Service Learning 293 - Learning Through Comm Engmnt

This course engages students in the practice of community engagement, including consideration of what constitutes appropriate and effective community service, and how to learn deeply from this experience. Each time it is offered, it is organized around a topic of public concern that draws on a variety of perspectives, and it places students with community organizations in service that relates directly to the course topic. Students therefore integrate academic learning with experiential learning. In preparing for community service, students will explore the course topic, and also explore what it may mean for them in their service to cross boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, or other strands of social identity. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

This course seeks to present a paradigm of engineering practice in which the focus is on collaborations with marginalized and vulnerable communities. Students will collaborate with community members as partners throughout the processes of problem identification, design, and implementation. To engage in this paradigm of engineering, known as Solidarity Engineering, students will critically analyze mainstream engineering. They will reflect on power differentials and social dynamics related to race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, English language skills, wealth, criminal conviction, etc. Students will also reflect on alternative framings of engineering such as ecosocialist, indigenous, feminist, and queer theories . Consistent with the practice of solidarity engineering, the principle of breaking down power dynamics, and engaging with all participants as equally valued partners, the class will employ a non-hierarchical pedagogy. The class has a DU/SB designation. Open to Engineering majors and others with permission of instructor.