2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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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 an 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
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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.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most semesters
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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
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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
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Piloted Fall 2014
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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
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP & DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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ID 125 - Tales from the Far Side: Contemporary Dilemmas in Development Discussions of geopolitics invariably refer to the problems of Third World or ‘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 social justice programming attention to women, ethnic groups and/or the environment? 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 literature on the subject.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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.
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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.
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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 or age? 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, exams.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
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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
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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
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ID 212 - Development Management in Developing Countries: Concepts, Contexts, and Problems In attempting to fulfill the real and perceived needs and aspirations of their people, countries in the Global South 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 upper level undergraduate and graduate seminar engages with these concerns and introduces students to the administrative and policy contexts of development in “third world” settings. Consequently, we will explore such ideas and practices as public bureaucracy, the new public management, and “good governance” in developing countries. The course also examines major conditions that developing countries encounter as they pursue “development” aspirations, including: public debt, international migration, international free/fair trade, and crime and violence. We approach these subjects primarily from the standpoint of developing states, while locating such concerns in a larger global setting.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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ID 214 - Education and Youth in a Global Context The human population is younger today than ever before. At the same time, education is seen as the most influential source of socialization for youth to become citizens, workers and change agents. This course, “Education and Youth in a Global Context,” is a graduate and upper level undergraduate (juniors and seniors) seminar that explores the natural synergies of youth and education from a global perspective. We will analyze the intersection of education and youth in thematic areas such as: self-discovery, identity and belonging; jobs and livelihood; vulnerability of youth; and the ways in which youth are viewed with suspicion and hope. We will also examine youth and education/schooling in the context of areas such as gender and sexuality, equity and equality, and justice in its various forms. The course aims to integrate practical field-based experience with classroom-based learning. Such practical experiences may take place through opportunities in Worcester and/or internationally (possibly Jamaica, Haiti or South Africa).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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.
Concentrations:
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation- Healthy People, Healthy Planet- Urban Regeneration.
This course may be repeatable for credit one time.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually Spring
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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ID 234 - Special Topics This course addresses current or timely topics, that are in a pilot phase or that are known to be one time offerings. Special Topics are unique for each instroctor and vary from semester to semester. May be repeatable for credit.
Fall 2020 TOPIC: THE NEC COUNCIL COLLABORATIVE
(half unit)
The NEC Council Collaborative introduces students to the theory and practice of council, deepens their engagement with the literature of climate change, and prepares them to help facilitate sessions of the Council on the Uncertain Human Future.
As a collaborative, the course is shared and horizontally organized. Conducted as a council and beginning with the CUHF process, its further structure and content are generated collectively, building especially on questions and problems generated by the students in the initial sessions.
Council practice is at the core of the New Earth Conversation, a curriculum initiative at Clark designed to explore the role of universities in the context of our unfolding climate disaster.
NEC asks, What are universities called to be and to do at this moment? How can we best prepare students to face the existential challenges of these times? The Council Collaborative goes to the heart of these concerns, while modeling one distinctive way of answering them.
Before enrolling in this course, students must have participated in one or more UHF Councils and receive permission of the instructors.
Anticipated Terms Offered: every semester
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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.
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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
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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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.
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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
Course Designation/Attribute: FA
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring
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ID 254 - Mega Development: Exploring the nexus between natural resource extraction, infrastructure development and Environment Across the planet, countries, led by the G-20, promote multi-billion dollar investments in natural resource extraction and large-scale infrastructure development, including: mines, oil and gas fields, hydroelectric power plants, dams, multi-modal transport systems, pipelines and port facilities. Increasing investment in natural resource extraction and infrastructure development is regularly promoted as a pathway to economic growth in the global south. However, investment in mega-projects is often accompanied by corruption, increased inequality, environmental harm and human rights violations. In this seminar, students will conduct research on specific mega-projects and initiatives to understand the socio-political and economic dynamics that drive them, explore the synergistic relationship between investments in infrastructure and extraction, the emergence of socio-environmental conflict linked mega-projects, and learn of the initiatives of business, government and civil society actors to reduce negative impacts pursue alternative, more sustainable forms of development.
Prerequisites: junior/senior standing only; with permission of instructor
Course Designation/Attribute: GP, POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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 2019 topic: DISPLACEMENT AND REPRESENTATION: ART, ADVOCACY, AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
The movement of people is depicted in many forms and for many purposes. Often used to inform or influence, the stories and portrayals of displaced people have become common topics in everything from news broadcasts and documentaries to museum exhibits, social protest art, and avant-garde performances. Moreover, art and visual mediums produced by displaced people have become important means of countering stereotypes, supporting humanitarian projects, aiding community formation and providing therapeutic expression for individuals.
In this class we will focus on the representation of displaced people and visualization of displacement more generally in a variety of creative and informative formats. We will take a broad view of displacement comparing and contrasting the experiences forced migration, homelessness, refugeeism, and restrictive immigration processes. We will pair these experiences with particular visual forms: documentary film, ethnographic photography, protest performance art, and therapeutic graphic arts. Students will engage with theory and case studies as well as produce their own visual project centered on representing the experiences of displaced people.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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ID 276 - Adolescent Girls and International Development The adolescent girl has risen to the top of the international development and gender-equality agendas. One argument for this rise is that investing in girls can solve poverty, but only if they attend school and are protected from traditional social norms such as early marriage that threaten their educational trajectory. This course problematizes the promise of girls’ education, explores the multiple representations of girls, their problems and needs, and their rise to the forefront of the development agenda. Students will analyze how initiatives to educate and empower adolescent girls rely upon particular notions of a racialized, Third World Girl, intersecting with long-standing, global development processes and structures.
Prerequisites: ID 120 or ID 125 or WGS 110
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-Annually
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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
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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 shape their identity in exile. The course analyzes how race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, age, ability, citizenship, nationality, or ethnicity may frame an experience of exile in specific ways. While the course draws on social science analyses of exile, home, belonging, diaspora, transnationalism, and so forth, special emphasis will be given to narratives created by exiles themselves that explore these concepts.
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
Course Designation/Attribute: GP, DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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ID 287 - Labor, Globalization and Inequality In the knowledge-based society, the race to achieve higher levels of development and productivity has become one of expanding the human capital base of societies and countries. Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the 21st Century, has called this trend 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 practices with which we destroy or waste “human capital”: child labor, racial and gender discrimination, violation of labor laws, exploitation of immigrant workers, lack of social supports, and environmental injustice. Policies to support workers encompass a variety of approaches: employer-based, place-based, and people-based policies, strategies and programs to boost the employability, enhancement of the skill base/education of workers, increase competitiveness, and address multiple kinds of labor market dislocations–enterprise restructuring, deindustrialization, technological modernization, and occupational obsolescence. This course examines, first, basic theories of the functioning of labor markets (neoclassical, human capital, segmentation/dual labor markets). Secondly, we hone on the structural and institutional forces behind the deterioration of job quality, such as the growth in low-wage employment, globalization (industrial and job off-shoring), unemployment, and labor market deregulation. For a good share of workers in society, such structural and institutional drivers generate inequalities which create and reproduce poverty. Thirdly, this is a “mildly comparative” course with strong material from the US, and lesser from Western Europe, Asia and the Global South. The general focus is on workforce development and human capital formation policies, such as adult education, employability programs, work-first, sectorial/industrial cluster-based, career-ladders, training and vocational education. We consider the role of various actors (government, community colleges, labor market intermediaries, unions, networks) in the formation and implementation of such policies/programs, and which evaluate the performance of programs. Fourthly, we examine the specificity of programs to support different types workers (youth, women, immigrants, low-wage workers, incumbent workers) to overcome various kinds of labor market disadvantage and inequality. 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ID 297 - Honors Students receive variable credit for advanced research and readings in the honors program.
Anticipated Terms Offered: every semester
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ID 298 - Internship Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn credit.
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ID 299 - Directed Study Students construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.
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IDCE 302 - Python Programming This course provides a basic 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 understand the concept of programming and the basic process for developing programs. The course aims to help students create their first program for automated data collection.This course is open to both graduate students, no programming background is required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
Placement Guidelines
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IDCE 305 - Innovations in Humanitarian and International Development Data Over the last ten years, the humanitarian sector has seen a plethora of initiatives aimed at improving data collection, analysis, and the use of emerging technology to improve the way humanitarian and development interventions are carried out. The course will examine these initiatives, policies, and technologies to understand where they fit historically and functionally within a humanitarian response framework and critique their appropriateness. The course will also offer the opportunity test new technologies, workflows and design solutions. The course is a blend of seminar and lab experimentation that is open to all students. Students who view themselves as “non-technical” will learn more about the technology they will encounter in practice. If you have ever wondered about terms like “Crisis mapping”, ICT4D, innovation, crowdsourcing, or “digital humanitarians” this class is for you!
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 307 - Qualitative Research Methods for Policy Design and Analysis This course will prepare students to conduct qualitative research that informs the design and analysis of Social Policy. It will explore how qualitative research methods are utilized to advance the field’s understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality, and how this kind of policy research can inform the development of policy alternatives. Research techniques to be covered in the course include: question formulation; data collection and field methods such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, and participant observation; case study research; and community and participatory action research. The course also includes a semester-long policy research simulation based on a current policy issue. The simulation will teach students how to design qualitative research studies that can inform policy implementation decisions.
Prerequisites: Jrs. & Srs. By Permission Only
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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
Concentrations:
Health Equity - Healthy People, Healthy Planet - Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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IDCE 309 - POLICY ANALYSIS Nonprofit and public affairs professionals are faced with finding viable solutions to increasingly complex public problems-from reducing poverty to raising revenue to fix congested roadways. To develop solutions, policy analysts investigate public problems, formulate solutions, forecast outcomes, and choose between competing policy proposals. This course introduces students to the major institutions and processes involved in the development and implementation of public policy in the United States. We examine why some problems reach the public agenda, why some solutions are adopted and others rejected, and why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail. The course also explores a selection of current issues in American public policy that impact the work of nonprofit and public affairs professionals such as criminal justice reform, social safety net policies, immigration, education, health, and the environment. This course is designed to strengthen students’ problem solving, analytic, and research skills in defining and crafting solutions to public problems.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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IDCE 314 - Education and Youth in a Global Context The human population is younger today than ever before. At the same time, education is seen as the most influential source of socialization for youth to become citizens, workers and change agents. This course, “Education and Youth in a Global Context,” is a graduate and upper level undergraduate (juniors and seniors) seminar that explores the natural synergies of youth and education from a global perspective. We will analyze the intersection of education and youth in thematic areas such as: self-discovery, identity and belonging; jobs and livelihood; vulnerability of youth; and the ways in which youth are viewed with suspicion and hope. We will also examine youth and education/schooling in the context of areas such as gender and sexuality, equity and equality, and justice in its various forms. The course aims to integrate practical field-based experience with classroom-based learning. Such practical experiences may take place through opportunities in Worcester and/or internationally (possibly Jamaica, Haiti or South Africa).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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.
Concentrations:
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Effectiveness
Anticipated Terms Offered: Various
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IDCE 326 - Social Network Analysis for Health, Development, and Trafficking Connections and flows across the world have become increasingly important for knowledge/information sharing, illicit activities coordination, trade, and the spread of misinformation and contagious diseases. Social network analysis (SNA), not to be confused with social networking, is a specialized methodology that examines the patterns of relationships among individuals, community, countries, etc. SNA uses visualization to identify how networks are structured, who the most important or influential people are in a network, social capital, sub-groups, and if time permits, “hidden or shadow networks”. SNA can also be used to evaluate collaboration, coalition, and partnerships.
In this course, students will gain an overview of the theories and methods of social networks including collecting and analyzing network data. Topics that will be explored include: network structures, network position and performance, peer effects, network formation, and network activation-maintenance-disruption. We will draw on examples from development, public health, criminal justice, and social media.
While no prior statistical knowledge will be assumed, a familiarity with using Excel is essential for success in the course. For those who are not very familiar with Microsoft Excel, they will be required to complete an online (free) training course in the first two weeks of the course.
Success in the course will largely depend on students’ curiosity , patience, and not being afraid to look at the world through a different and potentially unfamiliar analytic lens.
Classroom sessions include lectures, discussions, and technical sessions.
Course open to IDCE graduate students; ID seniors or ADP students with previous analytics experience. If space permits, graduate students from other departments may request permission to enroll in the class.
Concentrations:
Monitoring Evaluation, and Learning- Health Equity- Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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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
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IDCE 328 - Food Security and Climate Change Food and farming systems are both primary sources of greenhouse gases and highly vulnerable to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. This course explores how we can reduce carbon emissions associated with food while at the same time enhancing food security under an increasingly variable climate. We begin by exploring the roles of plants, animals, and microbes in farming systems and understanding how they contribute to carbon and nitrogen cycles. Next, we evaluate some of the adaptations developed by farmers and scientists in response to variable environmental conditions including crop diversification, integrated pest management, and agroforestry. In the last part of the course, we consider how national and international policies might address the entangled challenges of food insecurity and climate change, and whether these answer the demands of food and climate justice movements. Throughout the semester, student teams work to model a historical or contemporary farming system, evaluate its contributions and vulnerabilities to climate change, and identify opportunities for mitigation and adaptation. Concentrations: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation; Healthy People Healthy Planet
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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.
Concentrations:
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation - Education for Development - Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging - Monitoring, Evaluation, and Effectiveness - Gender and Identity - Conservation and Development - Youth Development - Health Equity - Healthy People, Healthy Planet - Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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 student will be exposed to a wide range of methods used in planning, while also taking into account some of the challenges inherent in their use. The course work helps students understand the city, imagine the future, and move to action, while building skills in writing, oral, and graphic communication, research and analysis, and team work. This course helps prepare students to join the planning profession or learn how to navigate it in other roles. Students are introduced to the broad scope of the professional field, which involves different functional topics, scales, and sectors. The course work focuses on the practical application of planning theory, with case studies and hands on experience to understand the implications of analysis, the different types of plan-making, and the role of implementation.
This course fulfills requirements for skills and methods across all IDCE programs and is particularly relevant to students in the Community Development and Planning, Environmental Science and Policy, and GIS Programs.
Concentration:
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation - Conservation and Development - Youth Development - Healthy People, Healthy Planet - Urban Regeneration: Economic and Workforce Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring
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IDCE 336 - Capstone in Community and Global Health The MHS Capstone course provides students with an opportunity to apply their graduate training to an initiative in the broad field of community and global health. Capstone students will work in small teams on various aspects of a faculty-led project. The projects will typically be problem-centered, meaning focused on real-world issues and challenges in which faculty are currently engaged as scholars and practitioners. Students will practice identifying key problems and questions, designing strategies to arrive at a deeper understanding of the problem, collecting and analyzing data, and producing final reports and other means of communicating their findings to diverse audiences. In short, the Capstone course offers students an immersive and integrative experience in which they will polish their professional skills through collaborative work. Open to MHS second year students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every semester
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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.
Concentration:
Youth Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: Anually
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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.
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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
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IDCE 343 - Understanding and Responding to the Migrant/Refugee Challenge This course is a Collaborative Final Project (CFP).lthough our world has seen forced migrations in the 20th Century in various places, the early 21st Century seems to be presenting new levels of complexity around migrations. The drivers are many, varied, and they may be conspiring: social and political violence and conflict; economic stress/anxiety and injustice; food and water insecurity/scarcity; and ecological stressors or uncertainty, including climate change. Given this complexity, there are challenges both on the assessment side (measuring people on the move and drivers) and the societal response side (mitigation and adaptive management by states, NGOS and other actors). Key questions form our roadmap: 1) What are the drivers and stressors of forced migration, and what are the locations and magnitudes of flows of people? 2) What are the degrees of agency, strategies, motivations, and concerns of movers (why do some move, others not)? 3) What is the status of existing support networks to receive and process immigrants across the Southern Border? 4) What do migrants’ own networks like? 5) Are there case studies of best practices we can apply to the US? 6) What does current US Immigration Law and Policy look like? 7) What would a more humane, effective Immigration Law and Policy look like? 8) What are the implications of U.S. socio-demographic trends and projections for immigration policy, society and the economy?
We will consider four stakeholder groups: 1) migrants and refugees themselves; 2) volunteer agencies (VOLAGs) and groups (e.g. GR, Catholic Charities, Sanctuary City Advocacy Groups); 3) government agencies (e.g. Massachusetts Office for Refugees & Immigrants); and 4) policy makers (state and federal lawmakers). There will be a 5-day field visit in Week 5 to Worcester, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C. to meet with immigrants, community groups and NGOs, and government agencies working on the frontline of immigrant support services and refugee resettlement in their respective urban/regional contexts. The graded CFP deliverable will take the form of Assessment/Needs Reports and/or Response/Action Plans for one of the four specific stakeholder groups. The overarching question is: How can we strengthen the work of stakeholder X? What capacities are strategic?
Concentrations:
Refugees & Forced Migration- Healthy People/Healthy Planet- Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation- Monitoring Evaluation & Effectiveness.
Prerequisites: AS A CFP COURSE, IT IS EXPECTED STUDENTS WILL TAKE IT IN THEIR GRADUATING YEAR (FALL OR SPRING).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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IDCE 351 - Global Environmental Issues: Science, Technology and Policy Many environmental problems are not only issues for a local region or even a country, but rather are pervasive problems affecting the entire planet. Persistent pollutants, air and water pollution, habitat loss, and species extinction were recognized early on, followed by truly global scope problems such as ozone depletion and climate change. Undergirding the increased focus on global problems were complex questions about resource scarcity, population and to what came to be known as sustainable development. This course investigates these global environmental problems, first by examining and assessing the science behind several of these issues, and then by situating each in its historical and policy context. In doing so, we establish both an understanding of the science and the basic elements of each issues as well as develop a critical perspective on how each issue overlaps with questions of development, security, equity, and environmental protection.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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
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IDCE 358 - Advanced Topics in International Development 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.
FALL 2019 TOPIC- Section 1: Policy Analysis
Nonprofit and public affairs professionals are faced with finding viable solutions to increasingly complex public problems-from raising revenue to fix congested roadways to reducing poverty. To do so they rely on policy analysts to investigate problems, formulate solutions, forecast outcomes, and choose between competing policy proposals. This course introduces students to the major institutions and processes involved in the development and implementation of public policy in the United States. We will examine why some problems reach the public agenda, why some solutions are adopted and others rejected, and why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail. The course will also explore a selection of current issues in American public policy that can impact the work of nonprofit and public affairs professionals such as criminal justice, social welfare, immigration, education, health, and the environment. This course is designed to strengthen students’ problem-solving, analytic, and research skills in defining and crafting solutions to public problems.
FALL 2019 TOPIC- Section 2: Advanced Topics: The Policy and Practice of International Climate Negotiations
Since 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been framework under which countries and the international community has aimed to formulate climate policy that would “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the UNFCCC and facilitate their participation in the annual Convention of the Parties (COP). Teaching takes place both in the classroom and in an online learning community consisting of several academic institutions. Student participants from different universities and programs with Observer Status to the COP will be exposed to the policy and practice of international climate negotiations and will follow current issues to be discussed at the COP, including cross cutting issues such as gender that also influence country positions on environmental issues. Students will then support the efforts of the young Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations (RINGO) constituency to the UNFCCC by tracking these issues and preparing report-backs for the course participants, the broader RINGO group, and the public. Some of the students will have the opportunity to attend the COP as part of the Clark University delegation.
This course has three main objectives:
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Provide students with the knowledge and networks to actively participate in the Convention of the Parties and support the RINGO constituency group by learning about the issues for this COP and tracking these issues through the negotiations
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Promote engagement and interaction with climate science and policy by producing content for social media, delivering daily report-backs on negotiations, and other forms of communication (e.g. side events, media releases, op-eds, contributing to RINGO position statements, etc.)
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Foster collaborations among young and early career students from different institutions interested in international policy issues
Concentration: Education and Development- Youth Development- Refugee, Forced Migration and Belonging- Gender and Identity - Conservation and Development
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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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.
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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
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IDCE 365 - Cities, Regions, Climate Change & Health This course is a collaborative final project (CFP) course. Since 2007, our planet has become a majority urban-dwellers world - and the trend since then is strongly upward. Urbanization is particularly rapid in mid-sized cities in the so-called ‘developing world’, but mega-cities (>10M people) are also on the rise. Climate change can impact urban areas and the regions in which they are situated in powerful ways: more intense, frequent rainstorms that cause flooding and mudslides; wildfires that consume forests and dwellings; droughts that imperil water and food security; and heat waves that stress humans and other organisms. All of these impacts directly and indirectly affect human health and wellbeing, comprising a complex conspiracy of risk factors that are poorly understood, and even more poorly mitigated. By considering not just cities but their surrounding regions, we will capture interactions between them (e.g. migrations of people, trade relations, knowledge exchange); such interactions are also poorly understood in terms of dynamic, shifting impacts.
Cities/regions exemplify dynamic social-ecological systems to which climate change introduces unprecedented impacts and higher levels of uncertainty, demanding novel approaches to research and practice. Theoretical bases, readings and perspectives on the science side include sustainability science, social/environmental determinants of health; risk and vulnerability analysis; and urban ecology. On the policy/practice side, environmental and social impacts assessment, and integrative collaborative project design are used. As a CFP, there is a core practicum: Students will work in teams of 4-5 to interrogate urban/regional sustainability, climate-related adaptations and resilience, as well as risks and mitigations of a case study city/region of their choosing. There will be a 5-day field visit in Week 6 to cities in the Northeast, including Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. - as well as some coastal and inland communities in those cities’ surrounding regions - to meet with government agencies, community groups and NGOs working on the frontline of urban sustainability and climate-change adaptation.
Concentrations:
Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation- Healthy People/Healthy Planet- Monitoring Evaluation & Effectiveness- Education for Development.
Prerequisites: AS A CFP COURSE, IT IS EXPECTED STUDENTS WILL TAKE IT IN THEIR GRADUATING YEAR (FALL OR SPRING)
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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.
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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
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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: IDCE 310
Anticipated Terms Offered: n/a
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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.
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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 shape their identity in exile. The course analyzes how race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, age, ability, citizenship, nationality, or ethnicity may frame an experience of exile in specific ways. While the course draws on social science analyses of exile, home, belonging, diaspora, transnationalism, and so forth, special emphasis will be given to narratives created by exiles themselves that explore these concepts.
Concentrations
Refugees, Forced Migration, and Belonging, and Gender and Development
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
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