Community Engaged Learning & Research
Here's how you can connect your coursework and academic research to community-identified concerns to enrich your knowledge and inform action on social issues.
Course Based Community Engagement
USD offers a number of courses that are intentionally co-created with the community. These courses are designed to create meaningful opportunities to connect with community partners and engage together on a number of social justice efforts. Whether it's improving education, enhancing economic development, or promoting health care, these courses will help you serve as an active participant for positive social change. Starting in the Spring 2023 semester, courses with a community engagement component will receive a "C" designation and should be easy to identify when you enroll.
Changemaking Minor
Changemaking at USD provides students with a range of knowledge, perspectives, methodologies and skills that will equip them well to make positive social change and to be engaged, active members of their communities.
Students will discover that the most urgent challenges facing our communities today are ones that impact all of us and that we are all interconnected — with respect to challenges and to the ways we address them.
Featured Changemaking Course Offerings
Race, Religion, and Social Justice ETHN 360
This course examines the relationship between issues of social justice, race, and the role of religion (the sacred) in guiding us toward a more just and humane society.
Black and Womanist Theologies THRS 365
This course will explore Black and Womanist theologies in historical context, paying particular attention to the historical movements, foundational thinkers, and critical voices that have shaped and are reshaping Black and Womanist theologies.
EOSC 105 - Natural Disasters
This course will introduce students to the earth and the dynamic natural processes that impact humanity and life in general. As the human race continues to proliferate, man and nature are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Introduction to the Politics of Race and Ethnicity POLS 130
What is the role of race and ethnicity in U.S. politics? Are we post-racial yet? The course surveys the impact of race and ethnicity on social, economic and political issues in the United States. We will examine the political experience and engagement of Native Americans, Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and White Americans in both a historical and contemporary context. We will also investigate the potential for colorblindness as an approach to American politics.
Getting to Zero Waste GENG 494
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This course will explore all elements of the global waste problem, from recycling and reusing to reducing consumption and production to the practicalities of getting to zero waste. Case studies will be explored in different parts of the world and new approaches to the ecological paradigm of moving from waste as a problem to ‘waste as a resource.'
Sexualities SOCI 313
An analysis of the phenomenon of human sexuality from a sociological perspective. An understanding of the diversity of sexuality, development of sex roles, sexual orientation, historical and cross-cultural views of sexuality, and trends in sexual behavior and attitudes. Topics will include such issues as sexual identity, socialization, social change, and social movements.
