CED 152 Community Development Concepts and Practice Class time: MWF 10:10 to 11:00 am Location: 11 Ferguson Building Section 001, Schedule Number 180616, Spring 2009 Revised January 13, 2009. This syllabus is subject to change. Future changes will be provided in writing. 1 Instructors: Michael Fortunato, MS, PhD Candidate in Rural Sociology Phone: 412-480-4974 Email: use the course email in the Angel system or [email protected] Office location: 109A Armsby Building (unmarked, between 109 and 110) Office hours: MWF 1:30-2:30pm and by appointment (better to e-mail me before coming) Jason L. Weigle, MS, PhD Candidate in Rural Sociology and HDNRE Phone: 814-441-6702 Email: use the course email in the Angel system or [email protected] Office location: 301 Armsby Building Office hours: MW 1-2:30pm and by appointment Course Overview: Community development is an unique and engaging field. Practitioners may help a non-profit working on homelessness one day and an interstate committee on highways the next. A broad understanding of social, cultural, and environmental systems - and how they interact with each other - is necessary and critical for success in community and economic planning and development. Community Development Concepts and Practice is the first of the required courses that constitute the core of the Community, Environment, and Development major. This major covers a breadth of topics and perspectives through the required core courses and the option areas of community and economic development, international development, and environmental economics and policy. It is very important that you think about how the different emphases in the courses ultimately fit together to provide a broad understanding of how social, cultural, and environmental systems relate to each other, and how those interconnections must be recognized in efforts to foster change, sustainability and to support successes in communities, regions and nations. This course introduces community development concepts and practice. The objectives of this course are to offer the knowledge and skills you will need to: Understand and explain how systems form the foundation of community and economic development policy and practice Explain key concepts and discuss and explore what is involved in community development as a field of study and as practice Understand and think critically about the core elements of substantive issues in community development Understand and apply the basic elements of a community development process to encourage participation and decision-making informed by multiple perspectives and sources of information Identify and evaluate available resources related to community development practice and the wide range of topics that may be addressed by those working in areas linking community, environment, and development The emphasis of this course is to provide an introduction to key community development concepts, why they are important, and how connections among social, cultural, and environmental systems are core to successful community development. A second goal of this course is to provide you with a set of tools to utilize in interacting with people in work, community, or educational settings. We will utilize a variety of techniques to achieve course objectives, such as participatory lecture and discussions, team and class activities, and outside individual assignments.CED 152 Community Development Concepts and Practice, Spring 2009 Revised January 13, 2009. This syllabus is subject to change. Future changes will be provided in writing. 2 Classroom Learning Contract: This syllabus is a learning contract between us, the instructors, and you, the students. Our goal is to provide a safe, supportive learning environment where you can critically explore topics and develop your own ‘toolbox’ of skills. Each of you has the right to this environment and the duty to help provide it for your fellow students. To meet this goal, the class as a whole will establish ground rules for interactions. The instructors will provide a basic framework of rules and will give you the opportunity to discuss these rules and add additional ground rules for class discussion, group participation, and other interactive sessions if necessary. The semester’s activities are designed to help you develop or sharpen your own toolbox of skills. Our hope is you will be able to use these tools throughout the rest of your time here at Penn State and in the future. Teaching is a learning experience for the instructors as well as the students. To help you attain your goals, we will give you a number of opportunities to provide feedback throughout the semester. Beyond the daily “are there any questions” approach, we will provide an anonymous dropbox in Angel for feedback, provide a mid-semester course evaluation, and will occasionally utilize one-minute papers to figure out what concepts we are not communicating effectively. Please use these tools to help us improve our delivery to better suit your learning needs. If it’s broke, we need to fix it! Ultimately, this course is about you. Some elements of this syllabus are negotiable, others are not. While we cannot free wheel through the topics, there is room for exploration. Our job is to provide the framework for the class, your job is to provide the enthusiasm, energy, and insight needed to make this course work. No doubt you will have to work hard, do the readings, complete your assignments, and come to class prepared. There’s no doubt you can make this class fun, interesting, and expand its horizons. This course can be sixteen weeks of lecture (and we are prepared for it to be so) or it can be sixteen weeks of student oriented interaction, discussion, learning, and fun. The choice about how this class unfolds is yours to make. Required Texts: Green, Gary Paul and Anna Haines. 2007. Asset Building & Community Development. Second Edition. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. This book is available at the bookstore on campus. Frank, Flo and Anne Smith. 1999. The Community Development Handbook: A Tool to Build Community Capacity. Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada. This can be accessed for free at the URL: http://www1.servicecanada.gc.ca/en/epb/sid/cia/comm_deve/handbook.shtml A number of other readings will be assigned throughout the semester from other sources. Links to external websites or PDFs of the readings will be found in the readings