Community-Based Learning Courses and Other Social Justice Courses
The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service (CSJ) works with faculty to incorporate relevant social justice themes into course work in all disciplines. In addition, CSJ facilitates and supports experiential learning opportunities in general and community-based learning (CBL) in particular --- pedagogies of engagement that can augment the classroom study of social justice.
The underlying principle for this academic work is that disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry is essential to enhance the quality and to deepen the commitment of students’ understanding of social justice. That principle undergirds the pedagogy of CBL where work in and with the community that students undertake as part of a course furthers their understanding of the course material and the intellectual methods of the field while meeting community-defined needs. We seek to support the integration of rigorous disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study with community-based intellectual work, ultimately promoting students' engagement with fundamental questions of social justice. We have created a Faculty Handbook to assist in the design of CBL courses.
