Spring 2021 Course Descriptions

KROC 510 Leadership and Organizations (3 units)(Roche; Spring 2021)

Students in this course gain understanding about their personal purpose, goals and leadership style and begin to create their own plan to gain agency and grow as adaptive leaders. The course prepares students to become effective leaders in the peace and justice field by bringing core concepts and theories about leadership, organizations and change alive through experiential learning, case analysis, individual assessment, and self-reflection.

KROC 513 Program Design, Monitoring & Evaluation (3 units)(McDougal; Spring 2021)

Starting with a solid understanding of the evolution of thinking and practice among key development and peacebuilding actors, this course is designed to prepare students to design, monitor and evaluate peacebuilding programs and project. Students will not only understand best practices in project design and management but also learn the skills and tools necessary to effectively carry out projects.

KROC 514 International System (3 units)(Tschirgi; Spring 2021)

In a rapidly globalizing world, problems such as financial crises, poverty, violent conflicts, humanitarian disasters, pandemics and cybercrime are increasingly transnational in nature and cannot be solved solely by sovereign states acting individually or collectively. This course is designed to provide a big picture analysis of global governance and its interlocking elements. This includes an introduction to international organizations and multilateralism in a state-based international system and an examination of the political dynamics and key players of global governance in the post-Cold War era. It aims to enable students to understand the system’s strengths and limitations and how to make it work better at the micro, meso and macro levels.

KROC 515 Environmental Peace & Justice (3 units)(McDougal; Spring 2021)

Evidence is mounting that unprecedented economic growth experienced by human societies has induced a state of crisis for the Earth’s ecological systems. Many of the public goods provided by them – fresh water, clean air, abundant fisheries, nutritious soils, low sea levels, and moderate weather, to name a few – are increasingly at risk. Their failure poses existential threats to the societies humans have collectively built over millennia, and heightens the risk of violent conflict. This course will critically examine connections between the three legs of the proverbial sustainable development stool: environment, economy, and peace. We will explore specific issues in an applied, place-based framework, focusing on ways of understanding larger challenges as they manifest themselves in the San Diego region. We will also ask fundamental questions about environmental sustainability: How do current development paradigms create environmental conflicts? What role can we expect technology to play in offsetting our ecological impact or solving our conflicts over scarce resources? What does environmental justice look like? And ultimately, what are our prospects for peace and progress in the face of environmental peril? Class time will be spent on a combination of exploratory field trips, discussions, debates, and participatory community engagement. Deliverables will include reflective journal-keeping, an issue brief, a policy memo, and a final project.

KROC 522 Impact Evaluation (3 units)(Cordeiro; Spring 2021)
*previously called Innovation Evaluation

Social innovation must be translated into actionable initiatives to achieve their intended goals. This course is designed to prepare students to design, monitor and evaluate social innovation initiatives. It provides essential knowledge for program design and management, including logical frameworks for monitoring and evaluation. Through this course students learn the skills and tools needed to implement basic methods used in impact evaluation, think critically about the issues involved with evaluating programs and apply various types of tools to systematize the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects throughout the project cycle. This course will include an applied project conducted for a community organization.

KROC 531 Intervention Design (3 units)(Gamaghelyan; Spring 2021)

The Intervention Design course is a required course for the MS-CMR program. It provides a framework for students to synthesize and apply knowledge and practical skills gained during the program to create a specific conflict management/resolution project. The course is also a chance to create a key Kroc School Portfolio item that students can showcase to prospective employers, donors, or partners.

Throughout the course students will learn how to do the following:

  1. Conduct conflict analysis
  2. Identify and frame a critical need or problem within that conflict context and translate that need or problem into an actionable goal.
  3. Develop a robust literature review and theory of change, demonstrating an ability to apply the learning from the program to develop a theoretically-grounded approach to the problem.
  4. Recognize various intervention design strategies ranging from program design and action research to applied research and advocacy in order to choose an appropriate one for the particular context.
  5. Integrate a number of conflict management and resolution approaches to develop a course of action and recommendations that result in outcomes that culminate in the conceived goal.
  6. Create a robust and persuasive written, visual and oral presentation of the intervention.

KROC 532 Negotiations (3 units)(Fryer; Spring 2021)

Negotiation is the most widely used means of conflict management. The aim of this course is to develop your understanding of the principles, strategies, and tactics of effective negotiation in emotionally charged conflict situations. The role of identity – culture, gender, religion, nationality, class – will be mainstreamed throughout the course. Case studies and hands-on simulations will cover a variety of multi-issue, multi-party negotiations involving territorial and ethnic conflict, environmental justice, and post-conflict reconciliation. Each case involves both material concerns and underlying social-psychological interests. This course emphasizes the power of symbols, rules and norms, and regime and relationship building for cooperative ventures, governance and conflict prevention.

KROC 570 War, Gender and Peacebuilding (2 units)(Tschirgi; Spring 2021) 

This course explores the peacebuilding roles that women play in conflict zones around the world. Like traditional courses, it will include an introduction to gender and peacebuilding and an analysis of women’s leadership in human rights activism and conflict resolution. However, this unique course is built around the involvement of four women peacemakers from conflict zones around the world who will play an active role in the classroom and help us explore how power, oppression, and gendered identities contribute to war and peace from the personal to the societal levels. Through a series of expert lectures, case studies, interactive exercises, and mixed media presentations, students will gain increased understanding about gender and peacebuilding, including the gendered drivers of conflict, and the different roles women and men play supporting, preventing, mitigating, and resolving conflict.

KROC 574 Human Rights Advocacy (3 units)(Sharp; Spring 2021)

An examination of the actors and organizations conducting modern-day human rights advocacy and the techniques central to their work, including fact-finding, monitoring, report writing and media work. The course provides a balance of practical skill development (interviewing, press release writing) and critical-reflective examination of the ethical and strategic dilemmas faced by human rights advocates today.

KROC 590 Facilitation & Dialogue Skills (2 units)(Fryer; Spring 2021)

The aim of this 2-unit course is to introduce, reinforce and encourage the core skills required by practitioners facilitating dialogue. They incorporate both the design and facilitation of conversational space. They complement the skills used by mediators and focus of the class will be on a broad range of methodologies that can be used by someone shaping and holding such spaces. Whereas the process of mediation aims to bring about some form of agreement or settlement, the focus of a facilitated dialogue is to encourage deeper understanding of another perspective.  We will therefore examine how to establish the structure of facilitated dialogue, how to build trust in the process and develop rapport with conflict parties and the important role culture plays throughout it all. A strong focus will be placed on the ethical considerations for third party interveners and lessons identified by practitioners from around the world will be used each week along with examples from conflicts such as Northern Ireland, and Nepal.

Students will develop and practice the transferable skills that are the foundation of all effective facilitation and dialogue. A variety of methodologies, simulations, exercises and case studies will offer opportunities for training and coaching as we explore the nature and dynamics of the contexts within which facilitation and dialogue occurs in the field of peacebuilding and reconciliation work.

KROC 590 Peace & Spirituality (2 units)(Sharp; Spring 2021)

This course will support students in cultivating a practice of reflection and resilience. Students and the instructor together will explore faith, spirituality, and contemplative practice in the context of their personal experience and work as peacebuilders and changemakers. Spiritual concepts will be accompanied by insights from scientific research including neuroscience and other disciplines. Readings will also include more secular and philosophical perspectives on what it means to live an “examined life.” The course will begin at the micro level with an examination of the self, the nature of consciousness, and other existential introspective themes, before moving to the more meso and macro levels where we will investigate the relationship between inner peace and outer peace. The latter will include (1) the ways in which spiritual faith and practice can both motivate and sustain peacebuilding work, including by helping to cope with issues of stress and burnout; and (2) the ways in which spiritual practices can be integrated into peacebuilding programs. While students will be encouraged to pursue a wide variety of spiritual practices, as a class we will spend a significant amount of time together learning and practicing mindfulness and lovingkindness meditations.

KROC 592 Creativity, Peace & Social Change Workshop (1 unit)(Fryer; Spring 2021)

Purely trying to address conflict and social change on an intellectual level is destined to fall short. Innovation is rooted in creativity. Examples of how this can have a positive impact on social problems can be found around the world. Antanas Mockus, during his time as Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, used a variety of novel initiatives such as hiring 420 mime artists to highlight the dangers of bad driving. Faced with the challenge of getting more people to use the stairs in a Stockholm train station, The Fun Theory turned the stairs into a series of working piano keys. Ex-combatants in Israel and Palestine use theatre to explore the protracted conflict that surrounds them. Not only have these approaches been creative, but they were also effective.

This workshop will ground such practice within existing and emerging theoretical frameworks. The instructor will make use of established connections with major contributors to the academic field such as Dr. Olivier Urbain, Director of the Min-On Institute Music Research Institute and Dr. Joylon Mitchell, one of the editors of the recently published book Peacebuilding and the Arts, alongside practitioners using arts-based methodologies in places ranging from Colombia, Germany, Thailand, Northern Ireland and South Africa.

KROC 592 Changemaking in Education Workshop (1 unit)(Cordeiro; Spring 2021)

Over the last fifty years, the landscape of schooling and organizations playing key roles in student learning has shifted. In the latter part of the 20th century, we witnessed the rise and growth of homeschooling and charter schools, to early 21st century models of blended learning with online delivery either synchronous or asynchronous. This course investigates unique models of schooling around the world that are gaining momentum in our rapidly changing educational landscape. It examines how some of these creative innovations are being implemented by educational entrepreneurs. If innovation in education involves using one’s creativity to produce a unique idea or solution in education, entrepreneurship applies that innovation to bring the ideas to life. With the growth of social enterprises, education and Pk-12 student learning opportunities are no longer solely delivered by public or private schools with many types of organizations either directly or indirectly supporting student learning. At the same time, there have been hundreds of innovative schooling models initiated by students and teachers around the globe. We will explore what we can learn from these models and their scalability.

KROC 594 Peacebuilding Practicum: Fieldwork in Consulting & Project Management (3 units)(Carpenter; Spring 2021)

Application and pre-/co-requisites: This course is designed for MAPJ students. It satisfies the field-based course / practicum requirement for MAPJ students. It is by application only. Apply here by October 16th. Students undertaking the KROC 594 Peacebuilding Practicum: Fieldwork in Consulting & Project Management should have completed – or should simultaneously be taking – KROC 511 Peace and Conflict Analysis and KROC 513 Program Design, Monitoring & Evaluation.

Peacebuilding Practicum: Fieldwork in Consulting & Project Management provides an overview of the evolving, professional field of peacebuilding as well as a critical review of approaches to working in conflict-affected environments. Designed to run as a Spring course, students will be required to develop a peacebuilding project in collaboration with a partner organization with the intention of implementing it as a graduate student consultant during the summer. This course focuses on three intersecting areas of knowledge and competency:

  • Understanding the professional field of peacebuilding (practice paradigms and institutions)
  • Peacebuilding design skills (including conflict analysis, theories of change, project life cycles, and the use and limitations of logical frameworks)
  • Core competencies for working in the field (cultural awareness/sensitivity, communication skills, process design skills, and interpersonal conflict resolution)

The course places emphasis on a reflective-practice approach to fieldwork and locally-based approaches to peacebuilding. Students in this course will be required to develop a peacebuilding project in collaboration with a partner organization with the expectation of implementing it as a graduate student consultant during the summer of 2021. This summer project can satisfy the MAPJ internship requirement. Students are expected to secure their own funding, and can apply for Kroc School internship awards, which may help cover costs.

KROC 594 Business and Social Innovation (3 units) (Roche, Spring 2021)

Is the capitalist system the evil of our time or the savior of our future? Are businesses the cause of society’s most pressing problems or could they be instead part of the solution? How can business and entrepreneurial ingenuity contribute to reduce poverty and wealth inequality, protect the environment and natural resources, create community and social values, provide education and health services, reduce gender inequality and migration issues? Can the capitalist system, which is powered by individualism, ambition and a competitive spirit, evolve to be more humane and conscious of social problems? In a nutshell, what paradigms need to change in the business world and in society to make the market system a pillar for lasting positive peace in the world?

Working with real-life business cases, students in this course will be able to examine and critically analyze the above questions. From big businesses to small entrepreneurial examples, the course will provide tools to tackle social issues using proven and innovative business techniques and models. In short, this course focuses on the recently explored intersection between business and social innovation. Phills et al. define social innovation as “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”  Social innovation is about generating transformative ideas and initiatives that meet unmet needs and attempt to create a “new equilibrium” that is socially superior to the status quo.

By the end of the course, students work in teams to develop a sustainability project for an existing company or a new entrepreneurial venture. The business initiative must create social value for all relevant stakeholders and society at large and show how it contributes to positive peace. All of the projects must be cross-functional in nature, so that students use the full spectrum of knowledge and skills that they have acquired during this course.

KROC 594 Media, Nationalism and Conflict (3 units)(Gamaghelyan; Spring 2021)

Regarded collectively, media is a means of mass communication. It is also the plural form of a “medium” or the means through which social phenomena such as nations and conflicts within and between them are (re)produced. The agencies and structures that (re)produce nationalisms and other forms of social solidarity and conflict do not simply transmit reality as it happens. Even the most impartial and multidimensional transmission is selective and therefore subjective: since it represents a particular ideology, a particular lens, a particular angle, a particular frame, a particular cut, and a particular timeframe. In other words, what we receive through media is inevitably a representation of an event and not the event itself.

The course will look into an array of media ranging from museums and architectures to cinema, literature, and social and mass media. We will explore the storytelling process that includes framing, selecting, narrating, plot construction, and other mechanisms which (re)produce and transform ideologies and other conflict discourses. We will learn to critically analyze a wide variety of texts and visual materials, differentiate between narrative structures that (re)produce violence and those that (re)produce peace, and envision discursive interventions.

KROC 594 Activists and Activism (3 units) (Meade; Spring 2021)

What does it mean to be an “activist?”  What are the key differences between activists who work inside and outside of different systems of power?  How much is activism shaped by the personalities of extraordinary individuals versus social structures and other contingencies?  What’s the relationship between individual activists and broader social movements?  What kind of activist are you, and what attributes, experience, and skills do you need to accomplish your goals?  This course will examine these and related questions through a series of life histories of prominent activists. The reading is intensive, but diverse, including: history, biography, memoir, journalism, philosophy, sociology, poetry, and fiction. Through a series of wide-ranging but structured discussions, students will identify the personal attributes, skills, strategic decisions, socio-historical contexts, and ethical controversies that define effective activists, and then apply them to the design of their own career trajectories as peace and justice professionals.  The course will offer students three key learning opportunities: an introduction to a series of foundational social movements (globally and in the U.S.), a deep-dive into how individuals can actively shape social change, and a structured opportunity for personal reflection and career planning.

KROC 595 Wrestling with Wokeness Reading Group (1 unit)(Sharp; Spring 2021)

In recent years, acute awareness of ongoing social, racial, gender, and other injustices—wokeness—has aroused much-needed energy and attention, but has also raised difficult questions: how do we reconcile the at times understandable righteousness of cancel-culture with freedom of speech? Might the push for trigger warnings and safe spaces makes us more fragile and less resilient? At what point does the push to be more sensitive in our thinking and speech actually stymie the very honest and open conversations we need to have in a pluralistic society committed to diversity? How do we assess the tensions and tradeoffs when claims by one group of social justice activists appear to clash with those of another group? In what ways is social justice advocacy fed by political polarization, and it what ways does it contribute to political polarization? Why do so many activists seem to think the world is getting worse and worse when there is evidence to the contrary? In this reading group, we will engage the work of a number of contemporary writers who have wrestled with these and other questions relating to wokeness in various ways. Some writers celebrate the new spirit of activism for social change, while others eye it with a degree of ambivalence and worry that it may lead to backlash. This will include readings from both the left and right of the political spectrum. You are also almost guaranteed to agree with some, while vehemently disagreeing with others. You may find some writers challenging, engaging, thought provoking, and even offensive all at the same time. In such cases, a thoughtful critique of the critique will always be welcome and encouraged. We will try to keep the discussions open and informal with enough chocolate and coffee to fuel dialogue.

KROC 597 Professional Portfolio (1 unit) (Choi-Fitzpatrick, Spring 2021)

The Kroc School equips changemakers. This course will help you to link the concepts, skills, and work-products developed in your time here with the professional requirements of the sector you wish to enter or return to upon graduation. In particular, this course will provide the time and support required to compile a professional portfolio composed of the items specified by your degree program. 

Central to the Portfolio is a Curriculum Vitae highlighting your accomplishments to date. The Portfolio will also include a Reflective Essay, which serves as a coherent framework for drawing together lessons learned from your graduate studies at the Kroc School, and articulate your professional goals and trajectory. It should build upon your CV and draw upon a body of coursework and critical reflection. The essay should explain why the projects and documents completed in core courses and electives and/or practicum were selected for inclusion in the portfolio and how they are illustrative of the student’s learning.

The rest of the Portfolio consists of work products specified as eligible to include in guidelines for the MA in Peace and Justice, MA in Social Innovation, and MS in Conflict Management and Resolution. These can include policy memos, strategy memos, blogs, newspaper or magazine articles, grant applications, or book reviews.

Over the course of seven class meetings we will work to identify and refine these work products, such that they showcase your best work for a professional audience. Upon completion, students will be able to:

  1. Articulate a clear narrative about their time at USD, and its connection to their professional objectives.
  2. Highlight their accomplishments through a polished resume.
  3. Showcase professionally valuable skills and abilities

PJS 595 Peace and Justice Studies Capstone (3 units)(Carpenter, Spring 2021)

A study of a current or developing problem that threatens or prevents peace and/or justice. The case study will integrate skills and perspectives acquired in the program. Prerequisite for the course is approval of a case study prospectus. To pass you must achieve a B or better.

*First meeting will be together as a class, then individual meetings with students.