Courses & Offerings

Dr. Barbara Bruce

Fall 2023 and/or Winter 2024

SASAH’s experiential-learning course asks students to work individually or in groups for an organization (either local or international) committed to building a resilient community through arts and culture or with an eye to understanding the impact of arts and culture on other fields of knowledge and practice. A key focus of the course is personal resilience in relation to the resilience of both natural systems or environments and social organizations. Specifically, we will explore and implement the idea and experience of cultural resilience as the inspiration for creativity, change, and renewal across systems, environments, and organizations. Students will work both individually and/or in small groups on a set of assigned tasks for a community organization decided in advance between the organization, Western’s Student Experience CEL team, and the SASAH Experiential Learning Coordinator. Together they will establish the overarching proposal and goals for the placement, with an eye toward a final outcome of benefit to the broader community.

Dr. Benjamin Hill

Fall 2022

The course aims to present certain philosophical reflections on food and give the students a better understanding of the food system as well as its vast implications for us individually and the world at large. Topics that will be covered in the course include the industrialization of food production and processing, the corporatization of our food system in the hands of Big Ag and Big Food, the marginalization of family farmers and rural communities, environmental degradation, gender and gendered exploitation built into the structure of the food system, human rights and the exploitation of farm labour and farming communities, modern slavery and human trafficking, food justice, hunger and poverty, and climate change and agriculture.

Previous projects include: Helping to facilitate workshops for families in our community on how to cook healthy and nutritious meals with limited financial resources; Doing research on the use of food stamps in our community to determine whether this is an effective solution to food security; Developing tools for a county food hub that will outline the benefits of purchasing local foods and supporting local food products.

Dr. Ana Garcia-Allen

Full year 2023-2024

The CEL option includes a trip to Holguin, Cuba, to collaborate with this community during Reading Week in February. 

Dr. Ana Garcia-Allen

Full year 2023-2024

Combining grammar and communication, this course prepares students to discuss, read and write about a variety of topics and to explore ideas about Hispanic culture in relation to their own. The CEL option includes a trip to Holguin, Cuba, to collaborate with this community during Reading Week in February. 

Previous projects include: Engaging in one-to-one partnerships with Spanish newcomers in a 50/50 conversation program allowed Spanish newcomers to improve English while the Spanish students could apply language learning to real situations; working within the daily operations of a community program that serves Spanish newcomers; helping to facilitate a community art therapy program targeted towards Spanish newcomer children. 

Dr. Ana Garcia-Allen

Full year 2023-2024

Further development of oral and written skills with systematic acquisition of vocabulary and selective grammar review. Based on a multimedia and communicative approach, this course aims to develop fluency. Discussions, readings, and writing will focus on the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries. Includes an optional Community Engaged Learning component. Community placements that seek to place students in one-to-one mentorship partnerships or activities of organizations serving the Spanish community help bring the language learning to life. The CEL option includes a trip to Holguin, Cuba, to collaborate with this community during Reading Week in February. 

Previous projects include: Engaging in one-to-one partnerships with Spanish newcomers in a 50/50 conversation program allowed Spanish newcomers to improve English while the Spanish students could apply language learning to real situations; working within the daily operations of a community program that serves Spanish newcomers; helping to facilitate a community art therapy program targeted towards Spanish newcomer children. 

Dr. Kim Solga

Winter 2024

Performance Beyond Theatres introduces students in the Theatre Studies major and minor to the interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which gathers knowledge and practices from anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and more. Performance Studies investigates the performative nature of everyday life, examining such phenomena as walking and moving in the city, sports events, religious services, political protests, and the development of neighbourhood cultures (for example, gentrification practices) through the lens of performance. The goal of TS2202 is to help students understand how performance structures everyday interactions in the public sphere and shapes the ways in which our citizenship is actualized; it is an example of "performance as a public practice", something that has grown ever more urgent to explore with the arrival of COVID-19. In Fall 2022, TS2202 will partner once again with students in Psychology 3895, Social Science in the Community – as we create performance actions both live and online to support partnering organizations' goals.

Previous projects include: Students in two courses - Performance Beyond Theatres & Social Science in the Community - collaborated and combined their disciplinary knowledge and methods to shed light on and generate ways to address racism, xenophobia, physical-ableism, and sanism.

Dr. Andy Hrymak and Dr. Amarjeet Bassi

Full year 2023-2024

This is an experiential learning course where students will work in teams to address engineering problems with external industry and/or government partners, requiring interdisciplinary perspectives, and framed using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Students will analyze social and environmental aspects of engineering activities, including the interactions between economic, social, health, safety, legal, and cultural aspects of society. Students will consider uncertainties in the prediction of such interactions, while incorporating sustainable design and environmental stewardship.

Project theme: community based sustainability projects including the areas of, but not limited to: energy, water, waste, supply chain management, climate change management, recycling, education, carbon capture/footprint.

Dr. John Dickinson

Full year 2023-2024

This course is an introduction to the principles and practices of professional engineering. Team-based design projects provide the context for developing research, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills along with professional behaviour. The includes elements of need recognition, conceptualisation, prototyping, and engineering design to satisfy commercial specifications. Emphasis is on creativity, teamwork, time management, communication and engineering skills necessary to practice in any engineering discipline. At the end of the course students will be able to model professional engineering behaviour and work in teams to execute all parts of a systematic design process, including seeking and critically examining information and communicating effectively with clients and other stakeholders.

Students will partner with community organizations and individuals with needs or challenges that require custom solutions to improve their quality of life. In particular, things that would enable them to participate more fully in activities that able-bodied children can.  

Dr.. John Makaran, Dr. Dan Langohr, and Dr. Ryan Willing

Full year 2023-2024

Students will develop and practice engineering design skills by working on a team-based project. Students will experience all phases of the design process, including problem definition, generation and evaluation of concepts, engineering analysis, prototyping, testing, and preparation of design documentation. Project management and communications skills will also be emphasized.

Dr. Tara Mantler

Fall 2023

This course will explore the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual determinants of health from the prenatal period to early adulthood. The focus will be on health applications of developmental concepts such as sensorimotor, perceptual, cognitive, language, social and emotional throughout childhood.  An emphasis will also be placed on contemporary issues affecting health.

Dr. Denise Grafton

Winter 2024

Environmental health has an important role to play in addressing the complex array of environmental threats that are affecting human health and the wellbeing of our planet. Starting from this insight, this course looks at the interface between the fields of environmental health and health promotion to explore the theory and practice of environmental health promotion in its current context. The course introduces students to key concepts and theories used in the practice of environmental health promotion. It explores contemporary strategies to address issues such as epidemiology and toxicology, air pollution, water quality and scarcity, healthy built environments, vector-borne illness, and climate change using the tools of health promotion and health protection. The course employs a range of learning tools, including lectures, facilitated discussion and multimedia resources. Students will also have the opportunity to engage directly with expert practitioners in the field through a community engaged learning project done in collaboration with environmental organizations in London.

Previous projects include: Creating and delivering "laser talks" regarding climate change as a public health issue to London MPs with Citizen’s Climate Lobby, creating a social media campaign and community engagement project plan for the City of London to increase the public’s awareness of the various City of London water system components and programs, literature review and presentation on shade policies for ReForest London, public outreach campaigns (e.g., flash mob, hosting a game of Environmental Feud, social media campaign, and video for YouTube channel) promoting TREA’s mission

Dr. Carri Hand

September 2023-December 2023 and February 2024-April 4 2024 (students are on placement in January and February and not expected to work on projects at that time)

Through this course students will develop the capabilities required for occupational therapy practice at organization, community and societal levels, oriented toward social and occupational justice, including understanding, analyzing and addressing the social landscape through advocacy that enables occupation and system change. Students will engage in integrated fieldwork activities involving promoting the profession of occupational therapy and working with a community partner to enact change.

Dr. Diane-Laure Arjaliès

Fall 2023

Whereas in the past, organizations were only judged on their profitability, the societal impact is becoming increasingly salient to stakeholders/rightsholders. Managers increasingly want to assess the impact of their business on society. Investors are incorporating this evaluation in their valuation of businesses; customers choose to purchase from corporations whose activities benefit society; and employees want to work at firms that use a broad set of metrics to judge their performance.

Despite this growing interest and research support for these broader societal impacts of the firm, managers need help to measure this impact. This type of impact assessment is an emerging field with few best practices – knowledge has not yet been incarnated in easy-to-use frameworks or models.

This course provides students with methods and tools to conduct such assessments in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. It is theoretical and applied, incorporating significant fieldwork based on Community Engaged Learning (CEL). Through the fieldwork, students learn to assess the impact of a project/organization in the community, which requires them to evaluate the broader impact of the project/organization on society – whether it be socially, environmentally, or economically.

Melissa Adler

Winter 2024

This course will introduce students to a variety of methods for collecting, analysing, and interpreting data for research in media studies. Students will explore tools and techniques that support inquiry into problems and questions of a digital era. Approaches will include content analysis, big data, interviews, ethnography, and decolonizing methods.

Jeremy Copeland

Winter 2024

Whether you’re a journalist wanting to draw international attention to the Syrian refugee crisis, working for an aid organization asking for donations to help those refugees, or trying to promote your organization for any other reason, video can be a powerful storytelling tool. Used effectively, video allows viewers to deeply connect with people in your stories. In this course you will learn to use moving pictures and audio to make your viewers care about an issue and to inspire them to take action.

Previous Projects Include: Students have produced videos stories for more than 30 local organizations, including the Make A Wish Foundation, Big Brothers and Sisters, the Boys and Girls Club, the Canadian Women’s Sledge Hockey Team, the Preschool of the Arts, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, the Epilepsy Support Centre and CLAP.

Dr. Karin Schwerdtner, Dr. Andrew Johnson, Dr. Dan Shrubsole, Dr. Brad Urquhart, Dr. Ken Yeung

Full year 2023-2024

Non-profit organizations in the London community are often faced with “wicked problems” that are very difficult to solve due to their complex, contradictory, changing or cross-cutting nature (Weber & Khademian, 2008). Using an approach that blends theory and practice, Scholars Electives students will work in interdisciplinary groups within organizations over the Fall Term to collaborate with organizations to provide insight and recommendations of how to alleviate a “wicked problem” the organization is facing.

Previous projects include: Adapted content of an online module to appropriately communicate the health information to the target audience; created a report and presentation containing recommendations for effective tourism implementation strategies, based on consultation with Middlesex County community members and a survey of best practices in similar municipalities in Ontario; produced a business plan for the implementation of a local thrift store.

Dr. Kevin Watson

Fall 2023 and Winter 2024

This third year course seeks to place students in real-world community and school educational situations in which students can draw together and apply the concepts they have learned about Music Education in the previous two years of the Music Education program. 

Previous projects include: Students participated in a weekly drop-in jam session for those with lived experience of mental illness through Belong to Song; Students assisted and empowered youth to experience a free, intensive, innovative and accessible after-school music program with El Sistema - Aeolian Hall.    

Dr. Alison Allan

Full year 2023-2024

This capstone course focuses on the translation of cancer research discoveries into clinical practice, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches, critical thinking, research design and evaluation of data from the literature.

In addition to the content covered in the course, a CommunityEngaged Learning component integrates students in a small group/team learning context (3-5 students) through coordination with relevant community partners associated with cancer research, support and care. Through these partnerships, students working on a year-long capstone project relevant to the partners’ needs. Past community partners have included the Canadian Cancer Society, the LHSC Cancer Clinical Trials Unit, ChildCan, Kids Kicking Cancer Canada, Health Canada, and the Patient & Family Advisory Council at the London Regional Cancer Program.

Throughout the course, students practice critical ongoing reflection and are engaged both independently and collaboratively in authentic learning experiences and professional/career development practices.

Dr. Sarah McLean

Full year 2023-2024

This course will focus on addressing health care misconceptions with students using scientific inquiry. Online work will focus on the underlying pathophysiology, biochemistry, and epidemiology of relevant healthcare issues. In-class sessions include active learning exercises and discussions with community healthcare members. A community-service learning project is undertaken related to healthcare communication and/or promotion.

Previous projects include: Students have developed a business case for presentation to the South West Local Health Integration Network recommendations based off the initial study findings for a lift assists service to be provided by Middlesex-London Emergency Medical Services, increased awareness, support and funding of mind-body initiatives (yoga and mindfulness) for mental health and addiction recovery, and conducted community mapping of resources available within communities of Ontario that will aid in Teen Challenge graduates’ exit strategies and after-care support.

Dr. Nicole Campbell

Full year 2023-2024

The community-engaged experiential rotation will provide students with a breadth of exposure to a field in medical science research. Students will complete several tasks associated with this rotation including a needs assessment before they go out on rotation and a summary when they return. This experiential rotation will provide an opportunity for students to connect theory and practice in the program. Each student will be assigned a faculty advisor (one of the core program members) who will oversee and if necessary, facilitate the rotation placements for their group of students. Assessments and assignments related to the rotations will be part of the accompanying program components

Dr. Lloy Wylie and Dr. Ava John-Baptiste

Winter 2024

The Master of Public Health (MPH) Program is designed to fill a novel niche at the intersection of leadership, sustainability and policy within the Canadian Health Care System as well as more globally. It is an interdisciplinary, interfaculty program that seeks to prepare students to address main public health challenges in Canada and abroad, thus opening avenues and opportunities for the students to serve not just in their local communities, but also contribute and lead in national and global public health initiatives as the change agents.

The Community Engaged Learning projects will seek to enhance the learning in the courses by bringing course concepts to life and affording students the opportunity to work in real-world settings where they can apply their acquired knowledge. Projects will inform the classroom and academic experience of MPH students for the following courses:

• Community Health Assessment & Program Evaluation
• Health Economics
• Managing Health Services

During the program, students study a variety of public health topics, including:

• Maternal/Child Health
• Emergency Preparedness/Disaster Response
• Communicable and Chronic Disease
• Mental Health
• Determinants of Health and Health Equity

Dr. Graeme Taylor

Fall 2023 and Winter 2024

This course is intended for students to further develop the skills necessary to search, understand, synthesize, discuss and present (orally and written) the published literature on topics in biology. This course offers students the opportunity to think broadly about biology, both its results and scientific process. This course gives students the opportunity to practice several different kinds of communication and critical thinking, and it gives students opportunities to mobilize their acquired knowledge through educating others on various topics of biology through community partnerships.

Previous projects include: Information pamphlets for Thames Regional Ecological Association about rain barrels and compost bins and how to use them effectively; Packaged and catalogued more than 7000 seeds for the London Seed Library in collaboration with Food Not Lawns; Prepared a report indicating the estimated value of ecosystem services in the 15 properties owned by the Thames Talbot Land Trust.

Laura Reid and Bryan Sarlo

Fall 2023 and Winter 2024

This course explores the use of different types of media (e.g., text, images, sound, animation) to convey ideas and facilitate interaction. Topics include the design and use of a range of software tools for media creation and editing, covering image, sound, animation and video. In this course, students will have the opportunity, using Photoshop, to participate in Community Engaged Learning by creating a poster for a partner organization or for an upcoming event given by an organization. The course is large so the partner can select their favourite poster from almost 800 student designs. Partnering organizations should have a rough idea of the text they would like included on the poster and the general message that the poster should convey.

Previous projects include: Creating a poster about the jewelry created by women at “My Sister’s Place” and Epilepsy Awareness month.

Dr. Ben Rubin

Full year 2023-2024

The objective of this seminar series is to initiate an interdisciplinary dialog between students and faculty from the various disciplines represented in the collaborative specialization. The seminar series provides graduate students the opportunity to discuss their research with a multi-disciplinary group that shares a common interest in the environment and sustainability. Students are required to attend seminars and participate in discussions. Each student will give one seminar each year. The seminar will provide background information on the student’s general research area as well as specific aspects of their research project. Critical to the success of this seminar series is active participation in the discussion to follow each presentation.

Dr. Christina Booker and Dr. Gurpaul Kochhar

Fall 2023

This experiential learning course will foster interaction between students and community partners regarding a specific project. Students will mobilize their classroom and laboratory knowledge in order to address questions of relevance to a local company or non-profit organization. Students will be trained to identify, evaluate and construct an evidence-based stance on contentious products, or claims, in the media, or in society, on the basis of the science behind them and communicate these arguments to both scientific, as well as general, audiences. One two-hour lecture and one two-hour tutorial per week.

Previous projects include: Research report regarding the contributing sources of phosphorus/nutrient pollution in Lake Erie to inform the prioritization of City resources to minimize phosphorus/nutrient pollution in Lake Erie; Updated overview of the latest claims by media/marketers causing residents to distrust the safety of their municipal drinking water system to advise the public that it may be unnecessary to purchase their own treatment systems, or to consume water from a commercial source.

Dr. Dan Bousfield

Winter 2023

This course traces the colonial lineage of political science and political studies through a decolonial reading of key texts. With an emphasis on the role of the academy in imperialism, racism, settler colonialism and hierarchies of intersectionality, this course examines the subfields of political science and forms of decolonial mobilization. Topics range from the ongoing practices of settler colonialism to the role of affect and race in humanitarianism, as well as strategies and practices of activism, the logics of terrorism and queer approaches to Eurocentric politics.

Dr. Dan Bousfield

Fall 2023

This course will help you critically assess the current state of Canadian-American relations through a variety of perspectives, issues and policy debates. We will emphasize the importance of theories and arguments related to North American integration and divergence from local, regional and global perspectives. We will explore economic and political integration as well as forms of divergence where students will analyze developments in the areas of defence, security, environment, culture and labour. Students will also debate and discuss the processes of policy development in comparative terms, with an emphasis on the role of actors in civil society. Students will be given the option to complete Community Engaged Learning placement or projects that will allow these issues to the brought to life to the student, while making an important contribution to a community organization in the London area.

Dr. Dan Bousfield

Winter 2024

This course will help you critically assess the political perspectives on contemporary issues in international law. This course will help you explore the theoretical perspectives on international law, as well as key issues, debates and topics. We will address a range of issues in International law including dispute settlement, terrorism, and international impunity, the law of the sea, environmental protection and human rights. Drawing on insights of international relations, this course will explore both theories and issues of international law in the contemporary world.

Previous projects include: Website and Blog Development, Analysis of London Employment Space, Newcomer Settlement Plan & Community Engagement for the African Canadian Federation of London; Literature review and recommendations on best practices of qualities of welcoming communities for the Inclusion and Civic Engagement Sub-council.

Dr. Riley Hinson

Full year 2023-2024

This course introduces students to major topics in the prevention and treatment of various forms of addictive behavior. The course also involves a structured community service learning component in which students will help addictions-related organizations meet their identified needs. This work will not necessarily involve direct client contact.

Previous projects include: Online training modules for Addictions Services of Thames Valley to assist staff with their understanding of the DSM -5 updates; Program review of all Westover Treatment Centre services as they compare with current literature and best practices.

Dr. Leora Swartzman

Full year 2023-2024

An introduction to Community Psychology, which focuses on person-environment interactions and on how society influences individual and community functioning. Students apply their scholarship to help community-based organizations meet their identified needs. This will not necessarily involve direct client contact.

Previous projects include: Examining the impact of Space and the neighbourhood environment on residents’ well-being for Crouch Resource Neighborhood Resource Centre; create a plan to transition a mutual aid Positive Parenting Program from one that is facilitator-led to one that is peer led but facilitator supported for Merrymount Family Support and Crisis Centre.

Dr. Leora Swartzman

Full year 2023-2024

Social Science in the Community is a professional development course where students, working in interdisciplinary teams, develop transferable skills by applying their scholarship to help community partners address needs. Course seminars will provide students with the foundational knowledge (e.g., about community engagement, advocacy, knowledge exchange) to work effectively with community partners involved in the project to maximize their collaborative impact. Learning will occur largely through project -related work and independent reading, assigned reading and material presented in class. This will be assessed by class quizzes and contributions to class discussions.

Much of class time in the first half of the Fall semester is aimed at deepening students’ understanding of the material and ability to apply it. Most class time towards the end of the Fall term will be dedicated to student presentations in which they describe the community agency in which they have been placed, what they have learned to date and the scope of the project they are to deliver at the end of the winter term. They will also assign one (or two) readings for the class and will bring that material into the presentation on discussion. In the Winter term, students will apply the knowledge and skills acquired to date through their work on the community agency projects. Working in pairs, students will spend an average of 4-5 hours per week on placement and on the project. Course- related activities in the Winter term will revolve around the projects.

Previous projects include: Students in two courses - Social Science in the Community & Performance Beyond Theatres - collaborated and combined their disciplinary knowledge and methods to shed light on and generate ways to address racism, xenophobia, physical-ableism, and sanism.

Lauren Barr

Winter 2024

This course focuses on the debates in this new field, including disputes among theoretical and methodological approaches, and disagreements about how to conceptualize "youth," youth culture, and the lack of youth involvement in adult institutions. The role of public policy is examined in addressing the political economy of youth.

Previous projects include: creating a TikTok campaign to educate youth about concussions for the Concussion Legacy Foundation of Canada; completing a literature review and research plan on the topic of unsanctioned street parties for the Town and Gown Association of Ontario; and working with the West Elgin Community Health Centre on strategies to promote a sense of belonging in rural communities, ease the transition from high school to university/college, and create initiatives to support youth shifting into a post-pandemic world.

Lucas Thung

Full year 2023-2024

A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. In traditional organizations, projects represent one-off endeavours that are separate from the everyday operations of the organization (i.e., a change initiative, a particular campaign, developing a new feature). In project-based organizations, all work is organized in the project-based model (i.e., theatre, television, video games, construction and building trades.)

In this course, students will be learning how to manage projects from start to finish through: initiation, planning, execution & control and closure. Students will apply the principles of project management to ensure that the project meets the stated requirements in terms of scope, quality, cost, schedule, resources and risk.

This course will partner students with community organizations who have a project for completion. This will help students see the concepts of project management come to life while helping to advance the mission of partner organizations.

Previous projects include: Execute an event to test and pilot a live-in student placement program to support residents of Plant A Home with developmental disabilities; Create recruitment strategies and connections outside current and conventional avenues to enhance and boost recruitment of qualified candidates at Participation House. 

Janis Wallace

Winter 2024

The world of media is changing almost daily. This course will provide students with the critical thinking processes, analytical skills, strategic planning and practical techniques needed for professional competencies. It will challenge students to constantly re-evaluate their worldview, question prevailing ideas, consider new variables in that changing climate, and discard tactics once thought brilliant but no longer work. These are the abilities they will need to be effective PR professionals.

Through the classes, students will explore the evolution of the media, the convergence of media today, and the effects of media on audiences. They will learn how earned, owned, and paid media play together.

As well as practising tactics such as releases, interviews, kits, plans, campaigns relationship building, students will learn how to become credible sources of information and strategic advisors.

Previous projects include: Developing a strategic plan for community engagement for Fanshawe Pioneer Village's 60th Anniversary; Ontario-Quebec Tour; Creating effective tools/strategies to disseminate information and communication throughout Participation House that relate to all different generations within the organization.

Janis Wallace

Winter 2024

Synthesize the various skills you'’ve learned so far in this program by developing and/or implementing a “real world” marketing project in conjunction with a local “Client” organization. Work as a multi-disciplinary team with your classmates, similar to a marketing agency or department. Develop and monitor your own project plan, prepare a marketing plan, do your research, budget and measure ROI.

Previous projects include: Completing a best practice study on newsletters for Pillar Nonprofit Network to increase readership and meet the needs of the new membership structure.