Lower-Division

Teaches foundational concepts for intellectual exploration and personal development within an academic community: analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy. Reflects our college theme of Social Justice and Community, addressing topics such as identity formation, inequality, and environmental injustice.

Orientation to and exploration of the nature of the liberal arts, and of learning at research universities. Topics include: academic planning for upper-division coursework; enrollment processes; and understanding pathways to degree completion; UCSC resources that support health and well-being strategies for academic success; the cultivation of just communities; the prevention of sexual harassment and violence; campus conduct policies; awareness of risks associated with drug and/or alcohol use; and an introduction to traditions of community-engaged learning, ground-breaking research, and interdisciplinary thinking that define a UC Santa Cruz degree. This course can be taken for Pass/No Pass grading only.

Student Internship through the Apprenticeship in Community Engaged Research (H)ACER Program at College Nine and John R. Lewis College. The (H)ACER Program joins community engagement with critical reflexive components of qualitative research to support transformative learning and strengthen community-university partnerships. Students will be placed at a variety of internships and work with our community partners such as Calabasas Elementary School classroom teachers, Calabasas Elementary School After School Program, Calabasas Community Garden, and Watsonville High School classroom teachers. Students also may propose internships if they already have strong ties with a community partner and receive approval from the (H)ACER Director. Requires students to read selected readings on critical service learning, community learning, qualitative research methods and a variety of texts relevant to the history, context and activities at the sites where they will intern. Internships will take place primarily in Watsonville. Enrollment by permission of the instructor.

Introduction to the (H)ACER program at John R. Lewis College. (H)ACER trains students in participatory research methodologies and creates opportunities for students to work in real world contexts addressing issues such as social, economic, educational, and environmental injustice. Students gain a foundation in understanding the context of the research university and developing critical research methods for working with communities. Students grapple with questions of how to conduct research in an ethical way and to build relationships that both recognize and are not foreclosed by histories of violence, with particular attention to race, class, gender, and nationality.

Through readings, discussions, and primary research on campus, course explores the following questions: What is sustainability at UCSC and what assumptions about the relationships between humans and nature are privileged in these definitions? (Formerly, I Couldn't Imagine Myself Anywhere Else: Understanding UCSC Undergraduate Narratives.)

Series of presentations, films, and workshops that address personal and cultural identity and examine social, cultural, political, environmental, and other justice concerns.

Students newly appointed into leadership positions at John R. Lewis College explore the concept of leadership relating to the college's theme of Social Justice and Community. Prerequisite(s): current John R. Lewis College student leader; permission of instructor.

Weekly colloquium on social justice issues with a different topical focus each quarter. Presentations by UCSC faculty and invited speakers. Students must attend class, read an assigned article or book chapter(s) on the week's topic, and write a one-page synopsis.

Nonviolent Communication provides tools for the work needed to bring our reality closer to the ideal of a world with dignity and equity for all its members. Explores righteous anger, grief, empathy, diplomacy, and making requests others want to say "yes" to. The course nickname is "Rumi's Field," which comes from a Rumi poem: "out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing/there is a field/I'll meet you there." Formerly Social Justice and Nonviolent Communication (Rumi's Field Living-Learning Community).

Provides students with the opportunity to conduct service-learning work in a local Santa Cruz community over spring break. There are four preliminary class meetings in the winter quarter. Winter meeting attendance is required. Enrollment is by interview only. Enrollment is restricted to College Nine and John R. Lewis College members.