Fall 2012
Undergraduate
Link to the course catalog to sign-up for Service-Learning Classes
Type SL: (with colon) into the Keywords field to get a current list of classes
- BIO 1550: SL: Nutrition
- CLQ 3190/3191: SL: Environmental Preservation & Economic Justice/Environment Community-Based Art
- CLQ 3250/3251: SL: The Roots of Healing
- ENGL 1004: SL: Expository Writing: Literacy & Power
- HCS 3106: SL Gender Subcultures
- HONO 3500: SL: Self, Community, and Service
- PHIL 1109/3109.1 & .2: SL: Ethics in Healthcare
- RLGN 1055/3155: SL: Passion for Justice: Liberation Theology
This Fall we are offering Two new Service-Learning colloquia:
CLQ 3190 PHIL: Environmental Preservation/Economic-Justice & CLQ 3191 ART: Environment Community-based Art
Instructors: Laura Stivers & Lynn Sondag
This course will focus on philosophical and ethical literature within the preservationist and environmental justice movements. Students will examine the paradigm shift in the environmental justice movement from an emphasis on wilderness destruction and preservation to environmental racism and justice. Students will engage in art projects and attend nature field trips with elementary school students in an afterschool program to help them understand the importance of preserving both natural areas and whole ecosystems, as well as addressing environmental injustices in their own urban communities.
The Roots of Healing:
CLQ 3250 PHIL: Philosophies for Flourishing: Individual Well-being & Global Health & CLQ 3251 RLGN: Communities for Nourishing: Cultural and Spiritual Dimensions of Health
Instructors: Lindsey Dean & Emily Wu
Philosophies for Flourishing: Individual Well-being and Global Health: this course will explore various philosophical conceptions of individual and collective human flourishing. Emphasis will be placed on the impact that worldviews, cultural and religious/spiritual values, and lived practice have on the cultivation of health in a variety of forms: physical, mental, spiritual, communal, environmental, and global.
Communities for Nourishing: Cultural and Spiritual Dimensions of Health: this course will seek inspirations from theories of health and practices of healing from cultural and spiritual traditions around the world. We will explore how health can be understood through connections on different levels: between ourselves and others, individual and communal, theoretical and contextual, local and global.
ENGL 1004 Expository Writing: Literacy & Power
Instructor: Caroline Hanssen (for more info on this course click here)
The only one of its kind currently offered at Dominican, this composition course will provide you with a unique opportunity to improve your writing skills for college while helping local high school students prepare themselves for their futures.
Literacy is inextricably linked with power in America today, so individuals who can master verbal information have greater access to political influence, social status, intellectual potential, and vocational prosperity. However, public education does not prepare all students equally, and many youths exit high school with low literacy skills that keep them on the margins into adulthood. Service-learning will be used as one of the principal methods for achieving the learning outcomes of this course in partnership with Marin County Community School in San Rafael.
HCS 3106: Gender subcultures
Instructor: Thomas Burke
Explores the sociological implications of the variety of lifestyles in the world that dot the social landscape: gays/lesbians/transgenders, drugs/prostitution, communal/gangs, single parents/homeless, straight/ traditional.
PHIL 1109/3109.1/.2: Ethics in Health Care
Instructor: Bonnie Howe
An introduction to ethical theory in Western philosophy followed by an investigation of contemporary ethical problems drawn from the field of health care, e.g., scarce resource allotment, genetic intervention, control, and research, dilemmas in nursing, medical paternalism, AIDS issues, reproductive control, abortion, euthanasia.
Our work this semester will focus on the social policy and community dimensions of health care ethics. The ANA Code of Ethics begins with a list of the nurse’s ethical duties that includes the following: “The nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public in promoting community, national and international efforts to meet health needs,” and “the profession of nursing . . . is responsible for articulating nursing values, for maintaining the integrity of the profession and its practice and for shaping social policy.”
This course is designed to offer you practice in collaborating with others to promote community health, to open up the social policy dimensions of health care, and to ground you in basic philosophical and medical ethics concepts. Ethics needs praxis to even locate and formulate its key questions. That is why the central “text” of this ethics course is praxis – practical experience of service with community partners. The work of ethics does not stop with praxis, however; ethics moves on to organized practical reasoning and reflection, and to dialogue.
BIO 1550: Nutrition
Instructor: Lynne 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.
To put theory into practice, students will have the opportunity to explore eating and activity habits with at-risk children in the community. 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.
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: Marin County Community School, Canal Alliance, Marin Aids Project, MarinLink.
