Social Change Courses @ Northeastern

Course Number: INTL 5100

Department: International Affairs (INTL)

Serves as an introduction to climate change and development processes in developing countries. Exposes students to key debates in the fields of climate change and international development. Offers students an opportunity to learn about the approaches to climate adaptation, the relationship between adaptation and development, and concepts of resilience and transformation. Using a comparative case study approach, explores the importance of the local context; the intersections of politics, economics, and culture; ecology and human-environment relationships; and the role (and challenges) of finance and development assistance. Climate impacts threaten to reverse many of the development gains of the last century, and the most vulnerable are likely to be the most impacted by climate change. At the same time, opportunities exist to ensure climate-compatible development pathways. Cross-listed with PPUA 5100.

Course Number: CIVE 5363

Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering (CIVE)

Offers an evidence-based glimpse of what has been called a clear and present danger to mankind. Analyzes case studies from the magic of the butterfly effect in chaos theory to the deep challenges in physics, biogeochemistry, and data sciences. Covers topics from experimental design to satellite-based remote sensing, all the way to the design and operations of next-generation hydraulic infrastructures, transportation systems, smart grids, and communication networks, including the impacts on coastal or inland cities, the resilience to weather hazards, and the sustainability of water-energy-food resources. Includes policy issues and risk-informed trade-offs in renewable energy, environmental regulations, and emissions control. Graduate students are required to complete a mandatory class project.

Course Number: ALY 6070

Department: Analytics – CPS (ALY)

Offers an interdisciplinary examination of design concepts and cognitive and communication theories that support effective practices for data visualization and communication. Considers the relationship between information and audience and studies effective techniques in the written, spoken, and visual communication of complex quantitative information. Project-based activities offer students opportunities to apply these techniques in a manner that makes data understandable, compelling, and actionable. Introduces R Shiny, Tableau and R in the lab sessions as the tool for data visualization.

Course Number: COMM 3304

Department: Communication Studies (COMM)

Explores the relationships between communication, social identity, and social inclusion. Focuses on how communication shapes perceptions and positions of social identity categories and how individuals and groups resist and transform identity and promote inclusion through communication. Examines communication and inclusion in the contexts of gender, race, sexual identity, social class, ability, and age. Course topics cover a range of theoretical and practical issues, including diversity in organizational settings and the social construction of identity. COMM 3304 and WMNS 3304 are cross-listed.

Course Number: CRIM 4660

Department: Criminal Justice (CRIM)

Provides students with an overview of issues related to communities and crime. Examines sociological aspects of community context, behavior, and functioning, and how communities are implicated in both crime-generating and crime-preventing processes. Familiarizes students with historical and contemporary literature surrounding the communities and crime relationship, as well as how the study of human behavior generally, and crime particularly, should examine the interaction of persons and places.

Course Number: PHTH 2350

Department: Public Health (PHTH)

Provides students with a basic familiarity with and appreciation of public health and community-based methods for improving the health of populations. Explores the purpose and structure of the U.S. public health system, contemporary public health issues such as prevention of communicable diseases, health education, social inequalities in health and healthcare, public health responses to terrorism, and control of unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking, drug abuse, and violence. Prior completion of PHTH 1260 is recommended but not required.