Civic Media and Community Engagement
The Civic Media and Community Engagement聽minor聽provides students professional experience in serving their communities while improving their oral and written communication, critical thinking, media production, and literacy skills, which are important for career success.
Students Can:
- Work hand-in-hand with local communities and organizations
- Plan, develop, execute, and evaluate different types of programs, projects, and products to inform, educate and engage the public
- Gain hands-on experience in analyzing and communicating complex technical research
- Learning technical, professional, leadership and collaboration skills in directly applied and engaged manners
- Research and find solutions to real social problems, many of them extremely complex, such as:
- How to solve the housing crisis
- How to improve our capacity to welcome refugees
- How to adapt local communities to the consequences of climate change
- How to mitigate toxic and hazardous pollution through environmental justice
- And much more
The minor consists of classes designed as multidisciplinary, collaborative, experiential and community-engaged learning experiences from beginning to end. The core classes are sequenced in a way that students will have multiple opportunities to complete the minor. The sequence also addresses the new Gen. Ed. Learning themes.
Career Paths
The Civic Media and Community Engagement minor is the perfect combination of sought-after skills and hands-on experiences to prepare our students for highly gratifying careers in their field of choice.
Graduates find success in:
- Civic engagement, education, and information for governmental agencies (i.e. FEMA, EPA, state departments, local governments); international organizations (U.N., UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, IPCC, Amnesty International, etc.), and regional and local community organizations (i.e. United Way, American Heart Association, Sierra Club, SPCAs, The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, etc.)
- Intragovernmental and public diplomacy
- Public and Private partnerships
- Global, national and local foundations and charitable organizations (i.e. The Ford Foundation, The McArthur Foundation, The Rhode Island Foundation, food banks and kitchens, free clinics, public shelters, etc.)
- Religious, political and ideological organizations (i.e. churches, temples, mosques, think tanks, partisan and nonpartisan media, etc.)
- All nonprofit organizations and civic educational programs
- Organizing and civic engagement for public health, climate change, social justice, and human rights movements, etc.
- Organizational and corporate communication (i.e. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability)
- Journalism and civic media (i.e. investigative podcasts, public service journalism, civic education and information outlets, etc.)
- Public relations, social marketing, social media, and event planning for education, entertainment, arts, etc.
- Mediation, depolarization, and conflict resolution institutions and firms
- Public humanities and the Arts
- Entertainment and sports media
And many more.