About the Course
“St. Louis: Hope in Action” is a collaborative exploration of hope and its impact on St. Louis. You will examine varied meanings of hope, reflect on how it has shaped you, and consider how it has shaped St. Louis’s natural and built landscapes. 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 enrolled in the course at UMSL gain expertise in historical thought while sharpening their professional skills of discussion and planning.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, you will:
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.
