Members of the Center for Democracy and Civic Life staff develop and teach courses that support students in developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to co-create and engage in a thriving democracy.
Civic Life Seminars
In these courses, students reflect on their values and hopes, explore challenges to building and sustaining thriving civic cultures, and develop strategies for making meaningful civic contributions.
Sense and Consequence (HONR 200)
Sense and Consequence builds students’ skill at noticing patterns in their thoughts, interactions, and environments that are often hidden in plain sight. Recognizing these patterns is a way of building agency: the capacity to make choices that produce benefits for ourselves and our communities. Students in the course engage in personal storytelling; campus excursions; creative reflection activities; collaborative meaning-making; and imaginative work to gain hindsight, foresight, and insight that they can apply to any context or situation.
Sense and Consequence was offered most recently for fall 2025. This seminar is offered for undergraduate students through UMBC’s Honors College.
Be Your Best Self in Real Life (HONR 200)
Be Your Best Self in Real Life investigates how institutions regulate our lives, whether and when this kind of regulation is beneficial, and how people can escape/address/react to it and claim/enact our civic agency when it isn’t. The course focuses on how human beings can collectively and individually thrive within institutions, and how they must sometimes change institutions in order to do so.
Be Your Best Self in Real Life was offered most recently in fall 2024. This seminar is offered for undergraduate students through UMBC’s Honors College.
Talking Democracy (HONR 200)
In Talking Democracy, students become critically aware of the interplay among communication styles and techniques, democratic values, and the civic health of communities. They reflect on their own values, hopes, experiences, and approaches to communication; build skills that can help them initiate and enact positive social change; and emerge with greater confidence and clarity about how to move forward as a contributor to collective problem-solving and community-building.
Talking Democracy was offered most recently in fall 2023. This seminar is offered for undergraduate students through UMBC’s Honors College.
Engaged Media Seminars
In these courses, students engage in hands-on production for a variety of print and digital media. Working in collaboration with the instructor and each other, students develop thoughtful approaches to deadline-driven strategies, a deep sense of ownership over process and product, and a civically-engaged approach to media literacy.
Editing for Impact (ENGL 320)
Editing for Impact provides students with the opportunity to develop specialized approaches to editing content for various audiences, within the context of print magazine publishing. Students learn and engage in a complete cycle of magazine editing and production, including developing big-picture themes and tone, creating a real-time production schedule, coordinating with writers, and editing everything from copy to photos to pull quotes to headlines. Students complete the semester with a print magazine as a result of their collective efforts.
Editing for Impact was most recently offered for fall 2025 and will also be offered in fall 2026. This course is offered for undergraduate students majoring in English who have completed prerequisite courses.
Podcasting Essentials (CLDR 610)
In Podcasting Essentials, students learn the art of podcasting from conception to publication through a hands-on approach. This includes discovering the essentials of planning a podcast, mastering the use of equipment, learning editing techniques, and exploring effective marketing strategies. Students gain insights into sustaining audience engagement and monetization options. By the end of the course, students have the skills to create and promote their own successful podcast.
Podcasting Essentials was most recently offered in summer 2025 and will also be offered in summer 2026 and summer 2027. This course is offered as a four-week Skills Course through the Community Leadership graduate program. The course is open to all UMBC graduate students, staff members, and faculty members as well as non-degree seeking community members.