Community Leadership   

Podcasting Essentials: Learn the art of podcasting from conception to publication in this engaging and hands-on course. Discover the essentials of planning a podcast, mastering the use of equipment, editing techniques, and explore effective marketing strategies. Gain insights into sustaining audience engagement and monetization options. By the end of the course, you'll have the skills to create and promote your own successful podcast.

This Course is eligible for 1-credit of elective credit in the Master of Professional Studies in Community Leadership upon approval of the Graduate Program Director. To transfer credit upon completion of course contact GPD Sally Scott at sjscott@umbc.edu.

This course is not limited to UMBC students and is open to the general public.

Places and Placemaking is a class designed to support students in cultivating a strong sense of place and developing leadership skills and experience in the pedagogy and practice of placemaking. The class will meet weekly for 2.5hr sessions for 5 weeks (1 credit time equivalent), mixing synchronous seminar style instruction with outdoor in person sessions. Students will critically explore theoretical and applied perspectives about the key concept of “place” through seminar style discussions, written reflections, and individual projects. Human beings charge the world with meaning and power, and as culture scholar Clifford Geertz reminds us “No one lives in the world in general...Everybody lives in some confined and limited stretch of it—the world around here.” Taking that as our jumping off point for a hands-on skill-based class, the majority of the course will engage students in in-person local outings (and complementary virtual outings) that draw upon historical/cultural background narratives, current social dynamics, and community member perspectives to develop their own sense of place and gain an informed understanding of the ongoing local struggle for meaning and positive community change in our Baltimore area. After participating in initial instructor-designed and led place-based outings, students will then design, develop, and present their own place-based outing for the class. Students will leave the course with skills for developing a vibrant and nuanced sense of place, and leadership tools for facilitating that powerful sense of place and placemaking in others in their classrooms, communities, or workplaces.

This Course is eligible for 1-credit of elective credit in the Master of Professional Studies in Community Leadership upon approval of the Graduate Program Director. To transfer credit upon completion of course contact GPD Sally Scott at sjscott@umbc.edu.

This course is open to the general public, in addition to UMBC students, staff and faculty.

GRANT WRITING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: Grant Writing for Social Change is designed to build students’ skills to write and secure grant funding successfully for 501(C)3 organizations. The class will meet weekly for 2.5hr sessions for 5 weeks. It will require writing, editing, critical thinking, and meeting deadlines, and all students are welcome, regardless of their experience in this area. In this five session class, students will learn the fundamentals of grant proposal writing including: ethics in fundraising, finding and vetting funding opportunities, analyzing grant opportunities, usually referred to as Requests for Proposals (RFPs), organizing, writing and submitting compelling proposals, and the do's and don'ts of teaming with organizations. Throughout the class students will choose one project to develop throughout the five weeks we work together. The steps of this applied project will be to: identify, write, and submit a grant proposal for a real nonprofit organization. All assignments will be written exercises that will receive feedback from the instructor and contribute to the ultimate class goal of submitting an actual proposal by class end. For this course-long project, students can choose to either 1) select a real nonprofit organization to work with (needs to be an organization you are already connected with) choose the grant, meet with the organization, write a proposal with them, and actually submit the proposal to the funder or 2) select a grant opportunity and complete the entire process for a well known nonprofit without actually meeting with the organization or submitting it. Essentially you may choose to learn the entire process fully in “practice mode” without submittal and in-person meetings or in “working professional mode” with ending in the submission of a proposal. Please consider your availability, time commitments, and readiness to meet with working professionals before deciding. We’ll discuss more in class!

This Course is eligible for 1-credit of elective credit in the Master of Professional Studies in Community Leadership upon approval of the Graduate Program Director. To transfer credit upon completion of course contact GPD Sally Scott at sjscott@umbc.edu.

This course is open to the general public, in addition to UMBC students, staff and faculty.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: Community Organizing is a practice that supports community development, community cohesiveness, community leadership, and builds community capacity to define, embrace, and create culture and belonging; giving people agency over what they value. The practice of Community Organizing identifies community leadership, builds facilitation skills, planning skills, resource development, increases connections to people and places, and most importantly teaches how best to engage in public discourse so that many perspectives are heard, understood, and valued. The course will provide students with some practical skills for organizing, while also engaging in the framework of traditional organizing and cultural organizing.

This Course is eligible for 1-credit of elective credit in the Master of Professional Studies in Community Leadership upon approval of the Graduate Program Director. To transfer credit upon completion of course contact GPD Sally Scott at sjscott@umbc.edu.

This course is open to the general public, in addition to UMBC students, staff and faculty.