Students can apply their understanding of American political institutions, bureaucratic politics, and policymaking to serve a community-engaged project or challenge. Specifically, this course is an introduction to political science through studying the American political system: The Constitution; the political processes; the structure, powers, and procedures of the Presidency, Congress, and the Judiciary.

1. The service-learning must be done with a governing entity or a non-profit organization. This may be a government office, such as city administration, or with a political campaign, or with the election process, such as an election judge. It also could be a public service program or nonprofit service which includes a connection to the governing systems, such as advocacy work.
2. The student will complete 10 hours of service learning within a community setting to experience civic engagement .
3. The student will be asked to explore how the governing process works within the setting where they are doing service. This will include drawing connections between the work of the organization, the service they are providing and the governing process.
4. The student will provide signed documentation of the hours served with contact information for the location, i.e., a supervisor’s name, email, number, etc.

That said, students can contribute to a range of projects and topics, including but not limited to:

• The context in which local governments operate and the policy powers they customarily exercise.
• The history of U.S. cities and the ongoing political and economic processes that generate isolated pockets of poverty and sustain their segregation.
• The spatial concentration of poverty within U.S. urban areas.
• Whether and how local governments can avoid reinforcing and deepening the exclusion of poor residents from the material abundance that most residents of U.S. urban areas enjoy.
• Community outreach, engagement, and/or community development.
• Asset mapping.
• Group facilitation.
• Social justice and/or advocacy work, including social policy research and/or advocacy.