All Community Engaged Scholarships Courses

All courses here have been designated as “community engaged scholarship” following peer review based the Nashman Center’s six standards. Learn more about the course designation process.

Law School

School of Business

Milken School of Public Health

School of Medicine and Health Sciences

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

School of Media and Public Affairs

Graduate School of Education and Human Development

Law School

LAW 6626: Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic, Renée J. Gentry

In this course, students work as attorneys on behalf of clients to seek compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Students will learn interview techniques, legal research and writing skills, oral advocacy, and more. In the past, this clinic has received large compensations for their clients, and have engaged in many successful lobbying efforts.

LAW 6621: Small Business and Community Economic Development Clinic, Susan R. Jones

In this course, students, under the supervision of faculty members, will provide pro bono legal services to small businesses and other organizations. These services include a wide variety of tasks, such as drafting incorporation documents, reviewing leases, and preparing tax exemption applications. From this clinic, students will be able to help stimulate community economic development, as well as learn important professional skills while having the responsibility of working with a real client.

School of Business

BADM 1002: First Year Development, Faculty TBA

Community development is a key focus area for the First Year Development Program. During the spring semester, first-year business students will have the opportunity to engage in a community development project with a small group within their FYDP class.

Gain community engagement experience that may be integrated into your GWSB approved resume.
Demonstrate cultural competency and civility in interacting with diverse populations.
Describe how the intersecting social identities of oneself and others shape life experiences and access to resources and opportunities.
Identify the ways in which social identity, power and privilege vary across microcosms of the Washington DC Community

Milken School of Public Health

PUBH 6299: The Autism Experience: A Public Health Perspective, Dr. Sean Cleary

A public health perspective of the autism experience is explored through service learning and community participatory research methods engaging autistic young adults, their parents, researchers, clinicians and other service providers. The course covers the science, viewpoints, and experience of autism with a focus on young adults transitioning to adulthood. Collaboratively with community advocates, students will explore research relevant to the autistic community.

EXNS 3199: Experiences in Community Nutrition, Dr. Karina Lora

In this service-learning class students deliver nutrition education using prepared lesson plans based on USDA My Plate messages and healthy food tastings to preschool-aged children living in undeserved urban areas in Washington DC. Students will increase their cultural competence with the groups served, advocacy, education and service to the community, reflect on current events related to food and nutrition issues affecting underserved populations in the US, and learn on community/school-based programs.

PUBH 2117: Service Learning in Public Health, Dr. Sara Wilensky

This course is appropriate for public health and non-public health students alike. Students volunteer at public health-related service sites (secured by the student, with assistance from the professor) and connect their service experience to course work relating to serving vulnerable populations. This course uses a service learning model based on reflection and reciprocity.

School of Medicine and Health Sciences

GW Medical Students Community Service Learning, Dr. Lalit Narayan

The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences is committed to enriching medical students' education with meaningful, community-based learning experiences that promote health equity and advance the health of the community in which the University resides. In 2019, the school launched a pilot Academic Community Service Learning Program nested within the Community Urban Health Scholarly Concentration of the MD program.

Medical students who opt for this program will be longitudinally placed with one of four community based organizations: Bread For The City, DC Primary Care Association, Food and Friends and HIPS. They will perform a minimum of 4 hours of community service per month during non-classroom time and meet once a month for a lunch time learning session at the medical school. They will also receive mentoring support for short term and longitudinal projects that benefit the community based organization and the population it serves.

CTS 6285: Collaboration and Team Science in Practical Research, Dr. Gaetano Lotrecchiano

Health, technology, social, and environmental problems impacting our world are complex and we are increasingly able to address them through collaborative scientific pursuit. This type of scientific challenge necessitates cross-disciplinary engagement and a high level of collaboration, sometimes referred to as team science. This three-credit course offers foundational and practical guidance about how best to engage in collaboration and team science: to pursue complex science questions, to work effectively with team members, and produce high impact research outcomes that help meet society's needs.

HSCI 2110: Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Dr. Maranda Ward

In this 8 week online course, students will review basic public health concepts, especially those regarding prevention. Emphasis will be on achieving health equity through disease prevention and health promotion to advance U.S. community, population, and public health. Students will also study and propose how to engage a community of interest into health education or promotion program planning.

HSCI 2195: Applied Health Equity, Dr. Maranda Ward

This 15-week community-engaged course will introduce students to the historical health disparities and long-term health inequities faced by many low-income, Black residents in Washington, DC. This course is designed to prepare students to translate a range of health equity concepts and competencies into practice.

PT 8481: Interprofessional Community Practicum, Dr. Wentzell

Doctorate of Physical Therapy students select a community engaged partnership team to work on. Each team works directly with a community partner in the DC Metro community that addresses health in underserved communities in some form. The projects come from identified needs within the organization and the students help to meet those needs with the help of mentorship from faculty advisors. Community partners provide feedback on the project during and at the completion.

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

BME 4920W: Biomedical Engineering Capstone Project Lab, Dr. Lee

BME 4920W and 4925W are Biomedical Engineering's Capstone Design sequence. Students work in teams to solve problems in human health posed by clinicians and researchers who act as clients. Students work with their clients to define what their device must do and how well it must perform. They then create a solution, build and test a prototype, document their work, and present it to their client and the University community. GW Nashman Center Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Lee

BME 4925W: Biomedical Engineering Capstone Project Lab, Dr. Lee

Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

COMM 1041: Interpersonal Communication, Dr. Abbie Weiner

The purpose of this course is to provide students an opportunity to develop an understanding of the theories and principles of interpersonal communication simultaneous within a service-learning environment.

BISC 1007: Food, Nutrition and Service, Dr. Tara Scully
Course combines community-based lab activities, taking students out into the community to educate the public on food, nutritional concepts, and issues learned in the course. Teams design, collaborate and/or implement an activity with a community partner. The activities will help the community partner achieve an aim within their mission to provide services for their community. This experience transforms the objectives from being passive to being active.

BISC 1008: Understanding Organisms, Dr. Tara Scully
This course will combine community-based activities, which take you out into the community to educate them on ecological issues, agricultural problems related to other organisms, and other environmental issues that you will learn in the course. Teams will design, collaborate, and/or implement an activity with a community partner. The activities will help the community partner achieve an aim within their mission to provide services for their community. This experience will transform the objectives from being passive to being active. Saving the Bay, One Oyster at a Time with Dr. Tara Scully

GTCH 1001: Inquiry Approaches to Teaching, Alicia Bitler

Students who want to explore teaching careers become familiar with lesson plan development by writing, teaching, and observing lessons in an elementary school classroom. While students build and practice inquiry-based lesson design skills, they also become familiar with and practice classroom management in the elementary school setting. As a result of the Step 1 experiences, students are able to decide to continue exploring teaching as a career. Through this experience local teachers gain exposure to new pedagogical and innovative innovative inquiry based lessons, and local students engage in lessons which feature activity content to spark interest in lifelong learning and interest in STEM.

GTCH 1002: Lesson Based Design, Sujin Choi

Students who have an interest in a future in teaching learn about student-centered, project-based learning in this course through reading, discussing, observing, writing, and teaching lessons for students who attend school in the DC community. Through this experience local teachers gain exposure to new pedagogical and innovative inquiry-based lessons, and local students engage in lessons which feature activity before content to not only spark but sustain interest in lifelong learning and interest in STEM

GWTCH 3103: Project Based Learning, Dr. Sikorski

HIST 2020W: Washington DC History, Culture and Politics, Dr. Klemek

Course promotes civic engagement through varied activities, including service learning, archival research writing (as well as revising) interpretations of local urban history, and finally the presentation of a city’s past to the community that now inhabits it. Over the semester, students will undertake a collective historical documentation project focusing on a Washington neighborhood (Foggy Bottom) over time. They will utilize area historical collections and partner with community organizations to examine and write up the history of specific DC sites, and ultimately present their findings at public venues and/or online. The service component will thus be historical in nature and involve an engagement with community organizations both during the research as well as the delivery of the students' final written documentation.

HSSJ 1177: Organizing Social Justice and Human Services, Dr. Gretchen Van Der Veer

In this class, theory in community organizing and social justice is connected with an opportunity to explore how it is applied directly in the field. Methods used by non–profit organizations and campaigns to address issues in human services and social justice will be explored. This academic course will utilize the community for the study and analysis of contemporary issues in philanthropy toward social change, with a particular emphasis on how the issue of inequality affects empowerment. Through readings and group projects, students will participate in various aspects of community engaged learning while studying about social justice and social change makers.

The class meets weekly for two hours per week for the entire semester. Class contact hours are complemented by community-engaged learning in an appropriate placement selected by the student and supervised by the instructor and in conjunction with on-site human service professionals here in the Washington metropolitan area. You must select a site placement along the “spectrum of service” from direct service interacting with clients to indirect service in program development roles in non-profit agencies.

HSSJ 2170: Interpersonal Relationships, Dr. Sangeeta Prasad

HSSJ 2170 is a course on interpersonal relationships that uses a lens of social justice and critically analyzes how intersections of identity impact relationships. Students are required to complete a 30-hour practicum at community-based agencies that serve disenfranchised community members.

HSSJ 2172: Human Interactions in Adult Development, Dr. Sangeeta Prasad

In this course, student learn theories of human development from young adulthood to old age, including dominant psychosocial, cognitive, and physical competencies; motivational changes; coping styles; and normative and non-normative behaviors. Three hours per week of service learning in an appropriate agency setting provide an important context for learning to use theory in practice.

HSSJ 2200: Ethical Leadership

Students in this course create and implement projects in teams that include at least one community partner. These project teams create a living case-study for students to examine leadership dynamics. Students reflect on the theory, practices, and commitments of ethical leaders to enhance organizational effectiveness, engage diverse perspectives, clarify values and mission, and promote commitment to shared purposes.

HSSJ 3100W: Program Planning and Evaluation, Dr. Michelle Kelso

Program planning and evaluation activities are essential to organizations, governments and businesses. We will begin class by delving into evaluation, reviewing research methods and planning and implementing evaluation research. Through case studies and on-site field experiences, students will analyze processes by which organizational needs are assessed and programs planned.

HSSJ 3110W: Non-Profit and Organizational Management, Dr. Michelle Kelso

Students in this course are matched with a small local nonprofit as they explored issues related to the management of nonprofit organizations (organizational theory, program administration, staff development, fiscal operations, and effective community relations). Students work with their community partner to write a grant proposal to fund their programs, and research potential foundations and other sources of funding.

HSSJ 3152: Fact Field Fiction, Dr. Emily Morrison

This seminar intersects a significant internship experience with analysis of literature and a community-informed research project in the field of human services and social justice.

HSSJ 4195: Capstone Seminar in HSSJ, Dr. Michelle Kelso

This course is a culminating experience synthesizing the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes needed to address complex real-world issues in socially just ways; integration and reflection on the key theories, research, practices, issues, and policies addressed throughout the program. Students disperse grant funding to local human service organizations, including: establishing selection criteria, creating a Call for Proposals, identifying additional sources of funding, and selecting proposals for funding.

HSSJ 4198: The Citizen Leader, Dr. Wendy Wagner

Public discourse is teeming with advice about leadership, opinions about what citizenship is, and what service in the community should look like. Effectiveness as a citizen leader requires a more complex understanding of each of these constructs and their implications. In this course, we will explore several ways that leadership, citizenship, and service have been framed by scholars. Ultimately, you will arrive at your own informed and well-considered philosophy, which will guide you as a student leader at GW and a citizen-leader in the world. This is a community-engaged scholarship course and includes 30 hours of service with a local community organization addressing issues of poverty, affordable housing, food security, or youth development. This course is restricted to GW students in the Civic House Scholars Program.

SOCY 2105: Social Problems in America, Dr. Greg Squires

This class will examine the concept of social problems and many specific social problems that are widely recognized as features of American society. We will analyze the major theoretical explanations of critical social problems, the ideological framework in which those theories are rooted, and the policy implications of these perspectives. We will attempt to assess how and why different actors (e.g. public officials, corporate executives, college professors) define social problems & act on their competing perspectives. Hopefully, the class will assist students in shaping their personal responses to those problems affecting their lives and their communities.

SOCY 2189: Punishment and Reentry, Dr. Fran Buntman

Course description coming soon

SPAN 3040: Advanced Spanish Learning, Dolores Perillan

The Advanced Spanish Service Learning course is based on the strong tradition of community building in the Spanish speaking world. The community spirit of Spain and Latin America is brought to life in our midst through the magic and poetry of its people. We find this spirit in our local Latino community, we are enriched by its powerful array and diversity, and we are called to action to support it. Span 3040 students engage with various community partners, develop long-lasting relationships, and share their commitment, discoveries and enterprises in creative ways. Operación Impacto is an example, the extension to other Spanish students, invited as well to experience the impact of service. The GW Chávez~Huerta initiative to honor the legacy of social justice giants like César Chávez and Dolores Huerta is our long-lasting commitment and invitation to the GW community and beyond!

SPAN 4480: Studies in Latinx Cultural Production, Manuel Cuellar

What and who is Latinx? How do Latinx imaginaries shape and how are they shaped by the so called "American" experience? This course provides and overview of how Latinxs have created competing representations of their experience in contemporary cultural production within the United States. We will examine the factors that determine the overrepresentation or underrepresentation of certain Latinx groups.

SUST 3003 World on a Plate

Course description coming soon

SUST 3097-30: Community-Engaged Research to Promote Environmental, Justice Dr. DeSilva

Students will design and carry out research that engages and supports DC residents from marginalized or underserved communities. During this course, students will identify, research, and interpret intersections between environmental, technological, socioeconomic, and political problems and opportunities within communities in DC. In analyzing real world problems faced by DC residents, students will utilize peer-reviewed research, quantitative data sets, qualitative research methods (primarily interviews, observation, and document analysis), and interdisciplinary knowledge and skills gained through prior coursework. Students will work to create a shared understanding of environmental and climate justice environmental and social problems, study specific problems faced by DC residents, and then engage and interview community-based stakeholders. Students will collaborate with community members, the staff of partner organizations, and each other to identify and develop service projects or other solutions based on research and analysis. Projects are intended to create meaningful change for DC residents.

TRDA 3131W: Theatre of Social Change, Dr. Jodi Kanter

This course focuses on the efficacy of using the arts to address issues within our society. The students will examine produced works of representative 20th and 21st century playwrights, which address violence against women, gender inequality, homophobia, racism, trauma of war, Nativism, religious discrimination, and other injustices within our society. We will analyze the techniques used by the playwrights, and how-or whether-these techniques inspire audiences to effect change.

UNIV 1005: Civics in the Age of Populism, Dr. David Dagan De Picciotto

Populist movements are reshaping politics in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. This course explores various explanations for the populist wave and considers its implications for the future of liberal democracy, particularly in the United States. We will then examine precedents and explanations for the rise of populism in the U.S. Finally, we will ask what these findings imply for civic engagement. How can political participation be broadened and deepened in the current environment? What forms of political participation make liberal democracy more resilient, and what forms might undermine it? If there is “good” participation and “bad” participation, how can we get more of the former and less of the latter?

UW 1020: University Writing, Dr. Phyllis Ryder

Our city is a powerful place to learn how to read structures of power and mobilize for change. Washington, D.C. houses the world's most powerful political leaders and institutions. Yet, just a few miles from the National Mall, children rush home from school to avoid being shot. They try to finish their math problems while their empty stomachs ache. In this service-learning course, you will partner with DC community leaders who address social inequities in areas such housing, education, criminal justice, and the environment. In class, we will analyze local sites to learn how to research and write for community action: How do community leaders discover and name the systems that reproduce inequalities? How do they choose the right course of action? How do they mobilize people to respond? How can you contribute to this work? You will write for both academic and public audiences.

UW 1020: Environmental Justice in Washington, DC, Dr. Jacoby

As a community engaged scholarship course, this class combines academic learning about environmental justice with real-world experiences in environmental activism and earth stewardship. In the classroom, we will explore the environmental justice movement and the history of the environment in Washington DC. Is a clean environment a human right? How do environmental justice speakers act and sound differently from the traditional environmental movement? What kinds of writing and communication can motivate changes in the urban landscape? What types of environmental movements are happening around DC right now? How can we each help to address our city’s environmental challenges through service and action? Through placements with our community partners, you will explore these questions in lived contexts while helping to meet authentic needs of DC-area environmental organizations. This class is for you if you are interested in environmental debates, psychology, social change, or political activism; and if you want to connect with the local DC community, gain real professional experiences, and serve the environment. Like all UW courses, the assignments in this class will help you to develop key skills for writing in other university classes: assessing audience and genre expectations, selecting meaningful topics, analyzing texts closely, building arguments from scholarly research, telling compelling stories about people and data, and integrating evidence into your writing.

WLP 1110 Women and Leadership Symposium: Arts Focus, Dr. Mary Buckley
This theoretical and applied Women's Leadership Seminar will explore leadership practices across different communities and cultures through a speaker series, field trips, readings, and engaged reflection. Students will also have the opportunity to practice civic engagement and leadership skills while participating in a significant local community service project

WLP 1110 Women and Leadership Symposium: Politics and People Focus, Dr. Michelle Allendoerfer

This theoretical and applied Women's Leadership Seminar will explore leadership practices across different communities and cultures through a speaker series, field trips, readings, and engaged reflection. Students will also have the opportunity to practice civic engagement and leadership skills while participating in a significant local community service project.

WLP 1110 Women and Leadership Symposium: International Development Focus, Dr. Elisa Hovander

WLP 1110 Women and Leadership Symposium: Science, Health and Medicine Focus, Dr. Carly Jordan

WLP 1111 Women and Leadership Symposium, Dr. Mary Buckley

School of Media and Public Affairs

SMPA 3247 Documentary Production, Dr. Imani Cheers

In this course, students learn advanced techniques in writing, researching, producing, and editing long-form documentaries. Students partner with local community organizations and community leaders to create pieces that advocate, tell important stories, and educate the public about community assets, goals, and challenges.

SMPA 4180 Online Journalism Workshop, Dr. Imani Cheers

This course is an intensive, upper level multimedia production seminar focused on advocacy journalism. Topics will include environmental, social and economic justice as well as civil rights. Students will hone digital storytelling techniques and improve their multimedia skills with the goal of producing portfolio quality content

Over the 16-week semester students will explore the Washington DC metropolitan area and produce 4 multimedia packages that will be used to populate a website with original, engaging and compelling content.
Each package will focus on an element of multimedia storytelling including

Podcast segment (3-5 minutes)

Documentary profile (1-3 minutes)

News package (2-4 minutes)

Multimedia package (3-5 minutes)

PSIS 4191 Capstone Project and Senior Thesis, Dr. Sara Hooshangi

Over the 16-week semester students explore the Washington DC metropolitan area and produce 4 multimedia packages that are used to populate a website with original, engaging and compelling content (podcasts, documentary profiles, news, and multimedia packages). View the 2019 course website here.

Graduate School of Education and Human Development

CPED 6354 Professional Internship in Secondary Education, Dr. Maia Sheppard

Professional Internship in Secondary Education is open only to Secondary Education M.Ed. students. The secondary education students are pursing teaching licensure across a range of subject areas, including English language arts, ESL, foreign languages, math, social studies, and science.

The course runs three times throughout the students' program: summer, fall, spring. Each semester the course has different field-based experiences and a different purpose. Each semester requires a level of community-engaged fieldwork: the summer students are engaged with community-based organizations, then in the fall and the spring students are working in schools. Each semester the fieldwork is supported by a bi-weekly seminar.

CPED 6557 Second Language Acquisition, Dr. Lottie Baker

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) will help students understand the process of learning an additional language and connect language acquisition to teaching second and foreign/world languages.

Three essential questions about second language acquisition will be addressed:

· How do we learn additional languages?

· What factors contribute to variability in language learning?

· How do we become proficient in additional languages?

In exploring these questions, students will examine their own beliefs about second language acquisition in light of theory and research findings. Students will also connect theory and research to classroom instruction for learners of English and/or foreign language.