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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
This course will focus on the African American culture and the Civil Rights Movement through four themes: fragmentation, exclusion, resistance, and community. Particular attention will be given to the diversity of African diasporas within the United States. The African American Civil Rights Immersion Experience is designed to provide an up-close immersive experience of some of the events, places, people and systems throughout the United States that have helped shape and define contemporary African American theories. This course will be framed within the civil rights movement, including its social organization, customs and traditions, religion, and its arts and literature. The course challenges students to utilize and address issues such as political power, economic systems, racism, and activism. This course includes in-class participation and an off campus expedition to historical civil rights sites in the United States.
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4.00 Credits
This course, a collaborative partnership with YMCA Camp Northern Lights, will focus on environmental justice and equity, access, and inclusion in nature and outdoor spaces movements in Minnesota, the US, and beyond. Students will explore these communities' efforts to protect and preserve our natural spaces for current and future generations, while also breaking down barriers to ensure equitable access, participation, and inclusion of all cultural and ethnic groups. The course will have a particular focus on contemporary environmental justice issues, such as water quality, proposed pipelines through Minnesota tribal lands, food insecurity, and access for BIPOC and other marginalized groups to nature and outdoor spaces. This course is designed to provide a hands-on immersive experience that will expose students to the events, places, peoples, systems and organizations throughout Minnesota that have helped shape current environmental justice policies, action, and activism, as well as connections with national and international environmental justice organizations, such as Wild Path Farm, the Sierra Club, Honor the Earth, the Sierra Leone Foundation for a New Democracy, Friends of the Boundary Waters, MN350, and the Three Rivers Park District. The course challenges participants to assess and critique issues such as political power, racism, colonization and segregation, activism, access to resources, and our relationship with this land through diverse cultural lenses. Students will be encouraged to explore these issues through their own cultural heritage, while being exposed to the beliefs, traditions, and value systems of others. This course includes 8 weeks of in-class participation and an off-campus expedition to YMCA Camp Northern Lights, a wilderness camp in Northern Minnesota, where students will be immersed in nature for 5 days.
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3.00 Credits
This American Indian Cultural Expression course will expose students to the broad range of fine arts within the American Indian community. This course will engage students to understand the connections between past events and their influence in American Indian art forms through critical analysis and aesthetic evaluation. Through exploring how art has impacted these living cultures how these vibrant cultures have survived oppression and genocide, and continue to thrive students will gain understanding of Indigenous Peoples strong connection with the fine arts. Students will also learn to articulate the meaning of different Indigenous nations creative expression and interpretive processes, which have been handed down for generations. Students will also explore the art of activism and resistance to colonialism as well as the connections between American Indian artists and the land.
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1.00 - 5.00 Credits
This course will provide flexibility in offering an in-depth review of topics of immediate importance and topical interest. These topics will go beyond the introductory courses in examining specific aspects of the subject matter.
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3.00 Credits
This course introduces students to the complexity of race and ethnicity as both conceptual terms and lived experiences. We will look at multiple definitions of race and ethnicity that have been developed over time, and we will also explore how race intersects with other forms of identity (cultural affiliation, gender, class, and sexuality). This course places a particular emphasis on power, structures, and ideas of cultural superiority, inequality, and racism, as well as how these ideas continue to marginalize significant portions of the population. Students will learn about the connections between race, ethnicity, labor, and power structures, such as colonial, economic, state bureaucracy, and legal systems. Students will learn about the unique contributions and social and cultural developments of ethnic groups in the United States. The course will also introduce students to key academic frameworks and critical race theories.
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3.00 Credits
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion class is designed for participants to increase their knowledge and skills necessary to apply strategies for enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in their professional practices and personal lives. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Curriculum will address foundational concepts such as social determinants of health, education and introduction to the penal system. Strategies for recognizing unconscious bias, cultural competency, intersectionality, and gender equality will be explored. Upon completion of the class, learners should be able to apply strategies to counteract racism within education and business, create an affirming environment, implement a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan.
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3.00 Credits
This course introduces students to Japanese literature in translation. The reading may be organized either by historic periods or topically. The selected texts may come from various time periods. The reading may include oral traditions, mythology, spiritual texts, historical documents, poetry, song lyrics, theatrical plays, novels, short stories, or manga. This course may address issues of historical context, gender, class, and race as a way of understanding Japanese literature.
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3.00 Credits
Building on the foundational local work of GCST 1320, this project and research based course will focus on further developing leadership skills and community connections at a local, national and global level to create student change agents. This course provides essential information for grassroots organizing and coalition building, and incorporates research on successful models locally and globally that have supported oppressed populations to create social and environmental change. Students will understand the importance of power theory and dynamics and then identify a local or global issue, creating strategies for collective action and developing and implementing these strategies into practice. Formerly: Community Organizing II Through analysis of media, culture, government policies, social movements, systemic racism and marginalization of groups, and participating in practical social change activities, students will learn to explore and synthesize multiple points of view and individual and collective responsibilities to create a more just, ethical and sustainable future. Activities could include research projects on campus, with City of Brooklyn Park, and other area, national and international organizations, data collection and analysis, research papers, presentations, creation of documentaries
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3.00 Credits
This course will introduce students to the genres, traditions, and themes that characterize Latinx literatures. Emphasis will be placed on the distinctions and similarities that have shaped the experiences and the cultural imagination among different Latinx communities in the U.S. and throughout Latin America. Genres include, but are not limited to, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and film.
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4.00 Credits
Building on the foundational work of GCST 1970, this project-based course, a collaboration with YMCA Camp Northern Lights, focuses on developing culturally relevant facilitation and leadership skills through participation and engagement in an outdoor, nature-based experiential learning program. This 5-day outdoor, experiential program will take place at YMCA Camp Northern Lights, Baker Reserve, or a similar outdoor learning facility. Students will explore and critique both the theory and application of experiential learning models through an indigenous lens, such as Kolb's learning cycle, and outdoor program principles such as Challenge by Choice, Leave No Trace and Zero Waste, as they plan, organize and implement all aspects of the GCST 1970 immersion program, including relationship-building with student participants, community partners and community members, including local tribal nations such as Bois Forte, developing their relationship with and connection to outdoor spaces, exploring environmental justice issues through diverse cultural lenses and indigenous world views, marketing and PR for the program and program-related events, culturally relevant and appropriate outdoor programming, and the grant-writing and reporting process. Students will understand the power dynamics that have created the outdoor adventure gap for BIPOC people in Minnesota and beyond and, through real-world problem-solving, project-based research and hands-on learning, will design and implement strategies for eliminating this gap.
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