SRX (Social Responsibility Praxis) Courses

Social Responsibility Praxis

The Community Engagement Center supports students completing Social Responsibility Praxis courses that are part of Pitzer’s five core values and a graduation requirement.

“At Pitzer, students spend four years examining the ethical implications of knowledge and individual responsibility in making the world better. They learn to evaluate the impact of individual and collective actions manifested in social and political policies.”- https://www.pitzer.edu/about/mission-and-values/

What are SRX or Social Responsibility Praxis courses?

Social Responsibility Praxis courses includes a 40+ hour community engagement component with a community partner designated by your faculty member. Your faculty and the CEC can connect you to local organizations.

SPRING 2024

AFRI 120 PZ-01- B(L)ack to Nature: Poetry & Theory with Laura Harris
B(L)ack to Nature: Poetry & Theory This course introduces students to poetic forms in relation to the subject of nature in 20thC African American poetry. Through the study of authors such as Lucille Clifton, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, June Jordan, and Claudia Rankine students explore formal aesthetic strategies of and practice writing free verse, vignette, haiku, choreopoem, blues, and spoken word. Through readings and research in Black feminist geography studies students learn the critical contexts of and develop an aesthetic understanding in relation to the representational politics of nature and gender in African American poetic expression.

ART 030 PZ-01/02- Sustainable Sculpture with Sarah Gilbert
Sustainable Sculpture: Crafting Care, Curiosity, and Community This course emphasizes the creative and ethical use of found materials, including anything from carving a broken bookshelf left curbside, to scavenging and replanting seeds from food scraps. How can attentive attunement with our material surroundings shift how we consider site-specificity, or community audience in this distinctive moment? No specialized tools, supplies, or facilities are required, and students are not responsible for any fees or purchases. Twice weekly long block meetings focus on hands-on material experimentation and community engagement, supported by short lectures, readings, and discussions for context. All levels welcome!

ART 127 PZ-01- Sculpture Practicum with Sarah Gilbert
This introductory sculpture course emphasizes craft through repetitive skill building, following a traditional apprenticeship model. Working individually and in small teams, students will have the opportunity to design and build several projects, learning practical skills they can use throughout their time in college and beyond. Assignments will cover technical layout and drafting, as well as design strategies for working in three dimensions. Creative problem-solving skills for efficient and sustainable design, as well as material sourcing, will be emphasized throughout. Students will work in pairs to monitor the studio 6 hours per week during open hours, taking a leadership role in the sculpture program at Pitzer.

ASAM 085 PZ-01- Health Inequities with Kathleen Yep and Rachel VanSickle-Ward
Health Inequities: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This interdisciplinary course explores select issues in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community health from a socio-ecological perspective. Through participatory teaching strategies, we will explore contemporary issues affecting the health of underserved Southern California AAPIs through presentations from local physicians, policy makers, and community activists. Community project.

ASAM 089/ORST 089 PZ-01- Qi Gong & Embodied Learning with Kathleen Yep and Barbara Junisbai
Embodied Learning, Pedagogies of Belonging, and Qi Gong: Highlighting the possibility of social change through education, this course explores Roxana Ng�s framework of �embodied learning� as a potentially decolonizing pedagogical praxis. Through readings, dialogue, and practices, the class examines the hidden curriculum of different corporeal dualisms in classrooms, the impact of (dis)embodiment on educational outcomes, and the transformative possibility of embodied education for critical consciousness and social action. This class investigates qi gong as an epistemological framework and an embodied practice related to liberatory pedagogies. Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, qi gong involves breathing, awareness, and movement and centers interconnectedness as the basis for its knowledge system. Combining discussion of readings and experiential practice, we will engage in a community-engaged project that includes relational mindfulness, qi gong, and other contemplative practices.

ASAM 130 PZ-01- Science, Tech, Asian America with Todd Honma
This course explores the implications of Western science and technology on the Asian American experience. By interrogating how science has been defined in the “West” in relation to “non-Western” peoples, we will explore questions related to epistemology, racialization, migration, education, professionalization, and research, and the political stakes therein.

CASA 101 PZ-01- Critical Community Studies with Tessa Hicks Peterson
Utilizes Southern California as a case study to examine how global trends impact local issues. Working in a seminar format, students discuss how power shapes social and environmental problems, network and coalition building, and political movements. The class utilizes a “cluster bomb” approach to several topics, providing a theoretical and contextual framework for understanding broad-scale public policy failures. Special topics include environmental justice, immigration, homelessness, education, gangs, and the prison system. We are particularly interested in links between exclusion and structural violence, symbolic devises of Othering, the growth of a surveillance society, and movements toward more just urban landscape. Several fields experiences, including a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, expand on course themes. This course is part of CASA, a three credit program, which includes taking two courses simultaneously (CASA 101 & 105) and engaging in a 125-hour fieldwork fellowship with a local community organization. Classes and fellowship take place off campus, with transportation provided. For more information check out CASA Pitzer’s Program Page.

CASA 105 PZ-01- Research Methods for Community Engagement with TBD
Research for Community Change incorporates the study of diverse approaches of qualitative inquiry (i.e., ethnography, participatory action, project-based research) along with theoretical frameworks around community development and social change through research practicums with community change partnerships in Ontario. This class is centered around the intensive research internship and community immersion experience with grassroots organizations addressing a variety of issues in Ontario such as immigration, education, voter mobilization, environmental justice, and labor rights. Fully executed project-based and community-based action research projects by students will directly inform community development and policy reforms currently underway through multiple partnerships in Ontario. This course is part of CASA, a three credit program, which includes taking two courses simultaneously (CASA 101 & 105) and engaging in a 125-hour fieldwork fellowship with a local community organization. Classes and fellowship take place off campus, with transportation provided For more information check out CASA Pitzer’s Program Page.

CHLT 170 PZ-01- Black/Indigenous Central Americans with Suyapa Portillo Villeda
This course will explore the history and contemporary manifestations of race, ethnicity and racism in Central America, the isthmus region, and among the Central American Diaspora in the U.S. Centering on the constructs of mestizaje, racial-mixing myth of an indo-hispanic colonial past, suffused with racial hierarchies and anti-blackness that continue to afflict society. Contemporary transnational social movements of Black and Indigenous communities have begun to align with values and demands of The Movement for Black Lives in the US. The class will explore race and anti-blackness in the region and in the communities of the Diaspora throughout the 20th century.

ENGL 047 PZ-01- Longform Journalism Practicum with Melissa Chadburn
The Human Condition: A Longform Journalism Practicum This course explores the meaning of the literary term the ?human condition? and how this applies to a journalistic practice. What qualifies a piece of writing to be perceived as literary are these larger thematic concerns about human nature, human society, and how we live our lives. Long-form journalism is often concerned with the story of people?s lives over time. In this course students will learn the long-form journalistic practice of immersive, in-depth research that is essentially ethnographic. Through site visits to detention centers, hospice, the county morgue, and immigration detention centers, and through interviews with people nearing the end of their lives, people in captivity, people who bear witness to life?s various transitions, students will discuss and formulate their own ideas of human nature, are we naturally evil or good? Are we born with inherited traits, or are we a blank slate? What?s more important for human beings?law and order or freedom? Are we determined by nature or nurture or do we have free will? Are we naturally social beings or are we individuals first? Are we selfish or altruistic?

HIST 069/SOC 069 PZ-01- Belief and Non-belief with Andre Wakefield and Phil Zuckerman (Inside Out)
Belief and Non-belief in History and Society Drawing from insights and perspectives from the disciplines of both History and Sociology, this course will examine the birth and contested development of secularism in a Western context. We will seek to understand the various meanings of secularism over time, how secularism has intersected with other social phenomena?among them science, politics, gender, and race?and the various debates over secularism?s development and place in society. We begin in the 17th century, during the period of the scientific revolution, travel from there into the debates around evolution and Social Darwinism in the 19th century, and from there to the continuing debates around secularism?s complex relationship with race, gender and politics.

MS 090 PZ-01- Ecodocumentary with Ruti Talmor
In recent years, as the Anthropocene has become a central framework within the academy, the subfield of ecocinema has developed within media studies. This course will focus on ecodocumentary. Topics include environmental/manmade catastrophe, industrialization, anthropogenic climate change, interspecies relations, ecojustice, environmental racism, consumerism and waste. Readings will draw from a range of fields including ecocriticism and ecocinema studies. Supported by the Robert Redford Conservancy (RRC), this course will teach students the history, theory and production of ecodocumentary. By the end of the course, student teams will have collaborated with RRC partners in the Inland Empire to create short documentaries.

MS 194 PZ-01- Media Arts for Social Justice with Gina Lamb
This course is a combination of analysis, theory, and hands-on service-learning experience of how media arts mobilize, educate and empower communities. The course will examine working models of media-based community collaboration projects. Students will be linked with non-profit community collaborators (media arts centers, social service and youth service agencies) who are using media as a catalyst for action in their community. Working with site hosts/collaborators, students will work with undeserved populations to design, implement and produce unique media collaborations that provoke thought and action. Course Fee $150

ORST 180 PZ-01- Black People in the Inland Empire with Marilyn Grell-Brisk
Black People in the Inland Empire In this course, we trace contemporary demographic changes in the Black population of Southern California, particularly the shift from Los Angeles county to the Inland Empire. We examine how Black folx continue to create and organize vibrant communities in the face of red lining, white flight, gentrification, further economic marginalization and environmental racism.

PSYC 105 PZ-01- Child Development with Mita Banerjee (CLEARANCE REQUIRED)
Evidence pertaining to the development of the child is examined and discussed in relation to selected theoretical formulations. Facets of the child’s cognitive, social, emotional and personality development are included. Enrollment is limited.

PSYC 116 PZ-01- Risk and Resilience with Mita Banerjee (Inside Out)
This course will examine topics such as the risks posed to development by poverty, homelessness, parental mental health issues, domestic violence and abuse. We will also study ways to support resiliency in children in the face of these concerns. Students will be carrying out internships with related community agencies in Ontario that focus on children and families. Prerequisite: Psych 10

PSYC 140A PZ-01- Psychology of Mindfulness with Marcus Rodriguez (Inside Out)
This course introduces mindfulness and meditation in relation to psychological and physical health, by exploring (1) contemporary Western perspectives on traditional Buddhist teachings, (2) the theoretical and empirical research base, and (3) current clinical applications. Readings, comprised of original journal articles and book chapters, provide a survey of empirical research, including controlled trials and studies of basic mechanisms and processes through self-report, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods. Class sessions consist of a combination of lecture, short presentations by students, viewing of videos, and experiential learning through meditation practices in class and for homework assignments.

SOC 001X PZ-01/02- SRX: Introduction to Sociology with Jessica Kizer
Together we will learn how to think “sociologically” about the world. This means understanding that the cultures and social forces of our time influence both our lives and the lives of others. We will trek across a broad range of topics, including culture and socialization, deviance and normality, systems of privilege and oppression, social justice, and social change. This class counts towards the Social Responsibility Praxis requirement. Over the course of the semester, students spend 40 hours working in partnership with a community organization on a culminating course project.

SOC 170 PZ-01- Internship: Sociology of Health and Medicine with Alicia Bonaparte
Internship: Sociology of Health and Medicine Engaging in the healthcare sector (or other arenas which have a health-oriented focus) not only provides a lens as to the relationships between health consumers and health providers, but also provides students with experiential knowledge of various arenas within the U.S. healthcare systems. Over the semester, students work at least 4 hours a week in an internship of their interest but will not necessarily be providing actual treatment of patients. In addition, our class meets once a week in which we will discuss poignant readings related to the healthcare system that not only focus on the lives of health consumers/patients but also more critically examines the social relationships.

SPAN 100 PZ-01- Spanish in the Community with Ariana Alfaro-Porras
This course focuses on children of immigration. It explores the forces that shape their adaptation to a new country, their schooling and literacy process, their language use and sense of identity, the relation with family and the cultural processes that take place as they learn to become part of the new society. Readings from social science, literature, and contemporary discussions. Required weekly community service. Prerequisite: Spanish 44 or equivalent.

FALL 2023

ASAM 082 PZ-01- Racial Politics of Teaching with Kathleen Yep and Carmen Fought
This class examines how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling from sociological, linguistic and ethnic studies standpoints. Specifically, we will discuss how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling and ways teachers/educators may refine their pedagogies in relation to race and ethnicity. Students will do a research project.

ASAM 088 PZ-01- Thich Nhat Hanh with Kathleen Yep
The Social Theory of Thich Nhat Hanh This student-centered course is an introduction to Thích Nhất Hạnh as a social theorist regarding the earth and nonviolent social change. Through historical and contemporary examples, we will focus on creating collective empowerment amidst historical trauma. Through discussion, community engagement, and collaborative projects, students will learn concepts, will practice, and will apply interbeing and, engaged Buddhism to real world problems.

ASAM 135 PZ-01- Race Empire Filipinx America with Todd Honma
This class examines how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling from sociological, linguistic and ethnic studies standpoints. Specifically, we will discuss how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling and ways teachers/educators may refine their pedagogies in relation to race and ethnicity. Students will do a research project.

CHLT 072 CH-01- Intro to Central American Studies with Suyapa Portillo Villeda
Introduction to Central American Studies I: Histories and Cultures This interdisciplinary survey of history and culture of Central Americans in the United States examines social, political and economic forces resulting in Central American migration and settlement. The class explores the intersectionality of race, class, gender and sexuality; transnational connections, identity formation, and the concept of ‘Mestizaje’, for indigenous and Afrodescendant groups.

EA 153 PZ-01- Community Compost & Soil Health with Lynn Fang
Community Composting and Soil Health Within the global context of climate change and environmental justice, explore the ways in which community composting serves to alleviate and overcome burdens of climate justice. Examine the role of composting in waste management, soil health, community well-being, and regenerative food systems. Understand and engage in monitoring of soil health using tools such as simple soil and plant tests, and microscopy. Apply our understanding of these principles to service learning projects on campus and in the community, such as the Pitzer Student Garden, and with local organizations like Food Cycle Collective, Huerta del Valle, Buena Vista Community Garden, etc.

MS 194 PZ-01- Media Arts for Social Justice with Gina Lamb
This course is a combination of analysis, theory, and hands-on service-learning experience of how media arts mobilize, educate and empower communities. The course will examine working models of media-based community collaboraiton projects. Students will be linked with non-profit community collaborators (media arts centers, social service and youth service agencies) who are using media as a catalyst for action in their community. Working with site hosts/collaborators, students will work with undeserved populations to design, implement and produce unique media collaborations that provoke thought and action. Course Fee $150

ORST 060 PZ-01- Social Justice in Education with Tricia Morgan
This course will cover a brief overview of education history in the US, how educational systems and actors function to either inhibit, maintain, or grow systems of oppression, and tools for advancing social justice in education. These tools include power and asset mapping, moving from ally to accomplice, applying ethical paradigms in context, conducting an equity audit, understanding education as liberation, and the role of both policy and community care in education. Students will understand themselves as both actors and acted upon in educational settings through various social justice lenses, and be empowered to enact meaningful change toward equity within educational institutions.

PSYC 105 PZ-01- Child Development with Mita Banerjee
Evidence pertaining to the development of the child is examined and discussed in relation to selected theoretical formulations. Facets of the childs cognitive, social, emotional and personality development are included. Enrollment is limited.

SOC 001X PZ-01- SRX: Intro to Sociology with Jessica Kizer
Together we will learn how to think “sociologically” about the world. This means understanding that the cultures and social forces of our time influence both our lives and the lives of others. We will trek across a broad range of topics, including culture and socialization, deviance and normality, systems of privilege and oppression, social justice, and social change. This class counts towards the Social Responsibility Praxis requirement. Over the course of the semester, students spend 40 hours working in partnership with a community organization on a culminating course project.

SOC 035 PZ-01- Race and Ethnic Relations with Jessica Kizer
Together we will survey U.S. racial and ethnic dynamics from a sociological perspective and develop a structural understanding of racism. Moreover, we will develop a racial vocabulary to help us have more productive understandings and conversations about race and ethnicity.This class counts towards the Social Responsibility Praxis requirement. Over the course of the semester, students spend 40 hours working in partnership with a community organization on a culminating course project.

SPAN 100 PZ-01- Spanish in the Community with Paula Gutierrez
This course focuses on children of immigration. It explores the forces that shape their adaptation to a new country, their schooling and literacy process, their language use and sense of identity, the relation with family and the cultural processes that take place as they learn to become part of the new society. Readings from social science, literature, and contemporary discussions. Required weekly community service. Prerequisite: Spanish 44 or equivalent.

WRTI 100A/B PZ-01/02- Writing Center Theory & Praxis with Stephanie Liu-Rojas
“Good writers are born, not made” – so the common misconception goes. Yet research shows us writing is a social practice developed through regular practice, challenging new tasks, and constructive feedback. In this seminar we investigate theories from writing studies to examine our own diverse experiences in writing. What does it mean to call something “good” writing? What ideological and cultural assumptions underwrite definitions? What can scholars tell us about why so many of us struggle with the writing process? And what are some strategies we can use to help ourselves and others grow as writers? Aimed at students interested in cultivating the habits of effective writers, educators, this class is both theoretical and practical in its orientation.

Past Years

SRX Courses- 2022-2023 Academic Year