Center for Social Concerns

2009–2010 Course Development Grant Recipients

The following are the 2009–2010 Course Development Grant recipients, with descriptions of their courses taken from their proposals.

Faculty

“Change Agents in Schools” in Leadership in Catholic Schools IV

James M. Frabutt
Associate Professional Specialist, The Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, Alliance for Catholic Education
Anthony C. Holter
Assistant Professional Specialist, The Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, Alliance for Catholic Education

This one-credit graduate course focuses on the broad-based dissemination of participatory, practitioner-driven action research and building strategies to sustain data-based inquiry in Catholic schools. The course is open only to graduate students in the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program and is required for completion of the degree in Master of Arts in Educational Administration. Each student will have completed a year-long, community-based action research project focused on an issue or phenomenon that is of particular importance in their school. This course aims to challenge students to maintain their momentum as powerful agents for change through action research.

“Beyond the Islands: U.S. Latino Caribbean Literature and Culture”

Marisel Moreno-Anderson
Assistant Professor of Spanish, Romance Languages and Literatures

U.S. Latinos/as from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean have become a strong presence across the United States in the last century. This course examines literary works by Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, and Dominican-American authors. Readings from various disciplines such as history, sociology, and anthropology, along with two hours each week contributing with the local Hispanic community at Casa de Amistad, will help students understand the reasons behind the massive movements of peoples from the Hispanic Caribbean to the United States, as well as their current conditions in their new homeland. Issues of migration, trans-nationalism, biculturalism, poverty, gender, and racial and class discrimination will be central to our discussions. Knowledge of Spanish is required; class discussions and written work will be in Spanish. The course is cross-listed with Latino Studies and Latin American Studies.

Post-Doctoral Fellow

“India Education” Action Research Seminar

Tamo Chattopadhay
Post-Doctoral Teaching Scholar, Institute for Educational Initiatives

This course will provide a unique experiential learning and action research opportunity for students in partnership with one of India’s leading educators, Sister Cyril Mooney, Principal of Loreto Day School in Kolkata. The hallmark of Sister Cyril’s vision of social justice is the “Rainbow School” – an innovative education program whereby Loreto School’s students from fifth grade onwards are required to act as student-teachers for the underprivileged children (mostly street children, child laborers, and children of families in extreme poverty) who participate in non- formal education activities on the rooftop of the school building. The Rainbow model of school within a school has fundamentally challenged the class, religion, and caste divisions of the Indian society and has engaged young people across the social divide into empowering and mutually enriching teaching-learning experiences. Notre Dame students taking this course will conduct instructor-guided qualitative research studies of child poverty, adolescents’ social exclusion, and innovative educational interventions targeted at the root causes of poverty and marginalization in India’s increasingly prosperous and unequal society.