PSC600  NGO Leadership Workshops

The International Relations Program offers a series of three one-credit policy workshops during Spring Semester 2005. These workshops emphasize training in skills for NGO leadership, particularly those skills which utilize the sophisticated technological capabilities of the Maxwell School. Each workshop consists of one Friday evening and meetings on Saturday and Sunday. Students will work on assignments between the workshop meetings, and submit final versions of the assignments later in the semester. The credits from these workshops count toward the MA degree requirements. It is not necessary for students to register for all three workshops.

For a detailed discussion of the objectives of these workshops, see Jeffrey W. Seifert and G. Matthew Bonham, "Advancing Education Through Digital Technology: Text Chat, Video-Conferencing, and Hypertext" and "The Disruptive and Transformative Potential of Hypertext in the Classroom: Implications for Active Learning".

The first workshop, Global Policy Advocacy (January 28-30), will emphasize presentational skills in a role-playing simulation, in addition to the regular skills-oriented curriculum. The second workshop, Video Conferencing for Global Governance (February18-20), will involve a multi-point video conference with students in Paris and Moscow, for example, on a current policy issue. The third workshop, Simulation Design for Conflict Analysis (April 15-17), will give students the opportunity to design and participate in conflict-oriented policy simulations.

These workshops are offered for one credit, each, and students need not take all three. For example, a student can take one workshop and one credit of independent study to extend the project begun for the workshop. Students can count these workshops toward credit in most topical and geographical concentrations.