Candidacy Prep & Service Lrng Seminar

Catalog description

Competency Area: Dissertation Required ES PhD 3 who have completed all requirements for Phases 1 & 2 The Candidacy Preparation and Service Learning Seminar is designed for assisting students to critically review their learning domain projects, writing skills, and preparing for the Qualifying Exam and Dissertation Proposal phases of their doctoral work. It provides students with an opportunity to discuss the meaning of scholarship and service as they prepare for and engage in their service projects, and to examine their research interests in the context of the community setting. Students propose and develop their service learning goals and objectives, considering the moral and ethical dimensions of their work. In addition, the seminar poses questions regarding the theoretical and practical dimensions of service learning, with selected readings about the philosophy, sociology, and experience of service. Through the seminar, students engage with questions about claims to knowledge, the role of the expert, the relationship between scholarship and political action, the political context of environmental research, and issues of professional identity and public scholarship. What are the special problems encountered by the environmental researcher who is actively involved in community projects? What is the role of scholarship for the activist? How might research contribute to social change and environmental action?