Creative Discovery Fellows Program

Creative Discovery Fellows Program pages

Patricia Steenland

In College Writing (CW) R4B: “Images of History”, Dr. Patricia Steenland brought awareness and visibility to the Japanese American internment, an event that is often brushed over in history classes or lost in the context of World War II. Students in this course engaged in projects that sought to make it clear that there were over 500 UC Berkeley students who were forcibly removed from campus and displaced at Japanese Internment camps, which prevented them from finishing their...

About the Program

Launched in 2018, the UC Berkeley Creative Discovery Fellows Program (formerly Adobe Fellows) began as a collaboration between the American Cultures (AC) Center and the Academic Innovation Studio, with strong support from Digital Learning Services, Educational Technology Services, the...

Research and Evaluation

How can the real conditions of the classroom inform the implementation and design of campus curriculum initiatives? How do we design supports for faculty and students in ways that are adaptive, equity oriented, and foster anti-racism?

The Creative Discovery Fellows (CDF) Program helps instructors incorporate creative assignments into UC Berkeley’s undergraduate social justice graduation requirement. The CDF Program supports faculty and students in utilizing digital design tools to deepen and enhance the academic experience and to explore new avenues for public dissemination of...

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...

Public Policy 160AC: Work, Justice and the Labor Movement

This course provides a broad, interdisciplinary overview of the U.S. labor movement in the fight for social and economic justice. It will introduce students to critiques of racial capitalism and the power dynamics inherent in paid work while considering why and how workers form unions in response. One of the primary objectives of this course is to develop a theoretical and analytical understanding of contemporary workers’ experiences of work in the U.S. shaped by race, class, gender, sexuality, immigration status, language, religion, and other social constructs. There will be a special...

Geography X50AC: “California”

About the Course Assignment

California is a broad, introductory course that explores the material places and social spaces that create both astonishing wealth and intractable inequality in California. Created by Dr. Seth Lunine and Chancellor’s Public Fellow Sophia Fenn, the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) / Creative Discovery component of the course enabled the Fall Program for First Semester (FPF) students to extend and contextualize topics related to gentrification and the...

Get Involved

The Creative Discovery Fellows program supports faculty who want to develop creative assignments in their AC courses. No previous experience required!

At the moment, we do not have funding for faculty to participate in the full cohort-based version of the program, but staff are available to provide consultations and answer questions. Our student consultants are also available for in-class demonstrations, one-on-one design consultations, and support for individual students.

To learn more, please contact...

ACES Community Projects

About

The American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) Program offers students and faculty the opportunity to work with community organizations to develop cutting edge research projects associated with some of the nation's most pressing social issues.

The following are a collection of our growing ACES course offerings and previous student projects from these community-learning classes.