2017-2018 Academic Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
2017-2018 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses


 
  
  • HIST 2180 - Malefica: Origin of Witchcraft


    Examines the mythological inheritance of European civilization that eventuated in the Witch craze of the Middle Ages through the Reformation as well as the development of pagan Wicca from the 18th century to the present day. Topics covered include goddess mythology, the Witch craze, Salem, Wicca and ecofeminism. Readings will include poetry, fiction, and drama as well as historical documents and various myths. Prerequisite:A compositon course or VE fulfilled.

  
  • HIST 2210 - Rise, Fall and Rebirth: Germany in the 20th Century


    Germany has stood at the center of world events throughout the twentieth century; its crises have profoundly impacted Europe and the United States for over the past hundred years. Germans helping plunge Europe into Worl War I, were responsible for the Second World War, and perpetrated the Holocaust. Beginning with the transformation of 19th century Germany into an industrial world power with a thriving, liberal middle-class, we will examine Germans’ role in World War One, the Weimar Republic, and during National Socialism and the Holocaust. We will pay particular attention to the “catastrophe” that was German history from 1914-1945, asking whether Germany developed along a special path (Sonderweg), what made possible the rise of Hitler, yet remaining open to the possibilities of the Weimar Republic. We will then explore the division of communist East and capitalist West Germany and the fall of the Iron Curtain, and ask how Germans successfully transitioned from autocracy to democracy after 1945. After 1945, West Germany, a NATO memeber, developed into one of the strongest economies in the world, while East Germany, part of the Warsaw Pact, became one of the most repressive regimes in Europe. Today, Germany’s stability is at the heart of a new post-Cold War Europe and the driving force behind the European Union.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied

  
  • HIST 2230 - The Rise and Fall of Modern China: 1839-1949


    Considers the essential themes and events in China from the beginnings of the 19th century in late Imperial China to the origins of the People’s Republic of China. We will examine the social and political structures of the late imperial state, the effects of foreign imperialism and peasant rebellion in the nineteenth century and the sources and development of modern revolution in the twentieth century. Topics considered include Western Imperialism and domestic rebellion, the Opium War, the Taiping Revolution, the dynastic revival and the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Boxer Rebellion, the Republic Revolution in 1911 and Warlordism, the May 4th Movement, the rise of the Guomindang and the Civil War. Emphasis will be placed on the political, social and cultural transformation of China in the twentieth century. Serves as an introduction to major personalities and conflicts in Modern Chinese history and attempts to analyze the degree of continuity and change in China in such areas as politics, economics, social organization, foreign relations and intellectual and cultural developments.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • HIST 2240 - People’s Republic of China:1949-Present


    A general survey of the People’s Republic of China from the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 and the emergence of the Chinese Civil War and the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 to the present. Involves a detailed chronological overview of the historical events and causes leading up to the 1949 Revolution, the origins of the Chinese Communist ideology known as Maoism, the struggle of the Chinese Communist Party in the early years to collectivize agriculture and to industrialize, the Great Leap Forward, the Five Year Plans and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We will attempt to penetrate the Chinese village in order to understand traditional rural culture and the nature of peasant society. In addition, we will emphasize the historical and ideological evolution of the CCP with special emphasis on Mao and the post-Mao era.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • HRD 1530 - Principles of Management


    Introduces the fundamental managerial of functions planning, organizing, lending and controlling. Through an examination of the major motivational theories of management, we will work to increase our awareness of the personal skills required to be a manager and learn to apply managerial planning, and organizing processes as well as design a control system to measure results.

  
  • HRD 2180 - Interpersonal Communication


    This course will utilize theory and practical applications to provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop interpersonal communication competence and better understand its role in the relationship context. Specific areas of study include: relationship building and maintenance, intercultural communication, conflict management and interpersonal communications in the organization.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: various

  
  • HS 010 - Dialogue Seminar


    This half-credit course is intended to deepen students’ understanding and experience of dialogue through a small set of readings, short papers, and participation in in-class dialogues. Our conversations will draw from the experiences and issues raised by the public events in the Higgins School dialogue symposium. Students should plan on attending up to seven Dialogue Symposium events over the course of the semester.

     

    In Fall 2017, the dialogue seminar will explore the role of the arts and humanities in the pursuit of the “public good.” The notion that arts and (what we now call) the humanities are integral to the public good was a core principle of much enlightenment thought during the founding of the United States. A commitment to the public good premises a system of shared values, even as those values change and, sometimes, come into conflict with each other. Consensus can be elusive, and compromise difficult, but the pursuit continues. Institutions as well as individuals benefit from and contribute to broader social, cultural, and civic goals. This fall, our dialogues will consider how arts and humanities in particular contribute to the public good through acts of advocacy and teaching, creation and critique, and contemplation and scholarship.

     

    In Spring 2018, the dialogue seminar will consider the topic “Analog & Digital Conversations.” Knowledge may be power, but so are the practices and technologies by which knowledge is created, systematized, preserved, disseminated, overwritten, forgotten, recovered, and reimagined. Analog processes convey a sense of craft and authenticity, suggesting a more direct relationship between maker, artifact, and beholder, but they may also be perceived as quaint and fetishized, rarified precisely because of labor intensive exclusivity. By contrast, digital processes can simultaneously appear efficient and overwhelming, progressive and impersonal, radically accessible and avariciously monetized. Rather than choosing between backward glancing nostalgia and futuristic innovation, might instead heed the ongoing conversation between analog and digital technologies, the stakes of which are not only cultural and aesthetic but deeply ethical and inherently political. We might begin with the question, what is the relationship between making and knowledge? How does the organization of knowledge and creativity define meaning? Where are the capacities of old and new technologies to recover lost stories and tell new ones? How do we interrogate the ways that systems of knowledge create inequitable structures for access and agency?

     

    Prerequisites: By permission of instructor

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring

  
  • HS 012 - Mindful Choices


     

    What holds my attention, and calls for me to explore it further? What do I enjoy, and what do I care most about? Where do I find a sense of meaning and purpose?

    How do my interests and concerns relate to the choices I am making in my education? Do I listen well to what my intuition is telling me about my life choices? How do I visualize myself participating in our society and world when I graduate?

    Students are invited to explore and reflect on these questions in a new art-making course called Mindful Choices. This guided, intensive arts immersion will offer students a chance to engage in creative practice and reflection as they consider paths of study at this important juncture of their undergraduate career, and encourage a more conscious commitment to the direction of their education. The process of exploration and discernment will be supported through artistic practice in the visual arts, music or creative writing.

    Students will receive a half-credit for the course, which is pass/fail.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring

  
  • HS 100 - Symposium Seminar


    Students will explore the Higgins School’s symposium theme in-depth through event attendance, readings and screenings, in-class discussions, and short written assignments. While the symposium program is interdisciplinary by nature, the section instructor will draw particularly from their areas of specialization. This half-unit course may be added to a standard four-course load without fifth course approval, is offered on a “pass/fail” grading basis, and may be repeatable for credit. As with other Higgins School courses, this class is designed to help students to strengthen and enhance their college experience and to forge connections across and beyond conventional coursework.

    Topic for Spring ‘18
    Analog & Digital Conversations” - Knowledge may be power, but so are the practices and technologies by which knowledge is created, systematized, preserved, disseminated, overwritten, forgotten, recovered, and reimagined. Analog processes convey a sense of craft and authenticity, suggesting a more direct relationship between maker, artifact, and beholder, but they may also be perceived as quaint and fetishized, rarified precisely because of labor intensive exclusivity. By contrast, digital processes can simultaneously appear efficient and overwhelming, progressive and impersonal, radically accessible and avariciously monetized. Rather than choosing between backward glancing nostalgia and futuristic innovation, we might instead heed the ongoing conversation between analog and digital technologies, the stakes of which are not only cultural and aesthetic, but deeply ethical and inherently political. We might begin with the question, what is the relationship between making and knowledge? How does the organization of knowledge and creativity define meaning? Where are the capacities of old and new technologies to recover lost stories and to tell new ones? How do we interrogate the ways that systems of knowledge create inequitable structures for access and agency?
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Most semesters, beginning Spring 18

  
  • HS 110 - Engaging the Arts


    Students will explore a range of visual and performing arts through programming at Clark and in the larger Worcester community while developing aesthetic understanding, critical judgment, and appreciation for creative process and the challenges of public presentation. While Clark Arts and related Higgins School programming in music, visual arts, and theater provide the core opportunities for event attendance, students are encouraged to seek out additional opportunities on campus and beyond. Weekly class discussions foster a deeper understanding of the history, aesthetics, politics, practicalities, and processes of creative work and its presentation. In-class readings, screenings, and listening sessions as well as creative exploration across a range of media will allow students to develop their own ideas for practice-based projects, such as creative work, criticism, advocacy, education, and outreach. This half-unit course may be added to a standard four-course load without fifth course approval, is offered on a “pass/fail” grading basis, and is not repeatable for credit. As with other Higgins School courses, this class is designed to help students to strengthen and enhance their college experience and to forge connections across and beyond conventional coursework.
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Most semesters, beginning Spring 18

  
  • HS 120 - Special Topics


    Courses listed as “Special Topics” are in a pilot phase or are known to be one-time offerings. Special Topics courses can vary by semester.

    Fall 2017 Topic: Introduction to Higher Education

    Students in this course will examine higher education from a range of perspectives, including news coverage of national trends regarding colleges and universities, contemporary and historical views on issues affecting the college experience, and personal experiences and insights of students, staff and faculty. Readings, campus event attendance, and reflective assignments focusing on the experience of college are meant to provide ways for first generation students to understand their own relationship to the University and its various communities, to higher education in general, and to their own goals and aspirations. Throughout, the class will provide opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and peer-to-peer learning centered on practical strategies for academic success in the first year of college and beyond.  May be repeatable for credit.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall 2017

    Placement Guidelines
    The course will NOT be visible on the regular grid. Students will be notified of the class via first-year advising and given the CRN in order to register.

  
  • HS 299 - Directed Study


    Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit. May be repeatable for credit.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester

  
  • ID 104 - Experiencing the American City


    This course will take a phenomenological approach to “experience the city,” to how people feel the city, while seeking to grow fundamental skills to enhance and develop the ability of students to appreciate, feel, and do grounded work in the city. The course will be divided into four modules: 1) Working in the City; 2) Observing the City; 3) Researching the City; 4) Feeling the City. The first module delves into the meaning of becoming a professional working in cities by showing potential professional pathways to students relying on the real-life experience of Clark alumni, and exploring mentorship and summer internship opportunities. The second module will focus on enhancing students’ “natural observation” abilities, a fundamental skill of good urban planners. The third module will focus on the basics of formulating good (applied) research questions about urban problems. The final module will touch upon some of the rich expressions, symbols, and images which urban life inspires by examining literary, musical, and culinary arts in the city. The course will rely on field work in some cities of Massachusetts. Students interested in working in multicultural, multi-ethnic environments and with diverse populations are particularly encouraged to take the course, as well as students of diverse ethnic/racial and social backgrounds.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: -

  
  • ID 105 - Visualizing Human Rights: Culture, Law, and the Politics of Representation


     

     

     

     

    What do human rights look like? This seminar examines the advocacy strategies NGOs use to make human rights visible to different audiences the general public, government officials, policy-makers, international courts, etc. Particular attention is focused on the tactics NGOs employ to mobilize expert opinions, popular sentiment, and material resources to contest the status quo and to promote the protection of human rights. Students will gain familiarity with some of the key actors, legal frameworks, and best practices used in the “human rights community,” including their main strengths and weaknesses. They will also develop a grounded understanding of human rights campaigns and the role advocacy efforts play in shaping international affairs, legal proceedings, and moral debates. Finally, students will enhance their ability to critically analyze and to ethically employ the digital technologies (e.g. mobile phones, social media, crisis mapping, satellite imagery) that shape how human rights violations are visualized today.

     

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 106 - Healthy Cities


    What makes a city a healthy place to live, work, and go to school? How does the health of a “place” affect the health of the individuals who live there? Who is responsible for the health of a city’s residents? The goal of this course is to introduce students to key challenges in urban public health and to Worcester, MA as a city determined to be the “the healthiest city in New England by 2020” in Worcester, MA. Students in the course will acquire an understanding of the key concepts and methodologies from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and public health, and how they employ those tools to examine urban health problems.

     

    Students in this course will explore and engage in a wide range of topics related to healthy cities. This is an entry course to the newly established collaboration between Clark and the Worcester Division of Public Health. Students who enroll in this class will get in-depth exposure to issues related to healthy cities, rights to the city, and environmental and urban issues that can potentially impact (positively or negatively) the health of its residents. Health, here, of course will be considered as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1948). Students will have to critically reflect on reading material, but will also be introduced to interpreting basic health data and relating it to the urban environment in which they live. They will also get the opportunity to interact with public health professionals from the Department of Public Health, and apply through field trips what they learn in class to the real world.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: GP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Piloted Fall 2014

  
  • ID 108 - What is Public Health?


    What is public health?  What is the role of public health in preventing disease and responding to different kinds of health challenges?  Who are the key players in public health, and what are their roles and responsibilities?  In this course students will be introduced to the field of public health as a mode of inquiry that focuses on population health and as a government institution that is designed to protect the public’s wellbeing.  With a growing recognition in the United States that every citizen deserves health care, informed and engaged citizens must understand the role that public health plays in maintaining a healthy populace.  This course will examine the many intricacies of public health in the United States by focusing on the history of public health and the responsibilities and functions of public health and health care agencies.  Much of this inquiry will employ classic case studies in public health, from seat belt laws to the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually

  
  • ID 112 - Sustainability, Peace & Justice


    This course explores the connections between the theory and practice of sustainable development. It draws from political economics, political ecology and human geography. The course also highlights the issues of power and the obstacles they present to the achievement of the objectives of sustainable development.

    Corequisites: This course fulfil the requirement of the Intro to Peace Studies PSTD 102

    Anticipated Terms Offered: n/a

  
  • ID 120 - Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology


    From Cannibals to Corporations: Humanity in Context. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a rich anthropological understanding of culture. What does it mean to be human across our many differences and similarities? How do people give meaning to their lives across time and space? How are some of the most intimate features of our lives socially patterned? Students will learn to see the familiar in the strange and the strange in the familiar-in other words to appreciate something about other cultures and, through this mirror, to learn something new about their own. The class also provides an introduction to anthropological history, ethnographic method, and social theory. From the U.S. suburbs to hunter-gatherers in the Amazon, students will explore the diversity of human societies around the world through the lens of critical issues such as development, power, identity, war, globalization, inequality, and cultural survival in the twenty-first century. Through class assignments, students will also have the opportunity to use tools of anthropological observation and problem-solving. Throughout the semester, we will discuss the politics and practicality of applying anthropological knowledge for a more just world.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: GP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: -

  
  • ID 121 - Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?


    Why are there so many different approaches to health and healing worldwide? How are the experiences of illness and suffering fundamental to human lives and societies? What are the major health challenges of the 21st century and how will we resolve them? This course introduces students to the intersection of medical anthropology with international development and global health. The course explores theoretical and methodological approaches in medical anthropology and how anthropological tools can be used to study health and disease. We will explore how different societies cope with illnesses from epilepsy to HIV/AIDS and how medical anthropology offers a unique way of addressing health problems in domestic and international settings.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: GP & DI

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied

  
  • ID 125 - Tales from the Far Side: Contemporary Dilemmas in Development


    Discussions of geopolitics invariably refer to the problems of Third World (under) development. What is so compelling about the idea of development? Why does it ail much of the so-called Third World? What are some of the solutions to development dilemmas-neoliberal market reforms or attention to women, ethnic groups and other heretofore marginal issues such as the environment? Or is the development enterprise fundamentally flawed as some postcolonial scholars claim? This course introduces students to key histories, concepts and debates in international development through critical and analytical engagements with fiction, films and theoretical literatures on the subject.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: GP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

  
  • ID 131 - Local Action/Global Change: The Urban Context


    In this seminar, undergraduate students at Clark, along with a selected number of activists and practitioners who are based in Worcester, elsewhere in the United States, or in the Global South will interrogate the ‘local’, the ‘global’, and explore the meanings and strategies to achieve social change and transformation. Students will do so by reflecting critically on specific human rights, social justice and sustainable development issues or causes.

    Through examining selected readings from the interdisciplinary field of development studies, and from political science, sociology, anthropology, international human rights law, gender studies, literature, art, and film; and through specific case studies, the students will learn about ways theorists, activists, civil society organizations, social movements and networks have conceptualized actions and strategies for change.

    Students will supplement learning in class and from course readings, with practical community and global engagement with selected organizations and networks (especially youth networks and organizations) in Worcester, elsewhere in the United States, and globally. Students will utilize the Internet (including email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter) for communication and action.
     

  
  • ID 132 - Research Methods for International Development and Social Change


    This course examines the value of ethnographic forms of research and knowledge production, its conceits, as well as its limits. While other genres of research design and methods will be considered, the primary focus will be upon qualitative ones, including participatory techniques developed by field practitioners. Special emphasis will be placed upon cultivating a critical stance towards these methods, the cultural assumptions that underlie them, and the impact relations of power have upon the research process as a whole. Towards this end, assignments (including a mini-ethnography) are designed to help students: 1) design their own research project; 2) select methods that are appropriate to it; 3) gain the intellectual flexibility and confidence to make adjustments as necessary in “the field”; and 4) to reflect upon the inter-personal dynamics of the research process during the write up phase of their project.

  
  • ID 133 - Gender and Refugee Issues in International Development


    More than 40 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced as a result of conflict and natural disasters. Some are considered refugees who have fled their home countries, while others are people who remain internally displaced within their own nation-state borders. How does displacement affect women and men differently and according to their marital status, age, or ethnicity?  How are the needs of women, children, the disabled, LBGTQI populations taken into consideration across the refugee cycle (from the moment of first displacement until the return ‘home’)? What key agencies work on displacement and refugee issues and how do they conceptualize their needs? These questions can be answered by untangling the nexus of displacement, gender, refugees and resettlement. In this course, students will analyze intersecting strands of literature: gender and development and the displacement and resettlement literature.  Lectures, writings, country case studies and films will illuminate the gender dimensions of  post-conflict and post-disaster resettlement of displaced population. Students will have the opportunity to strengthen their critical thinking, presentation and writing skills through close reading, in-class discussions and debates, essays, and exams.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: GP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall 2017

  
  • ID 203 - Youth Work: Practice and Social Justice


    This course will advance the theory and practice of community-based youth work. Given the current challenges facing public schools, labor markets, and local governments, non-profit community-based youth organizations become important actors in youth development. This course will focus on six case studies about everyday dilemmas facing youth workers. It will situate each dilemma into its broader context (e.g. family, peer, school, neighborhood, juvenile justice, policy, and media, etc.). Literature will be used to understand the generalizability of the dilemma; to build understanding as to how the cases illustrate larger social problems; and to create a youth worker professional education opportunity. Community-based youth workers will also be participants in the class and each Clark student who is not already engaged with a youth serving organizations on a regular basis will be paired with a Youth Worker in the class for a community based learning opportunity for a minimum of 5 hours a week.  Student learning outcomes include:  how to explore and build your knowledge, skills, and attitudes about youth work; how to frame and resolve ill-defined problems; how to think  and communicate on one’s feet; and to enhance content knowledge on youth development theories, research, and strategies.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 205 - Risks and Rumor in Global Health


    This course will look into different dimensions of risk in global health, including the role of rumors, which can be a consequence or catalyst of unsafe health behaviors. In some situations, rumors can have a positive role, lending information on outbreaks, or conveying appropriate caution. Risk will be considered at a number of levels from external risks such as natural disasters, terrorism, epidemics and disease vectors to individual risks such as risk-taking behavior around sexual and reproductive health. Vulnerability will also be examined as a factor which puts some communities and individuals more at risk for negative health outcomes than others. Rumor and the power of “word of mouth” in spreading positive as well as negative information on health will be looked at. Rumor and word of mouth will also be investigated as a means to mobilize communities to demand or reject public-health initiatives. While there are a number of newer risks facing global health, challenges and misperceptions are not new to public-health initiatives. The course will start by taking a look at historical obstacles to public-health initiatives such as early rejection of the smallpox vaccination campaigns. The course will examine of a number of case studies where health projects or initiatives did not go “as planned”; often situations where risks were not adequately considered and prepared for in the planning. Students will investigate what went wrong and what measures could have been taken to better anticipate or prevent the unexpected outcome.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: n/a

  
  • ID 207 - Beyond the Population Bomb: Rethinking population and the environment in an era of climate change


    Population, or “overpopulation,” has long been blamed as a primary reason for environmental problems, including climate change. In this class, we will examine the gendered and racialized ways that environmental thinkers have framed population in relation to resource scarcity, food insecurity, conflict and violence, environmental degradation and climate change. Starting from the 1948 bestsellers Our Plundered Planet and Road to Survival to the 2014 coffee table book, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot, we will analyze environmental discourses that call for population reduction to address environmental issues. We will explore how these discourses influence environmental activism, impact sexual and reproductive health policy, and fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric, while obscuring the complex contributors to environmental problems. In the class, we will look to reproductive, environmental and climate justice movements to find frameworks that propose action on environmental issues while fighting for social justice.

    Prerequisites: ID 121  or ID 125  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 208 - Health (in)equity: social determinants and policy solutions


    Even in the most affluent countries and cities, those who have more access to resources and social capital, tend to live longer and healthier lives. Why? What makes a city a healthy place to live, work, play, and go to school?  How does the health of a “place” affect the health of the individuals who live there?  Who is responsible for the health of a city’s residents? What is the link between economics, policy, environment, and health? How do the social constructions of race, gender, and class, influence the quality of health one receives and their access to health care resources?

    In this course, we define “social determinants” as the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics.

    Upon completion of the course, students will be able to explain the link between social, economic, political, and environmental factors that affect health; the use of indicators to assess determinants; the main theories and methods of assessing social determinants; and how diseases are patterned in specific (and predictable) ways in a city. Students will also explore case studies that demonstrate how sound economic and development policies lead to an overall improvement of the health of a population.

    NOTE: This course will satisfy the requirements for the Graduate Health Certificate in Community and Global Health and the MHS in Community and Global Health

    Prerequisites: ID 108 What is Public Health?  ID 106 Healthy Cities  ID 121 Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 209 - Beyond Victims and Guardian Angels: Third World Women, Gender and Development


    How did Third World women and gender concerns enter economic development discourses? How have Third World women and gender been conceptualized within development practices? In turn, how have feminist theories about women and gender shaped economic development discourses? In exploring these issues this graduate seminar will eschew the divide between theory and praxis that plagues development literature.

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: DI

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied

  
  • ID 210 - Transitional Justice: Theoretical Debates, Institutional Frameworks, and Development Impacts


    “Never forget” and “never again” are promises-to remember the horrors of the past and to prevent their reoccurrence in the future. Present circumstances shape the possibilities of what can be done to realize both goals in the wake of mass atrocities. This course examines: 1) how these circumstances affect understandings of what “transitional justice” means to different actors; 2) the myriad forms it takes in different contexts (e.g. criminal proceedings, truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations, and memory projects); and 3) the impacts these initiatives have upon post-conflict reconstruction and development.

     

    The course is divided into two sections. The first section is philosophical and historical in orientation. The focus is upon the ethical issues, political events, and the legal mechanisms out of which the concept of “transitional justice” emerged and has since become institutionalized. The second section consists of topic-focused case studies on development-related issues - ranging from displacement and corruption to sexual violence and climate change - in different countries such as Yugoslavia, Argentina, Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, among others. The details shed light on both the implementation of transitional justice proceedings in concrete settings, creating the basis for informed comparative discussions.

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-Annually

  
  • ID 211 - Special Topics in Community and Global Health


    This course is meant to engage in deeper conversations about different topics related to Community and Global Health (GCH). The course will be in a seminar format. May be repeatable for credit.

     

    The topics covered range from methods and theories from GCH emerging scholarship.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring

  
  • ID 220 - Critical Pedagogy for Social and Environmental Justice: Liberal Arts Education in Practice


    This course is a community-engaged intellectual exploration of ways to make your college education relevant to contemporary struggles concerned with social and environmental justice. We do so in the light of two difficult challenges. First is a far cry for production and dissemination of applied knowledge helpful for students to “Become a leader, collaborator, and creative thinker poised to solve the most daunting challenges of our time.” Such learning needs to be should be connected with the “lived-in” experiences of students while in school and what they students aspire to do after they leave school. Secondly there is a widespread recognition that traditional views of education often entertained the notion that teaching should be apolitical, leaving values outside class room and only focus on disciplinary content. This view does not make a distinction between politics inherent in the disciplinary contents and methods of teaching. So the our learning endeavors will not be vulnerability to reinforcing dominant patterns of power and privilege and is itself therefore, hence inherently political. We need to change our methods of learning in the classroom in ways that blurs the boundaries between the academy and the requirements for students to engage in real world problems.
    The course is based on the premise pedagogy is a set of political, economic and cultural relationships that reflect the dominant social arrangements in society. Education is political activity closely interwoven with the economy and culture. Then the issues power and powerlessness have to be a part of the classroom learning experience to uncover these arrangements. This course does not begin with a discussion of politics, but political framings and implications of teaching and learning. That is we will unpack the political economy of teaching and learning in the liberal arts system. Then it explores the pedagogical theories and practices that contribute to social and environmental justice. Issues related to social and environmental justice through an interdisciplinary examination of historical, cultural, social, political, economic and environmental issues in the contemporary world. The goal is to help students to deepen their understanding of social justice issues and develop skills to engage in social justice related issues.
    The course will not only contribute to our understanding of social justice and environmental justice as a construct of inquiry will provide empower the students. It is an exploration of the relationships among oppression, power, society, education, and change and examines how history, power, economics, and discrimination shape societal perspectives and schooling practices, and considers ways to transform pedagogical practices. Two unique features of this course are student engagement with the activist organizations and activists conducting panel discussions in the class room. Hopefully during the semester both the instructor and the students will learn new ways to make liberal arts education relevant to issues faced in the modern world.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 221 - Food Systems: Place, Politics and Policy


    Agriculture and animal production have changed dramatically over the last century, especially after WWII, bringing higher yields and less expensive food to people. The changes also brought considerable costs to the natural environment and human (and animal) health. The “agribusiness model”, as we have termed the combination of low-cost, industrial, mechanized, fertilizer-intensive food production, has fueled global climate change, which in turn is dramatically shifting yields and costs, and our strategies to feed people. This course will investigate the causes and consequences of the transformation, and alternative pathways to protect communities against the negative impact of such large-scale transformation. We will explore, first, the economic and political determinants of the industrialization of food and animal production: the agribusiness model and its diffusion throughout the world. The drivers of the agribusiness model are highly concentrated corporate entities, which control the production of agricultural commodities, and rely upon vast supply chains to move products from production to the consumer throughout the world. The global control and outreach capacity of such corporate entities is backed-up by a robust scientific and political complex whose main objectives are not necessarily to feed the growing population of the planet.  The second section of the course will be devoted to understand and dissect in greater depth the joint effects of global climate change and the agribusiness model on the environment and health of territories, with a focus on trade, gender, health disparities, and food waste. The third section of the course will be devoted to examine the challenges of development for local and regional food systems, with a special emphasis on policy instruments, collective action, and community development. While the focus of the course is on the United States, we examine a variety of topics in a comparative and global perspective. The course has a seminar format.

    This course may be repeatable for credit one time.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually Spring

  
  • ID 222 - The Political Economy of Food and the Ethics of Eating


    Is it possible to eat in an ethical fashion in world with more than seven billion people? What would this entail? And what are the likely consequences of our choices upon others as well as the environment?

    This course examines the evolving political-economy and ethics of food production, distribution, and consumption and its effects upon our ecosystems, animal welfare, worker safety, consumer health, and cultural identities. Course readings introduce different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches to the study of what we eat. They range from: historical accounts to food exposés and detailed empirical studies to forecasts of what we will eat in the future. All of them are provocative and they provide us with the opportunity to develop critical perspectives on the following:

    1)The development of a global food system and the industrial techniques used to sustain it: confinement livestock operations, genetic homogenization, fisheries and aquaculture, and (trans-) national supply chain management;

    2)Contemporary debates over food safety: genetically modified organisms, oversight mechanisms, regulatory regimes, famine prevention and humanitarian relief;

    3)The possibilities and limits of ethical alternatives: organics, locavore, fair trade, biotech, and food sovereignty.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 223 - Educational Policy Issues in Developing Countries: Course Value


    This upper level undergraduate (juniors and seniors) and graduate seminar examines some of the most significant policy issues that “developing” countries grapple with in their efforts to improve the capacity of “human resources” to meet the assumed  needs of the new knowledge economy. The course focuses on key policy issues in a variety of national settings in the areas of governance, management, and financing of education. It examines the basic socio-economic needs and conditions that drive educational policy in “developing” countries, the practical and ideological considerations that influence policy responses, and the results and implications of various policy choices. While focusing on these broader issues, we explore the role of different stakeholders, including the state, local, regional and international organizations, and citizens in these policy debates and practices. Additionally, we will critically examine globalization’s impact on educational policy, particularly its ideological influence on the financial and management arrangements for the provision of education.


    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 224 - People on the Move Research Studio


    Refugee Integration in Worcester

    People on the move, including refugees, migrants, and undocumented movers, can be hard to incorporate in standard social science methodologies and difficult to include in participatory research. The first third of this full-semester participatory research studio familiarizes students with innovative techniques for producing knowledge of mobile people’s lives, livelihoods, and concerns in a collaborative way, and promotes understanding of local, state, and national policies for refugee support, integration, or management. During the middle of the semester, students will participate in an action research project with refugee participants, agency staff, and other researchers (project may change from year to year). Analysis of data, write-up, and community sharing take place in the final part of the semester. This year, we will be exploring Refugee Integration in Worcester-Best Practices with community partners and practitioners.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: spring 2015

  
  • ID 226 - Beyond Victims and Villains? Politics of Gender-Based Violence in the “Global South”


    Reductionist analyses of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the “Global South”, that often depict women as victims and men as villains, are embedded in the imagery and discourses of International media, politics, and the realm of International development. While GBV continues to be a predicament worldwide, this problematic representation of this region has served to reinforce cultural, religious, political, and moral stereotypes of the “Other.” How do we understand and critique GBV in the “Global South”? How can we acknowledge the seriousness of GBV without contributing to the stigmatization of particular communities and their representation as exceptional? How can GBV be understood and analyzed in a way that does not (re)produce the Orientalist and xenophobic stereotypes of victims and villains? This course aims to look at the politics of GBV as a highly complex and variable phenomenon, which intersects with a web of political, structural, and legal systems of oppression and power relations operating locally, regionally, and globally (Merry, 2011). The course will examine these structures of power that continue to shape and complicate the experiences of women and men in the “South” with violence.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually

  
  • ID 227 - Ideologies of Race in Development


    This course explores the inherent silences in development discourse regarding “race.” We will explore how the colonial projects of civilizing the “primitives” was primarily a racial project that continues into modern day development. We synthesize historical, political, and anthropological approaches to examine how the beliefs in “racial” hierarchies dominated the ideologies of social evolution, eugenics, the missionary project, colonialism, slavery, and current international development. We will also explore how this racial discourse was appropriated by global resistance movements. This is a graduate seminar course. Students will be expected to lead a seminar discussion and write a 20-25 page research paper.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: n/a

  
  • ID 229 - Property and Community


    “Property is not a thing, but a social relationship,” is this course’s point of departure. Questions relevant to a “social relations theory of property” have captured attention within the social sciences on many fronts. For example, what does ”ownership” mean in different societies? What gives property its social value (prestige, power, privilege)?  How are current land tenure and property rights interventions changing community relations and family dynamics? The course readings are global in nature, allowing us to examine property as a social relation in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  Capstone eligible seminar

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 233 - Approaches to Community Health


    What makes a community healthy? Why do some community members thrive, while others consistently experience health disparities?  The social determinants of health - the conditions in which people are born, live, work, play and age have significant impact on individual and population health.  Similarly, the factors that influence community health and wellness are complex and inter-related such as health literacy, availability of services, culture, and social and behavioral norms, these issues require multi-disciplinary coordinated approaches across sectors.  In this course, you will learn:

    How to assess a community’s health and how to identify needs using evidence-based methodologies

    How to identify and select evidence-based approaches to solve problems

    How to empower and mobilize community members to engage in community health improvement efforts

    Paying particular attention to vulnerable populations, we will examine challenges and barriers communities face, as well as current movements that promote social justice and health equity across a variety of current and emerging threats to community health. 

    NOTE: This course will satisfy the requirements for the Graduate Health Certificate in Community and Global Health and the MHS in Community and Global Health

    Prerequisites: ID 106 Healthy Cities , or ID 108 What is Public Health? , or ID 121 Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 235 - Trafficking: Globalization and Its Illicit Commodities


    This course turns a critical eye towards the different cultural, political, and economic processes that make contemporary forms of “trafficking” possible. It examines these transnational processes from three different vantage points, each composing one part of the course as a whole. Part one will engage many of the key concepts that inform the existing literature on “trafficking” (e.g. commodification, shadow economies, transnational criminal networks, and regulatory authority) to explore both their assumptions and their limits. Special attention is focused on the ways scholars, policymakers, and activists have historically constructed trafficking as a “problem” either for analysis or action, and how the different legal and policy frameworks created to combat it have changed over recent decades. Part two examines the above concerns in greater detail through a series of case-studies on different forms of human trafficking, the global market for organs, genetic information, animal parts, and endangered species, among others. Part three will consider some of the opportunities and dilemmas (theoretical, methodological and ethical) such practices present for those who wish to study, to manage, or to advocate on behalf of those affected by different forms of trafficking.

  
  • ID 236 - Spatial Analysis for Health


    This course introduces Geographic Information Science and its application in public health research and practice. Each week incorporates a lecture and a computer lab that focuses on a health-care issue. Topics covered include mapping disease rates, analyzing health outcomes, access to health care and health resources, environmental justice, exposure assessment, and social determinant of health. Students will learn how to visualize and analyze health-related and demographic data, and how to geocode tabular data. They will have the opportunity to develop their GIS skills using commercial and open source GIS software and to conduct their own independent research on a topic of their interest.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring

  
  • ID 237 - Program Evaluation for Youth and Community Development Initiatives


    This course provides students with skills required to apply research methods to the assessment of youth and community development programs. By gaining exposure to the various types of program evaluation (e.g. process evaluation, impact evaluation, empowerment evaluation, etc.), analyzing evaluation case studies, and working on an actual evaluation of a program. Students will leave this class with an understanding of the importance of and challenges involved in conducting high quality program evaluations. Students will gain enough skill to assist in the development and implementation of evaluations.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year

  
  • ID 240 - Fundamentals of Youth Work


    Youth workers are the front line staff at youth serving organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club and youth centers.  Youth workers have been referred to as “wizards” because they succeed with young people where other individuals and institutions have failed. Despite the critical role youth workers play in the lives of young people, they receive very little professional development or training; this comes to the detriment of the youth, the youth workers, and the field. There are emerging efforts in the United States to professionalize youth work and provide youth workers with critical training. This course is a one strategy to that end.  

    This course covers how to work with young people in a positive youth development framework-focusing on building protective factors (e.g. positive discipline, making referrals, and building relationships with families), reducing risk factors (e.g. violence, mental health problems, sexual behavior, and substance abuse) and building professional skills in program development and management.  Reflection on youth work practice will be a key teaching and learning strategy in the course.  Students in this class will be both community youth workers as well as Clark students.  For Clark students who are not currently doing youth work, they will be matched with youth workers for an apprenticeship opportunity.  Each week, a different youth development professional in the greater Worcester area will co-facilitate the course session.  In this way, students have the opportunity to network with those working in the field. This is a Problems of Practice course.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 243 - Seeing Like a Humanitarian Agency


    Since World War II, several different but overlapping regimes have emerged to help structure humanitarian responses to large-scale forms of displacement. In what ways do these evolving regimes enable humanitarian agencies to “see,” and in what ways does their particular field of vision differ from that of states, academics, policymakers and the displaced themselves? What kinds of blind-spots (theoretical, methodological, and ethical) inevitably result? This seminar will explore these questions from three different vantage points, each composing one part of the course as a whole. Part one will provide an overview of the literature and the main concepts of the course. Special attention is focused on the ways scholars and policymakers have historically constructed displacement as a “problem” either for analysis or action, and how these concerns have shifted over the past three decades. Part two will consist of ethnographic studies of humanitarian interventions in different geographic settings, which will highlight the relevance (and limits) of concepts and methods drawn from the social sciences, including anthropology. Part three will address some of the opportunities and dilemmas humanitarian emergencies present for those who wish to study or to manage them.

  
  • ID 248 - Gender and Health


    This course introduces students to social science perspectives on the intersection of gender and health. In the course we will examine theoretical approaches to gender and health, such as feminist and political economic perspectives, and explore historical and contemporary case studies that analyze particular dimensions of gender, health, and sexuality. We will explore health issues such as health disparities along lines of gender, race and class, the regulation of reproductive health by nation-states and the “development industry”, and political and social struggles for reproductive rights. We will also consider some dimensions of gender and occupational health, and contemporary health challenges such as gender violence and HIV/AIDS. These issues will be explored mainly in the context of developing countries with some cases drawn from the United States.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Prerequisites: ID120 OR 125

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 249 - Networks and Analytics of Development


    This course introduces students to advanced analysis of data related to development and interpretation and communication of quantitative data. We begin with an overview of theoretical approaches to data analysis, explore their use, and guide students in applying them to individual projects. We will learn ways of organizing, analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data from publicly available national and international databases. The first half of the semester will include quantitative analytics, visualization, and presentation of health-related data. The second half of the semester will consist of ways of researching mobile, hidden, and vulnerable populations using social network analysis. Social network analysis, not to be confused with social networking, is a specialized methodology that examines the patterns of relationships among individuals, community, countries, etc. to identify who the most important people are in a network, who has the most influence or social capital, sub-groups, and if time permits, “hidden or shadow networks”. SNA can also be used to evaluate collaboration, coalition, and partnership networks.

    Prerequisites: Statistics course

    Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: FA

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 251 - Nongovernment Organizations: Catalysts for Development


    Many practitioners and theoreticians, disillusioned with governments in the development process, propose building nongovernment organizations (NGOs) as development catalysts. This seminar explores the proposal in light of the difficulties and progress NGOs have experienced.

  
  • ID 252 - Conflict in Sudan and the Horn of Africa


    This seminar explores the historical and cultural context of current political and military conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. We will examine issues of racial, ethnic, and religious identities in the region using academic sources, policy documents, and visual and oral narratives. Students will become familiar with the debates relating to ethnic and sectarian violence, forced migration, famine, and humanitarian aid through multi-disciplinary social science analysis and experiential case studies. The course combines delving into local and national circumstances for people living in the region and an interrogation of the objectives and practices of transnational actors.

  
  • ID 257 - Sex and development: the intersection of sexuality, morality, and modernity


     

    This course explores historical and contemporary efforts to regulate sex, birth, death, and fertility as part of ideas about moving towards modernity, progress, and building healthy, stable, moral and productive societies. Drawing on approaches ranging from demography to anthropology and global health, we will explore the theoretical conceptualization of sex, sexuality, fertility, mortality, morbidity, and population growth and examine large and small scale attempts to control and alter sexual behavior and demographic patterns in different societies. 

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Corequisites: ID120, ID121, or ID125

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 264 - Advanced Topics in Development Theory


    Advanced Topics in Development Theory. This seminar provides students with an opportunity to engage in an in-depth study of some classical theorists of modernity and development. It aims to establish firm theoretical and textual foundations for the future study of politics, economics, culture and social relations related to “third world development.” Topics vary.  May be repeatable for credit.

    Spring 2017 topic: INDIGENIZING, FEMINIZING, QUEERING DEVELOPMENT -
     

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied

  
  • ID 265 - Global Issues in Education


    “Global Issues in Education” - is an upper level undergrad seminar-style course (primarily for juniors and seniors). The course will explore the phenomena of ‘education’ and ‘international development’ as they pertain to a range of intersecting and cross-cutting themes and social issues including HIV&AIDS helath and education, gender and education, literacy/illiteracy and language, and displaced and migrant communities and educational access. The course will not only explore the themes and topics conceptually and theoretically - but will require students to engage with and conduct research within this conceptual ‘nexus’ of global social topics/issues and formal and non-formal education - within the local Worcester community. The course is also intended to prepare and enable students to conduct ‘applied’ capstone research.

    Capstone eligible seminar

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Various

  
  • ID 272 - Environmental Justice in Latin America


    From fishing communities along the Baja California coast, to indigenous organizations in the Peruvian Amazon, to citizen coalitions in the Argentine Patagonia, growing numbers of communities and groups are contesting development plans and projects considered to be socially, culturally and environmentally damaging. This seminar explores the intersection of environment, social justice, democracy and human rights debates in contemporary Latin America. We will examine the drivers of economic development in the region and link them to specific examples of socio environmental conflict emerging from extractive industry activity, large-scale infrastructure projects and energy development among others. We will examine how communities respond to such conflict and consider emerging initiatives that seek more inclusive and environmentally sustainable forms of development.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 277 - Approaches to Global Health


    Global health examines the impacts of structural inequalities on the health of populations and suggests ways to ease the burdens of disease and premature death. Students in this course will gain familiarity with the history, politics, and possibilities of global health as a discipline of study, professional field, and vibrant arena of activism and social change.  Central to the discipline are the principles of cultural sovereignty and self-determination. We will center solutions arising from the global South as we interrogate the political and ethical dimensions of the changing roles of the global health professional.
    Juniors and Seniors only.

    Prerequisites: ID 106  , ID 108 , or ID 121  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

  
  • ID 282 - Community Based Health Research


    This advanced IDCE course will provide students with an overview of community health through a “hands on” experience in conducting research in the field. A trans-disciplinary course, it will draw on and integrate the theoretical and methodological perspectives of fields including medical anthropology, community and population public health, and medicine. As part of a global health initiative within IDCE and in collaboration with UMASS Medical, it will be an advanced course that builds on methods and health courses across the department that use both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

    In this course, students will work on an ongoing community-based health research project that uses social network analysis and storytelling to understand pregnancy-related advice sharing networks and to try to understand perinatal cultural practices and beliefs.

    The project, “Networks of Informal Helpers in Perinatal Care Practices and Beliefs among Immigrant Women in Worcester, MA”, will use a mixed-methods cross-sectional design by integrating network surveys with semi-structured interviews with immigrants and refugees in Worcester. Since we are interested in the quality, intensity, and trust in information-sharing health networks, a mixed-methods approach will allow us to complement network structures with case-level ethnographic understanding of health-seeking behavior and decision-making related to health treatment.

    The specific aims of the research project include:

    1. Use Social Network Analysis to understand the networks of information sharing about pregnancy in immigrant communities in Worcester, as well as identify the natural helpers who are most commonly referred to for pregnancy-related information.

     

    1. Enhance the capacity of local providers to convey culturally-appropriate health messaging to African-born patients, and to engage patients in primary care instead of free health clinics.

    Over the course of the semester students will work in teams to design and conduct a study, using qualitative or quantitative approaches or mixed methods that combine the two. They will also develop a literature review to situate their work in the appropriate literature. Student teams will also be meeting with residents and faculty from the University of Massachusetts Medical School for debriefing. Each group will present their study to the class and team partners and also critique the study designs of the other project groups. Preliminary assignments include a research design, critiques of the research design and methods of recent journal articles, data collection, data analysis, and reporting on results.

    This course requires a significant time commitment outside of class for the research in the community. It will also have a steep learning curve at the beginning for those not familiar with SNA.

    Since this is an advanced course, students should be comfortable using data analysis tools such as Microsoft Excel, and nVivo or equivalent software for the qualitative research.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 283 - Cultures in Exile


    This course explores both the concept and context of exile in the contemporary world from the perspective of those who experience it, create cultural artefacts about those experiences, and contribute to transformations-small and large-of the communities and cultures that define their identity in exile. While we will draw on social science analyses of exile, home, belonging, diaspora, transnationalism, and so forth, special emphasis will be given to narratives exploring these concepts created by exiles themselves.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Prerequisites: A Qualitative Research Methods class, such as:
    ID 132 - Research Methods for International Development and Social Change
    GEOG 255 - Qualitative Research Methods, Skills and Applications
    GEOG 141 - Research Design and Methods in Geography
    PSYC 109 - Qualitative Methods in Psychology
    SOC 202 - Social Research Process
    UDSC 245 - Going Local: Community Development and Planning
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • ID 290 - Senior Capstone Seminar


    Designed to provide senior international development and social change majors and students entering the B.A./M.A. program the opportunity to apply their undergraduate training to some of the main contemporary and cutting-edge themes in international development, as well as prepare them for further work (either advanced study or entry to the job market) in international development. Themes studied include globalization as it relates to international development, refugees and forced migration, human rights, environmental protection, implications for development of the spread of religious-based extremism, food security, foreign policy and humanitarian aid.

  
  • ID 291 - Displacement and Development in the Contemporary World.


    This course investigates the development practices and theories that have emerged to address population displacement in its various forms. It looks at the relationship between forced displacement and the nation-state, the changing nature of humanitarian emergencies in a globalising world, and the role of diaspora. The course also explores the issues around urbanisation, urban development and displacement, and transnational networks and associations in development processes and agendas.

    Capstone eligible seminar.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • ID 294 - Culture, Environment, and Development


    This course/seminar explores a wide variety of themes at the intersection of culture, development and contemporary environmental problems. The course/seminar is built on two key premises: first, humans are part of nature as each society exists within the natural world, and second, environmental problems are social problems as they concern human relations with the natural world and the politics of resource access, use and control. We investigate these issues through an examination of infrastructure development, natural resource management, resilience, and agricultural knowledge and innovation. Capstone eligible seminar.

    Prerequisites: ID 125

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies

  
  • ID 296 - Advanced Vector GIS


    This course builds upon the concepts of GIS introduced in Introduction to GIS, and focuses on the more advanced analytical vector GIS tools. Topics include exploratory spatial data analysis, spatial statistics, interpolation techniques, 3D data presentation and analysis, network analysis and multi-criteria decision making. Hands-on laboratory exercises illustrate GIS applications in natural resource management, global change, environmental justice, urban and environmental planning, public health, and census data analysis. Students work individually and in groups to develop solutions to a weekly spatial problem, using ArcGIS or GeoDa software. Final project is required. Knowledge of basic statistics is useful.

    Prerequisites: GEOG 190 /GEOG 390 /IDCE 310 .

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • ID 297 - Honors Thesis


    Students receive variable credit for advanced research and readings in the honors program.

  
  • ID 298 - Internship


    Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn credit.

  
  • ID 299 - Directed Study


    Students construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.

  
  • IDCE 302 - Python Programming


    This course provides a general introduction to the Python programming language. Topics include the Python programming environment; elements of the language, such as functions, conditionals, recursions, iterations, and file operations; basic data types, such as lists and dictionaries; and concepts of classes and objects. Upon the completion of this course, students will be able to understand the concept of programming and will be able to design and develop Python programs for scientific computing. This course is open to both graduate students and undergraduate students, no programming background is required. Offered each year.

  
  • IDCE 303 - Youth Work: Practice and Social Justice


    This course will advance the theory and practice of community-based youth work. Given the current challenges facing public schools, labor markets, and local governments, non-profit community-based youth organizations become important actors in youth development. This course will focus on six case studies about everyday dilemmas facing youth workers. It will situate each dilemma into its broader context (e.g. family, peer, school, neighborhood, juvenile justice, policy, and media, etc.). Literature will be used to understand the generalizability of the dilemma; to build understanding as to how the cases illustrate larger social problems; and to create a youth worker professional education opportunity. Community-based youth workers will also be participants in the class and each Clark student who is not already engaged with a youth serving organizations on a regular basis will be paired with a Youth Worker in the class for a community based learning opportunity for a minimum of 5 hours a week.  Student learning outcomes include:  how to explore and build your knowledge, skills, and attitudes about youth work; how to frame and resolve ill-defined problems; how to think  and communicate on one’s feet; and to enhance content knowledge on youth development theories, research, and strategies.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 308 - Health (in)equity: social determinants and policy solutions


    Even in the most affluent countries and cities, those who have more access to resources and social capital, tend to live longer and healthier lives. Why? What makes a city a healthy place to live, work, play, and go to school?  How does the health of a “place” affect the health of the individuals who live there?  Who is responsible for the health of a city’s residents? What is the link between economics, policy, environment, and health? How do the social constructions of race, gender, and class, influence the quality of health one receives and their access to health care resources?

    In this course, we define “social determinants” as the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics.

    Upon completion of the course, students will be able to explain the link between social, economic, political, and environmental factors that affect health; the use of indicators to assess determinants; the main theories and methods of assessing social determinants; and how diseases are patterned in specific (and predictable) ways in a city. Students will also explore case studies that demonstrate how sound economic and development policies lead to an overall improvement of the health of a population.

    NOTE: This course will satisfy the requirements for the Graduate Health Certificate in Community and Global Health and the MHS in Community and Global Health

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • IDCE 310 - Intro to Geographic Information Systems


    Intro to Geographic Information Systems / Lecture, Laboratory This graduate-level course introduces Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a powerful mapping and analytical tool. Topics include GIS data structure, map projections, and fundamental GIS techniques for spatial analysis. Laboratory exercises concentrate on applying concepts presented in lectures and incorporate two widely used GIS software packages - IDRISI (created by Clarklabs) and ArcGIS (created by ESRI). These exercises include examples of GIS applications in environmental modeling, socio-demographic change and site suitability analyses. Although the course is computer-intensive, no programming background is required. This course counts as skills course for IDCE graduate students.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester

  
  • IDCE 319 - Quantitative Methods And Statistics For Evaluators


    Research and evaluation (or Program Monitoring and Evaluation, M&E) spans a wide range of conceptualizations and definitions.  Evaluators utilize a wide range of research methods and ways of thinking about and applying research, as they design and conduct evaluations.

    Research methods can be either quantitative, qualitative, or a mix of both (i.e. mixed-methods). Similarly, evaluation can be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed, and evaluations draw on these very same research methods and methodologies but they are often used by evaluators somewhat differently than researchers.

    What is important is that the methods and design that evaluators choose to use need to be relevant and appropriate to the specific program that is being evaluated and these methods need to be understood and used with the same level of insight, understanding, and rigor that formal academic researchers might do when conducting their own academic research.  The nuances and differences between research and evaluation can be confusing at times.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Various

  
  • IDCE 320 - Food Production, Environment, and Health


    Agriculture and animal production have changed dramatically over the last century, bringing higher yields and less expensive food. The changes also brought considerable costs to the natural environment and human health. This course will investigate the causes and consequences of the transformation. We will explore economic and political determinants of the industrialization of food and animal production; the effects on farmland and on water resources; the politics of nutrition guidelines; the costs and benefits of genetically modified organisms; the nutrition transition and global rise in chronic disease; the over-use of antibiotics; the potential benefits and costs of corporate organic food; regional food systems and other alternatives. While many topics focus on the United States, we will also look at topics from a global perspective. The course has a seminar format.

  
  • IDCE 327 - Visualizing Human Rights: Culture, Law, and the Politics of Representation


    What do human rights look like? This seminar examines the advocacy strategies NGOs use to make human rights visible to different audiences the general public, government officials, policy-makers, international courts, etc. Particular attention is focused on the tactics NGOs employ to mobilize expert opinions, popular sentiment, and material resources to contest the status quo and to promote the protection of human rights. Students will gain familiarity with some of the key actors, legal frameworks, and best practices used in the “human rights community,” including their main strengths and weaknesses. They will also develop a grounded understanding of human rights campaigns and the role advocacy efforts play in shaping international affairs, legal proceedings, and moral debates. Finally, students will enhance their ability to critically analyze and to ethically employ the digital technologies (e.g. mobile phones, social media, crisis mapping, satellite imagery) that shape how human rights violations are visualized today.

    Prerequisites: Instructor’s Permission.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 329 - Property and Community


    “Property is not a thing, but a social relationship,” is this course’s point of departure. Questions relevant to a “social relations theory of property” have captured attention within the social sciences on many fronts. Where does “ownership” originate in different societies? What gives property its social value (prestige, power, privilege)? The course readings are global in nature, allowing us to examine property as a social relation in South Asia, Africa, and Brazil. The focus for the course in Spring 2016 is “Citizenship and Belonging”. Falls under both the People on the Move and the Land, Food, and Natural Resource Governance signatures.

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies

  
  • IDCE 332 - Sustainable Development Assessment and Planning


    We confront one of the most pressing issues of our time: How can society transition to more sustainable development (SD)? Specifically: How can diverse social groups work in concert to vision a sustainable future, assess existing development, compare the impacts - economic, social, political, cultural and ecological - of alternative development pathways, and move towards more sustainable development? Our responses to SD challenges/opportunities require a synthesis of social and technical approaches in ways rarely seen: a) a dialogue-enabled multi-stakeholder assessment and planning process at the core; b) integrative information/communication and education technologies; c) multi-issue/multi-sector integration models (e.g. water * health * energy * food etc.); and d) ways to navigate inherent complexity, including the political context and the mitigation of corruption. The goal of the class is: to help students think about, design and consider the deployment of 2nd generation sustainable development projects. Case studies are used extensively for discussions, and simulations provide practice and insight. The course includes a major SDA&P Team Project Practicum based on either a domestic development case study or an international one (previous cases include the Cape Cod Wind Farm, the Three Gorges Dam in China, a mining project slated for Indonesia). Students work in their SDA&P Team to do three things: a) critically analyze how positive and negative impacts have been estimated (on what basis), also considering their spatial distribution; b) articulate the socio-economic, political, cultural and ecological contexts of the proposal, incl. the power dynamics; and c) design an improved socio-technical SDA&P process.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

  
  • IDCE 333 - Development Mgmt in Developing Countries


    In attempting to fulfill the real and perceived needs and aspirations of their people, “developing” countries have employed (through both coercion and agency) various approaches to manage development policies. Yet such development initiatives and the processes of implementing them face enumerable structural constraints, both local and global. This course engages with these concerns and introduces students to the administrative and policy contexts of development in “third world” settings. We critically examine some of the central administrative paradigms and practices that have been used to implement post-war development policies. Consequently, we explore such ideas and practices as public bureaucracy, the new public management, and good governance in developing countries. Significantly, too, the course examines major conditions that third world states encounter as they pursue post-war development aspirations, including public debt, international immigration, international free/fair trade, and crime and violence.

  
  • IDCE 334 - Planning and Zoning for Community Developers


    This master’s-level course introduces students to the field of planning and zoning for community development.  The course work focuses on the practical application of planning theory.  We will be covering issues concerned with both ‘short term’ or ‘current’ planning as well as with longer term planning, which is referred to as ‘advanced planning’. The theoretical basis for the ‘nuts and bolts’ for all planning is offered in a CDP theory course, devoted principally to—and in the context of—planning for people and places.

    Utilizing governmental regulation and police powers within a contemporary theme, the class will examine land development incentives, controls and related fields:  who does what, why, and when. Special attention will be given to the needs of the planning practitioner (e.g., how to read schematic plans).  The student will be exposed to many skills necessary to join the planning and zoning profession at the entry level. And the student will have the basic background with which to relate to and communicate with the profession, whether that is from the perspective of a non-profit, a community development staff member, or a private developer.  As detailed in the syllabus below, a multitude of planning and zoning subjects will be discussed, comprehensive and sustainable planning as well as disaster planning.  The aim of the course is not to study each topic in depth, but to provide the student with a comprehensive appreciation of the professional field along functional topics and techniques.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 335 - Strategies for Community Organizing


    The objectives and strategies of community organizers in the United States since the early-20th century are reviewed, from Hull House to Alinsky to faith-based organizing. The course concludes with a discussion on whether globalization makes a difference or whether community organizing does. When possible, discussions with regional veterans will be part of the course. Reading load is moderate.

  
  • IDCE 339 - Spatial Statistics with R


    The objective of this course is to introduce students to the broad range of spatial statistical techniques available in the R statistical software to manage, visualize and estimate models applicable to spatial data. This course is ideal for students who want to learn R, study in depth spatial statistical techniques developed by the research community, and apply them to address research questions of their own interest. Topics include an introduction to R, how spatial data are managed and mapped using R, different functions that assess spatial point patterns, extensive capabilities of R to create a variety of spatial weights, global and local tests of spatial autocorrelation, fitting simultaneous and conditional autoregressive models, and geostatistical analysis. Different spatial statistical techniques will be demonstrated during the class and students will work on weekly assignments in order to master the material.
    Prerequisites: IDCE302 Python Programming (or another introduction to programming course) and IDCE388 Advanced Vector GIS.

     

    Prerequisites: IDCE302 Python Programming (or another introduction to programming course) and IDCE388 Advanced Vector GIS. Or by permission

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

  
  • IDCE 340 - Fundamentals of Youth Work


    Youth workers are the front line staff at youth serving organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club and youth centers.  Youth workers have been referred to as “wizards” because they succeed with young people where other individuals and institutions have failed.   Despite the critical role youth workers play in the lives of young people, they receive very little professional development or training; this comes to the detriment of the youth, the youth workers, and the field.   There are emerging efforts in the United States to professionalize youth work and provide youth workers with critical training.  This course is a one strategy to that end.  

    This course covers how to work with young people in a positive youth development framework—focusing on building protective factors (e.g. positive discipline, making referrals, and building relationships with families), reducing risk factors (e.g. violence, mental health problems, sexual behavior, and substance abuse) and building professional skills in program development and management.  Reflection on youth work practice will be a key teaching and learning strategy in the course.  Students in this class will be both community youth workers as well as Clark students.  For Clark students who are not currently doing youth work, they will be matched with youth workers for an apprenticeship opportunity.  Each week, a different youth development professional in the greater Worcester area will co-facilitate the course session.  In this way, students have the opportunity to network with those working in the field.

  
  • IDCE 341 - Nongovernment Organizations: Catalysts for Development


    Many practitioners and theoreticians, disillusioned with governments in the development process, propose building nongovernment organizations (NGOs) as development catalysts. This seminar explores the proposal in light of the difficulties and progress NGOs have experienced.

  
  • IDCE 342 - Dynamic Modeling of Human/Environment Systems


     

     

    The transition to “sustainable futures” will be achieved through a process of social-technical integration and innovation.  Pivotal to this innovation is the participatory application of environmental models to represent baseline systems and to forecast what those systems may look like in the future.  Environmental systems are complex, open systems.  The course material has three parts: 1) An overview of methods and approaches to modeling; 2) the state of the art for modeling environmental processes; and 3) tools and models for management.  Current and future developments are also discussed.  The approach to the course is one that simplifies complex systems, introducing students to modeling software and tools using practical examples from climatology, ecology, hydrology, geomorphology and engineering.  A group project applies one model or a cluster of models to a real place/issue of interest to students.  The course text has an associated website containing color images, links to web resources and chapter support pages, including data sets relating to case studies, exercises and model animations. 

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • IDCE 344 - Going Local: Community Development and Planning


    The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to theories, debates and practical strategies regarding the development of urban communities. Students gain an enhanced understanding of the complexities inherent to the concepts of community and participation. They critically analyze “community” as a set of social relations, as a local economy, as a built environment, and as a political organization. Students begin to recognize the importance of race, gender, age, class, identity, and culture in working with communities. Finally, they examine the roles and effectiveness of the methods, models and strategies used by informal neighborhood organizations, banks, private developers, local nonprofits, and government agencies in rebuilding communities and their economies. Case examples and articles from across the United States will be used. Worcester’s neighborhoods—which provide excellent examples of physical, social, and economic development strategies—will be highlighted throughout this course. Worcester’s Piedmont and Main South neighborhoods will be a particular focus throughout the semester.

  
  • IDCE 345 - CDP Practice: Reflection and Deliberate Practice


    The Reflection and Deliberate Practice seminar provides students an opportunity to develop a professional identity as a youth worker. By working through an action-reflection- theorizing- action cycle, students learn to reflect-on and reflect-in practice, ultimately increasing their effectiveness as youth work professionals.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 346 - Practicum in Community Development and Planning


    Engages students to work as a team on a critical community-development project. Students gain skills in field research, applied qualitative and quantitative data analysis, multidisciplinary teamwork, negotiation with clients, and writing professional reports. Practicum clients and topics have included a project with the Worcester Public Schools to involve public-school students in urban secondary-school reform and work with the City of Worcester and two community-development corporations on assessing the economic impact of housing production in low-income neighborhoods.

  
  • IDCE 348 - Dual Degree Capstone


    The course is designed to have the DD students employ theory, lessons and skills taught by two departments (GSOM and IDCE) in a final project paper. The nexus of the IDCE and GSOM will be merged with both theory and practice, marrying business, environment and community. Students will chose from either a consultancy assignment for a specific client or preparation of a ‘business plan’ for a entrepreneurial effort the student intends to undertake alone or in conjunction with others, as approved by the instructors and the students’ advisor(s). The course will provide an important context and guidelines in completing the business plan or consultancy.

    May be repeatable for credit.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

  
  • IDCE 352 - Conflict in Sudan and the Horn of Africa


    This seminar explores the historical and cultural context of current political and military conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. We will examine issues of racial, ethnic, and religious identities in the region using academic sources, policy documents, and visual and oral narratives. Students will become familiar with the debates relating to ethnic and sectarian violence, forced migration, famine, and humanitarian aid through multi-disciplinary social science analysis and experiential case studies. The course combines delving into local and national circumstances for people living in the region and an interrogation of the objectives and practices of transnational actors.

  
  • IDCE 354 - Beyond Victims and Guardian Angels: Third World Women, Gender and Development


    How did Third World women and gender concerns enter economic development discourses? How have Third World women and gender been conceptualized within development practices? In turn, how have feminist theories about women and gender shaped economic development discourses? In exploring these issues this graduate seminar will eschew the divide between theory and praxis that plagues development literature

  
  • IDCE 355 - Epidemiology and Biostatistics


    This course will explore current issues in global health from a multidisciplinary perspective, with emphasis on the tools of epidemiology. At a time of immense global changes, we will examine the changing spatial and temporal patterns of disease in developing and industrialized countries; the major social, demographic, and environmental determinants of health and health disparities; and public-health approaches to global health problems at the population level. The course will prepare you to use the scientific and medical literature to research public-health problems; integrate a range of disciplinary perspectives on health; and analyze public-health problems from a population perspective. The course has a seminar format with class discussion and student presentations. Case studies will include problems related to environmental health, such as air pollution and respiratory conditions; infectious diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS; and chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 357 - Sex and development: the intersection of sexuality, morality, and modernity


     

    This course explores historical and contemporary efforts to regulate sex, birth, death, and fertility as part of ideas about moving towards modernity, progress, and building healthy, stable, moral and productive societies. Drawing on approaches ranging from demography to anthropology and global health, we will explore the theoretical conceptualization of sex, sexuality, fertility, mortality, morbidity, and population growth and examine large and small scale attempts to control and alter sexual behavior and demographic patterns in different societies. 

    Prerequisites: ID120

    ID125 or

    ID121

  
  • IDCE 358 - Advanced Topics in ID: Livelihoods: Development, Adaptation, and Resilience


    Development and the environment are linked by concepts such as sustainability, vulnerability, and most recently, resilience. How development and the environment come together around these concepts depends on the issue at hand - whether climate change adaptation or mitigation, conservation, or natural resource governance. Further, this intersection depends on who we are talking about - their gender, age, social rank, livelihoods, religion, etc. This course will span the academic literature, policy documents, and donor guidance frameworks to help us understand what sustainability, vulnerability and resilience reveal and obscure for contemporary development in the anthropocene. May be repeatable for credit.

    SPRING 2018 TOPIC:

    SECTION 01: POLLINATORS, ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND CITIZEN SCIENCE - Pollinators are declining world-wide with potentially catastrophic impacts on food systems (fruit, nuts and other crops).  This course will focus on the intersection of ecological indicators (pollinators and their habitat) and ecosystem services.  Students will explore conservation tools such as IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Ecological Indicators and EbA (Ecosystem-based Adaptations), integrated ecological assessment (IEA) and the intersections among ecosystem services, science and international conservation policies.

    SECTION 02: ADVANCED FIELD METHODS - Ever wonder how trail cams work? This course is a field based experience learning opportunity for students to learn ecological field techniques.  Parks, protected areas and urban green spaces often need to answer simple questions such as how many species in the park?  How many individuals of a species are in the park?  What are the impacts of visitor use or human recreation on park animals?  In this field-based course we will explore field methods.  No advanced ecology knowledge is required other than enjoyment of  outdoor spaces in any capacity.  This class will include activities such as uneven terrain and working in the dark; however, accommodations for all abilities can be made so all students can join the experience.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied

  
  • IDCE 360 - Development Theory


    An interdisciplinary graduate seminar which provides a critical overview of classical and contemporary theories of development by introducing students to writings on development across many disciplines (political economy, anthropology, geography, sociology, feminist theory). The seminar encourages students to think historically, politically and analytically about the multiplicity of development processes and the complex relations of power that underlie them.

  
  • IDCE 361 - Development Program and Project Management


    This course is an introduction to the professional field of development management. Over the semester, we will explore patterns of success and failure; obstacles to and possibilities for effective, project-induced change; intended and unintended effects of intervention; and the challenge of sustainability. The course methodology emphasizes case studies, action learning, and group participation and encourages students to take an active part in the course through project teams, discussions, working groups, and role-playing sessions. We begin the course with discussions of the political and institutional contexts of development management and strategic planning. The second part of the course carries us through the project cycle, including: participatory project identification; needs assessment and planning; construction of logical frameworks; professional communication and proposal writing; design of performance indicators; budgeting; and monitoring and evaluation. We then conclude with discussions of leadership and project implementation, then explore advocacy as an example of a non-project approach to social change.

  
  • IDCE 362 - Energy System Transitions


     

    This course explores energy systems, both the technological and social dimensions, with a focus on the potential for a low-carbon transition in electricity systems, transportation systems, and other energy systems (buildings, manufacturing, etc). The social structures and processes that reinforce and perpetuate fossil fuel reliance will be interrogated, as will the opportunities and challenges of alternatives. Fundamental tensions associated with systemic versus incremental change, centralized versus decentralized systems, and infrastructural lock-in versus flexibility will be explored through semester-long team projects in which students will contribute to existing, on-going, actual initiatives designed to advance energy system change. These projects will require students to learn through assessment of and engagement with non-academic “real-world” energy system transition initiatives. 

    Prerequisites:  

    EN 101 Environmental Science and Policy: Introductory Case Studies

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 364 - Educational Policy Issues in “Developing” Countries: Governance, Management, and Financing


    This course examines some of the most significant policy issues that “developing” countries grapple with in their efforts to improve the capacity of “human resources” to meet the assumed  needs of the new knowledge economy. The course focuses on key policy issues in a variety of national settings in the areas of governance, management, and financing of education. It examines the basic socio-economic needs and conditions that drive educational policy in developing countries, the practical and ideological considerations that influence policy responses, and the results and implications of various policy choices. While focusing on these broader issues, we explore the role of different stakeholders, including the state, local, regional and international organizations, and citizens in these policy debates and practices. Additionally, we will critically examine globalization’s impact on educational policy, particularly its ideological influence on the financial and management arrangements for the provision of education.

  
  • IDCE 366 - Principles of Negotiation and Mediation: An Overview of Conflict Resolution Approaches


    This skills-based course offers an overview of the principles of conflict management that can be applied internationally as well as interpersonally. A general framework for the understanding of conflict is presented that Includes: power-, needs-, interest-, and relationship-based conceptualizations of conflict management. Gives students a theoretical as well as practical experience of working effectively in conflict contexts. It explores some of the psychological obstacles that impede the resolution and implementation process and engages in a number of experiential exercises that help the student develop the wide range of skills needed to transform conflict relationships.

  
  • IDCE 370 - Emerging Scientific Worldviews and Global Sustainability


    In this course, alternative scientific worldviews are considered as potential means of reconciling the destructive relationship between modern civilization and the Earth, and the rift in modern science between matter and spirit. Our basis is a critical and creative exploration of the literature, supplemented by numerous video screenings, guest lectures and intellectually stimulating discussions. We will begin by critically examining defining characteristics of the dominating scientific view of the Earth and universe and themes such as modernism, materialism, reductionism and duality. We will explore how these attributes are influencing scientific conduct, government policy and human behavior, and consider various limitations and flaws of this worldview from the perspective of contemporary sustainability and social challenges. Emerging and alternative scientific paradigms are then examined from diverse fields such as ecology, biology, quantum physics, neuroscience and life sciences. Other alternative worldviews scrutinized include Gaia theory, non-duality and the unified field, in addition to indigenous worldviews and spirituality. Insights from these diverse areas of inquiry are meshed together to propose an alternative view of humanity, the Earth and universe based on principles such as consciousness, oneness, non-duality, interconnectedness and holism. It will be argued that this could provide the necessary human intelligence to guide society towards sustainability and unprecedented human development throughout this century. The practical and policy implications of this emerging vision of reality will also be thoroughly explored in relation to diverse areas such as climate change, environmental management, international politics, human and economic development, health and agriculture.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 376 - Spatial Database Development


    Spatial database development, a key component of GIS project management, focuses on the organization of location-based data. Participants will learn database development best practices, data collection and standardization, and how to apply topological rules to a database. Throughout the course, students will work on final database projects which will build skills required in professional GIS positions, with an emphasis on collaboration and real-world applications of data.

    Prerequisites: P=IDCE 310

  
  • IDCE 377 - Approaches to Global Health


    Global health examines the impacts of structural inequalities on the health of populations and suggests ways to ease the burdens of disease and premature death. Students in this course will gain familiarity with the history, politics, and possibilities of global health as a discipline of study, professional field, and vibrant arena of activism and social change.  Central to the discipline are the principles of cultural sovereignty and self-determination. We will center solutions arising from the global South as we interrogate the political and ethical dimensions of the changing roles of the global health professional.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annual

  
  • IDCE 381 - Critical Cartographies: Mapping Culture, History, and Power


    This interdisciplinary seminar explores the political and cultural effects of cartographic projects in different colonial and post-colonial settings. The first half of the course focuses on the role map-making technologies have played in these projects, while the second half directs attention on a series of case-studies. These include: state formation, the management of mobile populations, the creation of political forests, and the re-territoralization of sovereignty following the neo-liberal turn, among others.

  
  • IDCE 382 - U.S. Environmental Pollution Policy


    In this course, we study approaches to regulating pollutants in air, water, and land in the United States. The course will provide an in depth review of the process of environmental policymaking in the U.S., while exploring the pros and cons of different regulatory approaches. The course has four primary objectives: (1) examining the trades-offs inherent in crafting pollution policy; (2) the role of science in the policy making process; (3) the different approaches used to motivate various societal players to act in ways that minimize the release of environmental pollutants; and (4) business perspectives on environmental policy and risks. The course draws on a wide range of academic and professional materials, including economic theories, political science, environmental law and policy, and technical/scientific information.

    The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are two of the major environmental statues in the United States, which we will explore as part of the course. Each law has spurned a wide range of regulations and standards, which have been shaped and modified by subsequent legal decisions, new scientific data, and changing administrations. We study these laws by studying their key provisions and the resulting regulations, and by analyzing their implementation in specific cases. The following key questions are addressed: At what point in the pollution generation process to intervene? What type of intervention to take? What societal issues to consider in the regulatory decision? At what level of government to regulate? How to apportion the responsibilities among different levels of government? What scientific data to use and what analytical methods to apply? How to motivate polluters to comply with the regulations?

    In addition to these major media-based statutes, we will also focus on emerging environmental issues, including the environmental risks and debate surrounding the expanded role of “fracking” in oil and natural gas production in the United States, and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Because of the advanced and ever-changing nature of the material for this course the readings are taken from many sources: excerpts from books, published articles, the web, the Federal Register, internal reports from research organizations, and so on. In addition, students perform independent research on specific topics, especially recent relevant case studies.

    The course has a seminar format. Students have regular writing assignments, give presentations in class, and are expected to actively participate in class discussions. Attendance is mandatory except for well justified personal hardship cases. In addition to the weekly seminars, the course will include a seminar on environmental databases, data manipulation, and data presentation. The seminar will include instruction on some of the advanced functions and features of Microsoft Excel.
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

  
  • IDCE 383 - Cultures in Exile


    This course explores both the concept and context of exile in the contemporary world from the perspective of those who experience it, create cultural artefacts about those experiences, and contribute to transformations—small and large—of the communities and cultures that define their identity in exile. While we will draw on social science analyses of exile, home, belonging, diaspora, transnationalism, and so forth, special emphasis will be given to narratives exploring these concepts created by exiles themselves.

    Prerequisites: A Qualitative Research Methods class, such as:
    IDCE 30285 - Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
    IDCE 30283 - Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods: Intermediate
    IDCE 30290 - Participatory Research Methods
    IDCE 30291 - Qualitative Research Design and Methods
    PSYC 306 - Qualitative/Interpretive Methods
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall

  
  • IDCE 387 - Workforce Development and Urban/Regional Employment


    Needless to say, in the knowledge-based society the race to achieve higher levels of development and productivity has become very much one of expanding the human capital base of societies and countries. Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the 21st Century has called it the “rising human capital hypothesis”. In the same book, however, he also poses a very provoking question: “Has the apparently growing importance of human capital over the course history been an illusion?” This question is extremely relevant, especially when we hear and see all kinds of ways in which we destroy or waste “human capital”. Workforce development encompasses a variety of employer-based, place-based, and people-based policies, strategies and programs to boost the employability, skill base and education of workers, improve the matching of workers and employers in labor markets, increase the competitiveness of industrial sectors, urban areas and regions, and to address multiple kinds of labor market dislocations resulting from enterprise restructuring, deindustrialization, technological modernization, and occupational obsolescence.  This course examines, first, basic theories about the functioning of labor markets (neoclassical, human capital, segmentation/dual labor markets) and the structural forces behind the deterioration of jobs, such as the growth in low-wage employment, globalization, declining quality of jobs, unemployment, and labor market deregulation. Secondly, the course examines the workforce development regulation of the USA, the variety of workforce development strategies and programs (adult education, employability programs, work-first, sectorial/cluster-based, career-ladders, etc.), and the role of various actors (government, community colleges, labor market intermediaries, unions, networks) in the formation and implementation of such programs. Also, we ask about the evidence on the performance of programs under the various approaches. Thirdly, we examine the specificity of programs to support a variety workers (youth, women, immigrants, low-wage workers, incumbent workers) overcome various kinds of labor market disadvantage. Finally, the course explores the connection between workforce development policies and community/regional economic development, especially in small and midsize cities and their regional context: industrial cluster development, the emerging green economy, and the new agriculture, uses of leading edge technologies in the food industry. The course relies mainly on material from the US and Western Europe, but with applicability to other regions of the world.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies

  
  • IDCE 388 - Advanced Vector GIS


    This course builds upon the concepts of GIS introduced in Introduction to GIS, and focuses on the more advanced analytical vector GIS tools. Topics include exploratory spatial data analysis, spatial statistics, interpolation techniques, 3D data presentation and analysis, network analysis and multi-criteria decision making. Hands-on laboratory exercises illustrate GIS applications in natural resource management, global change, environmental justice, urban and environmental planning, public health, and census data analysis. Students work individually and in groups to develop solutions to a weekly spatial problem, using ArcGIS or GeoDa software. Final project is required. Knowledge of basic statistics is useful. This is a prerequisite for the 5th year masters program and is a requirement for the GISDE masters program.

    Prerequisites: GEOG 190 /GEOG 390 /IDCE 310 .

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring

 

Page: 1 <- 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 -> 20