UACT/ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK – ONE POSSIBLE WAY TO FULFILL YOUR COMCOL CULMINATING EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENT

APPLICATION DEADLINE APPROACHES!!!!!

WHAT: Grassroots Community Development (Anthro 397h) is an intensive four credit Honors course that explores how poor communities use local assets and local knowledge to combat poverty and political disenfranchisement. The course includes a SPRING BREAK trip to a rural community in VA. There we spend the week working side by side with a grassroots organization learning first hand how things work in the real world. The trip allows us to bring together the theory of the classroom with the practice of people engaged in ongoing struggles in the real world. The course is largely student directed and facilitated. There is not another course quite like this anywhere in the country and it has received rave reviews from nearly everyone who has taken the course in the past.

WHEN: The course meets 2:30-5:30 on Thursdays. There is also a mandatory weekend retreat during the fourth week of the term.

HOW: Admission is by application only. Applications are due NOV 24 and are available on our web site (see below) or at ComCol, the Office of Community Service Learning, The Anthropology Department, or the UACT office.

WHO: the course is open to ALL five college students regardless of major or class standing.

CULMINATING EXPERIENCE: Those who elect GRCD in their sophomore or junior years may count the course toward their culminating experience in Commonwealth College. In order to do this you must take one of two follow-up courses ( Community Development in Holyoke or Leadership and Activism) in your senior year. For more details on the CE requirement contact Professor Art Keene at keene@anthro.umass.edu.

MORE INFO: To view an application, FAQ, or stories about previous ASB’s as well as a look at the previous syllabus, visit our web site: <http://www.courses.umass.edu/anth397h/asb.html>.