Community-Based and Community-Engaged Learning Courses

Students can take courses across majors that contain a Community-Based/Community-Engaged Learning (CB/EL) component. Building upon the foundations established in CIVC 101, these courses provide students with an opportunity to combine classroom learning with community engagement and reflection to think critically and deeply about pressing social issues and real-world applications of academic learning. Learn more.

To view current and upcoming courses, please see below. Click here to see past term CB/EL courses. Questions? Please email Cara Scharf, Associate Director of Civic Learning at ces337@drexel.edu.

Winter Term 2024-2025

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
COMAD	URBS 610	23301	Civic Engagement & Participatory Methods	Andrew Zitcer	M 6-8:50pm	Dornsife Center
Course Description: Explores and examines how communities accomplish planned change through a number of models including community development, social planning, social action and public advocacy. Cross-listed with ARCH T480 001 (CRN 24441) and WEST T480 001 (CRN 24454)

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
COMAD	PRFA 100	21216	Community Arts Performance Practicum	Valerie Ifill	TBD	TBD
Course Description: Provides practical experience as a participant in a Department of Performing Arts community arts initiative. Includes involvement with off campus activities with community members under faculty supervision and direction.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Kline School of Law	LAW T380	25298	Tenants' Rights and Organizing	Stephanie Dorenbosch	MW 12pm-1:50pm	Dornsife Center
Course Description: Housing is a basic human need that affects your mental and physical health, education and employment opportunities, and access to resources, but our laws often treat it as a commodity and an instrument of exclusion. This course will provide an introduction to the laws that directly affect low-income tenants in Philadelphia. We will examine, among other things, evictions and other forms of displacement, the government systems and officials that create and enforce - or fail to enforce - the laws, and how Philadelphia tenants are organizing for change. This class is open to community residents as a Side-By-Side course.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Honors	HNRS 430	25255	Doing Well and Doing Good	Bruce Laverty	M 11am-1:50pm	Bentley 157
Course Description: The course will examine the history, nature and impact of philanthropy in Greater Philadelphia from the 17th century to today. In addition to well-known philanthropists Penn, Franklin, Girard, A.J. Drexel (and his niece, St. Katharine Drexel), Conwell, Carnegie, Widener, Pew, Haas, Lenfest and Roberts, we'll study the work of supporters of the struggle for freedom including Stephen Smith, William Whipper, Robert Purvis, Alice Paul and Barbara Gittings. More than simply celebrating a "hall of fame" of generous donors, students will be challenged to assess:How were fortunes made?What motivated the donors? Who organized and executed the philanthropies for the donors?Who benefitted?How successful is the philanthropy in the 21st century?What needs are not currently being met by philanthropy?

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Honors	HNRS 302	25204	The Power of Language	Simone Schlichting-Artur and William A Albertson	TR 3:30-4:50pm	Bentley 156
Course Description: In social discourse, using black and white language can sometimes oversimplify complex issues or overlook important nuances. However, it can also serve as a powerful rhetorical device to emphasize contrasts and make a point more forcefully. Critical consideration of language use when discussing matters related to race, gender, and other sensitive topics is essential to sharpen awareness of the potential impact of words. Phrases like ""black and white"" or ""no grey zones"" can sometimes imply a binary perspective, which may oversimplify complex issues and fail to acknowledge the nuances of individual experiences. This course aims to delve into the pivotal role of language in comprehending and tackling intersectionality, particularly in the formation and discussion of social identities. Language that acknowledges intersectionality grasps the intricacies inherent in each individual's identity. Examining language in this way facilitates a more nuanced understanding of a wide array of perspectives and experiences.

Other related courses to check out:

DIGM 308 (CRN 23275) - Digital Cultural Heritage
FMST T380 (CRN 25205) - Environmental Activism through Film
CJS 261 (CRN 23905) - Prison, Society, and You
HIST T280 (CRN 25286) - Universities and the Military Industrial Complex
CHP 501 (CRN 21347) - Community Engagement in Public Health Practice & Research
CHP 806 (CRN 24683) - Community-Based and Participatory Research

Fall Term 2024-2025

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	ENSS T380-001	15053	Food and Land Security in Philadelphia	Steve Dolph	Fridays, 2-4:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description: In Philadelphia, food insecurity -- lacking reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food -- affects about one in six families. Rooted in structural inequity, land dispossession, and environmental racism, this condition has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: studies indicate that among children the rate is closer to one in three. Although numerous programs address food and land insecurity at the individual or neighborhood level, few situate cultural preservation as their guiding framework. Fewer still place community agriculture at the center of their practice, and the pathway not just toward security, but sovereignty. In this course, we examine the root causes of food and land insecurity in our city and engage directly with community agriculture projects in Black and Latinx neighborhoods dedicated to fighting it. This three-credit side-by-side community-based course (Drexel students and Philadelphia residents learning together) can be supplemented by an optional 1-credit weeklong follow-on travel component to Puerto Rico.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	PHIL 105-006	13146	Critical Reasoning	Stacey Ake	Tuesdays, 6-8:50pm	Dornsife Center
Course Description: Introduces and develops the skills involved in reasoning effectively about experience, and being able to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 290-001	13746	Writers Room Experience	Lauren Lowe	Wednesdays, 5-7:50pm	TBD
Course Description: The Writers Room Experience builds community writing skills, with a particular emphasis on active listening, multi-modal storytelling, collaborative text production, and the processing of heterogeneous group experiences through field note-taking and reflective and recursive writing practices. This course is meant to be repeatable, and taken for variable credit (0-3) depending on the time commitment the student contracts for and their available credits.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Honors	HNRS 303-130	15175	Aging, Design, and Healing	June He	Fridays, 2-4:50pm	TBD
Course Description: This course provides students with a foundational understanding of empathic design, the aging process, knowledge of public health, technology, and ways of healing. Students will learn from a variety of experts in the field of design, nursing, art therapy and healthcare. By the end of the class, students will gain the skills and knowledge of how to incorporate cultural awareness, avoid implicit bias and ageism, understand health care and therapy methods, and use intergenerational collaborative design method to create age-friendly solutions. The classroom experience is designed as a seminar, with discussions, hands-on experiments, and Q & A sessions with invited internationally acclaimed guest speakers across the globe.

Spring Term 2023-2024

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 260 A	33663	Justice in Our Community	Cyndi Rickards	Mondays, 11-11:50am	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This course is a seminar style community-based learning course that will begin with an introduction to justice in urban communities and examine problems unique to cities. The course format will include lectures and on-site work with our community partners at UConnect. The synthesis of scholarship and community classroom experience will provide a holistic lens in which to explore issues in our urban community. Topics include urban economies, access to education and health care, digital divides and crime. Students who take this course will also register for one recitation section of CJS 260.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	DANC 102-002	31747	Yoga	Jennifer Morley	MW, 12-1:20pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description The physical and intellectual study of the ancient practice of yoga. Includes both physical practice and readings related to the discipline, as well as a survey of a variety of forms of the practice.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	FMST T380-02H	35493	Environmental Activism and Film	Benjamin Kalina, Elizabeth Watson	Tuesdays, 6:30-9:20pm	URBN 349
Course Description Can a film change the world? In Environmental Advocacy and Film, we will discover how filmmakers and activists use the medium of the moving image to explore and create change with their work. During class we'll watch films including documentaries, scripted features and shorts that cover local and global environmental issues. Each week a guest will join us to talk about the film we've viewed and the subject it covers. Students will help to moderate these weekly discussions, design and implement survey instruments to assess each film's impact, and participate in a class-wide engagement project by the end of the term. The course is co-taught by a film professor and a climate scientist and is cross-listed with Pennoni Honors College.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Honors	HNRS 430-001	34811	Philadelphia, Garden City	Steve Dolph	Fridays, 2-4:50pm	Bentley 156
Course Description The origin story of Philadelphia begins with a plague. In the winter of 1665, the city of London was struck down with an epidemic of the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Hosted by fleas carried by rats across its refuse-choked streets and sewers, it caused a horrific and typically fatal disease in its human victims. Tens of thousands died. The next year, a wildfire precipitated by overcrowding and antiquated planning destroyed large swaths of the city. Commerce dragged to a standstill. These cascading urban traumas left an impression on the twenty-one-year-old William Penn. Years later, now the governor and chartered proprietor of the vast Pennsylvania colony, his designs for Philadelphia imagined a "green country town which will never be burnt and always be wholesome." In this community-based learning course, we will look back at the promise of Philadelphia as a garden city through the lens of its present struggles with food insecurity, lethal heat islands, an opioid crisis, and green gentrification. Readings and discussions of archival materials, public planning reports, and environmental justice literature will prepare us for biweekly site visits, hands-on activities, and direct engagement with the people working to reconcile this promise in their everyday lives.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 290-001	34432	Writers Room Experience	Lauren Lowe	Wednesdays, 5-7:50pm	Writers Room
Course Description The Writers Room Experience builds community writing skills, with a particular emphasis on active listening, multi-modal storytelling, collaborative text production, and the processing of heterogeneous group experiences through field note-taking and reflective and recursive writing practices. This course is meant to be repeatable, and taken for variable credit (0-3) depending on the time commitment the student contracts for and their available credits.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	PRFA 100-001	31451	Community Arts Performance Practicum	Valerie Ifill	TBD	TBD
Course Description Provides practical experience as a participant in a Department of Performing Arts community arts initiative. Includes involvement with off campus activities with community members under faculty supervision and direction.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	PRFA 100-001	31451	Community Arts Performance Practicum	Valerie Ifill	TBD	TBD
Course Description Provides practical experience as a participant in a Department of Performing Arts community arts initiative. Includes involvement with off campus activities with community members under faculty supervision and direction.

Winter Term 2023-2024

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	DIGM 508	CRN: 24511	Digital Cultural Heritage	Glen Muschio	Wednesday 9:00am-11:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description Digital Cultural Heritage is a growing transdisciplinary pursuit having components in academic research and applied situations, commercial applications, as well as new media technology development. This class will investigate Digital Cultural Heritage¿s position within the tradition of digital media discourse, potential research issues, interdisciplinary collaborations, emerging best practices and project development.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	GST 341	24873/td>	Organization of American States	Maria de la luz Matus-Mendoza	Tuesday and Thursday 4:00pm-5:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description This course is designed to prepare a diplomatic delegation of Drexel students representing a country in the Western Hemisphere to participate at a Model Organization of American States (WMOAS) in Washington, D.C. on April 8-12, 2024. The goals are (1) to acquire political, social, and economic knowledge of the represented country, which changes every year, and the Western Hemisphere, and (2) to prepare students to be able to use diplomatic protocol to participate at the Model OAS in Washington. This course is taught as a Global Classroom and a Community Based Learning class.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 315	24048	Writing for Social Change	Liz Kimball	Monday and Wednesday 12:30pm-1:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description Focusing on current social issues, students will explore the history and legacy of a particular social issue and learn from those working to change it. Students will write to reflect on the dimensions of change, practice with professional genres, and gather support to address the issue. This is a side-by-side, community-based learning course. Drexel students will work alongside staff from UESF, a Philadelphia organization committed to a holistic, preventive, and cost-efficient approach to assisting vulnerable families impacted by housing crises. On Mondays, the class will meet on Drexel's campus. On Wednesdays, the class will meet off-campus (1608 Walnut Street--UESF conference room).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 305	23684	Life Is Beautiful	Kenneth Bingham	Thursdays 3:30pm-4:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This community partnership course links memoir with life, story-telling, and dying. Specifically, the course partners students with local hospice patients to co-create a life-story for the patient and his or her family. Students learn interviewing, listening, and writing techniques as well as skills in analysis and presentation. Additionally, the course facilitates interactions with the community and helps students to see themselves as linked to a community outside of college.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 261-001	23697	Prison, Society, and You	Cyndi Rickards	Thursdays 12:30pm-4:20pm	Community Based Learning
Course Description This course utilizes the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program to explore the relationship between individuals and the prison system. The Inside-Out Exchange Program is an evolving set of projects that creates opportunities for dialogue between those on the outside and those on the inside of the nation’s correctional facilities. The program demonstrates the potential for dynamic collaborations between institutions of higher education and correctional institutions. Most importantly, through this unique exchange, Inside-Out, this course seeks to deepen the conversation and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	SPAN 440	24878	Spanish for Community-Conscious Engagement	Octavio Borges-Delgado	Thursdays 1:00pm-3:50pm	Community Engaged Learning
Course Description This course is designed to empower students with the language skills and cultural knowledge necessary to meaningfully engage in community outreach, service, or work within Spanish-speaking communities. This class goes beyond traditional language instruction, emphasizing real-world application and cultural competency. It focuses on fostering a thoughtful and aware approach to community engagement. Through interactive lessons and field experiences, students will develop the linguistic and cultural proficiency needed to communicate effectively, yet sensitively, while working, volunteering, or serving in Spanish-speaking environments. Whether participating in social outreach programs, educational projects, or healthcare initiatives, students will gain the confidence to bridge language barriers, thus fostering stronger connections and deeper understanding within the communities they serve. Taught in Spanish.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	URBS 610/ARCH T480	24551	Civic Engagement and Participatory Methods	Andrew Zitcer and Susanna Gilbertson	Mondays 6:00pm-8:50pm	Side-By-Side
Course Description This course examines the relationship between civic engagement, democratic participation and community change in urban settings. Students will gain awareness of themselves as leaders and members of a group. They will explore styles of facilitation, decision making in groups, and large and small forms of civic engagement. By the end of the course, students will be more competent and effective communicators, overcoming one of the largest shortcomings of contemporary urban practitioners. Students will discuss leadership in the context of consensus building – creating shared goals, negotiating on behalf of lay people and professional entities, facilitating community meetings and other decision-making forums, and the management of stakeholder expectations.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WGST 201	25068	Introduction to Feminisms	Jennifer Yusin	Tuesdays 4:30-4:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description Feminisms are movements to understand and critique gender relations and gender oppression, and also attempts to construct positive visions of human freedom and ethical action in an unjust world. This course is an introduction to the history of feminisms. The major movements that make up feminism in the modern era, in both the U.S. and abroad, will be examined.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CNHP	HSAD-T380	25011	Ethics of Display	Sharrona Pearl	Monday 2:00-4:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description This course is an opportunity to work directly in the Science History Institute Museum and archives to curate an exhibit that critically intervenes with the racialized histories and practices of museums and display. Students will gain hands-on experience working with primary sources in the museum¿s holdings to produce a final product that the museum may display in their exhibit space while considering the ethical issues around the history of museum collection and display practice. The course will explore ongoing debates on the ethics of display while learning basic principles of museum display and curation.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CHIN 202	23600	Chinese V	Hechun Ping	Tuesdays and Thursdays 6:00-7:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description This course offers students a unique opportunity for collaboration and engagement through language exchange and mutual learning with Chinese-speaking seniors at the Philadelphia Senior Center. Through virtual conversations and a field trip, students will utilize Chinese language to provide English for local Chinese-speaking elderly individuals, and gain insights into the lives and cultures of local immigrants. The course aims to enhance cross-cultural language communication skills.

Fall Term 2023-2024

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal/Pennoni	DSRE T580 001/PROD T380 001/WEST T380 006/HNRS T380 001/BMES T380 001	CRN: 15285/14745/15284/15258/15287	Aging, Design, & Entrepreneurship	June He, Catherine Quay, Arun Ramakrishnan, Chuck Sacco	Fridays 2:00pm-4:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description This course provides interdisciplinary students with the opportunity to collaborate and learn how to design innovative solutions catering to older users. Through field trips to local immigrant communities, guest speakers from diverse backgrounds, and VR simulations in the health research lab, students will focus on developing the skills necessary to generate creative solutions that meet the needs of age-friendly communities, healthcare systems, and universities. The winning team will receive seed funding to pursue commercialization at the Baiada Institute, with space and mentoring support.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT	15121	Writers Room Experience	Lauren Lowe	Wednesday 5:00pm-7:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description The Writers Room Experience builds community writing skills, with a particular emphasis on active listening, multi-modal storytelling, collaborative text production, and the processing of heterogeneous group experiences through field note-taking and reflective and recursive writing practices. This course is meant to be repeatable, and taken for variable credit (0-3) depending on the time commitment the student contracts for and their available credits.td>

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	PRFA 100	11319	Community Arts Performance Practicum	Val Ifill	TBD	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description Provides practical experience as a participant in a Department of Performing Arts community arts initiative. Includes involvement with off campus activities with community members under faculty supervision and direction.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Lindy Center for Civic Engagement	CIVC T180	TBD	Food and Land Security	Steve Dolph	Fall Break	Community-Based Learning
Course Description In Philadelphia, food insecurity — lacking reliable access to affordable, nutritious food — affects about one in six families. Rooted in structural inequity, land dispossession, and environmental racism, this condition has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: studies indicate that among children the rate is closer to one in three. Although numerous programs address food and land insecurity at the individual or neighborhood level, few situate cultural preservation as their guiding framework. Fewer still place community agriculture at the center of their practice, and the pathway not just toward security, but sovereignty. In this course, we examine the root causes of food and land insecurity in our city and engage directly with community agriculture projects in Black and Latinx neighborhoods dedicated to fighting it. Along the way, we will make deep and durable connections with each other and with the land that sustains us.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	SPAN 340	15069	After Maria	Steve Dolph	Monday and Wednesday 10:00am-11:50pm	Community Based Global Learning
Course Description The idea that modern environmental disasters are caused not by "natural" forces but rather by human actions took root after Hurricane Katrina, which permanently displaced tens of thousands of people--mostly poor people of color--from the lower Mississippi delta. After Katrina, public institutions like schools, hospitals, and utilities were haphazardly privatized in a process known as "disaster capitalism." This process was repeated when Hurricane María struck Puerto Rico in 2017, only now the effects were aggravated by the colonial status of an archipelago burdened by massive debt, predatory economic policies, and cynical austerity measures. This course will examine the aftermath of María in Puerto Rico--on the one hand as a byproduct of grotesque climate barbarism, and on the other as a transformative catalyst that has inspired a wave of grassroots political, environmental, and social justice movements, both on the island and in the global diaspora.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Lindy Center for Civic Engagement	CIVC T380	ICA	Culture and Community Development	Ahaji Schreffler and Shardé Johnson	Fall Break	Community Based Global Learning
Course Description Coupled with community-centered learning in Tanzania, this co-curricular course introduces students to the complexities of development and volunteerism – from large institutions and NGOs to small grass roots organizations. Students will explore how development efforts can further marginalize the very communities they intend to serve. We will then examine the value of a community-driven approach that recognizes culture and history as a model for local and global sustainable development.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	ARCH T380	14688	Policing: Theory and Practice	Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis & Debra Ruben	Wednesday 6:00pm-8:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description In this interdisciplinary seminar course, students will collaborate with community members and local experts to create a series of Playful Learning interventions in the East Parkside Community of Philadelphia. Design teams will focus on developing Playful Learning initiatives for multiple sites, fostering intergenerational interaction and enriching children’s cognitive and social development in the public spaces they encounter every day. Through assigned readings, lectures, community meetings and design charrettes students will acquire essential skills in community engagement, teamwork, inclusive design and placemaking. Additionally, grant funding has been secured in partnership with Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network, Watchdog and Drexel University, which will lead to the realization of some of the projects. For those interested, students also will have the chance to continue their involvement by participating in construction documentation and implementation activities for academic credit.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	ARCH T380	15425	Community Engagement & Design	Uk Jung	Thursday 6:30-9:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description This class gives a primer on community engagement and participatory design processes in an active learning environment. We will engage with local community members, leaders, and organizations to inform a real design project to be developed in the Mantua neighborhood. Participatory design and designing with neighborhood stakeholders will be key components of this design course.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Pennoni	Cassandra Hirsch	15205	Prison Reading Project	Cassandra Hirsch	Monday 2:00-4:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description The Prison Reading Project invites you to look closely at mass incarceration, gleaning insights from media we explore and discuss as a class; from speakers who have either been incarcerated and/or work in the criminal justice realm; and from individuals acting as advocates working toward criminal justice reforms. Covering topics such as education behind bars, mental health, youth sentencing and re-entry, women in prison, and the bail system, among myriad other topics, we will learn together. This course will also acquaint you with aspects of yourself as you reflect on what we read, see, watch, and hear. This course can act as a starting place for the conversations you may choose to continue beyond our term together. Classroom discussion, weekly reflective writing, and a final researched reflection on a relevant topic of your choice will make up the course grade.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
COE	PENG 501	12090	Peace Engineering Seminar	Mira Olson	Tuesday 4:00-4:50pm	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description The Peace Engineering Seminar will introduce students to peacebuilding cases and will help students understand how engineering approaches can be applied to peacebuilding. In each term, two peacebuilding cases will be presented by peacebuilders from federal agencies, multinational organizations, and NGOs. In-class sessions subsequent to the case’s presentation, students: 1) will investigate the case through the literature and discuss the case with members of the peacebuilding community; 2) will explore how techniques learned in the core Peace Engineering classes can be applied to the case; 3) will advocate for engineering and technical approaches that could be applied in similar situations; and 4) will use the case as a springboard for reflective writing about the development of skills and personal growth.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
COE	PENG 545	12103	Introduction to Peacebuilding for Engineers	Mira Olson	TBD	Community-Engaged Learning
Course Description Developed in partnership with professional peacebuilders from the PeaceTech Lab and USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding in Washington DC, this course introduces engineering students to the concepts and skills practiced in the field of international peacebuilding and conflict transformation. This course provides students with first-hand accounts of peacebuilders describing the challenges and opportunities in their work, short presentations outlining key theories and concepts that guide that work, and opportunities to think about how this knowledge, skills, and attitudes can be applied to real-life peacebuilding dilemmas.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	SCTS T480/T580	15094/15510	Informing Policy with Science	Gwen Ottinger	Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:20pm	Side-By-Side
Course Description Too often elected officials appear to ignore or distrust scientific knowledge when making public policy. What can people who care about facts do to make sure that policy makers use the best available knowledge to inform their decisions? This course will examine social science research on why science is--and isn’t--taken up in public policy. Based on these findings, students will generate a list of Dos and Don’ts for experts who want to influence policy, and will identify concrete steps they can take to increase the impact of their expertise.

Spring Term 2022-2023

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS/Westphal	URBS-640/GST T380/ARCH T480	34891; 35709; 35076	Sanctuary Cities	Steve Dolph	Monday 6:00pm-8:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description Historically associated with privately held enclosures within urban space (churches, homes, gardens), “sanctuary” is increasingly understood as a public practice that shapes public policy. This course explores the role of so-called “sanctuary cities,” municipalities that limit their collaboration with (and sometimes openly defy) state and federal agencies; within the bitter struggle to reform the US immigration system. We examine the historical records, interviews, legal statutes, executive orders, artistic projects, and literature that have shaped this contested issue, with particular focus on how cities at once activate and restrict the revolutionary potential of sanctuary.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	URBS	34052	Into to the Urban Ecosystem	Scott Quitel	Wednesday 6:00pm-8:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description An ecosystem is a realm of interplay between and among living organisms and nonliving elements, living systems and nonliving systems, and, in places like Philadelphia, habitat fragments and built infrastructure. The City itself may be viewed as a large, complex, dynamic Urban Ecosystem, composed of various smaller ecosystems, all interconnected. When an event or occurrence takes place in one ecosystem, it has a direct and domino-like impact within that system; and it also has impacts, direct and indirect, upon other ecosystems. The focus in this class is on the heterogeneous landscapes, and their associated ecosystems, that comprise Philadelphia. Particular focus will be directed upon climate as a dynamic array of systems and patterns and the impact of changing climate upon our urban environment. A student of or in the City- be they an urban strategist, an architect, an engineer, an artist - needs a foundation in knowing how ecosystems operate and behave to excel in their chosen field of study. This field-based course lays that foundation.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Pennoni	HNRS 303	31368	A People’s History of American Material Culture	Joseph Larnderd	Wednesday 6:00-8:50pm	Side by Side Course
Course Description Are you interested in taking a class alongside community members about the power of everyday material culture to effect social change? How have objects like furniture, furnishings, and adornments expressed and stirred the social imagination? What overlooked lived experiences might our study of such objects make more present or more vivid? This is “A People’s History of American Material Culture.”

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WGST T180	34673	Introduction to Queer and Trans Studies	Jennifer Yusin	Tuesday and Thursday 11:00pm-12:20pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This is a community-based learning course that introduces the interdisciplinary fields of queer and transgender studies. Together, we will explore the ongoing developments of concepts of 'queer' and 'transgender' as they are situated across social, cultural, historical, and political contexts. Through a combination of community engagement and applications of classroom learning, we will learn how gender and sexuality are configured and intersecting with class, race, nationality, religion, ability, and other zones of experience. Along the way, we will also engage with key issues in queer and transgender studies by focusing on how the practical, everyday experiences of a diversity of positionalities can help us address urgent social issues

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WGST T280	34674	How to Change the World: Putting Activism Theory Into Practice	Allison Berk	Wednesday 6:00pm-8:50pm	Community Based Learning
Course Description Given the current socio-political environment in the United States and globally, an understanding of successful social movements, basic social impact skills, and developing an understanding of and commitment to addressing social issues has become, and will continue to be, essential to being able to effectively communicate the needs, accomplishments, challenges, and expectations of both individuals and communities. This course acknowledges that most, if not all mainstream social movements, have historically included problematic rhetoric including frameworks and concepts that are ableist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, ageist and transphobic. Given that, we will explore a wide breadth of social movements from a critical feminist theoretical lens and actions, both contemporary and historical, that are intersectional and inclusive in nature and seek to understand what contributes to their "success" or "failure" in order to better prepare students to advocate for themselves and their communities when they notice social injustice. As a community-based learning course, we will take advantage of the opportunity to combine classroom learning with community engagement and reflection to think critically and deeply about pressing social issues and real-world applications of academic learning.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	DANC 102	32002	Yoga	Jennifer Morley	Tuesday 6:30pm-9:20pm	Community Based Learning
Course Description The physical and intellectual study of the ancient practice of yoga. Includes both physical practice and readings related to the discipline, as well as a survey of a variety of forms of the practice.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 403-130	34690	Policing: Theory and Practice	Cyndi Rickards	Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This is course examines contemporary issues in policing, representing a unique collaboration between the Department of Criminology and Justice Studies and the Drexel University Police Department. The course offers both a classroom component that grounds students in the academics of policing, as well as a Citizen Police Academy experience to teach certain aspects of policing through practice. Each week, students will study a policing topic in class and then participate in a simulated police activity hosted by Drexel police officers. These simulated activities include car stops, shoot-don't-shoot scenarios, responding to mass shooting events, and drug seizures. Ultimately, this course hopes to integrate two aspects of American policing that are typically separated: How we teach policing, and how we do policing.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	BIO 200	31462	Connections in Biology	Scott Quitel	Tuesday 2:00-4:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description Connections in Biology is an open enrollment course which will give students the opportunity to make exactly that: connections. Building upon a new theme in biology each week, students will connect that material to their current Philadelphia community as well as to their future professional and personal pursuits. The course is designed on the Community Based Learning platform (CBL) and is scheduled to meet twice a week: one meeting will be a formal lecture on campus and one meeting will be at a partnered middle school with the instructor and Drexel students leading an 9 week after school science club. Students will gain volunteer hours, get an introduction to civic engagement, benefit from community based learning practices and connect their Drexel course material to the bigger picture in their lives.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 280	34925	Writers Room Lab Credit	Valerie Fox	Thursday 6:00-6:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description The Writers Room LAB Credit is a single-credit laboratory meant to be attached to courses with projects engaging in civic action. The LAB credit is meant to allow motivated and self-directed students to invest more time in integrating the knowledge from an academic class with community work participated in beyond the classroom setting (and as aspects of the course). The student will engage in reflective writing at the beginning and end of the course that will frame and deepen the synthesis of academic knowledge and experiential action taken in the community.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 290	3496	Writers Room Experience	Lauren Lowe	Wednesday 5:00-7:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description The Writers Room Experience builds community writing skills, with a particular emphasis on active listening, multi-modal storytelling, collaborative text production, and the processing of heterogeneous group experiences through field note-taking and reflective and recursive writing practices.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 260	34684	Justice in Our Community	Cyndi Rickards	Monday 10:00-11:50am	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This course is a seminar style community-based learning course that will begin with an introduction to justice in urban communities and examine problems unique to cities. The course format will include lectures and on-site work with our community partners at UConnect. The synthesis of scholarship and community classroom experience will provide a holistic lens in which to explore issues in our urban community. Topics include urban economies, access to education and health care, digital divides and crime. Students who take this course will also register for one recitation section of CJS 260.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 261	31224	Prison, Society and You	Cyndi Rickards	Thursday 1:00-3:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description This course utilizes the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program to explore the relationship between individuals and the prison system. The Inside-¬Out Exchange Program is an evolving set of projects that creates opportunities for dialogue between those on the outside and those on the inside of the nation’s correctional facilities. The program demonstrates the potential for dynamic collaborations between institutions of higher education and correctional institutions. Most importantly, through this unique exchange, Inside-Out, this course seeks to deepen the conversation and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	SPAN 430	34560	Food, Language and Migration	Maria de la luz Matus-Mendoza	Tuesday and Thursday 4:00-5:50pm	Community-Based Learning
Course Description What do people take when they migrate? Language, food, and their cooking practices. What do they maintain and why? This course will explore how their language, food, and cooking practices interact in the new places where migrants settle. Through literature, pop culture, academic research, films, documentaries, and newscasts, students examine how migrant communities develop their culinary traditions, why certain food practices become relevant in their sense of community, the role that food and cooking practices play in their new residence and how this is displayed in public spaces. Emphasis is given to gendered practices in cooking in the Spanish speaking world. Taught in Spanish.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	PRFA 430	31633	Community Arts Performance Practicum	Val Ifill	TBD	Community-Based Learning
Course Description Provides practical experience as a participant in a Department of Performing Arts community arts initiative. Includes involvement with off campus activities with community members under faculty supervision and direction.