Understanding Complex Systems

Catalog description

In the 21st century, our society faces many wicked problems like climate change, health disparities, refugee crises, and more. This course provides students with the tools to gain a deeper understanding of these challenges. This class helps student balance objective and subjective ways of knowing about the dynamics of social problems within complex systems. Students will use systems thinking to understand the key connections among elements of a social problem that form root causes in the systems structure and/or perpetuate an unjust equilibrium in society. By the end of the course, students will be able to use this understanding of how change happens in order to envision new possibilities and their role in systems transformation.