Education

The OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative (EDI) is convening a collaborative workshop for faculty across the OSUN community interested in developing an undergraduate OSUN Network Collaborative Course connecting the history of economic thought to contemporary policy debates. This course demonstrates to students how the concerns and topics of classical political economy and early twentieth-century economic thought continue to influence and frame ongoing discussions about economic and social policy.

Right to Employment is an interdisciplinary OSUN Network Collaborative Course that focuses on social, economic, legal, and policy developments regarding the right to employment, and introduces students to international initiatives and innovative programs. Students read economic analyses, policy proposals, legislative documents, and program reviews. The course can be tailored to the pedagogical and research interests and capacity of each OSUN partner including adjustments for the particular OSUN program, context, and location.

This OSUN Summer Course rethinks and re-imagines work as a democratic project in the post-pandemic world. Working people are not simple ‘resources.’ That was a central lesson of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The course examines why economic well-being and economic security cannot be governed by market forces alone. It evaluates how and why existing economic structures exacerbate rampant inequalities, erode the very foundations of economic stability, and threaten the lives of the most vulnerable.

This networked interdisciplinary course trains students to use standard GIS tools (such as ArcGIS and QGIS) for manipulating and analyzing geospatial data. It aims to confront environmental, social, and economic inequality by using these data. Environmental justice, economic security, ecological sustainability, and other local policy issues are addressed by working hands-on with real world data sources. Quantitative and exploratory data analysis, data visualization, photogrammetry, and data storytelling make up the bulk of the syllabus, but not without a keen eye on social issues.