Social Justice core courses-
SOCJ 1100-Intro to Issues in Social Justice
This course will introduce students to major streams of social justice thought, including historical social justice movements, theoretical problems having to do with social equality, personal freedom, access to social resources, marginalization, and stigmatization, and the ways in which communities respond to these issues.
SOCJ 5900-Social Justice Capstone
Goals: This course will permit major students to integrate theory, knowledge, and practical experience gained in their major using a series of readings, fieldwork experiences, and a major project.
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Breadth area 1-Course in politics or legal Studies
CJFS 1120- Crime & Justice in America
Goals: To introduce students to the basic framework of the American criminal justice system. Content: This course provides a broad overview of the American criminal justice system. The course examines criminal justice decision-making, police, criminal law, courts, prisons, and the juvenile justice system. This course is designed to introduce students to these broad topic areas and to explore the issues of equality and treatment, and the efficacy of criminal justice policy within the contemporary American criminal justice system.
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breadth area 2-course in social, cultural, economic, or psychological analysis of social justice issues
CFST 3300- Role of Conflict in Social Change
Goals: To introduce students to basic concepts shared between conflict studies and social justice studies; to examine connections between social conflict and people's movements for social change; and to study particular movements through these conceptual lenses. Content: Students will learn to distinguish among interpersonal, organizational, and socio-cultural levels of conflict; be introduced to relevant social science frameworks; study the role of conflict in particular movements; and develop analyses of an aspect of that movement in which they are especially interested.
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breadth area 3-course in history with a social justice focus
HECU 3880- Race in America: Then and Now
How are ordinary people moved to extraordinary action? The Black Freedom Movement (also known as the Civil Rights Movement) of the 1950s and 60s, and more recent movements such as Black Lives Matter offer fertile ground for exploration of this question. Students examine multiple movements for racial and economic justice as they journey into the painful history of white supremacy in the United States. A significant portion of the program focuses on the history of the Black Freedom Movement. Students hear first-person accounts from movement leaders integral to organizing campaigns in Mississippi and other parts of the South. Field visits to sites such as Mississippi’s new Civil Rights Museum, the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, Whitney Plantation in Louisiana and the National Civil Rights Museum in Tennessee deepen historical knowledge and offer models for activism and engagement. Students are introduced to a new generation of leaders building upon this legacy, and their work around education, criminal justice reform, voting rights, environmental justice, and grassroots cooperative economics. Students leave the program with a profound understanding of past and current movements for justice, new lenses with which to examine issues of power and privilege, and a deepened understanding of their own capacity to make change.
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breadth area 4-course that offers a broad perspective on moral, ethical, or values concerns
ENG 1270- African-American Literature
Goals: To survey African-American literary tradition as influenced by oral and written forms of expression. To heighten the student's awareness of the particularity of African-American cultural expression as well as its connections with mainstream American writing. Content: Selections of texts may vary from semester to semester. Typically, the course will survey prose, poetry, and drama from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Selected works by such authors as Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Sterling Brown, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Lorraine Hansberry, and Alice Childress.
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breadth area 5- One practical skills course
COMM 3560- Communication in Conflict Situations
Goals: To learn about the dynamics of communication interaction in conflict situations; to explore approaches to dealing with conflict, including examining the strengths and weaknesses associated with communication styles, tactics, strategies, uses and expressions of power, the impact of "face," the impact of culture, and framing; to become familiar with and examine the role of third-party intervention; to develop greater awareness of the consequences associated with one's own communicative choices in conflict situations. Content: The role that communication plays in conflict situations, the general principles of communication in conflict, including the way communities develop and share symbolic world views that may come into conflict with those held by different communities. Examination of approaches to dealing with conflicts, such as problem resolution approaches, mediation, and negotiation strategies. Students will apply the theoretical perspectives to individual interpersonal conflict situations as well as to contemporary societal conflicts.
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concentration area courses-
SOCJ 3990- Social Justice Internship: Everyday Miracles
During this internship I was a program intern and my task included: office support, assisting clients in person and online with answering questions about Everyday Miracles programs, helping staff members with special task coordinated with their position, and working on projects for events.
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PBHL 3980-Special Topics: Reproductive Justice
Health equity is the most central theoretical and applied concept guiding global and public health today. Students will cultivate an advanced appreciation for the pursuit of health equity for all people with an emphasis on reproductive justice. This course examines the intersections of gender, race and reproductive rights as it has been constructed locally, nationally, and globally with specific attention to the implications for public and global health. We will examine how gender roles, sexuality, and reproductive freedom are influenced and constrained by social, historical, and cultural forces in a race, class and gender framework. Finally, this semester the course will embed active community engaged learning opportunities through public health projects with local and national partners: the Family Tree Clinic and the New York Department of Health.
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Soc 3980- Special Topics: The politics of Reproduction and Parenting
'The Politics of Reproduction and Parenting' will explore two related areas: (1) the politics of birth, abortion, adoption, infertility, and miscarriage, and (2) who is allowed to parent and how, interrogating topics such as intensive mothering, ”superdads,” cultivating competitive kids, and who may give birth to citizens--as well as a brief look at what kids have to say about how they're being raised.
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WTSD 117M- Women, Health, & Reproduction
This course will deal with aspects of human anatomy and physiology of special interest to women and/or those who identify as women, especially relating to sexuality and reproduction. Biological topics covered will include menstruation and menopause, sexuality, conception, contraception, infertility, abortion, pregnancy, cancer, and AIDS. Advances in assisted reproductive technologies, hormone therapies, and genetic engineering technologies will be discussed.
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COMM 3370- Family Communication
Goals: To introduce students to a wide variety of theories that attempt to describe, explain, and analyze the different kinds of issues and interpersonal dynamics in the field of family communication. To become familiar with the ways that research is conducted in family communication and to gain an understanding of the results of that research. Content: Theories of family communication. Interpretative, quantitative, and critical approaches to doing research in the field of family communication. Spousal, sibling, and parent/child communication patterns. Cultural differences in family functioning and family communication. Conflict management in families. Changes in family dynamics over the lifespan of a family. Single parent families, stepfamilies, blended families, and gay and lesbian families. Communication patterns in families with adopted children and biracial children. Families dealing with crisis.