Taught By:
Anthony Siracusa
Assistant Professor of History and Community Engagement
St. John Fischer University
asiracusa@sjfc.edu
Read LinkedIn profile here.
Course Description:
This class, a required core class in the Fisher curriculum, prepares students to be active participants in a democracy by applying classroom knowledge to community collaborations. Students will connect and extend classroom knowledge and civic engagement that informs student participation in the community through planning and executing a community organizing campaign. These activities foster a student’s civic identity & commitment to the community by helping them understand and name a community or campus problem and develop collective action strategies to address this specific problem. Students will learn about the vibrant history of community organizing in Rochester by studying Frederick Douglass and the abolition movement, Susan B Anthony and the suffrage movement, and the work of FIGHT and Saul Alinsky during the civil rights movement. Students will draw on this historical knowledge, as well as information gained from contemporary activists who will speak to our class, to identify techniques, messaging, and strategies that they might use to build a contemporary campaign around a problem they collectively identify and attempt to address through a social action project in this course.
