Community Engaged Scholarship

American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Program (ACES)

The 2020 Election Big Ideas Course

About

The Fall 2020 semester presented a quadrennial opportunity to study American politics during a presidential campaign. “The 2020 Election” combined real-time analysis of the election, a lively roster of guest speakers from across the Berkeley campus and community, and an in-depth study of relevant historical and sociological trends that have shaped the contemporary moment. This class, hosted by Professor Michael Cohen (Department of African American Studies) and...

Prison Big Ideas Course

About

The Prison, later renamed to Prison Abolition Big Ideas Course, introduces students to the long history of the prison in the American experience, and does so by engaging ideas, movements, and practices to craft worlds of care and mutuality beyond the harms that the prison produces and legitimates. Students engage a range of literatures through which to reorganize the logics of an...

Fire Big Ideas Course

About

Fire is a part of the California landscape, and while many have come to dread fire season, this has not always been the case. “Fire: Past, Present and Future Interactions with the People and Ecosystems of California” (Anthropology C12AC / Environmental Science, Policy, and Management C22AC) presents a diachronic perspective on human-fire interactions with local ecosystems in California that spans over 10,000 years. The course provides a historical perspective on human-fire interactions at the landscape scale using a diverse range of data sources drawn from the fields of fire...

Pedagogical Resources

Every year, the AC Center host pedagogical workshops to support its faculty in the development of AC courses, classroom assignments and the teaching to issues of racial and economic justice in diverse classrooms. In the past our workshops have been hosted by AC faculty members, the Wikipedian foundation, and campus departments such as the Media Resources Center.

Please use the navigation menu to explore information from our previous teaching workshops.

International and Area Studies/Engineering 157AC: “Engineering, Environment, and Society”

About the Course Assignment

IAS/E 157AC: “Engineering, Environment, and Society” forefronts the political and social concerns that are of decentered in favor of the technical aspects of environmental engineering. Originally developed as part of the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) program, the project developed for IAS/E 157AC allowed for students to explore alternative ways of centering the knowledge produced in the communities...

Putting the “public” in the public university: the now and possible futures of community-university partnerships

About

From the classroom to the department and the broader campus, scales of learning and scholarship are necessary for intentionally designed partnerships with community organizations. The workshop was held on May 24, 2023, 9 am - 5 pm at the Tilden Room in MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley featuring advice from community-engaged scholars on best practices to advance the University's public mission.

Co-sponsored by: The American Cultures Center and Public Service Center

ACES Publications

About

The following is an archive of articles that have been published on the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Program, including links where you can read them. For any questions, please email americancultures@berkeley.edu.

The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading

Event Description

Building on the groundwork of the Antiracism Winter Institute, the CDF Program co-sponsored and co-facilitated a follow-up seminar in late April centered on contract grading. The two-day workshop, The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading, invited participants to explore two models of contract grading, Specifications Grading and Labor-based Contract Grading. On the first day, participants engaged in current research that explores how traditional grading methods structure...

Antiracism Pedagogy & Equity-Based Learning Winter Institute

Event Description

Since 2018, the CDF program has supported instructors in developing creative design assignments, assignments that are intentionally built to support faculty and students in ways that are adaptive, equity-oriented, and foster antiracism. In the CDF Winter Institute participants developed actionable strategies that build antiracist and equity-based education.

In conversation with CDF faculty, staff, and students, the Winter Institute discussed how within the current condition of remote instruction and the devastating effects of the...

ACES Courses

About

ACES courses represent corners of campus that highlights the intent of the AC requirement, while also deepening the meaning of that intent through a combination of multi-disciplinary research and praxis, the development of students and community partners as co-educators, mentoring opportunities, and increased and sustained accessibility of information.

To learn about projects developed with ACES community partners, please visit the...