Home > Faculty and Research > Course Development Grants > 2012-2013 Course Development Grant Winners
The Rhetoric of Resilience: Sustainable Farming in
the Community
Elizabeth Capdevielle
Assistant Teaching Professor
University Writing Program
Consuming locally sourced food strengthens a community’s resilience and its ability to rely on its own resources and thrive in
a changing world. But if local food is to become the norm, more consumers will have to buy it—and more will also have to pitch in and grow it. What can persuade members of our community to do these things? The aim of this sustainability-focused writing and rhetoric course is to give students hands-on experience not only with the labor of growing food, but also with the arguments about food and farming that motivate our decisions. Students will put their rhetoric and writing skills to work in the community, helping with grant writing, marketing, and instructional materials that extend the urban community’s access to sustainably grown food, while helping to keep ethical farming economically sustainable for local growers.
Energy, Social Life, and Civic Engagement
Daniel Escher
Ph.D. Candidate
Sociology
Energy extraction and production affect social life in myriad ways, from geopolitical arrangements to labor inequality to pollution—but social life can alter and resist those effects. This course will examine this bi-directional relationship by focusing on two prominent sources of energy in
the United States, coal and natural gas. Importantly, the futures of these energy sources are not foreclosed, and students
in the course will have the opportunity
to affect their extent and impact through community-based learning and research.
As part of community learning, students will participate in an immersion trip
to West Virginia and Kentucky. This experience, in addition to the conceptual tools gained during the rest of the course, will be the basis of collaborative final projects that will employ original research to assist advocacy organizations to better understand their local issues and energy’s social effects. Throughout the course, students will learn ways academic research can alter energy production so that it creates just living conditions, respects human life, and minimizes environmental concerns that disproportionately affect the economically poor.
Accounting and Reporting for Governmental Entities,
Nongovernmental and Not-for-Profit Organizations
Kenneth W. Milani
Professor Accountancy
Mendoza College of Business
This course will be offered for the first time to seniors majoring in Accountancy following a model used in the Master of Science in Accountancy Program. Students enrolled in the course will:
