About the Course
“St. Louis: Hope in Action” explores different conceptions of hope and how hope has shaped St. Louis History. Students will engage with academic perspectives on hope from varying disciplines. Additionally, they will identify intrapersonal conceptions of hope and share them with classmates to define what hope means to their group. Learning will go beyond the traditional classroom setting through archive visits, field trips to historically significant locations, and engagement with community partners who channel hope towards action.
Approximately 80% of UMSL students commute to school, creating a unique classroom environment. Students engage with their academic community as well as their workplace, families, and extracurricular activities. In “St. Louis: Hope in Action”, students will bring their personal experiences to the table to enhance their learning. Students will gain expertise in historical thought while sharpening their professional skills of discussion and planning. Additionally, the history department’s existing community engagement projects provide a starting point for students to explore what community engagement looks like and how they can best implement it into historical learning.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1) develop interdisciplinary understanding of research on hope and its role in human flourishing
2) practice historical thinking skills such as change over time, causality, context, complexity, contingency to differentiate past and present
3) develop a historical framework for analysis of the region’s interconnected social, political, and economic systems, and natural and built environments
4) recognize the impact of history, place, and systems on identity and experience
5) identify personal, cultural, and community resources for hope and apply them to an action plan that invites a wider public to think, discuss, create, and imagine positive steps toward social change.
