XSPP-125 - Community Impact & Leadership Academy

Course Description

Two-Week Community Impact & Leadership Academy | Course Description

Combining skills-based education with hands-on experience and applied reflection, Georgetown’s Community Impact and Leadership Academy introduces you to the critical social justice issues that affect our communities and to exemplars of leaders guiding social change. Through highly structured learning, you will have the opportunity to learn from leaders of nonprofit and community-based organizations, local activists, global advocates, and your peers. We will dive deep into learning leadership as a process, rather than a position, using the Social Change Model of Leadership and its “7 Cs” as our guide.

Utilizing Marshall Ganz’s framework of storytelling, you will identify issues in your own community and propose plans of actions to respond to and transform real-world injustices. While doing so, you will learn and develop social justice leadership capacities for yourself to serve with teams and diverse communities. You will deepen your understanding of social justice, develop capacities for sustaining engagement, and become part of a learning community committed to personal growth through service, action, and reflection. After two weeks, you will have gained foundational knowledge and nurtured leadership capacities to grow as a changemaker and an advocate for a more just and humane world.

How You'll Benefit

• Develop awareness of key concepts related to community leadership and social justice

• Explore social injustices, root causes, impacts, and societal transformation

• Participate in dialogues and peer group discussions on relevant issues in our world

• Work with peers collaboratively within a team

• Learn from diverse community leaders about leadership in practice

• Attend presentations and interact with scholars and practitioners

• Work with Georgetown's Center for Social Justice faculty and staff

• Improve your presentation and communication skills

• Explore and grow into leadership capacities and skills

• Gain a firsthand look at careers in fields such as human rights, law, education, health, public service, and urban development

• Receive a Certificate of Participation upon successful completion

Program Format & Subject Areas

As a student in the Community Impact & Leadership Academy, you will spend your virtual time engaged in a combination of class sessions, workshops, training, group small reflections, and extracurricular activities. Throughout the program, you will have the opportunity to explore the following subject areas:

• Social justice and injustice

• Community-based organizations

• Social change model of leadership

• Community-engaged learning

• Agency and identity

• Inequality and inequity

• Power and privilege

• Social and conflict transformation