This course will focus on issues that arise in contemporary public debate concerning matters of social justice. Topics will likely include: euthanasia, gay marriage, racism and racial profiling, free speech, hunger and global inequality. Students will be exposed to multiple points of view on the topics and will be given guidance in analyzing the moral frameworks informing opposing positions. The goal will be to provide the basis for respectful and informed discussion of matters of common moral concern.

Redlining was the practice of selectively classifying neighborhoods as most likely to default on repayment of a mortgage loan. Houses in redlined neighborhoods held little value as collateral, and lenders would only offer mortgage loans for these houses at above-average interest rates. Over time, these neighborhoods had the largest concentrations of African Americans. The September 2021 issue of Page One Economics® explains how residents in redlined neighborhoods could not afford to become homeowners and accumulate wealth at the rates other groups did. It also points out how only when the federal government passed laws banning discrimination in housing and banking did the segregation of African Americans to specific neighborhoods start to ease up.

This last lesson in the Economics and the Great Migration curriculum studies the practice of redlining, whose impacts on neighborhoods are still felt today over 50 years after its abolishment.

The economic collapse of the 1930s caused the U.S. government to develop new policies to put Americans back on their feet again. Many of these programs centered on growing the housing stock and providing tools for households to begin generating wealth. Discrimination did not allow for Black Americans to have an equal opportunity at building a middle-class lifestyle—the bedrock of the American Dream. These inequities began an ever-widening wealth gap that has impacted generations far removed from the original policies.

Minneapolis College, the most selected higher education destination of students from all Minneapolis Public High Schools, is located downtown, nestled between the hustle of Hennepin Avenue and the green spaces of Loring Park. As a part of the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities, Minneapolis College most serves those students who are least likely to go to college. With three-quarters of the student body composed of those underrepresented in higher education, the hallways are filled with recent immigrants, those seeking to learn English, members of communities with the highest unemployment and incarceration rates in the state, veterans, those of low socioeconomic status, seekers of diversity, and those who wish to serve them. Collected here are their stories, stories of overcoming, coming up, perseverance, pride, and power in the face of depressed opportunity and systemic oppression.

One of the things that we know is that as you go up the social ladder, you often have better access to quality education, healthcare, and other services, such as housing or good nutrition.

The Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Program – co-led by CCCOER and College of the Canyons – emerged as a response to the growing awareness of structural racism in our educational systems and the realization that adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy could be transformative at institutions seeking to improve. The program is designed to give participants a workshop experience where they can better understand anti-racist teaching and how the use of OER and open pedagogy can empower them to involve students in the co-creation of an anti-racist classroom. The capstone project involves developing an action plan for incorporating OER and open pedagogy into a course being taught in the spring semester. OFAR participants are invited to remix this template to design and share their projects and plans for moving this work forward. 

This course is primarily a literature seminar. We will use American literature as a lens through which to examine different passing tropes. It will provide an introduction to queer, gender, and critical race theories for science and math majors. We will read such works as Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom, Incognegro, and Focault’s A History of Sexuality, to name just a few.

In this lesson, students will compare weather and climate, explain patterns over time and participate in a climate relay race.

NGSS: K-ESS2-1

Time: 45-50 minutes

Materials: globe, flashlight, three sets of clothing for the relay race (sunglasses, sunhat, swim suit, board shorts, rain jacket, hiking boots, umbrella, sweater, heavy jacket, warm hat, gloves, scarf, etc.)

Perpetual foreigner stereotyping is a form of systemic racism used against Asian Americans. They have historically been stereotyped as foreigners in the United States no matter their duration of time living here or whether they were American-born. The perpetual foreigner stereotype is maintained by institutions such as Hollywood, private and public sectors, to elected public officials. Throughout U.S. history, Asian Americans have been scapegoated as the cause of the country’s various problems and catastrophes including economic despair, wars, terrorism, and coronavirus pandemic.

2021 Social Science Standards Integrated with Ethnic Studies:
Civics and Government: 8.8, HS.2, HS.9
Geography: 5.13
Historical Knowledge: 5.22, 6.20, 6.21, 8.22, 8.25, HS.63, HS.64, HS.65, HS.66
Historical Thinking: 7.25, 8.31, 8.32
Social Science Analysis: 5.26, 5.27, 5.28, 6.24, 6.26, 6.27, 6.28, 7.27, 7.29, 7.30, 8.34, 8.36, HS.71, HS.72, HS.73, HS.74, HS.75

In this episode of our "Pilot Pals" story time series, we share the story of air racers and Jimmy Doolittle.

The Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Program – co-led by CCCOER and College of the Canyons – emerged as a response to the growing awareness of structural racism in our educational systems and the realization that adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy could be transformative at institutions seeking to improve. The program is designed to give participants a workshop experience where they can better understand anti-racist teaching and how the use of OER and open pedagogy can empower them to involve students in the co-creation of an anti-racist classroom. The capstone project involves developing an action plan for incorporating OER and open pedagogy into a course being taught in the spring semester. OFAR participants are invited to remix this template to design and share their projects and plans for moving this work forward. 

This course covers topics and questions such as: What is poverty? How is it defined and measured in the United States and other countries? What are the different program designs that countries use to relieve poverty? To answer these questions, the course examines the main public policy frames that guide theory, research, policy, and practice. How do the definition and policies to deal with poverty change over time? What are the economic, political, and social forces that contribute to the persistence of poverty and its periodic reframing? Can social science to help to resolve the public policy debates that make poverty and its relief so controversial?

This course explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the United States, within a global context. It examines the impact of recent economic restructuring and globalization, and reviews the current debate about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. In this class, students will study the topic of poverty and economic security through the lens of the lived experience of Americans: individuals, families, and households; exploring the history, geography, and forces shaping the likelihood of being poor in America.

This course explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the United States, within a global context. It examines the impact of recent economic restructuring and globalization, and reviews the current debate about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. In this class, students will study the topic of poverty and economic security through the lens of the lived experience of Americans: individuals, families, and households; exploring the history, geography, and forces shaping the likelihood of being poor in America.

This lesson is the second in a series of lessons called “Issues of Poverty.” Students explore the causes of poverty in the United States and the structural factors that perpetuate it. Students will examine the ways poverty is closely related to economic and political policy, and will work to discover why it disproportionately affects members of non-dominant groups—that is, groups that have historically oppressed groups.

This course is an introduction to the problems of philosophy—in particular, to problems in ethics, metaphysics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of logic, language, and science. It takes a systematic rather than historical approach. Readings come from classical and contemporary sources, but emphasis is on examination and evaluation of proposed solutions to the problems.

This course is an introduction to the problems of philosophy—in particular, to problems in ethics, metaphysics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of logic, language, and science. It takes a systematic rather than historical approach. Readings come from classical and contemporary sources, but emphasis is on examination and evaluation of proposed solutions to the problems.

Queerness, Race, and Reproduction: Exploring the Politics of Childcare Through and Beyond Lee Edelman and José Muñoz
This open-access education resource explores the political, social, and theoretical issues surrounding children, childcare, and reproduction. It begins with a personal reflection on how my queer friends and I would speculate about the possibility of having children as undergraduate students. I observe that our queerness made these questions so salient to us as we recognized the unique challenges that we had as queer children. I then explore a tension within queer theory between scholars Lee Edelman, who characterizes childrearing as a necessarily heteronormative endeavor, and José Muñoz, who critiques Edelman’s argument for ignoring the fact that society does not value Black and brown children in the same way as it does white children. Despite Muñoz’s influential critique, I caution against assuming that critiques of the imperative to reproduce necessarily exclude racial analysis by drawing on the work of Black studies scholar Christina Sharpe, who calls attention to the ways that racist institutions have forced Black people to reproduce in certain contexts. By putting these scholars in conversation, the audio reflects on the wide-reaching practical and theoretical consequences of reproductive politics.

This seminar looks at key issues in the historical development and current state of modern American criminal justice, with an emphasis on its relationship to citizenship, nationhood, and race/ethnicity. We begin with a range of perspectives on the rise of what is often called “mass incarceration”: how did our current system of criminal punishment take shape, and what role did race play in that process? Part Two takes up a series of case studies, including racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, enforcement of the drug laws, and the regulation of police investigations. The third and final part of the seminar looks at national security policing: the development of a constitutional law governing the intersection of ethnicity, religion, and counter-terrorism, and the impact of counter-terrorism policy on domestic police practices.