Check out these courses to learn more about active citizenship, gain skills by working with local community partners or engage with a community-based learning project!
CECiL's Mason Impact courses are courses that include a focus on civic engagement or community based learning. With these experiences, students have an opportunity to engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, resources, or service in a context of partnership and reciprocity with the community (local, regional/state, national, and/or global). Check out Mason Impact for more information about other Mason Impact experiences and courses.
Benefits of these courses:
- They provide the skills and knowledge for you to tackle global challenges.
- These courses are offered through every college and school so no matter what your major, your studies can leave an impact.
- You'll have access to apply for funding with the Mini Grant, which is available to any student completing a project within their course. You could receive up to $500 to finish your project.
| Course Name | Description |
|---|---|
| BUS103: Developing Your Professional Skills: Foundational Elements | Students will investigate and develop their professional skill set. Topics include introduction to the business school and business world, what it means to be professional, how to consume the business press, and how to research business issues. Develop professional writing and presentation skills, explore career options and the job search process, and develop personal educational and professional development plans. |
| BUS 303: Developing Your Professional Skills: Advanced Elements | In this course, students will continue to develop their professional skill set. Topics covered include understanding the modern work environment, business ethics and professional responsibilities, and professional judgment. Students will also continue to hone their professional writing and presentation skills, prepare for the job search process, and develop personal job search and professional development plans. |
| COMM 101: Fundamentals of Communication | |
| COMM 305: Intercultural Communication | Analysis of communication variables as they relate to intercultural encounters. Emphasis is on the influence of culture on the communication process, including differences in values, assumptions, and communication rules. |
| CRIM 307: Social Inequality, Crime and Justice | This course is about the realities of inequality, crime and justice in America, and how these realities reflect and re-create disparities based on class, race, gender, and other social statuses. The standard view of criminal justice asserts that criminal law is built on a consensus about harmful acts that reflect social norms, and that the system operates with blind justice. In this course, we will consider how this view is problematic by examining the social, political and economic conditions that shape the formation and administration of criminal laws in the United States. We will also consider how our criminal justice practices are often less about harmfulness of behavior and more about social stratification and inequity. |
| CRIM 402: Punishment and Corrections | Covers theories on forms of punishment systems; punishment and corrections as a product of historical, cultural, and political changes; differences by race and gender in punishment and corrections; problems of social control and violence in prisons; alternative rehabilitation; and community prevention strategies. |
| ENGH 482: Community Writing | Explores how we write about, for, and with communities, from public spaces, to workplaces to classrooms to less formal social organizations. Integrating traditional reading and writing assignments with the opportunity to write effectively for and about community-based initiatives (such as those advocated by nonprofit, civic/governmental, and social organizations), this class deepens our understandings about how communities take shape (often via shared reading, writing, and languaging practices) within local, national, and/or global material contexts. Awareness of how writing norms and practices take shape within communities is often vital to our effectiveness as neighbors, advocates, activists, and professional communicators in an increasingly digitally-networked world, especially when we are working across differences or organizing around local issues, grassroots change, and for social justice. |
| EVPP 336: Human Dimensions of the Environment | Many of our most pressing social and environmental issues today fall into the category of “wicked problems”. Characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and divergence of human values and viewpoints, wicked problems are prone to becoming mired in controversy and failures of governance. To understand the nature of these problems, we must understand the systems from which they arise and their dynamics. This course in human dimensions of the environment takes a problem-based learning approach and introduces foundational literatures on wicked problems, systems thinking, and collective governance. |
| HDFS 499: Advanced Internship and Analysis in Human Development and Family Science | Supports students in the development and implementation of a program for staff and/or clients at internship site. Examines internship-related experiences within the context of developmental and family theories and empirical research. Contemplates and prepares for the transition to professional. This course is a required internship experience. Note: Students will have 10 hours in the classroom and complete 125 hours in the field. |
| HNRS 240: The Rhetoric of the Early Woman’s Movement | The course introduces students to the early woman’s movement and the rhetorical strategies that women used to improve their communities. Second, it also investigates how women of color navigated the double bind they faced because of their race and sex. Third, the course connects historical struggles to contemporary issues as many of the same issues women were facing in the 19th century (e.g. fair wages, birth control, dress reform) are still being debated today both in the United States and around the globe. |
| INTS 431: Principles of Fundraising | Fundraisers are called to become reflective practitioners who can function in an everchanging and complex environment. To do so they must develop their own philosophy of fundraising, a set of guiding principles that inform one's approach to fundraising. The process begins with a review of one’s own experience with, and understanding of, philanthropy. The philosophy then evolves throughout careers based on several factors including job position, shifting organizational dynamics, and changing fundraising structures and forms. The complexities of the external environment, including cultures, in which individual and institutional donors exist also have an impact. When it comes to the field of philanthropy, academic and practice-informed experience matters. This course treats field exploration outside of the classroom as essential to every student’s understanding—students get to apply what they’ve learned from inside the classroom out in the world, and then spend time reflecting on it. Real-world learning is central to this curriculum. Internship experience gives students the chance to explore the field, learn important skills and find out more about where their interests and strengths lie. Students will learn about the day-to-day operations of philanthropic organizations and gain hands-on experience in areas such as fundraising, grant writing, and program management. Lastly, in addition to being a great learning experience, an internship opportunity offers students the opportunity to form connections with local nonprofit leaders. |
| ME 453: Developing the Societal Engineer | A course which highlights, through speakers, discussions and workshops, the professional responsibility of a being a mechanical engineer. Additional topics that will be covered include ethical issues, current events and trends in the profession. Engineering case studies will be explored. |
| PSYC 427: Community Engagement for Social Change | This class explores influences on social problems and approaches to addressing them by drawing from the perspectives of multiple disciplines, with a particular emphasis on community psychology. By definition, a social problem is a problem that affects many people, but such issues are often viewed primarily as individual-level problems that require individual-level solutions. In this class, students will learn to apply three ecological levels of analysis (individual, interpersonal, and social context) to explore what causes and perpetuates social problems, and how interventions might promote change. The class will achieve its goals through a semester-long case example of the social problem of poverty. We will explore this social problem through students’ engagement with community organizations, readings, class exercises and both written and oral projects. This course requires students to be present and engaged both in class and at their placements, and aims to increase students’ sense of possibility in playing a role in solving social problems. |
| SPAN 485: Topics in Community Based Spanish | |
| WMST 450: Current Topics Women/Gender Studies | Studies selected topics central to contemporary women and gender studies. Includes topics such as women and violence, women and international development, women's myth and ritual, LGBTQ topics, the history and politics of sexuality, disability, transnational issues and religion. |