Winter ’25 Institute on Teaching Social Action (virtual) – Jan 6-8

Posted by Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation on October 1, 2024

We would like to invite you to apply to the virtual Winter ’25 Institute on Teaching Social Action on January 6-8th, 2025 (1 pm-5:30 pm EST each day). All sessions will be led by Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton, Director of Teaching Social Action and facilitated by Bobby Hackett, President of the Bonner Foundation. Currently, we have 40 accepted participants in the virtual Winter ’25 Institute, and we would love to have you apply as well.

Click here for the application to apply. On that page you will also be able to see who is attending the Winter ’25 Institute and the courses they will teach using an experiential social action model.

Our no cost Institutes train faculty and staff to develop social action syllabi for a course (or workshop series) that engages students in leading “policy change” campaigns. The key component of this experiential learning model of teaching social action is that students during the semester the class is taught, choose a campaign to work, and as part of a team, attempt to enact a policy change on campus or in the community by making demands of a decision-maker. Students can launch their own campaign or join a community organization’s campaign and create a “student-wing” in collaboration with the community organization. Click here to see the Fall 2024 courses using social action.

Here is what Dr. Arun Agrawal, from the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), participant in the virtual Summer ’23 Institute, says about the Institute on Teaching Social Action:

Teaching social action has been one of the highlights of my career, as it provides students with concrete tools with which to organize social action campaigns. I have personally gone through the Institute and found it incredibly helpful in developing a social action course, that I then taught at the University of Michigan the following semester. I highly recommend it!

If January 6-8th does not work for you, please consider applying to one of our upcoming Institutes at Rollins College in Florida (February 8-9) or at Rhodes College/U of Memphis in Tennessee (March 8-9).