Fisher Hosts Workshop on Teaching Social Action

Earlier this month, the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement hosted a two-day workshop, Teaching Social Action, which brought together 15 faculty members from 12 regional institutions.

The Teaching Social Action framework, developed by Scott Myers-Lipton from San Jose State University, is unique among college courses in that it not only engages theories of how change happens; it requires students to take action during the semester. The goal of the workshop was to train faculty in how to incorporate this model into their courses.

“Social action courses are an essential part of preparing engaged citizens. Students should be encouraged to vote and learn about issues. They should hone their skills to have dialogue with people who have different views, and have opportunities to build capacity within their communities through research and service. With these skills, they will know how to lead change,” said Bobby Hacket, co-founder of the framework and co-presenter at the workshop. “The Teaching Social Action model accomplishes this last goal by guiding students to develop and launch a campaign to change a policy.”

Over the course of the workshop, faculty crafted their plans for a social action class, preparing to teach both the “thinking” part of social action, including reviewing theories of social change, cultivating students’ civic agency, and the role of student reflection in the model as well as the “doing” part of social action with a special focus on campaign activities and actions. The primary goal of the model is to move student teams toward at least one campaign action over the course of a semester.

The weekend concluded with a discussion of next steps for regional collaboration. The hope is that faculty and students across institutions might collaborate on social action campaigns and work on shared issues together here in Rochester, and in the New York and Pennsylvania region more broadly. Several participants remarked on the benefits of building connections with faculty from other disciplines and institutions.

“The NY-PA Institute was a great success, as it both trained 15 faculty from the Rochester region in how to teach social action, but it also created a regional support group for the faculty under the leadership coaching of Dr. Anthony Siracusa," said Scott Myers-Lipton, co-founder of the project and co-presenter of the workshop.

The weekend’s events were organized by Siracusa, professor of history and community engagement, and Nina Shaw, assistant director of community engagement. The workshop was supported by several on- and off-campus partners, including the DePeters Family Center for Innovation and Teaching Excellence, the School of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Campus Ministry, and Partners for Campus-Community Engagement. The event was co-sponsored by Nazareth University’s Weider Community Engagement Office and the University of Rochester’s Center for Community Engagement.