This Student-Originated-Studies (SOS) program provides an academic home-base for students interested in earning credit through internships with community organizations or community-based projects in a range of fields including gender, racial, and economic justice; food regimes and farmworker justice; education; student and youth movements; community arts; immigrant rights; labor movements; and communities organizing for civil, economic and human rights. "Community-Based Learning" is offered for students who have made solid arrangements with community-based organizations or agencies to shape an internship, or students who have developed a project that involves community-based learning, organizing, research, and participation. The 6-credit academic program core provides a learning community where students can share knowledge and experiences, deepen knowledge of local community organizations, and develop skills for community-based work through readings, discussions, and workshops. In addition, students carry out 2-10 credits of internship or project work (an average of 5-25 hours per week depending on the number of credits), for a total of 8-16 credits in the program. Students should reach out to faculty before the start of the quarter with a brief description of the project or internship they want to develop, and be ready to start projects and internships week 1 of the spring quarter.
Through their internship or project work, students will develop strong links to organizations, regional social movements, and community mentors and partners who will be students' guides and hosts in their work. Working in conjunction with schools, advocacy groups, community mentors, or non-profit organizations, students will experience and reflect on what it means to support communities in our region. Internships can involve any focus, such as immigration, adult literacy, food security, homelessness, cooperative development, or public health. Community-based projects could involve oral history, working with community members (elders, artists, laborers, community organizers, etc.), or designing a community action plan to address a particular challenge or need. Faculty and the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action CCBLA will work with students to develop project proposals and/or in-program contracts for internships with community organizations. Students can contact CCBLA Director Ellen Shortt Sanchez (shorttse@evergreen.edu), explore community opportunities at https://www.evergreen.edu/individualstudy/findaninternship, or contact program faculty to develop projects.
For the 6-credit program core, we will meet together as a program to investigate what it means to learn from community-based work, support each other as each person carries out their project or internship, and deepen our knowledge of local organizations and their connections to Evergreen. Drawing on the principles of popular education, we will share knowledge, develop skills for working respectfully in community, and explore emergent questions. Through readings and other materials, we will focus on the ethics of community-based work, collective strategies of resistance, and the impacts of race, class, gender, sexuality as constituents of our own and community experience. Through workshops, we will emphasize modes of identifying and valuing community knowledge and develop and deepen skills in documentation, cultural humility, self-reflection, and reflective writing. We will also develop a collective mapping project that documents Evergreen's connections to local community organizations and ongoing relationships between the college and the broader community. This program is ideal for responsible, self-motivated students who value collaborative learning, are enthusiastic about shaping a community of co-learners, and are committed to learning from and with community partners.
Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:
6 - Community Studies
2 -10 - Internship or Community-based Project
Registration
Academic Details
Cultural Studies, Community Studies, Community Development and Organizing, Education, Government and Non-Government agencies, Immigrant Advocacy, Law, Food Justice and Food Systems.
This program supports variable credit options from 8-15 credits; please contact faculty at nelsona@evergreen.edu to receive permission to register in the variable credit option.
As part of project work, students can develop 2-10 credits of community-based research projects, developed in consultation with faculty.
Students need to develop a plan for a community-based project or make arrangements for an internship before the start of the quarter.This program is designed to support internships with community organizations or community-based projects, developed in consultation with faculty. Internships can have any focus, such as immigration, adult literacy, food security, homelessness, cooperative development, or public health. Collaborative projects could involve oral history, working with community members (elders, artists, laborers, community organizers, etc.), or designing a community action plan to address a particular challenge or need. Students will carry out 2-10 credits of project or internship work (an average of 5-25 hours per week). Faculty and the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action can support students in securing internships and developing community-based projects.