Virtual Summer Institute on Teaching Social Action – Jun 6-8

Posted by Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation on February 21, 2023

Faculty and staff are invited to participate in the virtual Summer Institute on Teaching Social Action on June 6-8. Over the past year, faculty and staff who have participated in our recent Summer and Winter Institutes have created over 25 courses utilizing social action in a variety of disciplines.

The Teaching Social Action Initiative mission is to have on every U.S. campus, every semester, a course where students learn social action by doing it. Social action is a transformative experiential learning model where students develop and launch a social action campaign as a part of the course requirements. Social action campaigns seek to change a rule, regulation, norm, or practice of an institution, on campus or in the community. Our social action model requires teachers to devote about one-half of the time and co-curricular assignments directly to the social action campaigns (e.g., to explore issue development, building power, tactics, and campaign implementation). Generally, the class reading is also reduced so that the 1.5 hours per week that students devote to their campaign work is not burdensome.

You can also receive updates about our work by joining the Teaching Social Action Group on the Bonner Learning Community Platform (click here) and by attending our virtual “monthly meetups” of our Community of Practice, where we explore best practices and lessons learned from folks who are currently teaching it; the next meetup is Friday, March 3rd at 3:30-5 pm EST (Zoom link and Passcode: action).

Learn more and apply to join us this June.