Available courses

Beginning at Gandhi's ashram in Sevagram, India, this course explores the potential of human energy to transform community life, conservation, and social movements. It synthesizes schools of thought regarding development. It introduces an approach to community change and conservation called SEED-SCALE (Self-Evaluation for Effective Decision-making and Systems for Communities to Adapt Learning and Expand). This course examines communities successfully applying techniques associated with the Seed-Scale approach.

Students work closely with community members, an assigned mentor, and the course's instructor to completely carry out a first iteration of research in community. Results and analysis are to be presented for collective critique by the end of this term.

In this second Practicum course, the student will refine and develop their proposed research, review related literature and choose a research methodology. The student will select one or more research instruments and test them in the field. In the residential portion the student will make a presentation on their community and the proposed practicum process. In the online portion the student will cover more aspects of research theory including statistics that are useful for community based research. At the end of the course the student will present a detailed prospectus which will lay out their practicum process in detail, including the knowledge gained from testing the methodology.
In this first practicum course, students describe their community. They identify critical questions of change and conservation in their community. They study and acquire quantitative, qualitative , and alternative research methods and the necessary statistical tools to analyze data, perform community assessments, and monitor and evaluate programs. Emphases are placed on participatory and action research approaches and methods as well as the identification, measurement, and use of key indicators. Philosophical reasons behind different research approaches and methods are explored in terms of the practice and use of research.

The Pedgogy of Place course evolves over four terms of study. Students explore the universal within the context of the particular, considering place-based approaches to education and development at home and in India, the United States, Peru, Nepa, and Tibet/China. This particular course focuses on "best practices" in community change and conservation as evidenced in Peru.

Principles of Project Management Applied to Nonprofit Organizations
Social change is both an outcome of conflict and a source of conflict. This course will focus primarily on harmful forms of violence and destructive conflict that need to be managed and transformed as a part of social change initiatives. This will involve an exploration of the sources of these harmful forms of conflict, creative alternatives for addressing them, and the skills needed to implement these alternatives.

The course examines the interrelationships between farming systems, water management, sustainable food production and hunger. Beginning with a broad historical analysis of food, crops and agriculture, the focus shifts to pressing contemporary issues and debates; these include the world

We want to take the four dimensions of empowerment: spiritual, political, social, and economic, and learn what it means to be strengthened, both as individuals and as communities. We want to know how an individual and a community develop "confidence in their own capacities." This will be accomplished through a discussion of empowerment, theory, through the use of visual media as an empowerment tool, and through selected case studies.
This course is for demonstration purposes only.
Named for the Oasis Cafe in Georgetown, Guyana - a popular internet cafe - this corner of Moodle is for discussion and coordination of issues relating to the Guyana cohort of the 2010-2011 M.A. class.
Engaging Citizens and Communities in Peacebuilding
This is a site to permit and facilitate dialogue among team members of the Afghanistan "positive deviance" project.
Resources available for Faculty and access to the Dean's Corner
This capstone seminar is organized around each student