Engaged Learning

There are a variety of Engaged Learning courses offered in virtually every major. But how do you know which is right for you? Different EL courses include different experiences, such as:

• Community-Based Learning
  CBL courses collaborate with the surrounding community to do meaningful, hands-on work in the real world. For example, an African American studies course helped teach African American history to local high school students.
• Faculty-Mentored Research
  EL courses also feature a research component, like a social research course where students interviewed women who were getting out of prison.
• Internships
  Some EL classes include an internship in addition to course time. In one course, students interned for the LA Greek Film Festival to review Greek films.
• Study Abroad
  EL courses can even take you abroad! An Eastern Christian Traditions course went to Ukraine to study religious traditions amongst college students.

Examples of 10 Recent BCLA Courses with Engaged Learning Flags

1. JWST 4400-01/CATH 4400-01), Interreligious Experience and Engagement
Students have three site visits to a church, synagogue, and mosque. All of these tours are designed to help students engage with the community, meet local faith and communal leaders, and work on engaged learning projects in their respective courses. Students learn about the three Abrahamic faiths and their historical and contemporary interfaith relations. Witnessing Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worship and meeting with clergy deepens their understanding of interfaith engagement in the world today.

2. PSYC 3998.01, Liberation Psychologies: Theory and Praxis
The Liberation Psychologies course focuses on identifying pathways toward hope, culminating in a class project to create a communal healing space/installation/event (to be determined by students as the class unfolds. Students prepare for their project in various ways: (a) through review of theoretical material relate to liberation arts, collective trauma, and communal healing, (b) two in-person site visits to see how communal healing/spaces of memory, justice, or reconciliation are designed and implemented (including one visit to Homeboy Industries), (3) online review of other examples of liberatory practices, and (4) shared development of a group project oriented towards communal healing in collaboration with the Pam Rector Center for Service and Action (CSA)

3. THST 3226, Migration and the Border Sections 01 and 02
While the course is a theology course, its starts by engaging experiential learning through a memoir, historical accounts of migration, and sociological accounts of both the process of migration and adaptation to life in a new country. Students also look at journalistic reporting on migration. For this course students travel to the US/Mexico border or engage in alternative opportunities for direct community engagement with persons who have migrated here in Los Angeles or through their own networks of family and friends (e.g., interviews).

4. Journalism Internship
Students intern at media outlets, using their journalistic training in real-world settings. Students need reimbursement for travel to their places of internship and field reporting.

5. APAM 2417, Contemporary Asian Pacific Islander Issues (with engaged learning flag)
To earn the engaged learning flag, students must engage with a community-based organization by learning about it, directly helping out, and writing up a major analysis of it in relation to our readings' concepts/theories/findings for a semester-long term paper. Since many of the students work with groups in ethnic towns/enclaves and/or learn important histories of racism, nativism, patriarchy, and the like, we take trips to learn about the broader context in which they're working with organizations: a historical tour of Koreatown, LA, and a historical overview of the Japanese American community at the Japanese American National Museum-JANM.

6. SOCL 3160, Sociology of Marriage and Families
The class partners with Jenesse Center to learn about support the organization provides to families experiencing violence. We use sociological approaches to structure and inequalities to understand the role of family in our society, and address how domestic violence affects family life. We partner with Jenesse Center to visit various organization sites to understand the full range of the ways that domestic violence affects families. Students visit a safe house, the main office space and drop in center, the court house, and the administrative offices to gain a keen sense of Jenesse's mission and role in supporting community.

7. HIST 4910, Topics in Public History: Empire, Migration, and Reparations
This is a Topics in Public History class, focused on the theme of Empire, Migration, and Reparations, so the "new imperialism" of the 19th and 20th centuries and its various legacies. As part of their research projects, students are required to produce what I am calling "guerrilla public history projects," where they present the history of empire and its legacies to the university campus. These projects will include things like "In-Stall Histories," where they put up posters in bathroom stalls; flyers with QR codes that lead to text or audio discussions of primary sources or mini-lessons; in-person "free history lessons" on campus; pop-up exhibitions in the form of kind of pop-up poster session. In doing these projects, students will practice their historical thinking and analysis, how to write and present history to broad publics, and how to relate the past to the present by providing the historical context for present-day debates about migration, reparations, and the repatriation of colonial artifacts.

8. CHIN 4208, Chinese Food Cultures
Students learn about food insecurity in Los Angeles and apply their knowledge and skills acquired through the course to contributing to serving the local food-insecure population. Community engagement takes place in a variety of ways and will last throughout the semester. Students collaborate to make Chinese food and donate most of what they produce to LMU's Feed the Hungry (FTH) Program. They volunteer with the FTH on a regular basis to deliver and serve the food at Safe Place for Youth and the St. Robert's Center, our community partners located in Venice. They devote one half day to working at the community garden of Safe Place for Youth. In addition, they take a field trip to the Westside Food Bank and do volunteer work there as needed.

9. ECON 3750
Economics Students engage with community partners (implementers of research) from the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Kenya. Throughout the semester they work with the partners to develop and implement research projects to better understand poverty and economic development. The topics of the projects align with the theoretical content we discuss in class. This opportunity allows students to better understand and personally connect with the challenges facing low-income individuals in Kenya. It also allows students to interact with and get to know international collaborators, contributing towards their professional development.

10. CLAR 4374, Archaeology Lab: The Late Bronze Age city of Ugarit
Students design an archaeological exhibit at the Hannon library to highlight the research that they will do throughout the semester. During the semester, they studied and documented Syrian archaeological material on loan at LMU, and through a COIL component will interact with a Syrian classroom. After the class, students are ready to (1) study archaeological objects in a museum, (2) know how to plan and design and exhibit. They also have a better knowledge of material culture and know how to interact with peers from a different culture. In this course, students are addressing ethical questions related to (1) repatriation of objects, (2) cultural heritage, and (4) racism and colonialism in archaeological culture, practices and interpretations. This course involves active, hands-on learning on archaeological objects in the museum, and engages students with a Syrian classroom, with which they will collaborate on some assignments (such as designing labels for objects).

Current students can search for all of the EL courses in PROWL. Here's how:

1. Navigate to PROWL
2. Under the students tab, click "Browse Courses"
3. Select the upcoming term
4. In the "Core Attribute" box, type "Engaged Learning"

The Center for Service and Action offers students and graduates a range of opportunities to volunteer their time serving those who are disadvantaged or oppressed.