[COMM-ORG] query: CO and higher ed

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  Thanks to Poy and Ann for continuing and encouraging the discussion.]

From: Poy Winichakul <pwinicha at oberlin.edu>


Bob,

As a college student interested in community organizing, I have asked 
this question many, many times. In fact, I have also been trying to do 
some similar research. Just from digging around, I found some 
interesting graduate programs that might interest you because I think 
they really do educate students to be social change agents. You could 
contact them and see if they keep any data or publish any articles on 
community organizing education:

-- Social Administration Concentration at the University of Chicago 
(http://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/programs/socadm.shtml)
--NYU Law School has a few interesting clinics that do some community 
organizing/CO-related work, for instance, their Community Development 
and Economic Justice Clinic
(http://www.law.nyu.edu/academics/clinics/semester/commdeveconjustice/index.htm). 
Their various centers may have publications related to community 
organizing/organizations
--CUNY law school and Northeastern Law School definitely stress training 
of social change agents and have been suggested to me by multiple 
professors and alum
--Occidental College's Critical Theory and Social Justice major produces 
several community organizers. Their faculty may have some knowledge of 
community organizing ed programs

Besides these institutions, another great place to contact would be the 
Truman Foundation. Since the Truman Scholarship seeks social change 
agents, they may have some information.

I guess these are just some thoughts I had. I'd be interested to know 
what information you find. And of course the comm-org site is great. 
Although I've listed mostly several graduate institutions as resources, 
I have a personal bias that undergraduate institutions are actually the 
places where the "social change agent" formal education begins. I'd love 
to hear your thoughts on this and perhaps share my own if you are 
interested.

Well, good luck! I hope I was at least somewhat helpful....
-Poy

-- 
Poy Winichakul

Ph: (608) 698-1989
Email: pwinicha at oberlin.edu


**************************

From: "Ann Pratt" <prattworks at earthlink.net>

I am also interested in this topic.  Hope to see an on-going discussion
about this.


Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
> --------
> This is a COMM-ORG 'colist' message.
> All replies to this message come to COMM-ORG only.
> --------
>  
> [ed:  please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with replies to Bob's 
> query.  A bit from me below.]
>
> From: "Fisher, Robert" <robert.fisher at uconn.edu>
>
>
> I'm curious about the literature and data related to community 
> organizing education.  Recently it looked like community change programs 
> were going to take off -- with the election of Obama and the collapse of 
> capital markets -- but alot has changed in the past 18 months.  Since 
> part of my interest stems from wanting to expand our CO program, I'm 
> probably most interested in and least familiar with the current (or 
> relatively recent) state of formal programs in higher education, tht is, 
> education outside of the CO training networks and institutes.  That 
> would include social work programs, which have been in existence since 
> the 1950s, as well as the proliferation of community studies, community 
> building, community development, etc. programs in other disciplines in 
> the last  decade or so.
>
> Where does one go for such information? What's been written about the 
> state of CO education, from a basic accounting of numbers of programs, 
> students, alumni, etc. to where are the institutional sites and what's 
> their date of origin.   Is the current field of community organizing 
> education expanding, and, if so, in what disciplines, etc.  I'm 
> especially interested in graduate education, but would welcome any 
> information on published studies or sources of data on CO education from 
> community college and four-year undergrad programs as well.  
>
> Beyond published literature or reports, is there data that one would 
> expect to find somewhere in social work, for example, that would include 
> results of surveys related to the state of community organizing 
> education.  What about other disciplines?  Do sociology and political 
> science have professional associations or subgroups that gather such 
> data, issue reports, etc?
>
> I know this concept of community organizing education has porous 
> boundaries, including everything from service learning/civic engagement 
> efforts to programs specifically interested in educating students to be 
> social change agents.  I'm interested in the latter, but would welcome 
> any citations which include a broader definition.
>
> Thanking you in advance,
>
> Bob Fisher
>
> ***************************
>
> [ed:  the COMM-ORG website has a list of programs that could be 
> contacted for this.  Peter Dreier has also written a little about this 
> as well, so may be worth contacting, if he does not reply to this.]
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