Fall 2007
Undergraduate Courses
CQWG4101: Gender in Mediated Narratives
- Instructor: Mairi Pileggi
This course focuses on the role of narrative in shaping gender identity. During this semester you will be working with the Marin County Health and Human Services on an oral history project. You are expected to work 25 hours. The service requirement is built into the class load and does not exceed dedicated student hours expected of a 3-unit course. Service encourages academic achievement and personal growth through practicing critical thinking and other skills in a work environment as well as through interactions with people of diverse backgrounds. Service-learning gives you an opportunity to explore your values and life choices.
Colloquium –– Cultural Heritage 2312: Native American Studies
This colloquium will explore the multi-faceted world of Native Americans by investigating their perceptions of the relationship between the material and spiritual worlds as represented in art, story-telling, and tribal histories and governing organizations. A significant component of this colloquium is the service-learning project, which will allow students, under the direction of instructors and the Executive Director of the Marin Museum of the American Indian, to gain direct experience with American Indian life by participating in the creation of a traveling trunk.
CQSC3142: Native American Society
- Instructor: Arthur Scott
This service-learning course will explore Native American culture of
Apaches/Plains Indians with particular emphasis on Mythology, Creation
Tales, spirituality, sacredness of land, women, tribal councils,
strategies of warfare as responses to American expansionistic
pressures, as well as investigating the challenges of contemporary
reservation life and its impact on tribal identity.
CQEN4018: Native American Literature
- Instructor: Penny Jackson
In English 4018, Native American Literature, students study
traditional and contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays by American
Indians from diverse tribes in order to come to some understanding of
the importance of story telling to Native
American peoples and to gain insight into the values, customs, and history of those peoples.
Native American Studies Colloquium Service-Learning Project
Students will have direct hands on experience with Native peoples
and culture through partnership with Marin Museum of the American
Indian. Students will help create a Traveling Trunk filled with
cultural objects of the Plains Indians. The trunk, designed to enhance
fifth graders’ learning about American Indians, will contain objects
important to the culture of Plains Indians such as beads, par fleches,
moccasins, feathers, arrows, and baskets. This project, which will
span both semesters of the colloquium, will allow students to take part
in researching, creating, and packaging the educational materials which
will be sent to schools throughout the country. With the permission
of the instructors and the Executive Director of the MMAI, students may
fulfill part or all of the hours of required service-learning by
assisting the Museum in its California education programs for
elementary school teachers, its Trade Feast, its Rock Art Exhibit, its
lecture series at Dominican, or other activities helpful to the Museum.
BIO 1550 Nutrition
- Instructor: Lynn Marie LoPresto
This
course covers the fundamental aspects of human nutrition and metabolism
including the basic biochemistry and physiological function of dietary
protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals in the human body.
The US Dietary Guidelines, MyPyramid and a dietary analysis program
will be used to demonstrate dietary assessment techniques and as tools
for nutrition education. Student will have 3 opportunities to adapt
these materials to educate children in an elementary school classroom
about healthy eating habits. The course also includes a module on food
production, pesticide use, food processing and safe food handling. We
will conclude with overview of food insecurity and world hunger issues
which includes introduction to principles of sustainability and the
prevention of environmental degradation.
RLGN 1055/3155 Passion for Justice:
Liberation Theologies and Social Justice
- Instructor: Cynthia Taylor
For two thousand years, Christianity has been both a force for change and liberation, and for domination and oppression. This course focuses on the former – liberation – as Christian theological movements from the 1950s to the 1980s have combined biblical teachings with social scientific analysis not only to bring about social justice in modern societies but to challenge Christianity’s more oppressive characteristics. Throughout the semester, students will examine several key theological texts that emerged from social movements in Latin American and the United States of this period, and usually identified as Liberation Theology, Black Theology and Feminist Theologies.
Social justice is the crux of all liberation theologies. Our understanding of the intersection between theology and social justice will be deepened through a 25-hour community service component. Service-learning is a structured learning experience that combines community service with academic reflection. Students engaged in service-learning provide community service in response to community-identified concerns and learn about the context in which service is provided, the connection between their service and their academic coursework, and their roles as citizens. Through service-learning, which in this class will be called our Social Justice Project, the student can ascertain how theological knowledge assists him/her in their “praxis situation,” – a term used in liberation theologies to describe the tension between reflection and action.
NUR 4150 Community Health & Nursing
- Instructor: Cris Bolla
This
course is an introduction to population-focused nursing practice. The
course utilizes our National Health Objectives, public health core
functions, and the nursing process as the basis for health promotion,
health protection, disease prevention, health maintenance, health
restoration, and health surveillance of individuals, families,
aggregates, and communities at the local, state, national, and global
levels. The course emphasizes the needs of vulnerable populations
across the lifespan, and examines socioeconomic, cultural, gendered,
racial and political dimensions of vulnerability and risk.
Thursday
is our off-site day at the Umbrella Project. The Umbrella Project is a
community health, service-learning, outreach program, designed to
provide the vulnerable elderly and disabled residents of Marin Housing
Authority and Senior Access communities with health promotion services
provided by Community Health Nursing and Occupational Therapy students
of Dominican University of California (DUC). Home visiting will focus
on medication management, safety, falls risk, nutrition, depression
risk, and cognitive assessment. Home visits may often be made by an RN
student and OT student together or RN students paired depending on the
client need.
COMM 3604 Business & Professional Communication
-
Instructor: Chris Vaughan
This course will follow two interrelated tracks: text-based discussion and activities focused on aspects of Business and Professional Communication & service-learning experience in the field, to be served either during the appointed class time on Thursdays or at a time of your choosing. At least 25 hours of service-learning time are expected of you in your positions with community partners, with whom we will connect via MarinLink, a community organization bringing together numerous agencies dedicated to improving community life in and beyond Marin County. This should come out to about two hours per week once the connections with community agencies are established. Students are expected to journal regularly, reflecting upon their experience, particularly as it pertains to the subject of Business and Professional Communication. Positions will involve roles that call for business and professional communication, such as marketing, public relations, and the creation of communication-oriented materials, in addition to participating in normal workplace communications, reflecting upon them, and observing the business and professional communication of others in the workplaces in which they serve.
HON 3500 Self, Community, and Service: Ethical Theory and Practice
-
Instructor: Julia van der Ryn
This
course examines traditional and contemporary movements in ethical
theory regarding questions of selfhood, authentic relation to others,
and ethical action. We will delve into a range of philosophical
thought in this exploration the connection between ethics, personal
autonomy and sense of meaning, and our responsibility to and
interdependence on others.
Our understanding of key themes will
be deepened through a 25-hour service component that allows for active
cultivation and expression of core values in the local community.
Service is an integral part of this course as it allows us to bridge
theory to practice within an academic context that supports and deepens
our understanding of this experience through relevant texts,
discussion, and reflection. Students will chose to work with an
established community partner with a focus that will also add an
enriching experience to their academic major: Youth Court, Canal
Alliance, Marin Aids Project, School Environmental Education Docents,
Homeward Bound.
PHIL 3510 / WGS 3510 / HUM 3510
Self, Community, and Service:
Modern Identity and Moral Meaning
- Instructor: Julia van der Ryn
I can define my identity only against the background of things that matter.
–– Charles Taylor (The Ethics of Authenticity)
This
course examines contemporary movements in ethical theory, focusing on
the essential human need for moral meaning and its modern implications.
Themes include questions of identity, responsibility, perception of and
relation to the “other.” We will probe the ways in which the
existential question of authenticity, “who am I?” is inextricably
linked to questions of morality and ethical being, such as how we
determine right from wrong action and how we choose conduct ourselves
in the world.
Our understanding of key themes will be deepened
through a 25 hour service component that allows for active cultivation
and expression of core values in the local community. Students will
develop and act on their social and environmental concerns/interests
within an academic context that supports and deepens their
understanding of this experience through relevant texts, discussion,
and reflection.
ENST 2000 (lecture) and ENST 2005 (lab) ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
- Instructor: Vania Coelho
Investigation of ecological principles involved in human relationship to and interaction with the environment. Emphasis is given to political and economic aspects involved in the solution of environmental problems. Students learn by serving the Dominican community on local environmental projects, or by serving San Rafael/ Marin partners that need help in protecting our environment units. Partners include: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Marin Headlands Native Plant Nursery, National Park Service, Presidio Park Stewards, Salvation Army, Sea Flow, Marin Sanitary Services, Marin Mammal Center, Humane Society, Marin Municipal Water District.
Graduate Courses
OT 5103 Program Development in the Community
- Instructor: Ruth Ramsey
Skills needed to design and develop innovative programs in community settings using a service-learning model. Topics covered include theoretical frameworks, research, development, implementation and evaluation of community programs, business planning, grant seeking, and marketing This fall, we are doing program development projects at several agencies: Homeward Bound, Marin Youth Center (MYC), Marin Brain Injury Network, and Marin Housing Authority sites, in conjunction with the nursing department and the Umbrella Project. We are also doing two special events: we are hosting a table at the Marin County Senior Information Fair, and we are co-hosting a CarFit senior driver safety evaluation event with the Marin County Division of Ageing. More info
