A Justice Brandeis Semester workshop was held last Wednesday to encourage University faculty to design pilot JBS programs for summer 2010 and the next academic year.The workshop, although specifically held for faculty, was also attended by Student Union representatives such as Union President Andy Hogan '11 in order to provide student input. Members of the JBS committee Profs. Tim Hickey (COSI), Laura Goldin (AMST) and Elizabeth Ferry (ANTH) presented their proposals for summer JBS programs.

The Justice Brandeis Semester is an experimental, immersion-based instruction program, which will allow students in groups of eight to 15 to earn up to 20 credits over eight- or 10-week summer programs or regular semesters.

The program was approved by the University Curriculum Committee Feb. 26.

Students and faculty must submit proposals by Oct. 1 for summer programs and Dec. 1 for fall and spring semesters. Students must collaborate with a faculty member affiliated with the academic discipline associated with their JBS program in order to draft a proposal.

The proposals will be reviewed by a JBS selection committee before being presented to the UCC for final approval.

The four JBS pilot programs that faculty have officially submitted to the committee are: "Collaborative Theater and the Theatrical Essay," "Environmental Health and Justice," "Ethnographic Fieldwork" and "Web and Mobile Application Development," according to the JBS Web site.

Hickey said in an interview that he created the "Web and Mobile Application Development" program "partly in response to a call by students over the last several years that they wanted to have more of a opportunity to apply the theory they're learning in real-life situations."

The proposal consists of a 12-credit summer course or two six-credit experiential courses and an eight-credit, 10- to 15-week program in the fall that includes a full-time internship and an independent study, according to the draft proposal available on the JBS Web site.

"I think it will be successful because Brandeis students love to make change. They want to be patrons of social change, to make a positive difference in the world. And this program is designed exactly to help them do that," Hickey said.

"I was asked to develop a pilot proposal, which will be reviewed along with the others after the deadline of Oct. 1. So it has not yet been approved (nor have any of the proposals, yet)," Ferry wrote in an e-mail to the Justice regarding the "Ethnographic Fieldwork" proposal.

She also wrote that she and Prof. Sarah Lamb (ANTH) developed the program together.

"Ethnographic Fieldwork" is a 10-week, 12-credit summer program that includes intensive training for ethnographic fieldwork, a course in reading classic and contemporary ethnographies and an independent research course, according to the draft available on the JBS Web site.

"I am very excited about it [because] it (like the other JBS proposals) gives the opportunity for much more classroom and experiential time (since it's 12 credits rather than 4 credits) with the same group of students," Ferry wrote in her e-mail.

"Environmental Health and Justice" is an 8-week, 10-credit "community engaged learning multidisciplinary semester," said Goldin, the architect of the proposal. The required classes for this program are AMST 102: "Women, Environment and Social Justice," BISC 6: "Environmental Health" and "Practicum" (94a EL).

In the practicum course students will use "environmental health monitoring and assessment and other tools in a supervised settings in the field along with community partners or government agencies," according to the draft on the JBS Web site.

The proposal also has a two-course off-campus option in which students can pay the full tuition fee for a summer and fall 20-credit JBS.

Hickey and Ferry said that no student-initiated JBS proposals have been submitted as of yet.

"[Encouraging student-originated JBS proposals] hasn't been the forefront of our discussions. I mean in the same sort of way that you know most courses . aren't student generated courses. . I'm not saying that we're not open to it," Ferry said.

"We're working through the student organizations; we're going through [Undergraduate Departmental Representatives] to get the work out that way," Hickey said.

All three professors said that student input is valuable in constructing JBS proposals.

Hickey said that he will meet with several Computer Science students on Thursday to discuss his proposal.

Likewise, Ferry wrote that she will meet with Anthropology UDRs and Student Union representatives to strategize on how to publicize the proposal to the student body.

Goldin said that she will publicize her proposal in her classes.