Courses

Community Studies courses support enrollment for the freshman Sharpe Community Scholars Program, the Community Studies Minor, and upper-level students who want to integrate community-based research into academic classes.

Click here for the Spring 2013 Course Permission Form (pdf). 

CMST 100. The College and the Community.

Fall and Spring (1,1) Griffin
Corequisite: Must be taken along with a designated Sharpe freshman course.
This course introduces freshman Sharpe Scholars to Williamsburg, especially its history and prominent social issues that its citizens confront. It also introduces students to ethics, forms, and various challenges of civic participation, and provides them with the skills to carry out academically grounded, community‐based projects. Sharpe Scholars all take this course in both the fall and spring of the freshman years. Repeatable for credit.

CMST 250. Introduction to Community Studies.

Fall or Spring (4, 4) Staff
This course is an introductory community engaged learning seminar for Community Studies students and requires community service or research in the community, in addition to in‐class hours. Major topics for the course and community partnerships will vary by teaching professor.

CMST 350. Critical Engagement in Context.

Fall or Spring (4, 4) Staff
This course will survey a range of critical theories and perspectives about civic engagement, including but not limited to philosophies of citizenship, organizational structure and efficacy, social justice and inequality, social movements, and others. Students will be encouraged to use an interdisciplinary lens for understanding principles and practices of civic engagement in this course, delving more deeply in areas of faculty expertise but covering a range of theoretical and critical perspectives that "complicate" notions of identity, community, and effective engagement depending on social, economic, and global contexts of participation for example.

CMST 351. Methods in Community-Based Research.

Fall or Spring (4, 4) Staff
This course is intended to survey a variety of community-based participatory research methods, including but not limited to survey research, individual and focus group interviewing, ethnographic field methods, documentary activism, and others. Students will be guided through critical thinking about community issues and their involvement, while assessing the utility and relevance of research‐based responses to those issues in partnership with a community organization or agency.  

CMST 450. Topics in College and Community.

Fall or Spring (1-4) Staff
Topics courses taught under this number all provide students with significant and sustained community‐based research, or engaged learning experiences. Some topics may have co‐requisites.