C4 Cross-Campus Capstone Course | Department of Anthropology

The C4 Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom is a unique learning space that functions as a diverse, socially-engaged community of learners and teachers that is dedicated to the values of respect, inclusion, collaboration, innovation, and commitment. A primary focus of the class-time will be on developing the personal-professional skills and perspectives.

ANTH 2300 during the Summer term will be part of the C4 Sprint 3.0 program, which is a three-layered experiential learning space for students at all levels and faculties.

Students will work collaboratively with students in other disciplines in teams on a single large-scale, multi-disciplinary research-design project. The project is supported by community partners. Students enrolled in Summer 2022 ANTH 2300 will work on the following project:

Sustainable Food Systems

Mondays & Wednesdays - 6 Weeks (S1 Term) from 5:30-8:30 PM

Quick Links

Why take ANTH 2300?

Students will start to make connections between Anthropology and the complex ways they can impact the world. Students will be provided Anthropology-specific input to engage in while connecting and collaborating with students from different majors who are further along in their studies. This course offers the chance to experience multiple ways that Anthropology intersects with other disciplines within a large-scale endeavour.

ANTH 2300 is part of the C4 Primer stream which is geared towards 1^st and 2^nd year undergraduate students.

In this stream, students will be broken into sub-teams and managed by C4 alumni who are registered in the C4 Management stream. Within these sub-teams, students will be given time to work on specific core skills like teamwork, communication or project management that are essential for this type of work.

Assignments

Students can expect the following assignments in this course:

Charters are important because they set the tone of the work and outline the intentions of the team members. A charter can help build a cohesive team, where every member knows and commits to specific roles and responsibilities. It includes a number of things, including: Mandate, Mission Statement, Statement of Values / Beliefs, Accessibility / Inclusivity Statement, Care Statement, Roles / Responsibilities, Communication, Barriers / Limitations, and Resources.

Stepping-Stone Assignments introduce students to foundational aspects of responsible and effective collaborative research-design work. Each assignment stresses a singular aspect of the collaborative process integral to the C4 experience. They will focus on project, discipline, and transferable skill needs and will help the students’ personal-professional development on their individualized project journey. For example, teamwork, project management fundamentals, ethics framework, inclusive design fundamentals, storytelling for designers.

The audience for the Project Design Presentation will be the partner. There are two main purposes to this presentation: 1. To communicate the class’ decisions to the partner about the why, who, where and what aspects of the project. 2. To leverage the feedback from the partner as SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to help start to identify the “How?” of the project. The presentation is required to draw and reflect on content and conversations from the first 5 classes but be framed with this specific audience and these two purposes in mind.

Each working group is required to contribute a section to a short final presentation that captures the class’s response to the challenge question originally posted. These videos are synthesized into one presentation by the C4 Management Team. The purpose of the assignment is to explain the novelty and usefulness of each group’s distinct approach for both partners and other stakeholders and participants. For this formal, professional presentation multiple project components are synthesized into one presentation that is comprehensive and visually engaging. Teams are encouraged to create a presentation that is appealing and understandable by a broad, non-expert audience composed of peer teams, supervisors, customers, advisers, the course directors, and other key stakeholders.

For this is a fun, celebratory presentation that takes place in the final class. Students are expected to draw on content from the whole semester in order to reflect on their experiences in C4. This culminating presentation should reflect on how students have achieved (or not) the objectives of the project and how students achieved (or not) their own personal objectives.

The goal of this activity is to help each student become acutely aware of what they want to learn from a C4 experience so, at the end, they can assess whether they learned what they had hoped. In the first class they will capture a preliminary time capsule video, guided by a list of questions. During the last class they will be provided time to watch the preliminary video before creating a video reflection it, again based on a series of questions. The focus will be on what they learned (personally, professionally, and academically), as they reflect on their pre-C4 selves and the impact that their C4 journey has had on them and the world around them.

For this written assignment students are expected to draw on content from all previous feedback activities, critical reflection exercises, and individual reflective activities. This culminating assignment should reflect on how students have achieved (or not) the objectives of the project and how students achieved (or not) their own personal objectives.

Project Options for Summer 2022

Students will work on the following project:

Sustainable Food Systems

Mondays & Wednesdays - 6 Weeks (S1 Term) from 5:30-8:30 PM

How can a community-maintained, sustainable food growth and sharing ecosystem be developed for the benefit of all human and non-human members of a given community?

Contact Karl Schmid (kschmid@yorku.ca) for more information and to gain permission to register.