Programs

Climate Justice Leaders Initiative takes interdisciplinary approach to tackle multifaceted climate crisis

Christopher Clark — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 21:37:39 +0000

Climate Justice Leaders Initiative takes interdisciplinary approach to tackle multifaceted climate crisis

Author: Strategic Marketing and Communications

September 29, 2022

Climate Justice Leaders Initiative takes interdisciplinary approach to tackle multifaceted climate crisis

San Francisco State University launches its Climate Justice Leaders Initiative (CJLI) to better equip the University’s powerfully diverse student body to become climate justice leaders who center their work around equity. The overarching goal of the initiative is to build leaders who understand the inequities of climate change and who can advocate for and create strategies that include the communities most vulnerable to the climate crisis.

“Our campus is diverse, meaning many of our students have lived experiences of dealing with climate change inequities,” said Kai Burrus, co-director of the Climate HQ campus hub that promotes and supports climate-related activities across the University, including CJLI. “This initiative helps students draw from their experience and combine that with academic training to fight climate change on behalf of their communities across California and the world.”

CJLI is also interdisciplinary, bringing students and faculty together across different majors and academic colleges to address the climate crisis. The initiative is designed that way because climate change is a multifaceted, complex issue that requires people with different skills working together. Yet, people tend to work in siloes and those that have the skills critical to fighting climate change are often overlooked.

“We can’t depend exclusively on people in natural sciences and technology professions to address climate change. It’s an ‘everyone’ problem,” Burrus said. “We need to break those disciplinary barriers so that people across backgrounds can come together for one cause. Universities play a unique role in breaking down those siloes.”

Key CJLI programs that will roll out over the next five years include:

Climate Justice Education Certificate for pre-K-12 teaching: The 12-unit program will train aspiring teachers to understand and teach climate justice issues relevant to the communities they work with. It will also develop, test and share new approaches to climate justice education.
Expand the recently launched Interdisciplinary Certificate in Climate Change Causes, Impacts and Solutions: In Fall 2021, the University launched a certificate to give students a foundational understanding of the causes and effects of climate change along with mitigation and adaption solutions, with an emphasis on social justice. The University is now expanding the certificate to include a capstone experience so that students can get out of the classroom and apply what they learn toward real-life issues. One of those ways will be a newly developed service-learning class in which students become ambassadors who promote, communicate and take action on climate change within the campus and beyond.
Create a new Metro College Success Program advising pathway for climate change: Metro was developed to support students from historically marginalized backgrounds within their first two years of college. The program has proven to be a success as 64 percent of Metro students make it to their third year (compared to 55 percent of students who are not part of the Metro program and are also from historically marginalized backgrounds). To inspire more students from historically marginalized backgrounds to explore careers that address climate change, there will be a new advising pathway that steers Metro students to the Certificate in Climate Change Causes, Impacts and Solutions.
Expansion of course offerings: CJLI also creates a framework for expanding the number of interdisciplinary courses across the University that have climate justice as a common theme, setting up a campus-wide approach to climate justice.

CJLI’s launch will be supported by a generous grant from SF State Foundation Board Chair and alumna Neda Nobari.

“These initiatives will catalyze change throughout the Bay Area and beyond, resulting in more effective climate change solutions that are truly comprehensive and inclusive. By focusing on transformative changes that center equity, CJLI aligns with what Neda sees as SF State’s vital contribution to the defining challenge of our time,” Burrus explained.

Faculty consulted a panel in developing CJLI that included students like senior Sophia Benzoni, an Environmental Studies and English double major. Benzoni contributed input for the first climate certificate as well by collaborating with faculty to weigh the climate focus of different courses and decide which ones would be good candidates for the certificate requirements.

“Going to the student panel and hearing that professors from all kind of walks of life and different areas of the campus were also on board with the ideas that students have was really encouraging,” she said. “Because I also think that working with different people from the campus community is way more effective than trying to do something alone.”

Learn more about the Climate Justice Leaders Initiative on the Climate HQ website.

Explore LCA Majors!

Christopher Clark — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 23:00:41 +0000

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

11:00 a.m. - 01:00 p.m. PT

Free

César Chávez Student Center Plaza

lcastudentservices@sfsu.edu

Overview

Undeclared? Thinking about changing majors? Looking for a minor? Join us on October 19 and explore the 21 departments and schools of the College of Liberal & Creative Arts:

Anthropology
Art
Broadcast & Electronic Communication Arts
Cinema
Classics
Communication Studies
Comparative & World Literature
Creative Writing
Design
English Language and Literature
History
Humanities
International Relations
Jewish Studies
Journalism
Liberal Studies
Modern Languages & Literatures
Music
Philosophy
Political Science
Theatre & Dance
Women and Gender Studies

Meet faculty from our Liberal & Creative Arts programs. Learn about stimulating courses, exciting student groups, and diverse career opportunities. Treats will be served!

New LCA programs launching this fall

Christopher Clark — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 23:25:06 +0000

New LCA programs launching this fall

Author: LCA Communications

September 7, 2022

The College of Liberal & Creative Arts (LCA) provides opportunities for specialized focus, collaboration, interdisciplinary learning, and multidisciplinary pursuits in the creative arts, humanities, and social sciences. As the largest College at San Francisco State University, LCA offers a rich array of degrees, minors, and certificates from world-renowned Schools and Departments. These are the new LCA programs for 2022–23.

Degree Programs

Bachelor of Arts in Bilingual Spanish Journalism

The Bilingual Spanish Journalism degree prepares students to work in multiple markets that serve Latinx communities. It values and reinforces their cultural and language heritage by giving them tools and skills to report, investigate, produce and write news stories in Spanish and English for print, online and electronic media.

Minor In Video Game Studies

This interdisciplinary program examines the many ways that video games intersect with our lives. This program recognizes video games as a uniquely complex media that is encountered through many different modes of experience: as games, stories, challenges, escapes, vehicles of self-creation, platforms for interaction with others, marketed commodities, cultural representations, and so much more.

Certificate Programs

The Migration and Refugee Studies Certificate

The Migration and Refugee Studies (MRS) Certificate provides a foundational and interdisciplinary framework for understanding economic, political and environmental displacement of people within countries and across state borders. The goal of the certificate is to provide professionally relevant coursework about the global impact of migration and refugee movements as well as an understanding of immigrant and refugee integration.

Certificate in Modern Language Learning and Teaching

The Certificate in Modern Language Learning and Teaching offers a pathway to students from any undergraduate major at SF State to teaching World Languages (other than English) in the US to both second/foreign and heritage language learners in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures. While the certificate does not provide a California Teaching Credential, it prepares students for teaching or tutoring in private schools, Saturday Schools, and language institutes that do not require teaching credentials.

Certificate of Special Study in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

The Certificate in TESOL aims to serve SF State undergraduates who are interested in careers that serve English language learners, either adult learners in non-credit programs in the U.S. or learners across a variety of ages and levels overseas. (This program does not provide a California K-12 teaching credential.) The Certificate courses provide an introduction to the TESOL field and the pedagogical skills and knowledge needed for an entry-level position as an ESL teacher or instructional aide. The Certificate Program is designed to be completed in one or two years and provides students with the opportunity to earn up to 15 hours of hands-on classroom or tutoring experience.

Certificate in Pre-Law

The Certificate in Pre-Law, in combination with a baccalaureate degree in any major, provides valuable preparation for law school. Students completing the certificate acquire knowledge about major court cases and the laws surrounding them, and they enhance their skills related to oral and written communication, critical thinking, analytical analysis, and problem solving. The certificate concludes with a capstone experience in which students apply this knowledge and these skills to other legal challenges.