"The SSLC ADVANTAGE"
You will have the opportunity to choose highly desireable courses that meet core requirements prior to registration. A section of Ethics 2050 (required for CLAS and option for SOE and VSB requirement is designed for SLC students)
Pre-requisites for upper-level themed Theology Courses are waived because of your service and 4th hour.
Courses approved for SSLC have a focus on issues relevant to the individuals or communities we serve.
Sample of courses available for pre-registration (first come first serve)
Ethics and Ethics for Honors students: What it means to do good, live well, love rightly. It is, above all, an examination of who we are, what we value, and how we come to share our lives with others.
Theology Ethics and Criminal Justice: What is true justice and to what extent does our criminal justice system implement it? This course engages Scripture, theology, and ethical theories of justice and punishment to examine the realities of criminal justice in America. This course will allow you access serve at the prison which requires permission from Instructor and Director of Service Learning.
Education and Social Justice: We will explore how the content, context, and structure of education and how is serves.
Nature of Genocide: Genocide is perhaps the darkest of all human endeavors. This course is an attempt to shine an analytical light onto this modern phenomenon by tracing the causes of genocide through their historical, sociological, political, neurological, colonial, and religious roots.
Liberation Theology: This course is Liberation Theology calls us to see how the poor are marginalized by society, describes how to work among them to advocate on their behalf, and most importantly to use what we have in order for the poor to find their power so they can advocate for themselves.
Race, Class, and Gender: What is oppression? Do our public policies and current legislation suggest that it is a crime to be poor? What is structural racism? Does one’s socio-economic location and embodied difference (whether gendered or raced) really matter, or are one’s life chances and opportunities merely a matter of “individual responsibility” and “hard-work”?
Politics of Whiteness: Examination of scholarship addressing the structure, function, & manifestations of "whiteness," primarily in U.S. culture, & its relationship to issues of diversity. Topics also include white supremacy, white identity, & the future of critical white studies.
History of Homelessness: The History of Homelessness will offer an examination of the diverse societal perceptions of homelessness and poverty, and how those perceptions have shifted over time. Students will also study changes in government policy and how changing policy has affected people experiencing homelessness.
Agitating for Justice: In movement-building work, to agitate is to hold individuals and institutions accountable to our highest values and noblest aspirations. How can we agitate Christian theologies, re-reading the Jesus tradition for communal liberation? How can Christian theologies agitate society, supporting public action for social and political change?
Growing into Justice through Agriculture
Stewardship of Creation: Sustainability and Environmental Justice: This course presents Catholic Social Teaching on the environment, centering on Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si, “On Care for our Common Home”.
Ethics 3010 001 Ethics of Political Action: This course seeks to explore and critically reflect on the diverse forms of political participating and civic engagement through which political change might be pursued. Introduces students to classic forms of political participating such as voting, constituent lobbying and town hall meetings. Students will, then, examine alternative forms of political participating by studying contemporary efforts around educational equity, agriculture labor, indigenous rights, and racial justice.
Communications
Inter-Group Relations This innovative program teaches students, faculty, and staff to create meaningful relationships and dialogue among people from different social, economic, racial, and ethnic groups. IGR is developed on the core belief that it is only through a process of sustained and meaningful dialogue that people will understand one another better through cultural misunderstandings and personal differences. Topics examined as part of IGR programming include gender, socioeconomic status, religion/faith, race, sexual orientation, and ability.
SSLC Students may take 2 IGR courses to fulfill requirement.