Curriculum

Core Courses

Principles and Strategies of Community Change

In this course, students analyze principles and practices of community change and development. Using case studies, students relate community development approaches to conceptual models from diverse disciplines. Students explore professional practice principles and construct their personal framework for practicing community development.

Organizing for Community Change

Students examine the role of civil society in community planning efforts and study the comparative approach to planning theories and approaches. Course content focuses on change within communities and the roles of government, planners, and citizens in reacting to or shaping change. Students explore current issues concerning planning and dealing with change by considering controversial practices such as covenants and land trusts, and students look at community responses to change. Students also study structure and implications of power, connections between social relationships and economic activity, and coalition building.

Electives

Foundations of Community Development

This course is an introduction to the Community Development program. Students focus on online delivery methods, graduate level research and writing, and technology skills.

Community Analysis: Introduction to Methods

This course introduces research methods relevant to community development and gives attention to research ethics and inclusiveness. Course topics include how to formulate and begin research, how to collect data, and how conceptual frameworks are used to develop research questions and analyze data. The course emphasis is on strategies for reporting findings, applying findings in community action, and methods of evaluating the entire research process.

Community and Natural Resource Management

This course introduces the breadth of consideration involved in community resource management. Course content includes theoretical frameworks, methodological investigation, and applied practices to enhance community development professionals’ ability to work with their communities to plan, develop, and monitor the conservation and development of the natural resources with multiple functions.

Community and Regional Economic Policy and Analysis

This course introduces concepts of communities and regions, theories of economic growth, drivers of economic growth, economic bases of communities, sources of growth or decline in communities, roles of local government and institutions, and analytical tools. The course also explores strategies for local economic development.

Community Leadership and Capacity Building

In this course, students define leadership and apply it to work. Students achieve understanding of the potential link between leadership and community capacity, and they identify strategies for leadership development in communities.

Environmental Law

This course acquaints students with the fundamentals of state and federal pollution control law. Course content includes these major topics: air pollution control, water pollution control, toxic substances control, solid waste management and disposal, Superfund, wetlands, endangered species, land use regulation, environmental assessment, environmental law administration and enforcement, and global environmental law.

Evaluation of Organizations and Programs

This course is an introduction to philosophy, techniques, and methodologies of organizational and program evaluation. Topics covered in the course include overview of program evaluation and theory, techniques to evaluate program processes and performance, evaluation designs, assessing program efficiency, models to diagnose organizations, and methods to assess organizational performance.

Housing and Development Programs

In this course, students review and evaluate historical and current housing issues, production, and financial systems. This includes consideration of racial, ethnic, income, and gender issues as they relate to the role of housing developments and programs in community development.

Sustainable Communities

Content of this course links management of natural capital to other community-based actions around resource allocation and the impacts on quality of life. Students examine literature on community-based natural resource management and assess alternative ways of valuing natural capital. Students contrast theories of natural capital in communities and human society as the theories relate to community sustainability with regard to economic vitality, social well-being, and ecosystem health.

Economic Development and Strategies and Programs

The course covers the most widely used strategies and programs for economic development within an action planning process. Course content includes retention and expansion of business and industry, retail development and downtown revitalization, incubating new firm creation, industrial attraction, and tourism development. Students look at strategies and programs that use all forms of capital from all sources: private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Students study the organized efforts to plan, build, and manage each program.

Grantwriting

This is a basic grant development and management course that introduces students to the grant-getting process and provides an overview of what happens after a project is funded. The following topics are part of the course: researching funding sources, generating cutting edge ideas, assessing needs, planning a project, establishing credibility, formulating a sustainable budget, designing an evaluation plan, managing the funded project, and disseminating project results.

Immigrants & Communities

International migration has historically impacted rural and urban communities around the world. Taking a comparative approach, this course examines community-immigrant interaction and how that influences community development and immigrant inclusion. Students read and relate theories of immigrant and community change to case studies of immigrants and communities. Students gather primary data to assess the capacity of communities to include new international immigrants. The course also examines out-migration’s effects on community development in sending communities¿in terms of their loss of human capital¿the contribution of remittances. The course further examines the overall transnationalization of such communities.

Land Development Planning

In this course, students examine the process of land development in the United States and its impacts from the perspective of developers, financial institutions, community planners, and city administrators. The focus of the course is on understanding the land development process in meeting community goals and shaping land development to meet community expectations for the improvement of the community.

Elective in CD: Introduction to GIS

This course introduces students to geographic information systems (GIS). The course includes discussions of GIS hardware, software, data structures, data acquisition, data conversion, data presentation, analytical techniques, and implementation procedures. Laboratory emphasis is on practical applications and uses of GIS.

Elective in CD: International Development

International development can be defined as a broad concept encompassing human, social, and economic change on a national and global level. Despite this seemingly straightforward definition, the idea and practice of international development involves a myriad of systems, structures, and perspectives—and is often highly contested. In this course, students will learn more about the theories, actors, and evolution of international development, cooperation, and aid. This overview is accompanied by an analysis of current international development trends and critiques: Who defines and directs international development? How do power, privilege, culture, and worldview influence the process? This course is geared towards students who have an interest in exploring the systems, relations, and politics involved in community development on an international level.

Courses in the Area of Working with Native Communities

Introduction to Native Community Development

This is a base knowledge course for students currently working within or in partnership with Native communities or considering working in this area. Within the context of community development, students gain a basic understanding of the diversity of tribal structures and cultures and learn about the unique history and jurisdictional considerations of these nations. Topics explored in this course are working with tribes, federal and Indian relations, and governance and cultural issues. Students complete a holistic analysis and conceptual mapping of a tribe. This course is required before students may take other courses in the Working with Native Communities Track.

Building Native Community and Economic Capacity

This course focuses on non-western approaches to helping Native communities build their capacity. Focus is on a participatory, culture-centered, and strength-based approach to development.