Course Description: 

Note: This is a two-term Capstone (winter and spring), and is three credits per term.

This course focuses on applications of basic psychological knowledge and methods to community problems. Students join a work team providing consultation to a community organization or agency. Students have an opportunity to choose from a number of field projects in cooperation with community agencies engaged in social service in the fields of health, education, corrections, welfare, and others. Projects result in products of value to community agencies such as program evaluations, climate studies or volunteer recruitment videos. Students develop consultation and group skills, work collaboratively with community partners, and learn about the field of community psychology.

Goals of Community Psychology:

Inquiry and Critical Thinking - Students will learn various modes of inquiry through interdisciplinary curricula—problem-posing, investigating, conceptualizing—in order to become active, self-motivated, and empowered learners.

Communication - Students will enhance their capacity to communicate in various ways—writing, graphics, numeracy, and other visual and oral means—to collaborate effectively with others in group work, and to be competent in appropriate communication technologies.

Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice - Students will explore and analyze identity, power relationships, and social justice in historical contexts and contemporary settings from multiple perspectives.

Ethics, Agency, and Community - Students will examine values, theories, and practices that inform their actions, and reflect on how personal choices and group decisions impact local and global communities.

Project Description: 

For the Winter and Spring 2020 capstone, we will be working with several partners including those involved in addressing intimate partner violence in our local communities.