COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
1) CLDR 410/610 -- Places and Placemaking, with Joby Taylor (8/27 - 9/24)
Places and Placemaking will be a 1 credit class designed
to support students in cultivating a strong sense of place and
developing leadership skills and experience in the practice of
placemaking. The class will meet weekly for 2.5hr sessions for 5 weeks
(1 credit time equivalent), mixing synchronous seminar style instruction
with outdoor in person sessions. Students will critically explore
theoretical and applied perspectives about the key concept of “place”
through seminar style discussions, written reflections, and individual
projects. Human beings charge the world with meaning and power, and as
culture scholar Clifford Geertz reminds us “No one lives in the world in
general...Everybody lives in some confined and limited stretch of
it—the world around here.” Taking that as our jumping off point for a
hands-on skill-based class, the majority of the course will engage
students in in-person local outings (and complementary virtual outings)
that draw upon historical/cultural background narratives, current social
dynamics, and community member perspectives to develop their own sense
of place and gain an informed understanding of the ongoing local
struggle for meaning and positive community change in our Baltimore
area. After participating in initial instructor-designed and led
place-based outings, students will then design, develop, and present
their own place-based outing for the class. Students will leave the
course with skills for developing a vibrant and nuanced sense of place,
and leadership tools for facilitating that powerful sense of place and
placemaking in others in their classrooms, communities, or workplaces.
2) CLDR 410/610 Grant Writing for Social Change, with Meghann Shutt (10/1-10/29)
Grant Writing for Social Change is a 1 credit class designed to
build students’ skills to write and secure grant funding successfully
for 501(C)3 organizations. The class will meet weekly for 2.5hr sessions
for 5 weeks. It will require writing, editing, critical thinking, and
meeting deadlines, and all students are welcome, regardless of their
experience in this area. In this five session class, students will learn
the fundamentals of grant proposal writing including: ethics in
fundraising, finding and vetting funding opportunities, analyzing grant
opportunities, usually referred to as Requests for Proposals (RFPs),
organizing, writing and submitting compelling proposals, and the do's
and don'ts of teaming with organizations. Throughout the class students
will choose one project to develop throughout the five weeks we work
together. The steps of this applied project will be
to: identify, write, and submit a grant proposal for a real nonprofit
organization. All assignments will be written exercises that will
receive feedback from the instructor and contribute to the ultimate
class goal of submitting an actual proposal by class end. For this
course-long project, students can choose to either 1) select a real
nonprofit organization to work with (needs to be an organization you are
already connected with) choose the grant, meet with the organization,
write a proposal with them, and actually submit the proposal to the
funder or 2) select a grant opportunity and complete the entire process
for a well known nonprofit without actually meeting with the
organization or submitting it. Essentially you may choose to learn the
entire process fully in “practice mode” without submittal and in-person
meetings or in “working professional mode” with ending in the submission
of a proposal. Please consider your availability, time commitments, and readiness to meet with working professionals before deciding. We’ll discuss more in class!
3) CLDR 410/610 Community Organizing, with Denise Griffin Johnson & Lane Victorson (11/5 - 12/10)
Community Organizing is a practice that supports
community development, community cohesiveness, community leadership, and
builds community capacity to define, embrace, and create culture and
belonging; giving people agency over what they value. The practice of
Community Organizing identifies community leadership, builds
facilitation skills, planning skills, resource development, increases
connections to people and places, and most importantly teaches how best
to engage in public discourse so that many perspectives are heard,
understood, and valued. The course will provide students with some
practical skills for organizing, while also engaging in the framework of
traditional organizing and cultural organizing.