Engagements with the Common Good (ECG)
Students might find themselves meeting face-to-face with survivors of genocide, discussing immigration with a congressional representative, or debating trade policy with a coffee grower in Guatemala and a roaster in the U.S. who buys his beans.
Community service programs are common, but Justice Matters goes beyond service to give students the insights and skills to bring about meaningful change.
And those skills—how to identify a problem, examine its causes, consider possible solutions, and put the best solution into action—translate directly into the major and are vital for any career.
(4 credits, first year)
This writing-intensive course approaches the Common Good from a variety of perspectives, by exploring the individual and society.
It also examines the individual’s position in various communities: family, nation, race, class, gender, and other categories of identity.
During ECG 100, students will:
- Students will reflect upon and critique their disposition toward social justice, especially in light of the Mission of Cabrini University.
- Students will begin to analyze the complexities of their interactions with their communities.
- Students will inspect their connectedness to social groups beyond their immediate communities.
- Students will explore the foundations of civic literacy in relationship to their own belief system by analyzing terms and concepts like human dignity, right relationships, solidarity, human rights, environmental sustainability, concern for the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, and the common good.
Writing Literacy Learning Outcomes (With ECG 100):
- Students will use reading and writing to become more critical thinkers.
- Students will enlarge the scope of their rhetorical knowledge (i.e., to understand how writing genres shape communication).
- Students will develop a mastery of writing conventions.
- Students will demonstrate the importance of process (drafting, editing, and revision) to the development of successful texts.
- Students will develop the ability to assess effectively the quality of their own and other’s work.
- Students will improve their communicative capacities in light of our social justice curriculum.
Information Literacy Learning Outcomes (With ECG 100):
- Students will use and integrate Internet and Web technologies with software applications to evaluate information and solve problems.
(Analytical Reasoning and Critical Thinking/Creative Thinking/Adaptability/Quantitative Reasoning)
- Students will apply and evaluate appropriate information and search strategies using Internet-based technologies.
(Analytical Reasoning and Critical Thinking/Curiosity)
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of the social, ethical, security, and legal issues associated with the use of Internet-based digital information and technologies.
(Analytical Reasoning and Critical Thinking/Curiosity)
- Students will enhance their ability to communicate orally and electronically to peers and the general Internet community.
(Mediated Communication/Oral Presentation Skills)
(3 credits, sophomore year)
This experiential, writing-intensive course explores—through texts and community partnerships—how power, privilege, and difference affect solidarity, equality, and dignity; the essential elements of the Common Good.
Students expand their moral imaginations through their exploration of contemporary, historical, and cross-cultural causes of injustice.
During ECG 200, students will:
- both contribute to a community partnership and analyze dispositions towards concepts like inequality, violence, discrimination, poverty, social injustice, and environmental degradation
- increase their civic literacy by gaining an operational understanding of the challenges faced by community organizations
- articulate how and in what ways their disposition to the Mission of Cabrini University has changed since they took ECG 100
Moreover, students will demonstrate an evolving sense of why engagement grounded in concepts like dignity, solidarity, and equality help to break down barriers that are created using concepts like power, privilege, and difference.
- examine if and in which ways their engagement with community partners reflects their own belief system about the common good as well as terms and concepts like human dignity, right relationships, solidarity, human rights, environmental sustainability, concern for the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, and the common good
(3 credits, junior year)
This experiential, writing-intensive course helps students utilize their assets and the assets of community partners (local or global) in the pursuit of social justice:
- working with community partners
- contributing to research that will expand the capacity and quality of partner organizations
- gaining life-long tools for civic engagement
This research also may be used to advocate for systemic changes that will affect greater solidarity with local and global communities. Students will develop skills and strategies to advocate for policies with U.S. and international public and private decision makers.
During ECG 300, students will:
- analyze the degree to which the day-to-day work of community partners contributes to systemic change
- increase their civic literacy by gaining an understanding of various avenues to systemic change and a more just society
- engage systemic change by using community-based research, advocacy, or other models of critical engagement
- demonstrate—by articulating how their disposition to the Mission of Cabrini College has changed since they took ECG 100 and ECG 200—if and in which ways efforts towards a more inclusive and socially just worldview reflect their own beliefs and the lens of terms and concepts like human dignity, right relationships, solidarity, human rights, environmental sustainability, concern for the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, and the common good