Community-Based Learning Courses

Students can take courses across majors that contain a Community Based Learning component. Building upon the foundations established in CIVC 101, these courses provide students with an opportunity to gain real world skills by partnering with a community organization.

To view current and upcoming courses, please see below. CRNs link to the Term Master Schedule

Questions? Please email Jennifer Johnson Kebea at jpj38@drexel.edu.

Spring Term 2018-2019

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	ANTH T280	35338	Elderscapes: Aging in Place(s)	Marilyn J Musket	Thursdays 2pm-4:50pm	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description Aging is a universal human experience, but longevity, lifeways, and qualities of later life vary enormously from one culture to another. This course will explore various aspects of age and the aging process in a wide variety of cross-cultural contexts. This course explores that diversity through assigned readings, lectures, films, guest speakers, interactive class discussions, intergenerational knowledge exchanges, and in and out of class activities including engaging in a course project..

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT T280-004	34009	Fiction Writing at a Philadelphia Prison	Nomi Eve	Thursdays 1pm-3:50pm	Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description Have you always wanted to write fiction? Have you been writing for a while, but are finding yourself unsure of what to write next? In this unique creative writing course, students learn to banish writer's block by using prompts to jumpstart the creative process. Students will write flash fiction and engage in collaborative writing exercises with incarcerated women. The fiction we read and write will be inspired by and analyzed through the lens of social justice. Emphasis at all times is on writing that shows guts and reveals soul. This course is appropriate for both beginning and experienced writers. This class will pay due homage to inspiration, while acknowledging that perspiration and focused work on specific teachable skills also plays an essential role in the making of good fiction.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	SPAN 330-001	35013	Food, Culture and Heritage	Mariadelaluz Matus-Mendoza	Tuesdays/Thursdays 6:30pm-7:50pm	Garces Foundation
Course Description The class explores how the production, preparation and consumption of food relate to the construction social identity, i.e. the cultural and sociopolitical development of a society. This is done through an array of materials on the topic included but not limited to scholarly written article, recipes, conference presentations, literature, visual arts and film.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 260	22981	Justice in Our Community	Cyndi Rickards	Mondays 10am-11:50am	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description This course is a community-based learning course that will begin with an introduction to our local community and examine problems unique to cities. The majority of our instructional time will take place with our community partner. The synthesis of scholarship and community classroom experience will provide a holistic leans in which to explore issues in our urban community. Topics include: urban economies, access to education and health care, information justice, race and crime. Students meet for two hours in the classroom and work as Navigators at the Dornsife Center T, W or TH from 1-3 or 3-5. You will need to choose one shift to work each week, which will appear as a recitation on your schedule.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	PSCI T380-004	35320	Neighborhood Economic Development	Richardson Dilworth	Thursdays 6pm-8:50pm	AchieveABILITY
Course Description This course explores local strategies for community and neighborhood economic development, with a particular focus on retail commercial corridors. Topics include: community organizing for economic development, urban planning as an economic development strategy, the role of government in neighborhood economic development, and the history of retail in American cities. This course meets in West Philadelphia but off campus.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	COM 576-900	34860	Nonprofit Communication	Lawrence Souder	Online	TBD
Course Description All nonprofit organizations must develop and maintain effective communication strategies in order to survive in a competitive economy. Nonprofits have unique needs and limitations in their long-term goals and short-term operations that relate to communication. This course introduces students to the ways nonprofits communicate with both their constituents and their benefactors and the ways researchers have examined these practices. Students will explore these two perspectives on nonprofit communication through a combination of scholarly readings, dialogues with local representatives in the nonprofit sector, and direct contact and work for a local nonprofit organization.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	ENGL 103		Once upon A Lifetime (So Far...)	Cassandra Hirsch	TBD	Kirkbride Center, Philadelphia
Course Description In this side-by-side course, blending Drexel students with individuals at Kirkbride Center, Drexel's community partner, I will create a setting for these two groups of students to put aside their preconceptions of the “other” as they read selected works of memoir, engage in conversation about these works, and together learn the craft of writing memoir.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 380	34651	Policing: Theory and Practice	Robert Kane & Cyndi Rickards	Mondays/Wednesdays 2pm-3:50pm	Drexel Police Station
Course Description This is an undergraduate course that examines the roles, processes, and implications of policing in America. The class represents a unique collaboration between the Department of Criminology and Justice Studies and the Drexel University Police Department. It offers both a classroom component that grounds students in the academics of policing, as well as a Citizen Police Academy experience to teach policing through the collective lens of those who do the job. Each week, students will study a topic in American policing through readings and lecture, and also through a simulated police activity hosted by Drexel police officers. For example, when we study the rules governing police search & seizure, students will read academic materials on the topic and will also conduct mock car stops in an actual police car with Drexel police officers. This combination of classroom and applied pedagogy teaches students how the rules -- both in terms of social expectations and formal requirements -- translate to actual work settings for officers in the moment while on the job. 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	CJS 261	22974	Prison, Society & YOU	Cyndi Rickards	'Thursdays 1pm-4pm	Curran- Fromhold Correctional facility
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 an this course seeks to deepen the conversation- and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004) Course Goal and Mission: At the most basic level, this course and program allows students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have learned about crime and justice, while those on the inside are encouraged to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Students will exchange ideas and perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, corrections and imprisonment. It is a chance for all participants to gain a deeper understanding of the criminal justice system through the marriage of theoretical knowledge and practical experience achieved by weekly meetings and extended throughout the semester. (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 215-001	33182	Story Medicine	Nomi Eve	Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00am-12:20pm	CHOP
Course Description Story Medicine is a community-based learning course for Drexel University undergraduates that meets in the Seacrest Television Studio at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). It is a one-of-a-kind course that aims to reach hospitalized children with joyful, innovative, and child-focused programming. Students host, write scripts and lead imagination activities for patients. All writing assignments are suitable for beginning and intermediate fiction writers.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	ENGL 360 1	35058	Publishing Vets' Memoirss	Karen Nulton	Tuesdays 11am-2:20pm and by arrangement with course partners	Philadelphia VA
Course Description This seminar-style community-based learning course connects Drexel students with local Veterans to create texts for the Library of Congress Veterans' History Project. While working with the vets to tell their stories, students will explore the relationship of gender, race, and socioeconomics to war and peace. Students will explore the power of stories, read selected texts, and learn interview techniques while meeting with local veterans. As students learn the veterans' stories, they will work with the vets to craft narratives that fit the Library of Congress guidelines. Male and female veterans will be included and will represent a wide range of military experiences. The veterans will approve the final product before it is uploaded to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project archive.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	COM 420-900	32803	Technical and Science Editing	Lawrence Souder	Online	TBD
Course Description Editors have a challenging job because their work can invoke in their writers a wide range of feelings: from indifference to resentment. For this reason editors must understand not just the process of correcting and revising the written word, but also the politics and psychology of working with writers and clients. Through studying the current state of the art of editing, examining case studies of professional editorial settings, and serving nonprofit clients, students in this course will explore within the field of editing such topics as: -Editorial functions and responsibilities -Readers and uses of documents -Editor—writer relationships -Editor's methods and tools -Differences among proofreading, copyediting, and comprehensive editing -Legal and ethical issues in editing

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	HIST 276-130	32726	The History of Philadelphia	Scott Gabriel Knowles	Tuesdays 9am-11:50am	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description Philadelphia. No other city has done more to define the American experience. This course surveys the history of Philadelphia through pre-colonial, colonial, and industrial eras to the present day. We will investigate Philadelphia as an economic, social, cultural, and political center, with a special focus on the Powelton Village and Mantua neighborhoods. Students will read primary and secondary sources, as well as conduct original research into Philadelphia’s history. The course combines lectures and discussions with “on-site” historical examinations to tie the present and the past together.

Winter Term 2018-2019

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	URBS 610-001	23382	Civic Engagement and Participatory Methods	Andrew Zitcer	Mondays 6pm-8:50pm	Enterprise Center CDC
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.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	COM 377-900	25285	Communication for Civic Engagement	Lawrence Souder	Online	TBA
Course Description Extremist rhetoric and divisive politics seem to go hand-in-hand in today’s public deliberations. The media so often pair the word rhetoric itself with the pejorative adjectives mere, empty, and deceptive, that anything rhetorical becomes vilified. This course draws from the ancient accounts of rhetoric and the contemporary studies on rhetoric to rehabilitate it as a way to inform our efforts towards a more civil public discourse. This course also will host guest speakers from local civic and political organizations who engage in rhetorical practices in the service of civic engagement, which includes the discourse both of people who exercise political power and of citizens who debate over public policies and cultural identity. Objectives Students who successfully complete this course will be able to: * describe the relationship between rhetoric and civic engagement (responsible citizenship) distinguish between just and unjust regards for an audience (ethical reasoning) identify strategic uses of language and arguments in debates over public policies and cultural identity (communication) evaluate arguments in the service of civic engagement for a community group (self-directed learning) Relevance to Drexel Student Learning Priorities

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Pennoni Honors College	HNRS T 480-004	26405	Great Works: Othello	Paula Marantz Cohen	Wednesdays 10:00am-10:50am	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description This is a one-credit course on Shakespeare’s great 1603 tragedy, Othello. The play deals with a black war hero in late 16th century Venice who is misled by his jealous lieutenant to wrongfully suspect his wife of being unfaithful. The course will meet one hour a week during the ten-week term. We will read the play twice. The first reading will attend to the language and to general themes related to sexism, racism, and imperialism; the second reading will supplement this with historical and critical commentary from the Norton volume.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 260	22981	Justice in Our Community	Cyndi Rickards	Mondays 10am-11:50am	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description This course is a community-based learning course that will begin with an introduction to our local community and examine problems unique to cities. The majority of our instructional time will take place with our community partner. The synthesis of scholarship and community classroom experience will provide a holistic leans in which to explore issues in our urban community. Topics include: urban economies, access to education and health care, information justice, race and crime. Students meet for two hours in the classroom and work as Navigators at the Dornsife Center T, W or TH from 1-3 or 3-5. You will need to choose one shift to work each week, which will appear as a recitation on your schedule.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 305	23473	Life is Beautiful	Ken Bingham	Thursdays 3:30pm-4:50pm	Crossroads Hospice
Course Description This community-based-learning 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	BIO 205	26136	Mobilizing the Scientific Method	Karen Kabnick	Mondays 4pm-5:50pm, Fridays 1pm-2:50pm	TBD
Course Description Students in Bio 205, a new Community-Based Learning course, will learn cooperatively with local high school students who will come to Drexel campus weekly. Drexel students will work with instructors to develop approaches to ask and answer scientific questions. Drexel students will then guide high school partners using a mentor-teacher model. We will use fast plants as our model organism to ask questions with controlled experiments, collect and interpret data, draw conclusions and redesign experiments based on those results. The goal of this course is to encourage collaborative learning through experimentation and mentoring.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 002	25890	Opening Doors: Aiding Reentry	Douglas V. Porpora & Julia C. Richmond	Thursdays 1pm-3:50pm	Curran- Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description This is an Inside-Out class in which Drexel Students will meet at Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility along with students resident there. Keep in mind this is not a service learning class, it is a side-by-side college course. The class will focus on professional transitions for both inside and outside students. Within the context of issues barring on race, class, and justice this course offers both theoretical and practical knowledge about the job market. Transportation will be provided from Main Campus.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 261	22974	Prison, Society & YOU	Cyndi Rickards	Thursdays 1pm-4pm	Curran- Fromhold Correctional Facility
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 an this course seeks to deepen the conversation- and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004) Course Goal and Mission: At the most basic level, this course and program allows students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have learned about crime and justice, while those on the inside are encouraged to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Students will exchange ideas and perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, corrections and imprisonment. It is a chance for all participants to gain a deeper understanding of the criminal justice system through the marriage of theoretical knowledge and practical experience achieved by weekly meetings and extended throughout the semester. (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 215	23471	Story Medicine	Nomi Eve	Tuesdays/Thursdays 11am-12:20pm	Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Course Description This is a Community Based Learning Course in creative writing and Collaborative Creative Processes. Students go to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to perform in the Ryan Seacrest T.V. studio. Drexel Students write, perform and produce live shows for patients. Students will always use a teleprompter, so no memorization is necessary. Students regularly interact with patients who come down to participate in the Story Medicine show. All writing exercises are suitable for beginning and intermediate writers. Students undertake self-reflective writing, and become active participants in building this course for future quarters. Actors, singers, and dancers are welcome as this is a live performance class, but absolutely no performing experience is needed. Acting Practicum credit available (contact Nomi Eve nae28@drexel.edu for details)

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	DSMR 311	21424	Visual Merchandising	Kristen Ainscoe	Tuesdays/Thursdays 4pm-5:50pm	Philadelphia CDC's and BID Districts
Course Description Visual Merchandising combines design skills, consumer psychology and marketing principles to create window displays, floor merchandising and plan-o-grams in a retail environment that entices consumers to buy. Students will investigate related areas of store planning and design, point-of-purchase display, fixture design, and topics on trend in the industry. Students will apply the principles and elements of design in merchandise presentation, analysis and experimentation and field research. Methods of promoting and selling merchandise, analyzing leading retail firms, employing basic methods of displaying merchandise, and developing a basic understanding of the use of materials and lighting will be integrated into experiential projects outside of the classroom. Each term students complete community store windows.This is a partnership that we have developed and continued for over 20 years. Students will get the opportunity to negotiate with a small business owner for the theme and story of the window. Students will write a contract and negotiate the logistics of the contract with the business owner. Students will create and develop sketches, explore materials based on a budget, make and install the window. Each group will need to balance the wants/needs of the client with good design based on the principles and elements of merchandising.

Fall Term 2018-2019

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 261	13545	Prison, Society & YOU	Cyndi Rickards	Thursday 1pm-4pm	Curran- Fromhold Correctional facility
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 an this course seeks to deepen the conversation- and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004) Course Goal and Mission: At the most basic level, this course and program allows students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have learned about crime and justice, while those on the inside are encouraged to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Students will exchange ideas and perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, corrections and imprisonment. It is a chance for all participants to gain a deeper understanding of the criminal justice system through the marriage of theoretical knowledge and practical experience achieved by weekly meetings and extended throughout the semester. (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 260A	15458	Justice in Our Community	Cyndi Rickards	Monday 10am-12pm + Recitation Section	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description This course is a community-based learning course that will begin with an introduction to our local community and examine problems unique to cities. The majority of our instructional time will take place with our community partner. The synthesis of scholarship and community classroom experience will provide a holistic leans in which to explore issues in our urban community. Topics include: urban economies, access to education and health care, information justice, race and crime. Students meet for two hours in the classroom and work as Navigators at the Dornsife Center T, W or TH from 1-3 or 3-5. You will need to choose one shift to work each week, which will appear as a recitation on your schedule.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	COM376-900	13129	Nonprofit Communication	Lawrence Souder	Online	Online
Course Description All nonprofit organizations must develop and maintain effective communication strategies in order to survive in a competitive economy. Nonprofits have unique needs and limitations in their long-term goals and short-term operations that relate to communication. This course introduces students to the ways nonprofits communicate with both their constituents and their benefactors and the ways researchers have examined these practices. Students will explore these two perspectives on nonprofit communication through a combination of scholarly readings, dialogues with local representatives in the nonprofit sector, and direct contact and work for a local nonprofit organization. This course articulates with the content and goals of other courses in the Department of Communication, specifically COM280 (Public Relations), COM220 (Qualitative Research Methods), COM282 (Public Relations Writing), COM286 (Public Relations Strategies and Tactics), COM675 (Grant Writing for the Arts and Humanities), and COM680 (Public Relations Writing and Strategies). Questions of interest are: What is the nature of a nonprofit organization? How are nonprofit organizations governed? Who are the various stakeholders in a nonprofit’s community? What particular and unique kinds of formal communications do nonprofits engage in?

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 215	34094	Story Medicine	Nomi Eve	Tuesday/Thursday 11am-12:20pm	Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Course Description This is a Community Based Learning Course in Fiction Writing and Collaborative Creative Processes. Students go to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to perform in the Ryan Seacrest T.V. studio. Drexel Students write, perform and produce live shows for patients. Students will always use a teleprompter, so no memorization is necessary. Students regularly interact with patients who come down to participate in the Story Medicine show. All writing exercises are suitable for beginning and intermediate fiction writers. Ultimately, students will undertake self-reflective writing, and become active participants in building this course for future quarters.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	BIO T280	16326	Connections in Life Sciences	Mariah Beaver and Monica Togna	Monday/Wednesday 3:30pm-4:50pm	Alain Locke Elementary School
Course Description Connections in Life Sciences is a new open enrollment course designed and intended to allow students to build connections with fundamental biology and their community which together will develop their future professional and personal pursuits. Each week a new insight into genetics that ranges from plants to the human brain will give students the opportunity to learn and to share that knowledge with the Philadelphia community. 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 elementary school with the instructor and Drexel students leading an 8 week after school science club. Course assignments focus on taking a particular concept or skill learned in one of our Drexel courses, connecting it to the lesson demonstrated at the elementary school that week, researching real world applications of that technique, and identifying careers which would utilize that technique or concept. Students will gain 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	PHIL 105	16286	Critical Reasoning	Stacey Elizabeth Ake	Thursday 1pm-3:50pm	Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description Introduces and develops the skills involved in reasoning effectively about experience, and being able to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones. This course utilizes the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Drexel students will travel each week to the jail to meet with the other half of the class, men who are incarcerated. Collectively, Drexel and incarcerated students will learn critical reasoning as colleagues for the ten-week term.