*meets University of Minnesota Liberal Education requirement for Citizenship/Public Ethics Theme
This course is a hands-on introduction for undergraduate students wanting to develop the skills, confidence, and knowledge to become empowered agents of change.This course involves an examination of key concepts of citizenship, politics, ethics, and democracy, as well as hands-on experiential learning in problem solving skills and team work especially from the framework called Civic Studies, developed to address the challenge of collective action in a world of often radically different ethical frameworks.
The goal of this class is to:
1. Give students a hands on introduction to organizing skills such as public speaking, power mapping, collective problem solving and one on one relational meetings.
2. Enable students to examine their own values and commitments in the context of their own public narratives
3. To provide stages for students' public speaking
4. Open the door to new civic possibilities in their own work and careers
5, To acquaint students with the methods and outlook of community organizing tradition in America as a strand of the emerging "Civic Studies" field
6. To provide students with an introduction to the approach to ethics in Civic Studies, compared to other approaches. Such topics include: abortion, teen pregnancy, definitions of marriage, education, prayers in schools, etc.