Syllabus
 Community Development for Local Capacity Building - HSA 323
(formerly offerred as GS 323)

This course was last offered prior to 2007.  The syllabus may be revised for future offerings, including possible changes in the textbooks.

This is a three-credit graduate course and is one in a series of courses in the online Humanitarian Services Administration program developed by the University of Connecticut's Center for Continuing Studies. This course is a core course in the online Master of Professional Studies degree with a field of study in Humanitarian Services Administration. The course is also one of four required courses in the graduate online certificate program in Humanitarian Services Administration.

The developer of this course is Dr. Abdou Ndoye.

Course Information

Course Title: Community Development for Local Capacity Building (HSA 323)
Credits: 3
Instructor:  Dr. Ruth Rosenbaum
E-mail: ruth_rosenbaum@crea-inc.org,
Phone:(860) 527-0455

This course provides the student with the essentials of community development and the skills of local capacity building. Local Capacity building skills are needed by Humanitarian workers in order to foster sustainable community development.

1. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the principles of the concept of community development.
2. Students will demonstrate an awareness of how different social structures will require different development models.
3. Students will identify different approaches to get communities involved for a sustainable humanitarian assistance and development.
4. Students will develop skills necessary to foster local sustainable capacity building.
5. Students will engage in case studies emphasizing the importance of social structure in any humanitarian assistance for sustainable community development.

The students in this course will be required to hand in a final project that will account for 50% of their grade. Students will be also required to write short papers (3-5 pages) on topics identified according to the modules covered. These will account for 25%. After each module there will be learning activities that require written responses to be posted (15% of the grade). Each student will have to engage in a discussion forum, which will account for 10% of the grade, by commenting on the postings of 2 or 3 of their fellow students.

Final Project
In this final project, students are expected to demonstrate a clear understanding of the issues that evolve around community development initiatives. Assume you are a community development agent and are asked to put together a community development intervention project. In the project make sure you address: 

• The context of your intervention (social environment, population, culture, etc.) 
• The objectives of the project 
• The identification of local organizations, your approach to developing partnerships, and how you would address power structure. 
• Design an intervention plan outlining the roles assigned to each partner, with a set of priorities, and mobilizing techniques, etc. 
• Set up an evaluation plan. How would you evaluate your interventions, what would be your indicators and how would you measure them? 

The project is 20-25 pages and is expected to be integrative and extensive. It should be applicable for intervention. Turn this in using the Assignments tool of WebCT.

You are responsible for acting in accordance with the Student Code, available at http://www.dosa.uconn.edu/student_code.cfm.

Course Materials

Primary Course Texts:

Smillie, I. (2001). Patronage or partnership: Local capacity building in humanitarian crises. CRDI. Kumarian Press.  This text may be purchased directly from the publisher at: http://www.kpbooks.com/ or 1-800-289-2664.

Rubin, H. J.& Rubin, I. S. (1991). Community organizing and development. Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon.  This text may be purchased locally or through an online bookstore.

Cracknell, B. E. . (2000). Evaluating development aid: Issues, problems and solutions. SAGE Publications. ISBN  0-7619-9404-1.  This text may be purchased directly from the publisher at: 1-800-818-7243 (Pick Option 1 for books).

Other readings will be provided within the course through the Electronic Course Reserve (ECR).

• Word processing software
• Adobe Acrobat Reader

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Course Outline

1. The Notion of Community
2. Introduction to Community Development
3. Development and Underdevelopment
4. Social Capital
5. Community Development and Local Culture
6. Developing Partnerships in the Community
7. Diagnosing the Milieu and Identifying Relevant Needs
8. Developing an Adapted Intervention Plan
9. Social Structure and Intervention
10. Organizing Community for Empowerment
11. Managing a Community Development Plan
12. Building Local Capacity through Community Development
13. Building a Community Development Model
14. Evaluating Community Development Programs

Evaluation of the Course

Students will be provided an opportunity to evaluate instruction in this course using the University's standard procedures, which are administered by the Office of Institutional Research.