Jason VanOra | Exploring Community in a First Semester General Psychology Class, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Human Services 

With sensitivity to students’ psychosocial identities, challenges, wisdom, and resiliencies, this course highlights the ways first semester students grapple with the meaning of community and identify themselves within various on-campus communities. Students conduct research on food justice at the KCC farm and gather information about various community and advocacy efforts on campus. They are asked to articulate how and why they might become involved in at least one of the community-based initiatives they have identified. The course also explores the ways students carry wisdom from other communities into the classroom, and “bring back” what they have learned in class to their communities of origin.