ABCS 2003-2004

Fall 2003 - ABCS Courses

Undergraduate Courses

URBAN UNIVERSITY-COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS (GH)

AFAM 078/HIST 214/URBS 078 401 - Ira Harkavy & Lee Benson

Inspired by its founder, Ben Franklin, President Judith Rodin has defined Penn's distinctive mission as helping students develop their capacity to integrate theory and practice in humanistic, action-oriented, real-world problem-solving. Since the present Arts and Sciences undergraduate curriculum falls short in this regard, the seminar aims to synthesize numerous, unrelated, academically-based community service courses into an effectively integrated curriculum. As now envisioned, the new Penn curriculum developed by the seminar would have as a significant component, thematic clusters, i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply consumer, societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve universal strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those universal problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF ALCOHOL USE (DIST I: SOCIETY)

ANTH-154/HSOC-154 401 - Janet Chrzan

The morality, rights, and responsibilities of alcohol use are hotly debated in the United States. The rhetoric of appropriate use ranges from puritan-inspired abstinence campaigns, through health-promoting moderation arguments, to discourses legitimizing hedonism. The result of a lack of clear cultural paradigms for intoxicant use is clearly seen on college campuses, where movements for zero-tolerance alcohol bans coexist with social rituals that include binge drinking. This course will utilize medical anthropology theory to: 1) contextualize the phenomenon historically and cross-culturally; 2) encourage students to critically analyze existing paradigms which determine acceptable usage and treatment modalities; 3) use the University of Pennsylvania campus as a local case study/field site to investigate alcohol use. Students will move from theory to action through creation of a feasible proposal addressing alcohol-use education on Penn's campus, or will participate in the modification and implementation of existing proposals to promote rational and low-risk use of alcohol in the college community.

HEALTH IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

ANTH 312/URBS 312 - Francis Johnston

This course deals with the health status of the various communities and groups that make up our cities. The emphasis is upon cities in the USA, though we will also examine the international dimension, both in developed and lesser developed economies. In the course we will examine the complexities of agents responsible for illness and disease, factors that target particular groups, and how they interact within a human ecological framework. The three major domains of this framework are: biological, environmental, and sociocultural. We will utilize theory and methodology from a wide range of disciplines and traditions as we deepen our understanding of the problem and develop solutions to its alleviation.

PROCESSES OF PLACE MAKING: FOSTERING PUBLIC DESIGN

ARTH 290/URBS 349 - Shannon Mattern

Making a successful arts and culture corridor—the University’s vision for 40th Street—requires a delicate balance of commerce and complimentary culture, and a careful consideration of needs and wants on both sides of the street. Such an undertaking is more than a development project, more than planning or design; it’s a matter of place-making. And making places, as opposed to making buildings, is, some say, best conceived as a public process. This course will examine the nature of place, the qualities of public and representatives spaces—and the processes through which these places are negotiated and designed. We’ll learn about involving the public in place-making through participatory design, and about the challenges and limits of public involvement. Examination of a few case studies—including the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, and the design of a few civic and cultural institutions’ homes—will help us to learn from other projects’ successes and failures. Ultimately, we’ll apply these concepts as we develop proposals to present to the University for making the Rotunda, at 4012 Walnut Street, into a responsive, responsible, and engaging public place.

TUTORING IN SCHOOLS: THEORY&PRACTICE

EDUC 323/URBS 323 401 - Ellen Linky

The first few classes are devoted to learning about successful approaches for teaching biology in urban high schools. After this introduction, students begin a series of 11 weekly sessions of hands-on activities, which are first taught by the faculty to Penn students and then taught by the cooperative efforts of UCHS teachers and Penn faculty and students to University City High School Students.

URBAN ENVIRONMENT: WEST PHILADELPHIA (CWIC)

ENVS-404/HSOC-404 401 - Elaine Wright

Unbeknownst to most, lead poisoning is silently plaguing a great number of Philadelphia’s youth. Despite the fact that lead has been removed from many products such as paint and gasoline, thousands of Philadelphia children still have elevated blood-lead levels. According to the City Health Department, there are approximately 1400 homes with dangerous levels of lead paint chips and dust awaiting cleanup in the city. This earns Philadelphia the rank of second in the country as the city with the highest number of lead poisoned children.

Most children at risk are from low income families, living in poorly maintained homes built before the 1978 ban of lead based paint for residential use. In this course, Penn undergraduates aim to reach these children through community outreach education. Prior to conducting community outreach, students focus on the history and epidemiology of lead poisoning, and investigate pathways of exposure. They are additionally responsible for synthesizing creative and informative methods of community education. Penn students will collaborate with middle school and high school teachers in West Philadelphia to engage middle school children in exercises that apply environmental research relating to lead poisoning to their homes and neighborhoods.

URBAN ASTHMA EPIDEMIC (CWIC)

ENVS-408/HSOC-408 401 - Elaine Wright

Asthma as a pediatric chronic disease is undergoing a dramatic and unexplained increase. Recently, it has become the #1 cause of public school absenteeism and now accounts for a significant number of childhood deaths each year in the USA. Recognizing its severity and socioeconomic breadth, the Surgeon General of the United States has characterized childhood asthma as an epidemic. ENVS 408 focuses on the epidemiology of urban asthma, the debate over probable causes of the current asthma epidemic, and the nature and distribution of environmental factors that modern medicine recognizes as potential triggers of asthma episodes. Penn students will collaborate with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on a clinical research study entitled the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP). In a community outreach education effort, students will co-teach the environmental triggers class, which is one of the 5 class series offered at community centers in West Philadelphia by CHOP. Secondly, they will accompany CHOP staff to the homes of asthmatic children to educate families on mitigating environmental triggers in the home and conduct on-site ACLOTEST procedures for measuring dust mite feces. The CHOP study enables Penn students to apply their in-depth review of the urban asthma epidemic to real world situations.

THE BIG PICTURE: MURAL ART IN PHILADELPHIA

FNAR 222/URBS 222 - Jane Golden

The history and practice of the contemporary mural movement couples step-by-step analysis of the process of designing and painting a mural. In addition, students will learn to see mural art as a tool for social change. This course combines theory with practice. Students will design and paint a large outdoor mural in West Philadelphia in collaboration with Philadelphia high school students and community groups. The instructor, Jane Golden, is the founder and Director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

AFRICAN AMERICAN & LATINO ENGLISH (DIST II: HIST & TRAD)

LING-160/AFAM-160 401 - William Labov

An introduction to the use and structure of dialects of English used by the African American and Latino communities in the United States. It is an academically based service learning course. The field work component involves the study of the language and culture of everyday life and the application of this knowledge to programs for raising the reading levels of elementary school children.

CONCEPTS IN NURSING: PROMOTING HEALTHY LIFESTYLES I

NURS 104 001 - Katherine Hutchinson

This introductory clinical course deals with health promotion and disease prevention with healthy and at-risk individuals in the community. Students will address the theoretical component of the course in weekly seminars. The clinical component focuses on the communication techniques and basic clinical skills and technologies used to assess health status, promote health and prevent illness. Students then integrate theoretical concepts and clinical skills and apply them in a variety of community settings, focusing on health promotion and disease prevention with healthy and at-risk individuals.

THE POLITICS OF FOOD

PSCI 135/HSOC 135 401 - Mary Summers

This seminar will explore the many different politics that shape food production, marketing and consumption. Community service projects will involve opportunities to research and address problems in several different arenas: campus cafeterias, the West Philadelphia schools, anti-hunger campaigns, food workers' organizing efforts, and impact of food industry advertising on diets. A focus on case studies of leaders who are making a difference in the politics of food will include several guest speakers, who work on food related health, labor, farming, technology, and globalization issues.

GIS APPLICATIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE (Quantitative Data Analysis Req.)

URBS 230 - Amy Hillier

This course will introduce students to the principles behind Geographic Information Science and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the social sciences. Examples of GIS applications in social services, public health, criminology, real estate, environmental justice, education, history, and urban studies will be used to illustrate how GIS integrates, displays, and facilitates analysis of spatial data through maps and descriptive statistics. Students will learn to create data sets, through primary and secondary data collection, map their own data, and generate and test research hypotheses. The course will consist of a weekly lecture and a weekly lab session.

Graduate Courses

COMMUNITY ORAL HEALTH I

DENT 508 (full year course) - Judith Buchanan, Joan Gluch

Lectures, seminars, clinical sessions and community experiences are provided so that students gain the necessary knowledge and skill regarding the philosophy, modalities, rationale and evaluation of oral health promotion and disease prevention activities in community and public health. Course topics include personal wellness theory and practice; etiology and prevention of dental caries and periodontal diseases; and assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of community oral health programs.

PRACTICUM IN COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION I

DENT 712 (full year course) - Joan Gluch

Experiences in selected community settings provide students with the opportunity to develop and expand their skills in community oral health promotion. Students are scheduled in a local elementary and/ middle schools and participate in the oral health education, screening and referral program under the direct supervision of faculty members. In addition, students complete activities from a selected list of programs at local community agencies and/or schools. Students attend small group seminars to discuss their experiences and theoretical underpinnings of community oral health activities.

PRACTICUM IN COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION II

DENT 812 (full year course) - Peter Berthold

Experiences in alternate oral health care delivery settings provide students with the opportunity to develop and expand their skills in providing comprehensive oral health care in community based settings under the direct supervision of faculty members. Students are scheduled in the mobile dental vehicle, PENNSmiles, and are also scheduled at Community Volunteers in Medicine, a community based medical and dental treatment facility in West Chester, PA. Students attend small group seminars to discuss their experiences and theoretical underpinnings of community oral health activities.

 

 

 

Spring 2004 - ABCS Courses

Undergraduate Courses

CULTURE CLASH

ANTH 115 - Paula Sabloff

This course is designed to introduce students to the connection between anthropology, philosophy, and personal experience. Starting from the anthropological position that many of the social problems of our time are the result of conflict between or within cultures, we will read anthropological accounts-ethnographies of problems such as globalization, cultural survival, class and ethnic conflict. We will also read the political philosophers (from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu) quoted by the anthropologists. In this seminar, students will form their own social theory by integrating the readings with first-hand experience in the West Philadelphia community as they perform community service. In this ABCS course, they will turn their personal experience into an anthropology practicum, seeing social theory and anthropology operating "on the ground."

SEMINAR IN NUTRITION, HEALTH AND COMMUNITY SERVICE

ANTH 310/HSOC 310 - F. Barg

A seminar on the role of the anthropological perspective in the enhancement of the nutriture of urban communities through academically-based community service. Students will examine the theory and method of participatory action research through readings, discussion, and individual research projects. Action research will be based on partnerships with the Urban Nutrition Initiative and its work in local public schools.

EVALUATING SOCIAL PROGRAMS (Fulfills College Quant. Data Analysis Req.)

ANTH 318 - Francis Johnston

A course which focuses on the design and implementation of evaluations of social programs. Coverage will include the selection of indicators, controlling for confounding factors, the application of quantitative methods, and the utilization of quantitative and qualitative techniques. As part of the course, students will conduct an evaluation of a program designed to improve nutritional status among West Philadelphia children and youth.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION (DIST I: Society)

ANTH 416/AFAM 416/WSTD 416 - Peggy Sanday

Because of its four-field, holistic approach anthropology is uniquely equipped to address a wide range of public and community service issues such as health, teen pregnancy, sexuality, domestic violence, ebonics, race, repatriation, and cultural heritage. Because of its emphasis on participant observation and seeing things from "the other's" point of view, anthropological methods are helpful to all professionals working in the U.S. public sphere, be it government, law, education, or health fields. This course introduces the student to public service issues, from the perspective of selected Penn anthropology faculty. Lectures will be given by faculty representing the four fields. With the course coordinator, students will be encouraged to pursue several public interest issues of their choice. Undergraduate and graduate students from all departments and schools are encouraged to take the course.

ASIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY FIELD WORK

ASAM 205/URBS 207/HIST 223 - Ajay Nair

A course in which participants will engage in service projects that promotes community leadership development and community education. Penn students will partner with the nearby Wilson Elementary School and work closely with the Chinese Health Information Center and South Philadelphia High School for the service-learning component of the course.

LEARNING BIOLOGY BY TEACHING BIOLOGY

BIOL 150 - Ingrid Waldron

Most of this course is devoted to weekly hands-on biology activities which Penn students learn and then teach to biology students in a nearby public high school. Each week, Penn students learn the relevant biology background and techniques for a hands-on activity and then teach the hands-on activity to a small group of high school students. Topics for the hands-on activities include microbiology, genetics, and human physiology. The course begins with a few classes about successful approaches to teaching biology in urban high schools.

TEACHING PLATO’S REPUBLIC (BFS)

CLST 352 - Ralph Rosen

Plato's "Republic" begins as a casual conversation among Socrates and his friends about morality and justice, and ends up constructing an elaborate utopian city which would promote justice and happiness among all its citizens. It is no surprise that this monumental project has engaged readers so intensely since antiquity, for it manages to address so many of the perennial questions of human existence: what, for example, constitutes the "good life"? How do we balance the demands of the state and those of the individual? On what criteria can a society base its ethical system? Beyond such grandiose questions other very practical ones are discussed, such as what kinds of art should be allowed in the ideal city, whether women are fit for military service, or how children should be educated. This seminar sets out to accomplish two intersecting goals: the first is to allow students to savor the full text of the Republic, and its relation to other Platonic works, through close, detailed reading over an entire semester; second, it will approach Plato's work as a dynamic and vibrant pedagogical text that can inspire even young students to to reflect on the most urgent, if often puzzling, questions of life.

One of the three weekly meetings of the seminar will take place at University City High School (UCHS). We will work closely with a high school class and their teacher at UCHS, using Plato as a springboard for discovery and discussion. Such a format would surely please Socrates himself, who held that ongoing dialogue with others consitutes the truest philosophical enterprise.

RHETORIC AND THE COMMUNITY

CLST 353 (By permission only) - Jeremy McInerny

URBAN EDUCATION

EDUC 202/URBS 202 - R. Gunn

Through an examination of national and state policy formulation regarding public education, and an examination of issues, concepts and characteristics of urban public school systems, this course is intended to help address the question of whether urban public schools as presently constituted and conducted can bring about an equitable society.

STRATEGIES TO PREVENT ADOLESCENT TOBACCO ABUSE (CWiC and BFS)

ENVS 407/HSOC 407 - E. Wright

It is no secret that cigarette smoking is a major public health concern. The Centers for Disease Control report that more than 80% of current adult tobacco users started smoking before age 18. The National Youth Tobacco Survey indicated that 12.8% of middle school students and 34.8% of high school students in their study used some form of tobacco products. In ENVS 407, Penn undergraduates study the short and long term physiological repercussions of smoking, social influences and peer norms regarding tobacco use, the effectiveness of cessation programs, tobacco advocacy and the impact of the tobacco settlement. Penn students will then partner with middle school teachers in West Philadelphia to construct and implement lesson plans for 6th through 8th graders. The undergraduates will survey and evaluate middle school and Penn student body smoking usage. The chief objective of this course is to raise awareness of the middle school children to prevent addiction to tobacco smoke during adolescence. Collaboration with the middle schools gives the Penn students the opportunity to apply their analysis of the prevention of tobacco smoking to real world situations.

URBAN ASTHMA EPIDEMIC (BFS)

ENVS 408/HSOC 408 - Elaine Wright

Asthma as a pediatric chronic disease is undergoing a dramatic and unexplained increase. Recently, it has become the #1 cause of public school absenteeism and now accounts for a significant number of childhood deaths each year in the USA. Recognizing its severity and socioeconomic breadth, the Surgeon General of the United States has characterized childhood asthma as an epidemic. ENVS 408 focuses on the epidemiology of urban asthma, the debate over probable causes of the current asthma epidemic, and the nature and distribution of environmental factors that modern medicine recognizes as potential triggers of asthma episodes. Penn students will collaborate with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on a clinical research study entitled the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP). In a community outreach education effort, students will co-teach the environmental triggers class, which is one of the 5 class series offered at community centers in West Philadelphia by CHOP. Secondly, they will accompany CHOP staff to the homes of asthmatic children to educate families on mitigating environmental triggers in the home and conduct on-site ACLOTEST procedures for measuring dust mite feces. The CHOP study enables Penn students to apply their in-depth review of the urban asthma epidemic to real world situations.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF URBAN HOUSING (BFS)

ENVS/HSOC 409 - Elaine Wright

This course focuses specifically on the problems of building and renovating homes to minimize environmental health risks and the waste of natural resources and to optimize the impact on physical surroundings. Homes can be built and renovated to decrease environmental health risks. Evidence indicates that the air within homes is often more seriously polluted than the outdoor air, even in highly industrialized cities. The goal of the Housing course is to provide the students with the knowledge and the opportunity to apply their learning to real-world projects in the community that will contribute to improvement of the quality of life in West Philadelphia. The cornerstone of the Housing course is the application of science and problem- oriented research to community issues. Habitat for Humanity has agreed to partner with the Department of Earth and Environmental Science by involving the Housing students in their building projects. The students will be working with people in the community to jointly build and renovate homes that will contribute to the vitality of the neighborhoods. These building days will serve as a laboratory for the students to apply their learning and to explore research opportunities.

THE BIG PICTURE: MURAL ART IN PHILADELPHIA

FNAR 222/URBS 222 - Jane Golden

The history and practice of the contemporary mural movement couples step-by-step analysis of the process of designing and painting a mural. In addition, students will learn to see mural art as a tool for social change. This course combines theory with practice. Students will design and paint a large outdoor mural in West Philadelphia in collaboration with Philadelphia high school students and community groups. The instructor, Jane Golden, is the founder and Director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

URBAN UNIVERSITY-COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS (BFS)

HIST 214/AFAM 078/URBS 078 - L. Benson, I. Harkavy

Inspired by its founder, Ben Franklin, President Judith Rodin has defined Penn's distinctive mission as helping students develop their capacity to integrate theory and practice in humanistic, action-oriented, real-world problem-solving. Since the present Arts and Sciences undergraduate curriculum falls short in this regard, the seminar aims to synthesize numerous, unrelated, academically-based community service courses into an effectively integrated curriculum. As now envisioned, the new Penn curriculum developed by the seminar would have as a significant component, thematic clusters, i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply consumer, societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve universal strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those universal problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.

AMERICAN NATIONAL CHARACTER

HIST 443 - Michael Zuckerman

Who ARE the Americans, anyway? And are they still what they once were? The course will consider some classic and modern theories of American identity. It will address some allegedly quintessential expressions of this elusive, perhaps essential idea, in Puritanism, Jefferson, Franklin, and Whitman. And it will examine contemporary West Philadelphia to see if the old characterizations still apply in a new day (or ever did apply outside small-town American among affluent white males). Work in, and observation of, a local school will be an integral part of the course.

LEARNING MATH BY TEACHING MATH

MATH 123 - Robin Pemantle

This course allows Penn students to teach a series of hands-on activities to students in math classes at University City High School. The semester starts with an introduction to successful approaches for teaching math in urban high schools. The rest of the semester will be devoted to a series of weekly hands-on activities designed to teach fundamental aspects of geometry. The first class meeting of each week, Penn faculty teach Penn students the relevant mathematical background and techniques for a hands-on activity. During the second session of each week, Penn students will teach the hands-on activity to a small group of UCHS students. The Penn students will also have an opportunity to develop their own activity and to implement it with the UCHS students.

CONCEPTS IN NURSING II: PROMOTING HEALTHY BEHAVIORS

NURS 106 - Julie Fairman

This course focuses on health promotion and disease prevention across the health continuum for developmentally defined populations in a variety of community-based settings. Students will explore mechanisms of the assessment process focusing on individuals within the context of the family and community. Through the evaluation of theories of behavior and health, epidemiologic principles, and critical thinking skills (which include the nursing process), students will determine applicability of the theories in certain situations, and utilize data from various sources to develop health promotion and disease prevention strategies across populations. Development of communication skills and the professional role are essential and integral, and include understanding of the influence of gender, life span, history, and culture on the work of nurses and the care received by clients.

POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

PSCI 198/HSOC 193 - Mary Summers

This academically based community service seminar will explore the ideas and theories, alliances and opposition that have shaped policy and organizing efforts addressed to the problems associated with urban poverty in the United States. Students will evaluate contemporary policy debates and programs in the light of selected historical case studies and their own experience working with community groups, institutions, and federal programs in West Philadelphia. A focus on the role of leadership in politics, theory, institutions, and organizing efforts will include several guest speakers.

FACULTY STUDENT COLLABORATIVE SEMINAR IN CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT OF PENN UNDERGRADUATES (BFS)

PSCI 291 - Benson, Della Carpini, Gur, Harkavy, Harris, Hartley, Smith, Teune

This course will function as an idea generating, research-focused, seminar which uses Penn as a case study to assess the contributions universities and colleges now make to democratic education and democratic political development. It is an interdisciplinary seminar with participation of faculty from across the university including political science, history, communications, sociology and education. The seminar aims to develop good answers to three critically-important questions:

How should we define the complex concepts “democratic students” and “democratic citizens?”

As undergraduate education now is conducted, does four years at Penn significantly increase the inclination and ability of students to function as lifelong, responsible, active, effective, democratic citizens?

What changes in undergraduate education could Penn make to increase the positive impact it has on the democratic development of its students?

To help answer those questions, students will collaboratively design and conduct research experiments. The main written assignment will be an evaluation of research instruments collaboratively established and created by members of the seminar.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY(Quant. Data Analysis Req.)

PSYC 386 - C. Massey

This class will focus on observational methods of studying children, with attention to the entire scope of the research process. Readings and class discussion will be aimed at supporting the research projects which each student will do. Working individually or in groups, students will define a research question relevant to some issue in Developmental Psychology, develop an appropriate observational measure, use the measure to observe young children in a naturalistic setting, and analyze and interpret the findings.

COMPUTER ASSISTED DESIGN FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

ESE 391 - J. Keenan

Undergraduate Students in this course will be expected to undertake research in structural design and construction issues specific to the Marathon Small Learning Community at University City High School in appropriate CAD tools to utilize in this initiative, and in technology-based pedagogy. In addition to teaching CAD, Penn undergraduates will work with faculty and administrators to develop and implement a mentoring program with local high school students to promote a higher level of understanding of engineering, design, and computer technology, and to encourage these students to pursue a university education.

GENDER, POLICY, AND COMMUNITY SERVICE (DIST I: Society)

WSTD 259 - Dana Barron

This seminar integrates community service with academic analysis and research on gender and public policy. Each student will intern with an organization in the Philadelphia area that works on gender issues. Semester-long internships will be integrated with readings and assignments on topics related to gender and policy. Students will work in teams to design research projects in cooperation with local non-profit organizations. The work will contribute to the mission of the organization. Each student will also complete a research paper using data collected from the internship combined with academic research.

Graduate Courses

COMMUNITY PLANNING AND LOCAL INSTITUTIONS

CPLN 590/UDES 590 - Ira Harkavy

This course will explore the role of universities in enhancing the quality of life in American cities. We will employ Penn-West Philadelphia experiences as case studies. Spring 2003 semester students will focus on the 40th Street arts corridor. Students will be directly engaged in the analysis, planning and development of this newly developing section of West Philadelphia/University City.

COMMUNITY ORAL HEALTH I

DENT 508 (full year course) - Judith Buchanan, Joan Gluch

Lectures, seminars, clinical sessions and community experiences are provided so that students gain the necessary knowledge and skill regarding the philosophy, modalities, rationale and evaluation of oral health promotion and disease prevention activities in community and public health. Course topics include personal wellness theory and practice; etiology and prevention of dental caries and periodontal diseases; and assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of community oral health programs.

LOCAL & GLOBAL PUBLIC & COMMUNITY HEALTH

DENT 612 - Judith Buchanan

Lectures, seminars and community experiences provide students with foundation knowledge in general principles of public health and community health, with specific application to the following dental public health concepts: access to care, cost, quality of care and international health. Students complete community experiences that provide foundation experiences in developing and implementing community oral health promotion activities.

PRACTICUM IN COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION I

DENT 712 (full year course) - Joan Gluch, Mary Frances Cummings

Experiences in selected community settings provide students with the opportunity to develop and expand their skills in community oral health promotion. Students are scheduled in a local elementary and middle schools and participate in the oral health education, screening and referral program under the direct supervision of faculty members. In addition, students complete activities from a selected list of programs at local community agencies and/or schools. Students attend small group seminars to discuss their experiences and theoretical underpinnings of community oral health activities.

PRACTICUM IN COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION II

DENT 812 (full year course) - Dr. Peter Berthold, Jacquelyn Taylor-Powell

Experiences in alternate oral health care delivery settings provide students with the opportunity to develop and expand their skills in providing comprehensive oral health care in community based settings under the direct supervision of faculty members. Students are scheduled in the mobile dental vehicle, PENNSmiles, and are also scheduled at Community Volunteers in Medicine, a community based medical and dental treatment facility in West Chester, PA. Students attend small group seminars to discuss their experiences and theoretical underpinnings of community oral health activities.

A WORKSHOP ON URBAN INDICATORS OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, SOCIAL WELFARE AND ECONOMIC WELL-BEING

EDUC 591 - Rebecca Maynard, Francis Johnston

This course is intended as an applied policy analysis workshop focused on the development and application of indicators of the health, education, and welfare of urban populations and their neighborhoods. The course will operate as a field-based workshop that will define, plan, and undertake a significant project related to the development of urban indicators; monitoring the health, education, and welfare of urban neighborhoods; and/or the development and implementation of one or more policies in response to a particular set of indicators of local need. Topics will change each time the course is offered in response to community need, the interests and skills of the students in the workshop, and opportunities for sound and productive learning experiences.

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN EDUCATION

EDUC 619/URBS 619 - K. Schultz

This course will focus on the conditions for teaching and learning in urban public schools, current theories of pedagogy in urban education, and perspectives on urban reform efforts. We will begin with an overview of the historical, political, economic, legal and sociocultural factors that shape urban schools. Moving between macro-examinations of the conditions of urban schooling and close up studies of particular schools, we will look at contested terrains in which social issues such as inequality, discrimination and cultural pluralism are being debated and challenged.

URBAN POLICY: PAST AND PRESENT

Wendell E. Pritchett

This course will examine the history of federal, state and local policies towards urban areas (broadly defined) in the twentieth century, and will use this historical grounding to analyze current issues in urban policy. Among the topics we will examine are: the role of government in shaping housing development in cities and suburban areas, the application of zoning and other land use controls to urban areas, the impact of urban renewal and economic development policies on American cities, and the changing relationships between cities and suburbs. This course will operate as a seminar, and students will be encouraged to conduct research in a specific aspect of urban policy.