ENV 648b () / 2025-2026

Organizing: People, Power, and Change

Credits: 3 Spring 2026: Time and location TBA

Fulfilling the democratic promise of equity, accountability, and effectiveness requires the participation of an “organized” citizenry able to formulate, articulate, and assert its shared interests. Organizing, in turn, requires leadership: accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty. Organizers ask three questions: who are my people, what challenges do they face, and how can they turn their resources into the power they need to meet these challenges? Organizers identify, recruit, and develop leadership; build community around that leadership; and build power from the resources of that community. In this course, students form leadership teams of three to five persons to organize people into a “constituency” able to work together to achieve real outcomes in pursuit of a shared purpose by the end of the term. Students learn five core leadership practices: building public relationships; turning values into motivation through public narrative; turning resources into power by strategizing; turning intentions into effective action; and structuring organization to develop leadership, engage constituents, and achieve goals, distinguishing “mobilizing” from “organizing.” Students learn to coach others and to receive coaching in organizing practices.
Limited to 25