SJ4SA: A Social Justice Tour of San Antonio
Presentation Format
Poster
Intended Audience
All Audiences
Presentation Description
Social Justice for San Antonio (SJ4SA) will take 80 college students on a one day tour of social justice activism within Bexar County, TX, visiting multiple locations to interactively learn about current social justice issues and activism in this city. This tour is being developed and led as a collaboration between students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Arts activism, labor rights activism, education reform activism and immigrant rights activism are the four areas of focus that have been identified by students in the 2015 Introduction to Leadership Class (EDL 3003). Students from that course are working in service-learning teams, researching and designing each of the content blocks that will serve as the backbone of the SJ4SA experience. Each research team is receiving support from a faculty advisor to develop a 45-minute lesson plan and site visit to foster deeper understanding of their focus issue. A call for proposals has also been distributed campus-wide to solicit additional social justice- themed site visit ideas from other members of the UTSA community.
This program is being developed out of the Student Leadership Center (SLC) in partnership with several other UTSA offices, including the Center for Civic Engagement, Transportation Services, the Student Center for Community Engagement and Inclusion and the office of the Associate Provost for Diversity and Recruitment. Funding is being provided by the UTSA Family Fund. The SLC has run an annual 5-day Civil Rights and Social Justice bus tour since 2012, which visits landmarks of the historic black civil rights movement in Little Rock, Birmingham and Memphis. Students returning from that experience overwhelmingly expressed a need to learn more about contemporary issues and opportunities to get more involved in the San Antonio community.
SJ4SA was developed in response to students’ eager interest to engage in current local social justice inquiry and activism, culminating in the participation in the Cesar Chavez March for Justice in Spring of 2015. UTSA community members assembled on March 28th with university president Ricardo Romo and thousands of others form across the city in showing support for the memory of Chavez and the causes of social justice he advanced.
Building on the momentum of that local march, the SLC developed the plan to partner with the Introduction to Leadership Course for the initial research and planning. Student research teams are developing the SJ4SA itinerary to raise awareness and engagement in local social justice activism. Each component of the itinerary will include a presentation from a local activist, on-site activity(ies) and discussion questions. Attendees will complete a retrospective pre- & post- self-assessment of civic engagement learning using the AAC&U Value rubric for Civic Engagement.
Location
Embassy Suites Hotel
Start Date
4-13-2016 5:00 PM
End Date
4-13-2016 7:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Howard, Eliot and Halderman, Brian C., "SJ4SA: A Social Justice Tour of San Antonio" (2016). Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning 2016. 45.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gss/2016/2016/45
SJ4SA: A Social Justice Tour of San Antonio
Embassy Suites Hotel
Social Justice for San Antonio (SJ4SA) will take 80 college students on a one day tour of social justice activism within Bexar County, TX, visiting multiple locations to interactively learn about current social justice issues and activism in this city. This tour is being developed and led as a collaboration between students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Arts activism, labor rights activism, education reform activism and immigrant rights activism are the four areas of focus that have been identified by students in the 2015 Introduction to Leadership Class (EDL 3003). Students from that course are working in service-learning teams, researching and designing each of the content blocks that will serve as the backbone of the SJ4SA experience. Each research team is receiving support from a faculty advisor to develop a 45-minute lesson plan and site visit to foster deeper understanding of their focus issue. A call for proposals has also been distributed campus-wide to solicit additional social justice- themed site visit ideas from other members of the UTSA community.
This program is being developed out of the Student Leadership Center (SLC) in partnership with several other UTSA offices, including the Center for Civic Engagement, Transportation Services, the Student Center for Community Engagement and Inclusion and the office of the Associate Provost for Diversity and Recruitment. Funding is being provided by the UTSA Family Fund. The SLC has run an annual 5-day Civil Rights and Social Justice bus tour since 2012, which visits landmarks of the historic black civil rights movement in Little Rock, Birmingham and Memphis. Students returning from that experience overwhelmingly expressed a need to learn more about contemporary issues and opportunities to get more involved in the San Antonio community.
SJ4SA was developed in response to students’ eager interest to engage in current local social justice inquiry and activism, culminating in the participation in the Cesar Chavez March for Justice in Spring of 2015. UTSA community members assembled on March 28th with university president Ricardo Romo and thousands of others form across the city in showing support for the memory of Chavez and the causes of social justice he advanced.
Building on the momentum of that local march, the SLC developed the plan to partner with the Introduction to Leadership Course for the initial research and planning. Student research teams are developing the SJ4SA itinerary to raise awareness and engagement in local social justice activism. Each component of the itinerary will include a presentation from a local activist, on-site activity(ies) and discussion questions. Attendees will complete a retrospective pre- & post- self-assessment of civic engagement learning using the AAC&U Value rubric for Civic Engagement.
Program Abstract
Social Justice for San Antonio (SJ4SA) will take 80 college students on a one day tour of social justice activism within Bexar County, TX, visiting multiple locations to interactively learn about current social justice issues and activism in this city. This tour is being developed and led as a collaboration between students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas at San Antonio.