One-Credit Modules

This course aims to help students understand the importance of mental health advocacy from a social justice pedagogy. Mental health advocacy challenges practices that perpetuate stigma and discrimination. Students will analyze mental health stigma associated with cultural and systemic barriers that limit social inclusion, access, and healing. This course will equip students with the tools necessary to champion for mental health positive policy, structures, and resources. Instructor: Jennifer Wiggins Dates: Tuesday 5.00-7.30 ( 6 weeks starting from day 1 of classes)

It is estimated one in seven–or 100,000 and counting–of our DC neighbors are immigrants. In this course, students will explore the history of immigration in DC, learn about the various agencies and nonprofits who advocate for immigrants, and the ways in which immigrants are an integral part of D.C.’s economies and communities. Students will create and share a digital story that helps deepen our understanding about a particular aspect of DC immigration and immigrants’ lived experience. This course will meet Friday, Feb 21st and Friday, March 14th Time: 10.00-4.00 pm

Restorative Justice is a community-based philosophy and approach to preventing and responding to harm with roots in indigenous traditions. It involves facilitated group processes that emphasize accountability through shared understanding and repairing the harm done. It has been used successfully in many contexts, including school and juvenile justice systems. This course is intended to introduce participants to the restorative justice movement, as well as to support participants in learning and integrating key concepts, tools, and skills related to restorative justice through an experiential, interactive, and self-reflective approach. Participants will be asked to think about the role of Restorative Justice in the modern US social context, as well as in their own personal lives.

This course gives students a foundational understanding of the field of community organizing, as well as local knowledge around the issues and challenges of movements for social justice in D.C. and other U.S. cities. Students will be able to learn about prominent theories, current trends in organizing and gain hands on experience by meeting with local organizers and practicing critical skills for organizing. During the 2 day course, students will articulate the skills, vision and values of community organizing and describe the main contemporary tensions within organizing.

Using a lens of social justice, students will learn about immigrant communities in DC and about the myriad of organizations that advocate for them. Students will learn about historical and contemporary immigration in DC, social justice issues in the past and present, and the many organizations that advocate for immigrants. Students will select an organization and create a digital story about what the organization does to promote social justice for immigrants in DC.

Just Peace calls us to a moral framework that invites us to see the integral relationship between justice and peace. This is particularly relevant for policy issues linked to conflict. Just peace offers a unique way of doing advocacy by challenging us to orient our initiatives by an ever-emerging vision of human flourishing. In turn, just peace provides norms such as virtues, principles, and practices to cultivate a way of being that is better enabled to develop the skills for fruitful advocacy toward just peace policies. The course is intended to introduce participants to the basic practice of just peace advocacy, as well as to support participants in learning and integrating the framework, key components, and skills. Meaningfully learning what just peace advocacy is, why it is relevant, and how to do it calls for an experiential and interactive format. In addition to intellectual exploration, participants will witness, experience, and practice alternative modes of just peace advocacy. They will also draw on their own experience to learn, apply, asses, and refine the practice of just peace advocacy. Oral, written, and experiential forms of assessment will be utilized.

Restorative Justice is a community-based philosophy and approach to preventing and responding to harm with roots in indigenous traditions. It involves facilitated group processes that emphasize accountability through shared understanding and repairing the harm done. It has been used successfully in many contexts, including school and juvenile justice systems. This course is intended to introduce participants to the restorative justice movement, as well as to support participants in learning and integrating key concepts, tools, and skills related to restorative justice through an experiential, interactive, and self-reflective approach. Participants will be asked to think about the role of Restorative Justice in the modern US social context, as well as in their own personal lives.

When two or more individuals or groups are in conflict, the role of a mediator can be critical in restoring trust, rebuilding relationships, and reaching mutually-satisfying agreements. Mediation happens in international conflicts, peace processes, community centers, pre-court settings, government and labor disputes, schools, human resources departments and ombudsman offices, as well as in less formal ways dealing with family and interpersonal conflicts. Whether aiming for a career in mediation or peacebuilding – or simply wishing to enhance their personal and professional lives – students in this weekend intensive will receive basic concepts, skills, and hands-on practices of mediating conflicts. Both insider-multi-partial and outsider-impartial models, as well as notions of empathy, equity, power dynamics, trauma and the nervous system, and religion and spirituality, may be considered.

In a moment of particularly intense division within an already highly ideologically, socially, and politically polarized era, we find ourselves experiencing what we might call a “conversation emergency” in which meaningful, productive conversation itself is increasingly elusive. Yet so many of us yearn for alternatives that cut against the prevailing grain of silos and slogans, “us and them” thinking, retreat and avoidance, rigidity and the circling of wagons. In order to meet this moment with wisdom, these times call on us to slow down and clarify our vision, strengthen our resolve, and acquire the skills for more productive engagement with one another when significant social, ideological or political differences are present among us. We can derive great benefit for ourselves and others from experiences that nurture our resilience, fortify our empathy, inspire our search for unity of purpose while at the same time honoring our real differences, and build diverse communities equipped to forge new ways forward together.

Undergraduate and graduate students will practice verbal and nonverbal communication skills in a creative and engaging environment. Students will learn and practice dialogue and facilitation skills that are useful in resolving conflict in various careers. In this course we will co-create such an alternative way of being together that is both substantive and exciting. The course will feature a creative and supportive exploration of our own experiences* of today’s “conversation emergency” through the In Your Shoes performance technique-based process. Though absolutely no theater experience is at all necessary nor presumed**, we will also co-create and present a very informal performance piece (what we call a “share out”) for peers and friends, scripted directly from our interactions throughout the process. We will thereby widen the circle to include the audience in our experience and offer them a glimpse into what is possible when we create communities of trust in challenging times. In this course, we’ll do all that and through guest speakers, we’ll gain some exposure to organizations engaged in a range of other approaches to dialogue and working together across differences.

History has shown that stories are inextricably linked to what it means to be human. Before there was formal communication, there were stories–on cave paintings, within ancient temples, and passed down verbally from every culture and generation our world has known. It should come as no surprise, then, that individuals, groups, and organizations looking to advance justice and peace should utilize storytelling as a key tool to drive influence and social action. This course will teach students how to create–and then practice telling–strategic stories that spark action in order to advance the issues they care about most. Upon course completion, students will have created a working portfolio of the key stories every change leader must know how to deliver while also reflecting upon topics like the ethics of storytelling, how storytelling will evolve in the future, and which story archetypes frame their own thinking. 

This course aims to help students understand the importance of mental health advocacy from a social justice pedagogy. Mental health advocacy challenges practices that perpetuate stigma and discrimination. Students will analyze mental health stigma associated with cultural and systemic barriers that limit social inclusion, access, and healing. This course will equip students with the tools necessary to champion for mental health positive policy, structures, and resources. Instructor: Jennifer Wiggins Dates: Tuesday 5.00-7.30 ( 6 weeks starting from day 1 of classes)

It is estimated one in seven–or 100,000 and counting–of our DC neighbors are immigrants. In this course, students will explore the history of immigration in DC, learn about the various agencies and nonprofits who advocate for immigrants, and the ways in which immigrants are an integral part of D.C.’s economies and communities. Students will create and share a digital story that helps deepen our understanding about a particular aspect of DC immigration and immigrants’ lived experience. 

Restorative Justice is a community-based philosophy and approach to preventing and responding to harm with roots in indigenous traditions. It involves facilitated group processes that emphasize accountability through shared understanding and repairing the harm done. It has been used successfully in many contexts, including school and juvenile justice systems. This course is intended to introduce participants to the restorative justice movement, as well as to support participants in learning and integrating key concepts, tools, and skills related to restorative justice through an experiential, interactive, and self-reflective approach. Participants will be asked to think about the role of Restorative Justice in the modern US social context, as well as in their own personal lives.

History has shown that stories are inextricably linked to what it means to be human. Before there was formal communication, there were stories–on cave paintings, within ancient temples, and passed down verbally from every culture and generation our world has known. It should come as no surprise, then, that individuals, groups, and organizations looking to advance justice and peace should utilize storytelling as a key tool to drive influence and social action. This course will teach students how to create–and then practice telling–strategic stories that spark action in order to advance the issues they care about most. Upon course completion, students will have created a working portfolio of the key stories every change leader must know how to deliver while also reflecting upon topics like the ethics of storytelling, how storytelling will evolve in the future, and which story archetypes frame their own thinking. 

This course takes an empathy-based and trauma-sensitive approach to engaging in conversation, mediating disputes, or facilitating group dialogue that is emotionally-charged and divisive. Participants will learn principles, techniques, and skills for building relationships, creating shared understanding, and cultivating collaborative problem solving. Using interactive learning, role plays, case studies and participant reflections we will learn skills in facilitating dialogues. 

The power of social media as a tool for communication and advocacy lies in individuals participating as citizens journalists and making their voices heard. These voices may be ones that would have otherwise been invisible or silenced. In the last few years, social justice movements have been strong thanks to many successful social media campaigns. The key to a successful social media campaign relies on many factors including the use of semiotic resources and more importantly a strategy. In this course, students will explore different social justice campaigns and utilizing skills learned work towards putting together their own social media project for advancing peace and justice. 

The defining values of human evolution, altruism and cooperation, have been undermined in the process of capitalist development and the adulation of individualism and competition. How do we move beyond isolation, powerlessness and resignation in the face of political and economic extremism and ecological and social destruction? How do we move beyond the current individualist focus of mindfulness training towards ethical social action and a balanced path of environmental sustainability and human well-being? Grounded in mindfulness exercises, this course will include experiential and interactive components allowing students deep inner engagement with themselves and others. It will challenge students to explore the unique personal and professional contributions they can make to addressing intertwined social and environmental crises. In addition to lectures and individual written assignments, the course will include group projects integrating mindfulness practice and social action. Students will be provided with resources and tools for ongoing collaborative connections to local and global environmental and social justice movements.

The objective is to equip students with the skill of compassionate communication, which clarifies feelings and makes concrete requests based on needs. Students will draw from their experience and learn basic theories of nonviolent communication. They will role-play various situations to practice this skill, as they also test, refine, and even develop theory. Students will track and assess their use of nonviolent communication in a personal conflict.

Leadership is not about serving one’s personal needs and interests; rather, true leadership is about “men and women in service of others,” which is a primary educational objective of the Jesuits. This course will focus on the application of servant leadership and moral leadership, and in particular on the personal characteristics and attributes associated with moral leadership. A leader’s core and conviction determines whether the leader lives by a set of moral principles and values. This course will focus on cultivating a moral compass to determine the way you live your life and lead.

Recent years have seen more recognition of the impact of interpersonal violence on our culture and communities than ever before. This course will explore models of understanding interpersonal violence, media portrayals of interpersonal violence, the shortcomings of current approaches, and the tools we have to make change on both the local and national levels. Together, we will consider what and whose narratives of survivorship we encounter most often, and generate more inclusive policy and resources. We will hear from professionals working in varied capacities in the field of interpersonal violence response and prevention, both from Georgetown and the DC community. Class sessions will discuss how we can translate the theory from readings into the day-to-day of prevention work, and equip students with the practical ability to facilitate change in their communities.