I teach classes and workshops on civic engagement that leverage my 40 years of arts, community organizing, civic work, and research.
The technology education and training program, i c stars has engaged me to design and teach an eight week experience for their interns called “Civics 101.”
This class covers material in leadership, civics and community organizing. I’ve been teaching this class since 2013.
In 2017 Jonathan Peck and I started the POWER Institute – People Organizing to Win, Engage & Resist in response to requests for training from the thousands of people we met doing our community forums. We have offered “Chicago 101,” “TIF 101- Organizing for Economic Justice,” “Chicago Budget 101,” “Community Organizing 101,” and “Grassroots Campaigning 101” in tight 2 1/2 hour sessions. Over 300 people have attended!
I taught classes on public policy advocacy and civic engagement for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Continuing Studies Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management. The first class was on “Nonprofits and Public Policy Advocacy” and the second was a new class I helped design, “Nonprofits and Civic Engagement.”
These were five-week online classes that I teach and guide along. Each week I posted a short video to set up and frame some of the key concepts we’ll be looking for that week. Here is the video from the final week of the class on civic engagement…
The class was rated very highly by the students.
Some student feedback:
“The interactions between the students and Tom, our instructor, were very informative, instructive and energetic. The first studio assignment was genius! It introduced us to to civic engagement and the role of nonprofits and made us practice sharing, reflecting and engage in a form of civic engagement.”
“I really liked the way Tom Tresser challenged and questioned students after we submitted an assignment, It allowed for thought provoking conversations. I also enjoyed the diversity within the class and the many perspectives, experiences, culture, knowledge that others brought to the discussion. I also enjoyed the video at the beginning of each week to introduce the subject for the week.”
