Community and Justice Studies (COMJ) investigates challenges facing communities, analyzes key methods of social action, develops ethical reasoning, and directly engages students in responsible engagement in our community.
Areas of emphasis
- Social Justice
- Community-Based
- Participatory Research/Social Action Research
- Public Policy
- Democratic Engagement
- Organizing
Students combine this with:
- Communications Arts
- Environmental Studies
- Psychology
- Education Studies
Community and Justice Studies offers students an intellectual framework for understanding social systems, structures, movements and how these shape society, especially in relationship to power and oppression.
The course of study has the following objectives:
- to provide students with the tools to develop deep civic knowledge, sophisticated civic skills, and life-long civic values
- to support the development of thoughtful and ethical democratic engagement
- to embed students’ experiences of engagement in a broader social, political, and economic context of place
- to equip students for complex thinking about social issues by providing them with theoretical and empirical tools for understanding communities and the dynamics of change within them
- to encourage students to examine and perhaps revise their beliefs about community life and its needs and assets, as well as responsibilities to one’s community