivated to participate, feel a greater sense of empowerment, improve political skills, and to better understand and appreciate democracy.

Prerequisites: none

This course examines entertainment policy from historical, cultural, political, and societal perspectives. Among other topics, this course will use a public policy framework to examine the impact of local government policies like noise ordinances, copyright laws, 1st amendment issues of free expression and assembly, and the historical and cultural significance of music as a catalyst for social change.

Prerequisites: none

The course will explore how collective action creates social change by examining both academic and activist orientations toward social movements, with a focus on US movements. Students will learn about social movement histories, explore social movement theories, and examine how people achieve success in education, outreach, and activism efforts.

Prerequisites: none

Analysis of social forces that impact social change in the United States and globally. Examines the interaction between structural and cultural forces in the understanding of societal changes. Explores the global economic impact and the implications for world-wide changes. Analysis of the process of development and globalization and impacts on nations and populations across the globe.

Prerequisites: none