Community Engaged Scholarship

American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Program (ACES)

Integrative Biology

Integrative Biology 35AC & 190 - 'Human Biological Variation'

Instructors: Leslea Hlusko and Tesla Monson
Semesters Offered: Spring 2015 - Present

One of the world’s top ten most widely read websites, with approximately 550 million unique visitors per month, Wikipedia articles are often the number one hit when using a search browser. However, Wikimedia’s race and gender trouble are well-documented. While the reasons for the gap are up for debate, the practical effect of this disparity is not: content is skewed by the lack of...

English

Amy Lee English 31AC

 In Amy Lee’s English 31AC course on Climate Change fictions, students studied how contemporary literature shapes the way we view and understand climate change, narrates its impacts, and envisions the future. Students interned at two organizations, HEAL Food Alliance and the West Oakland Indicators Project (WOEIP). At their internships, students examined the ways in which race, gender, and class structures distribute the effects of climate change unevenly across communities. At HEAL, they developed popular education materials and...

Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies 135AC - Contemporary U.S Immigration

Instructor: Victoria Robinson
Semester: Fall 2015

Professor Victoria Robinson's 'Contemporary U.S. Immigration' course (Ethnic Studies 135) covers the topic of immigration in the United States, debunking common myths about immigration, revealing the truth about immigration, and following the history of immigration to present day. One notable subject in the discussion of present-day immigration is the program that President Obama has recently created: Deferred Action...

Engineering for Social Change

Engineering/International and Area Studies 157AC - Engineering, The Environment and Society

Instructor: Khalid Kadir
Semester: Spring 2015 - Spring 2017

Theater, Dance & Performance Studies

Theater Dance and Performance Studies 52AC - Reflections of Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity in American Dance

Instructor: Krista DeNio
Semester: Summer 2015

Music

Music 74AC/139AC - Hip Hop in Urban America

Instructor: Sara Lappas
Semester: Summer 2015

Rapping in Mandarin, Berkeley undergrad Vanessa Guo shared the stage with her teenage collaborator, Miyosha, and volunteer Juanita Greene at a lively, outdoor talent showcase last weekend in Richmond. The trio co-wrote the music and lyrics for “Dance with Me,” a hip-hop track about confidence and empowerment, through a partnership between the Richmond youth organization RYSE and a summer music course at Berkeley on the history of hip-hop in urban America....

Course Spotlight: Engineering, The Environment, and Society

This Spring, Dr. Khalid Kadir, will be teaching a new ACES course, Engineering 157AC / International and Area Studies 157AC: Engineering, The Environment, and Society at UC Berkeley. The course will challenge students to look beyond the technical elements of their work and recognize the deeply social and political nature of engineering questions. With help from Berkeley Ph.D. student and Chancellor's Public Fellow Lara Cushing, Dr. Kadir has established partnerships with local and regional African-American, Asian-American, and Latino community groups, through which...

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...

American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) Program

About ACES

The American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) Program started as a partnership between the American Cultures Center and the Public Service Center(link is external) in January 2010 to bring together the goals of the AC curriculum and community-based learning, supporting and deepening both. Generously supported by the ...

AC Course Spotlight Videos

The American Cultures Center is proud to offer wonderful opportunities such as Course Development Grants, and Teaching Awards that aim to celebrate your involvement within our courses. Below are spotlights of our faculty who teach various AC courses.