Urban Leadership Program
The ULP is a unique leadership experience where students participate in coursework, experiential learning components, and mentorship.
Student participation in community and civic engagement can better help students engage in academic content, learn skills like critical thinking, writing, and communication, and increases students’ emotional intelligence while driving them toward conscientious community action.
MSU Denver offers curricular, course based, and co-curricular opportunities on campus like service learning and the Urban Leadership Program. We also provide connections and resources for students to get involved with community members and organizations like the Hart Center for Public Service and the American Democracy Project.
Course Based & Co-Curricular Programs
MSU Denver offers a number of course based and co-curricular programs to help students further their learning while participating in civic engagement.
Civic/Community Engagement Courses
Are you looking to make better sense of the world? Fall 2024 courses about civic and community engagement are still open.
Please view what’s available below, and search for available courses to enroll.
Fall 2024 Available Courses
MTR 1600: Global Climate Change
This course presents the science behind global climate change from an Earth systems and atmospheric science perspective. These concepts then provide the basis to explore global warming’s effect on regions worldwide.
General Studies: Natural and Physical Sciences, Global Diversity
GEG 2700: Environmental Justice
This class explores why people of color and lower income populations are subject to the disproportionate burden of pollution and contamination and analyzes collective struggles of affected people to democratize access to a clean environment.
General Studies: Social and Behavioral Sciences
GEG 3610: Principles of Land Use Planning
In this course students are introduced to the history and future of cities. They will learn basic land-use planning concepts and how to analyze land-use patterns, interpret land-use maps, and analyze existing land-use plans. Topics include urban and regional planning issues related to population growth and decline, urban design, economic development, community planning, transportation planning, sustainable development, and equity and accessibility. Further, students learn how to collect relevant data, analyze a comprehensive plan, and predict future planning issues. This course focuses on the paradigm of planning in North American cities.
EDU 1111: Education Within Diverse Communities
This course is designed to increase awareness of the diverse contexts in which elementary education is situated, given our global society. Cultural and individual variances, including sociocultural factors such as language, gender, and socioeconomic status, are investigated in order to develop respect for all elementary students, families, and school communities. The course includes examining institutional policies and practices as well as personal attitudes and beliefs that influence what occurs in elementary schools. The role of the teacher/educator in equity-oriented education is explored.
University Requirement: Ethnic Studies & Social Justice
EDS 1001: Educational (In)Equality
The purpose of this course is to introduce historical, sociological, and cultural principles that account for school experiences of diverse groups in public education. Students learn how issues of multicultural education interact with communities and schools. Students examine issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, language, and the intersections between these categories in educational settings. This course includes a service-learning component in which students apply the material from class in an educational setting and critically reflect on their service experience.
General Studies: Social and Behavioral Sciences
University Requirement(s): Ethnic Studies & Social Justice
EDS 3150: Issues Multicultural Urban Secondary Education
This course develops cultural awareness and a trauma-informed and multicultural framework for viewing classroom interactions and curricula. It addresses racial and ethnic inequality and social stratification as primary lenses for understanding and analyzing the socially constructed concepts related to human diversity (race, ability, age, ethnicity, gender identity/expression, trauma, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status) and the relationship of these social constructs to the school setting. Emphasis is placed on the roles teachers as decision makers play in meeting educational needs of learners from diverse backgrounds.
General Studies: Social and Behavioral Sciences
University Requirement(s): Ethnic Studies & Social Justice
ECE 3860: Cultural Socialization
Students review and analyze ethnic communities represented by African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans. Utilizing theoretical foundations, practical strategies, and critical reflection, students examine historical factors and present-day institutional policies and actions that contribute to racialized inequities in child and family outcomes. Students examine how socialization in each of these communities affects children’s development, family systems, educational practices, child discipline, beliefs, traditions, identities, and values. Students engage with a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between early childhood education and social justice. Students delve into the principles of anti-bias education, teaching students how to recognize and challenge stereotypes, biases, and prejudices in early childhood settings.
University Requirement(s): Ethnic Studies & Social Justice
ENG 372K: Recent World Cinema
Students in Recent World Cinema learn about contemporary world cinema, especially those films to which students are unlikely to be exposed. These festival-oriented films are curated for their tight focus on cultural concerns and expressions that typically get lost in films made for broad markets. The course has a different theme every time it runs, based on the world cinema trends. Students investigate the films on textual, socioeconomic, political, cultural, gender based, and other theoretical levels. Through selected films, students interact with cultures they might not otherwise “visit,” developing not only a greater understanding of that culture, but a more global perspective of their own culture. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students, and a marquee course not found anywhere else. We work with the Denver Film Festival for screenings, filmmaker visits and talks, and cast/crew interviews to help students practice civic and community engagement.
ENG 39BD // PSC 39AS: Politics on Film
In this course, students examine films that describe the development of American political institutions, norms, and values; films that portray the processes exhibited in contemporary political institutions or the behaviors that characterize modern-day politicians; and/or films that interpret recurring clashes in American politics. Students analyze specific films, discuss how politics are portrayed on film, analyze how the material matches up to reality, dissect how marginalized groups are/are not portrayed, and analyze and discuss contemporary discourse about upcoming elections.
GWS 2100: Women of Color
Though U.S. women share much in common, their differences are salient to a thorough understanding of all these women’s experiences. Comparative analysis of women’s race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are central to this course. The similarities among diverse groups of women are also examined in order to better understand the complexity of women’s lives.
General Studies: Social and Behavioral Scienc
GWS 2600: Meditation & Activism
Students in this course explore basic lay meditation techniques and how they can support various forms of social justice activism. It explores the centrality of the body in the workings of oppression and privilege and organized social change through readings and mindfulness exercises.
Note: Credit granted for only one prefix. || Cross Listed Course(s): CPD 2600
GWS 3300: Women’s Leadership
This course will examine the various roles, models, and guiding principles of women in leadership. The discussions will be intentionally interactive as students share their own experience of women’s leadership ranging from traditional to unconventional. Students will identify the values most clearly associated with women’s leadership crossculturally and read diverse women’s experiences in their communities. Each student will interview a woman whom they deem to be in a leadership role, though not necessarily a formal position, and will present his or her findings to the class. All class members will reflect on their own leadership values in relation to the course material.
Note: Credit will be granted under one prefix only: CPD or GWS. || Cross Listed Course(s): CPD 3300
GWS 3530: Gender and Global Politics
This course introduces students to the application of feminist theorizing of international relations to critical global issues. The first part of the course examines feminist international relations theory to ascertain how gender reinforms global politics. The second part of the course examines a variety of global issues, such as war, global economic relations, human trafficking, and the environment, to see how the ways we understand, and therefore construct policies to deal with these issues, are gendered.
Note: Credit will be granted for only one prefix: GWS or PSC. || Cross Listed Course(s): PSC 3530
PHI 338E VT: Ethics of Space Exploration
The first is a special topics course on the Ethics of Space Exploration where students examine the social and ethical questions raised by the space age: how can access to space be equitably shared? Are there moral best practices for traveling in space, mining, or operating space settlements? Should humans lengthen our life spans technologically so that we can visit other solar systems? In this course, students develop the ethical tools needed to grasp the moral landscape of contemporary extraterrestrial travel and evaluate the civic promise and perils of space exploration.
PHI 3340: Philosophy of Race
In this course, students examine the ways in which ethnically and racially marginalized groups in the United States have grappled with systemic challenges stemming from racism and white supremacy and celebrate the movements that have confronted these systems to advance social justice. The course provides students with tools to challenge, understand, and contextualize the treatment and experiences of ethnically and racially marginalized groups in the U.S.
University Requirement(s): Ethnic Studies & Social Justice
PSC 1010: American National Government
This course introduces the basic principles, institutions, actors, and processes of American National Government. It allows the student to recognize the U.S. Constitution’s design and its lasting influence. It also presents some of the changing social, economic, and political variables that create powerfully new conceptions of the structure, purpose, and flow of American politics.
PSC 2200: Politics and Black People
Black politics is examined as a vehicle and potential in decision making for positive change for Black people in this country. The realities and the challenges, both historical and current, are emphasized.
THE 2215: Self-Care in Theatre
This course introduces the principles and strategies at one’s disposal to live a fulfilling life in the arts. By redefining self-care through Audre Lorde’s philosophy, we view self-care not as individualistic “self-indulgence” but as holistic “self-preservation”, emphasizing community care. The course delves into the six dimensions of self-care specifically tailored to enhance theatre skills as “equipment for living.” Please email Jacob M. Welch, Department of Theater and Dance Chair, if you do not have the prerequisite but would like to sign up.
Campus Partnerships
We partner with organizations on campus to provide students with additional CCE opportunities.
Additional Resources
Roadrunner Engagement Highlights
MSU Denver Athletes Named Finalists for the NCAA 2021 Division II Award of Excellence
Student-athletes from MSU Denver were named finalists for the NCAA 2021 Division II Award of Excellence. Chosen from schools in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, MSU Denver athletes were recognized for their Food for Thought work. Student-athletes from all MSU Denver teams have participated in Food for Thought activities, an organization dedicated to eliminating weekend hunger for children in the area. Student-athletes packed PowerSacks, which include enough to feed a family of four two meals. Food for Thought served 53 elementary schools and more than 10,000 children.
Twenty-eight schools were named finalists for the accolade which recognizes initiatives in the past year that exemplify the Division II philosophy, community engagement and student-athlete leadership. Division II honors its members each year for conducting events that promote student-athletes giving back and serving as leaders within their communities or on their campuses.
Toy Violin Construction Volunteer Partnership for El Systema Colorado
