5A & 5B — Next Semester & Mainstreaming Social Action

Introduction

Chapter 1 — Social Action: An Overview

A & B —Social Action’s Role & US College Social Action

C & D — Benefits & Bring Into Class

E — Overcoming Challenges

Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class

A & B — Course vs Co-Curricular & Prerequisites 

C — Creating a Social Action Syllabus

D & E — Teaching Style & Norms

F — The Students

G — Building Allies

H & I — Role of Place & Each Semester v Every Year

J — Maintaining Momentum

Chapter 3 — Launching Student Campaigns

A — On Your Mark

B — Students Choose Their Issue

C — Group Dynamics, part 1

D — Change Theory

E — Building Power

F — Campus Tour

G — Research

H — Group Dynamics, part 2

I — Strategy & Tactics

J — Campaign Kickoff

Chapter 4 — Planning, Implementation, & Evaluation

A — Campaign Plan & Timeline B & C — Implementation & Execution D — Campaign Evaluation E — Finals: Binder & Presentation

Chapter 5 — Where Do We Go From Here?

A & B — Next Semester & Mainstreaming TSA C & D — Internships & Pipeline to Jobs E — Status of Current Campaigns

CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action

• Chapter 5A—Next Semester (p. 137-138)
• Chapter 5B—Mainstreaming Social Action (p. 138-139)

Next Semester

Our long-term goal in mainstreaming the teaching of social action is for every campus to have  a social action course taught every semester. The reason for this is simple: the student campaigns are usually not won in a single semester. As described in the Issue Development section, we encourage faculty to arrange to have these prior student campaigns presented as options for the next class of social action students to consider, whether it you, or another faculty on campus. In Scott’s class, it was not uncommon for some campaigns continued semester after semester for two, three, or even more years. Occasionally, a campaign would be dormant for a semester or two before being chosen by a new group of students.

Please invite colleagues from your campus to attend an upcoming Institute.  It is important we get more faculty trained on your campus on how to teach social action so the student campaigns that get started in your class can continue the following semester, and don't die at the end of your class. Also, if you know colleagues at other campuses who might be interested, please invite them to apply to an Institute.

Questions

1. Can your social action class be taught every semester? Can you ask your chair?
2. If not, who else might you get to teach a class using social action so that the campaigns have institutional support to thrive and develop?

Mainstreaming TSA

Our goal is to mainstream the teaching of social action so that every college campus is training the next generation of engaged democratic citizens by offering at least one course where students are learning-by-doing social action. The vision is that if social action is mainstreamed in higher education, our citizens and residents will be able to do democracy more effectively, while helping to preserve it at the same time.

The plan to mainstream TSA is both regional and by discipline. When TSA does an Institute in a state or nation, we contact faculty at all of the regional colleges might be interested in teaching social action. In this way, faculty will be able to contact each other BEFORE the class starts to discuss how their students might work together on a regional campaign.

TSA has created below map that shows all of the social action courses to be taught in Fall '26 in the USA and Canada. Hover over a dot, and the name of the faculty member, course title, and campus will appear. TSA hopes that faculty will use this map to discuss with regional faculty how their students can work together on an issue, and also to provide support to one another.

The below map shows all of the social action courses to be taught in Fall '26 in Germany. Hover over a dot, and the name of the faculty member, course title, and campus will appear.

TSA is also working to mainstream TSA by organizing by discipline. Currently, there are Social Work and Environmental Studies faculty are working to promote TSA in their fields. If interested in these groups, and you are a social worker, contact Dr. Sasha Klein at MSU: kleinsa@msu.edu; if you are an Environmental Scientist, contact Dr. Ellen Reese at U.C. Riverside at ellenr@ucr.edu. These two groups will be presenting at their discipline conferences, and will be reaching out in other ways to faculty in their fields.

More disciplines will follow! If interested in starting up a faculty group focused on mainstreaming TSA in your field, contact Scott at Scott@teachingsocialaction.org

Questions

Continue to Ch. 5C & 5D — Internships & Pipeline to Jobs