Syllabus: Croatia

 Community Reconstruction: Vukovar, Croatia 2008

Global PACT: Partnerships for Activism & Cross-cultural Training (www.globalpact.org)

Political Science 369 and 389

Prof. David Bell Mislan (mislan@polisci.rutgers.edu)

Senior Trainers: Courtney Bell Mislan (courtyb84@hotmail.com), Lilly Gannone (lgannone@gmail.com)

Trainer: Petra Jurlina (petra.jurlina@gmail.com)

Course Description

Why does society change?  How does society change?  While moral philosophers and social scientists usually focus on former question, those that seek practical knowledge seek to understand the latter.  We have myriad scholars to tell us the causes of social change, from ancient philosophers (i.e. Aristotle) to Enlightenment thinkers (e.g. Locke and Rousseau) to present day theorists (i.e. Mancur Olson).  The notion of how one can change society, oddly enough, remains elusive.  This course is our best effort to demystify the process by which you, your corporation, or your organization can become an agent of change.

Social change begins at three levels: the individual, the organization, and the system.  All three are interrelated and this course will give you the skills necessary to create change in all of them.  There is a wealth of tools available and necessary to create social change, whether in a corporation or elsewhere.  These transferable skills are indispensable in the workplace and in your individual missions to better society.  This course will help you achieve build these assets into your repertoire.

Becoming an Agent of Change is an intense, fully experiential, and team-based immersion course designed to help you create and maintain social change through modern business, multinational corporations, or organizations.  If the modern multinational corporation is the most dynamic force of change in the world today, then understanding how to create social change through an MNC is a critically important skill in the emerging century.  This course puts students in the position of change agents and senior corporate social responsibility (CSR) officers to analyze and engage the economic, political, and social environment in which their firm operates.  In small teams, students initiate and develop projects that create positive change in society.  This course will help you achieve this task through a thorough process, from teaching issue identification to practicing (and holding!) a live press conference.

Participating students will come from different cultural backgrounds: Croatia, America, the Balkans, Western and Central Europe, and Japan.  In small groups that reflect this diversity, we will charge you with the responsibility of forming a socially responsible organization that draws on the strengths of its individual members.  Cooperation will be paramount to productivity; in order to become agents of change, you will learn how to use diversity to your advantage.

The bottom line is that this course is unlike any other that you will take.  It is practical, skill-based training in the business of creating a better world.  If you enter this experience with an open mind and a spirit of adventure and entrepreneurialism, there is no limit to what you can learn this summer and for years to come.

Course Materials

Required Readings:

Mann, M. (2004).  The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge).

NB: I expect you to read this book entirely before your arrival.

 Global PACT Manual

                        NB: You will receive a copy in Vukovar

Required Viewings (you should watch at least two of these films before your arrival):

No Man’s Land

White Cat, Black Cat

Underground

Welcome to Sarajevo

Course Requirements and Assessment

Your grade will be divided into two parts: 60% will consist of academic work and writing, and 40% will consist of Global PACT practical writing and presentations to prepare you to be an engaged citizen.

Culture, History, and Politics Assignments (60% of course grade - assessed individually)

Due Monday, June 23 – Expectations Essay (10%)

Write a two-page essay on what you expect to learn and experience. Incorporate previous knowledge, as well as the readings and films. Write about your expectations of the other participants and about how you expect to be perceived and received. Feel free to include your expectations of what will be the most difficult and rewarding parts of this experience. Most important, write about the expectations and goals you have for yourself.

Due Monday, June 30 – Expert Response I (10%)

Twice while we are in Croatia, we will have a session devoted to expert visitors and local NGO staff. Following each session, you will be required to write a two-page reflection about the visit. These essays should not be mere reports on what the speaker said. Rather, they should be reflections on how the speaker’s organization or experiences relate to or illustrate the principles and techniques of organizing that you are learning.

Due Monday, July 7 – Expert Response II (10%)

Due Tuesday, July 8 – Family History Project (30%)

Your major assignment is a cultural and historical personal interview project. Over the course of your time in Croatia, you will have many opportunities to learn about the other participants and their families. You will be expected to interview another member of your team from another country. In the process, you will also seek out information about the history, politics and culture of the world that has shaped their life and their family. Your completed Personal Interview Project is due on July 10. To keep you on schedule, however, you must meet the following milestones – or lose 1% with every missed deadline:

·         Tuesday, June 24 – Turn in written questions for a preliminary interview.

·         Monday, June 30 – Turn in notes of your preliminary interviews and new written questions for a follow-up interview.

·         Thursday, July 3 – Turn in notes from follow-up interview; show trainer collected family photographs, documents, and mementos; begin writing major personal and family dates and events on the posted class timeline.

·         Tuesday, July 8 – Relate your partner’s story and family story to a broader historical context through a presentation. You will share your partner’s family photographs, documents, and mementos alongside the posted class timeline. Your presentation of your partner’s personal history and of facts should be informed by your deeper understanding of complicated and interwoven issues that confront the Balkans and the United States.

Global PACT assignments (40% of course grade – assessed by group)

Your grade for this section will depend on the work you complete with your group, all of which will be impossible without effective and committed collaboration among all members of your team. Everything you need to know about these assignments will be discussed during our workshop sessions. The Global PACT manual will guide you through the entire process. The following constitute the assignments that you will complete with your group. You will be given either oral feed-back (for presentations) or written feedback (for hard copy assignments). At the time of the final press conference at the end of the program, each group will submit a packet that contains both the original of all hard copy assignments and revised versions that reflect the feedback that the group received. All members of the group receive the same grade.

·         Tuesday, June 24 – Presentation I: Issue breakdown

·         Wednesday, June 25 – Presentation II: Action research plan

·         Friday, June 27 – Presentation III: Project ideas

·         Monday, June 30 – Presentation IV: Resources and network

·         Thursday, July 3 – Presentation V: Mission, vision, goals

·         Friday, July 4 – Mission statement; vision; short-, medium-, long-term goals; budget

·         Tuesday, July 8 – Talking points

·         Thursday, July 10 – Press release

·         Friday, July 11 – Press conference, press packet, final Global PACT group packet

Course Attendance Policy

In Global PACT, you are not a student; you are a citizen of a community that cannot function without your active participation. Your attendance and punctuality is as much a reflection of yourselves as individuals and team members as a component of your grade. For this reason, team members who arrive more than 15 minutes late for workshop sessions will be assigned special “group service” duties such as packing up supplies or carrying materials. You will of course receive zero credit for any assignments due on days you are not present, and you will not pass the course if you miss 3 or more classes. Arriving more than an hour late will be considered equivalent to missing a day, and late time will accrue in 15 minute intervals adding up to day(s) absent.

Class and Community Expectations

This will be an intense course in which we will make high demands on you. First, of course, all but the Croatians among you will be operating in another country, not as tourists but as active project partners in broadly multicultural teams. As you know from personal experience, group work is always hard—it is much harder across cultural barriers. We will be here to help, but we need you to be self-aware and ready to confront and work through your own, natural culture shock frustrations. Second, we need you to be aware that others, too, suffer the same culture shock frustrations that you do and that what you take as offensive may be a reflection of their discomfort. We all need to cut each other some slack. Finally, simply as a course, this course will be different. It requires constant, graded group work and active participation, often in the form of required public presentations. It also requires that you actually practice the skills and knowledge you have acquired in a live setting. Because we all have to learn by doing in public, we – not just you – are all going to look like idiots at some point. You need to be brave enough to try everything and you need to be supportive of others, even when they really, really look stupid.

This is a course about activism and advocacy; it is about grassroots organizing. Activists agitate, advocates advocate and organizers organize. So, that is what you are going to do, since there is no way to learn how to do any of these things except by doing them. Since the only real test of anything is the real thing, your final test will be the real thing: an actual press conference for the national press. (When you stand in front of that real TV camera, you will be very thankful for all of the times we stuck microphones and camcorders in your face and demanded a perfect, off-the-cuff 15 second sound bites!)

Course Schedule

 Sunday, June 22

Move in, meet your roommate, local sight seeing; team dinner and introductions.

            Assignments Due Today: none

            Assignments for Tomorrow: (individual) Expectations Essay

***WEEK ONE***

Monday, June 23

Introductions; establishment of project teams of 5; goals and expectations; setting ground rules; issues brainstorm; issues categorization

Assignments due today: (individual) expectations essay

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) written questions for a preliminary interview for personal interview project; (group) Issue break-down presentation

Tuesday, June 24

Breaking-down an issue; presentation I: issue break-down; group contract/organization constitution and decision-making process

Assignments due today: (individual) written questions for a preliminary interview for personal interview project; (group) issue break-down presentation

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) begin your preliminary interviews; (group) research plan presentation

Wednesday, June 25

Action research; preliminary research; presentation II: research plan

Assignments due today: (group) research plan presentation

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) continue your preliminary interviews                                                    

Thursday, June 26

Ongoing research; project ideas/research results; prep for Friday speakers

Assignments due today: none

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) Continue your preliminary interviews

Friday, June 27

Presentation III: project ideas; expert speaker; prep for weekend trip; define projects

Assignments due today: none

Assignments for Monday: (individual) expert response I; (individual) notes of your preliminary interviews and new written questions for a follow-up interview for personal interview project

***WEEK TWO***

Monday, June 30

Debrief expert speakers and weekend trip; resources; networking; presentation IV: resource and network “web”

Assignments due today: (individual) expert response I; (individual) notes of your preliminary interviews and new written questions for a follow-up interview for personal interview project

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) begin/cont. follow-up & family interviews

Tuesday, July 1

Phone scripts; meeting preparation; activism and culture; group dynamics

Assignments due today: none

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) continue follow-up and family interviews

Wednesday, July 2

Budgeting; action research appointments

Assignments due today:

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) turn in notes from follow-up interview; show trainer collected family photographs, documents, and mementos; begin writing major personal and family dates and events on the posted class timeline; (group) budget

Thursday, July 3

Goals (short-, medium-, long-term); mission statement; vision; prep for expert speakers: presentation V: mission, vision and goals

Assignments due today: (group) budget

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) turn in notes from follow-up interview; show trainer collected family photographs, documents, and mementos; begin writing major personal and family dates and events on the posted class timeline; (group) mission statement, vision statement, short-, medium- and long-term goals

Friday, July 4

Metrics; expert speaker; prep for Saturday trip; finish org. building

Assignments due today: (group) short-, medium- and long-term goals, mission statement, vision statement

Assignments for Monday: expert response II

***WEEK THREE***

Monday, July 7

The BIG transition; putting yourself in the decision-maker’s shoes; talking points

Assignments due today: expert response II

Assignments for tomorrow: (individual) final personal interview project; (group) talking points

Tuesday, July 8

Putting yourself in the decision-maker’s shoes (editor, reporter, audiences, medium); media talking points

Assignments due today: (individual) final personal interview project; (group) talking points

Assignments for tomorrow: (group) prep final Global PACT project presentation

Wednesday, July 9

Press release; press conference

Assignments due today: None

Assignments for tomorrow: (group) press release; (group) prep final Global PACT project presentation; prep final edited group work packet

Thursday, July 10

Sound bites; press conference

Assignments due today: (group) press release

Assignments for tomorrow: (group) final press conference; final edited group work packet

Friday, July 11

REAL press conference; farewell notes; certificate of completion dinner

Saturday, July 12

Cataloging alumni, leave for cultural immersion week

***ACTIVE CULTURAL IMMERSION***

 Sunday, July 13 to Saturday, July 19                               

The purpose of the final week is to capitalize on the opportunity to actively explore a distinct Croatian sub-culture. We will spend seven days and six nights in Split, the second-largest city in Croatia and the capital of Dalmacjia (Dalmatia.)  At least two of these days will include a small service project; the rest of the time is dedicated to your own explorations of the region’s Roman ruins, scenic islands, and cultural particularities.