Core Classes & Projects

Here are core courses for programs offered by the Center for Creative Change. All are required of those who choose master’s degree programs in environment and community, management, organizational psychology, strategic communication or whole systems design.

Core Courses

Systems Thinking for a Changing World
Students learn conceptual frameworks and analytic and integrative skills for understanding complex, dynamic patterns in human and natural systems.

Communication Design
The focus is on the design, presentation and evaluation of effective communication.

Ecological Sustainability
Students use social and natural science perspectives to explore the historical contexts, philosophies, tools and integrative designs for sustainable living and development.

Critical Inquiry and Ways of Knowing
Students increase their abilities to frame and carry out inquiry and research using multiple approaches. They gather, critically assess and interpret information and develop critical insights.

Global Pluralism
This is an exploration of economic, political, social and cultural challenges and opportunities in this interdependent world. The purpose is to expand global understanding and perspectives necessary for facilitating creative change.

Transformative Leadership and Change
By developing personal capacities, self-knowledge and group systemic understandings, students learn how to engage, catalyze and lead effective adaptive work in organizations, businesses and communities.

Reflective Practicum Seminars

Students pursuing master’s degrees also complete two reflective practicum seminars for three consecutive quarters:

Simulation and Case Study: Reflective Practicum 1
Using case studies from business, organizations and communities, students assume various roles and learn by doing to implement sustainable change in simulated situations. The simulation has two parts: the change scenario and the reflective seminar accompanying it, facilitated by faculty, in which students discuss their decisions and actions.

Capstone Change Project: Reflective Practicum 2
In this capstone learning experience, students develop and execute projects either in project teams or individually. As they are working, students attend a practicum seminar where they engage together in reflective inquiry, theoretical analysis and skills sharing with classmates from across the center’s programs. The project significantly contributes to the student’s final master’s thesis and oral presentation of that thesis.