CPCS Courses

CPCS offers a wide range of classroom based learning options through which students work on developing and demonstrating competencies. In their class work, students will learn experientially, in small groups with other students, and through classroom based projects, and through assignments. Courses may address more than one competency and provide support for developing communication skills. Class sizes are small to allow students the opportunity to learn from each other and to work closely with the faculty.

Pictured here with Mayor Menino are students from the College of Public and Community Service (CPCS) who were enrolled in Professor Shoshanna Ehrlich's applied history capstone seminar in the Spring 2005 semester. Supported by funding from CPCS and the UMB Honors Program, the students traveled to Virginia in of April 2005 to present their research at the National Undergraduate Research Conference.

 

Sample Course Descriptions

Reading Life Histories: Playing with the American Dream (Level I Core) Susan Eisenberg
We'll read significant American plays of the 20th century that explore the tension between a person's dreams and the real circumstances of their life. Supplementary readings will help us consider how external forces--history, culture, economics--shape individual opportunity, as we explore the choices characters make in their "pursuit of happiness." Each of the three major plays we read will explore a different social issue.

We'll familiarize ourselves with the structure and language of plays by reading texts closely and aloud; we'll investigate how various artistic disciplines combine to create powerful images on stage. Expect to take a field trip to a professional theater production (we'll usher, and see the play for free)! As a final project, students will mine their own family or community history for dramatic ideas--or explore a topic linked to their major (gerontology, labor studies, human services, etc); and experiment with playwriting by writing an original monologue. No previous experience with theater or plays expected! This is a humanities/literature approach to this competency.

Historical Change in the US : American History through Popular Music Reebee Garofalo
In this course we will explore twentieth century US history, using popular music and supplementary historical texts to tell the story. Popular music will be treated as commercial mass culture and discussed as a social indicator. We will analyze the economic imperatives, social forces, technological advances, aesthetic choices, multicultural influences and political tendencies that have contributed to the dynamic tension between popular music and significant moments in US history. Extensive use will be made of audio and video recordings.

Social Difference in Public and Community Service Robert Hayden
Students will examine policies (laws and regulations) in both public and private community service agencies and institutions. The focus will be on analyzing and understanding how and why policies may differently impact individuals and groups based on the socially constructed categories of race/ethnicity, class, gender, age, disability, and sexual orientation. Labor policies and poverty, equal opportunity policies, health care policies, immigration policies, school integration policy, school testing policy, federal drug laws, and racial profiling are some of the areas to be studied.

Human Service Intervention (Practicum) Carroy Ferguson
The purpose of the workshops is to assist and work with students as they create a practicum/internship at a human service agency and/or reframe prior experience at a human service agency in terms of a practicum/internship experience. The classroom component is organized around a series of six experiential Saturday workshops, whereby students will have an opportunity to sharpen their current intervention activities and enhance their current knowledge about appropriate intervention theories, models, and strategies. Emphasis, therefore, will be placed on experientially learning more about intervention with groups, intervention with individuals, crisis interventions, and work on a human service issue.

 

Fall 2006 course schedule