ACCEL-101 Student Resources (0 credits)
ACCEL-201 Community-Based Learning (4 credits)
In this ELM, learners explore the core concepts of the program - you, your communities, and the issues that are alive in your communities. You explore fundamental ideas about identity, analyze and engage various communities, and begin to identify and address questions and challenges that exist in the spaces you experience. This ELM marks the beginning of a new academic journey but invites you to bring with you all of the experiences of your life so far.
ACCEL-202 Investigating Mindfulness (4 credits)
The goal of learning for this ELM is two-fold. It is designed to teach dimensions of the field of mindfulness through examination of the research in mindfulness and neuroscience. And it is meant to expose learners to mindfulness practices in light of the scientific research to provide access to well developed and long-used techniques that may be of value for living a life as well as helping individuals to address personal issues such as anxiety and depression. It is a hope that the ELM will help students navigate their emotional way through the Accelerate program.
ACCEL-210 Women's History & Leadership (4 credits)
Women's History & Leadership will introduce learners to mindful, women's leadership through exploration of the lives of women in the past and present. Learners will develop an understanding of and appreciation for the histories of women leaders with special focus on the role of Alverno, Milwaukee and Wisconsin women and women in learners' own communities. Students will identify and describe challenges women have faced and methods they have developed when leading. Through self assessment, you will also consider your own leadership values and abilities.
ACCEL-211 Psychology of Prejudice (4 credits)
Learners will become familiar with principles of social cognition that lend themselves to prejudiced attitudes. They will consider prejudice from the perspective of both the biased individual and the target of the biased judgments. They will examine the effects of both individual and systematic efforts to reduce prejudice and examine social structures in their lives from the perspective of prejudice reduction.
ACCEL-220 Literary Analysis & Justice (4 credits)
Students explore the criminal justice system using literary and historical frameworks to analyze novels, contemporary articles on incarceration and research on the death penalty within different communities. This learning gives them the opportunity to reflect on leadership and civic engagement in the context of their own personal and professional development
ACCEL-221 Science and Everyday Things (4 credits)
In this course we explore what a structure-property framework is, and how it helps us understand the world around us. This learning deepens our understanding of and changes our relationships to objects in our everyday life. Additionally, this course informs our decisions and actions as consumers and citizens.
ACCEL-230 Acting: On and Off Camera (4 credits)
ACCEL-231 Art of the Mystery (4 credits)
Crime fiction is one of the most popular literary genres in the world (the romance genre gets the win). Even those of us who consider ourselves to be compassionate and peace loving, enjoy reading a good mystery novel. Why is that? In this experiential learning module (ELM), you'll investigate the mystery genre in terms of its aesthetic, historical, and philosophical dimensions. You'll study the roots of the genre's conventions and discover why so many are drawn to a genre that engages the dark side of human nature.
ACCEL-240 Who Owns the Past? (4 credits)
The student will demonstrate close reading of historical monograph(s) and contemporary news articles/op-eds to develop an understanding of the creation and purpose of historical monuments and memorials. The student will learn how to engage in reflective practice of their values, what shapes point of view, and apply historical context to interpret the values of others, both past and present. They will apply their understanding of how values influence choice and perspective through an interpretation of community monuments and make and defend their views on historic monuments and memorials, past, present, and future.
ACCEL-241 Health Humanities (4 credits)
Learners will analyze articles, videos, poems, short stories, TED Talks, and novels to develop an understanding of Health Humanities and its existing and potential impact on the ideas, practices, and experiences of health, illness, health care, care receiving, and caregiving. Learners will then use their learning to reflect on their own values and beliefs on these topics, and consider how to apply their learning to improve the health and health care of their communities.
ACCEL-250 Religious Pluralism (4 credits)
America is the most religiously diverse country in the world. We are a nation that prides itself on religious freedom and religious tolerance, yet we have and do experience violence and discrimination against religious communities. Religion reaches into all aspects of our society, yet most people do not know much about religions other than their own. This experiential learning module gives the learner the opportunity to reflect on their own spiritual journey as well as engage with religious traditions with which they may not be familiar. In addition, the learner explores how people can and do come together across religious divides to cooperate for the common good.
ACCEL-251 Search for Meaning (4 credits)
What is philosophy and why is it a worthwhile discipline? ELM 251, Search for Meaning, is an introduction to philosophy and philosophical practice. Philosophy has strong connections with the field of mathematics in part because its practice is rooted in systematic and consistent reasoning. The ELM will introduce learners to philosophical questions like What does it mean to be human? What is the role of self awareness? What is memory? What is knowledge? How can we recognize what we don't know? In the process of exploring these questions we will reflect on the coherence and implications of our reasoning about them. The search for meaning is fraught with many challenges, not least of which is a human tendency to believe that we already know all we can know, hence we can be trapped by our preconceptions. Knowledge and values go hand and hand. What we know and believe determines our choices. And what we know about ourselves influences our understanding of the world and the ways we respond to it. This ELM addresses Outcome 5, Explores the connections between actions and values and articulates the assumptions and implications of moral positions. It is designed to help learners understand their choices, the connections that exist between knowledge and actions, and the meaning of integrity and self-respect.
ACCEL-290 Beginning Capstone Assessment (1-4 credits)
This capstone asks you to lace together a number of the complex processes and intersecting ideas that you've encountered so far in your ELMS and weave them into a final project that you will continue to develop and shape as you move through the rest of the program. The following activities prepare you for the final capstone project: the design of a creative landing page for your portfolio and the completion of the first chapter of your Intellectual Autobiography (IA). Three significant strands in this capstone will give you a final opportunity to demonstrate the beginning level outcomes of the program: your journey as a learner; your influences and inspirations in your community; and your emerging path as a professional.
ACCEL-300 Getting Things Done (2 credits)
The experience of missing deadlines is almost universal, and happens for large and small tasks, individuals and groups, and in cultures all around the world. There's a reason for this widely shared experience that can be explained by the field of Behavioral Economics; it's called the "planning fallacy." In this ELM we will explore why the planning fallacy is so common and what we can do to set more realistic deadlines that allow us to make steady progress toward our goals.
ACCEL-301 Investigating Community Issues (4 credits)
In ELM301 the learner will examine concepts relating to food as an example of how to investigate community issues and recognize the variety of related concerns. Some of the themes of the ELM are the meaning of food; the notion that examination of food is a path to identity, culture, and history; the ways in which food related issues reveal issues of race, class, and gender; the significance of national issues around the meat industry; local and global issues around food; and how personal values and moral choices are entailed in our food knowledge and choices. The ELM is broad and far-reaching, touching on many aspects of human life and community. It also draws extensively from Ruth Ozeki's book My Year of Meats, to help examine the vast issues at play in the context of the export of beef to Japan.
ACCEL-310 Project Management (4 credits)
This ELM introduces learners to project management and gives the learner the opportunity to apply the principles and concepts in an organization to accomplish important tasks and goals related to today's project orientated organization. As a result, a new kind of organization is emerging to deal with the accelerating growth in the number of multiple, simultaneously ongoing, and often interrelated projects in organizations. This project oriented organization, often called "enterprise project management" (Levine, 1998), "management by projects" (Boznak, 1996), and similar names, was created to tie projects more closely to the organization's goals and strategy and to integrate and centralize management methods for the growing number of ongoing projects. "Why projects?" The reason is simple. We form projects in order to fix the responsibility and authority for the achievement of an organizational goal on an individual or small group when the job does not clearly fall within the definition of routine work (Meredith, Mantel, Jr., Shafer, & Sutton, 2017).
ACCEL-310L Project Management Lab (2 credits)
In Project Management, learners execute project strategies to address an organizational goal. Application of core tools are demonstrated for each phase of the project life cycle, initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. In this lab the learner will create the documents that reflect each phase of the project life cycle.
ACCEL-315 Researching an Issue (4 credits)
Learners build the research skills they need - gathering and interpreting information, presenting ideas and data, and making a forceful point - to investigate and address a significant issue in context guided by communication, information literacy, and social interaction frameworks.
ACCEL-320 Understanding NGOs (4 credits)
This ELM encourages learners to think strategically in the planning and management of an organization using the Balanced Scorecard analysis to view organizational performance. The learner will understand how to connect the dots between projects, programs, and people in an organization to accomplish the mission, vision, and strategy of the organization.
ACCEL-320L NGO Analysis Lab (2 credits)
ACCEL-330 Professional Communication (4 credits)
Learners develop the abilities they need to professionally communicate in and about particular contexts, including proficiency in using appropriate modes for different settings. Learning experiences include exploring an audience-centered model of communication in the context of business writing and professional speaking, identifying and analyzing information needed to create a professional presentation, and analyzing the relationship between mediums and messages.
ACCEL-340 Diversity & Equity (4 credits)
Learners will explore identity as both an embodied experience and a socially constructed phenomenon. Using critical theory, learners will analyze how identity is constituted through various social and cultural norms. Specifically, learners will analyze identity by exploring how aspects of race, gender, sexuality, class, and immigrant status impact how one navigates and exists in the world. Finally, learners will reflect on how identity shapes their own personal and professional engagement.
ACCEL-340L Diversity & Equity Lab (2 credits)
ACCEL-341 Health Humanities (4 credits)
In this ELM, learners will analyze articles, videos, poems, short stories, and novels to develop an understanding of Health Humanities and its existing and potential impact on the ideas, practices, and experiences of health, illness, health care, care receiving and care giving, education, including medical humanities and narrative medicine. Learners will then use their learning to reflect on their own values and beliefs on these topics, and consider how to apply their learning to their communities.
ACCEL-350 Mindful & Moral Leadership (4 credits)
This ELM introduces learners to leadership models and helps the learner determine models of leadership appropriate to their personality, needs and goals. In the process it explores the role of valuing as a dimension of moral decision making and begins to help the learner articulate the moral principles that inform their leadership styles. Mindful leadership as a significant dimension of leadership will be introduced and explored as a way to refine learner's own principles, needs, and practices.
ACCEL-350L Mindful & Moral Leadership Lab (2 credits)
ACCEL-351 Healing Through Arts & Activism (4 credits)
In this ELM you explore the expressive arts and how they can serve as healing agents, while also having a powerful influence on community transformation. You're exposed to various art modalities, such as visual art, music, poetry, theater, and dance, all of which can be used in both personal and public healing. Each of the four objectives take approximately two weeks to complete and combined will integrate into your final assessment. The first objective connects specifically to the personal healing of the artist through art action, whereas the second objective exposes you to art as public action for the sake of healing the community. In the third objective, you will evaluate the impact of art practices and identify frameworks to build community belonging. Finally in the fourth objective, you will develop your own art action in a modality of your choosing to implement within your community as your final assessment. After completing your art action, you'll reflect on its impact as a force for positive change, and identify ways in which you can carry your learning and work forward as a moral agent using expressive arts and activism.
ACCEL-390 Intermediate Capstone Assessment (1-4 credits)
ACCEL-401 Investigating Your Future (1-4 credits)
In this Experiential Learning Module (ELM), the learner will explore concepts and frameworks from a variety of disciplines that help them think about their gifts, skills, and interests, as well as how to more fully manifest them in the world. This ELM engages all five outcomes of the program at the Advanced Level and introduces the student to emotional intelligence, frameworks of social interaction, research on mindset, theories of vulnerability and human connection, and practices of mindfulness. This ELM prepares the learner for and begins the work of the Advanced Level.
ACCEL-410 Advanced Research (2 credits)
This ELM guides the learner through the steps of a research project in order to better understand an issue or concept central to their project initiative. They will begin by designing a research question and conduct research with peer reviewed sources. As the ELM unfolds, they will learn how to research databases available through the Alverno Library and elsewhere as needed. They will learn about different note taking strategies and employ one as they begin a deep dive into evidence. Based on their results of their research they will draft a a preliminary thesis statement. They will receive feedback on their research question, the quality and depth of their sources, and on their thesis. Their summative assessment will be a presentation describing their work so far and a self assessment of their progress.
ACCEL-411 Advanced Research & Writing (2 credits)
In the second part of the ELM, as the learner begins to lay out and launch their initiative, they will revisit their research question and the evidence so far collected. They may continue their research to seek additional information or to help answer new questions that arise as they move forward. They will use their increasing knowledge of the topic to refine their question and narrow the focus of their research. They will continue to write their paper, using feedback to revise. Upon completion of their paper they will craft a presentation that includes their findings and a self assessment on their success in conducting research and writing their paper
ACCEL-420 Pitching A Leadership Initiative (2 credits)
This four-week ELM takes you step by step through a creative and focused process for designing your leadership initiative proposal. Whether or not you have an idea in mind, your first learning process will be brainstorming and unpacking project possibilities. You will learn to create multiple mind maps and with your Coach decide on the best path forward. You will coalesce your ideas into a Pitch Deck and share it with your Coach and your Accelerate peers. In Topic 2 you will explore the nature of outcomes and project success criteria and design both for your proposal, connecting with your Coach and an expert for feedback. Your final step will be to draw on your learning to create a project proposal and assessment plan.
ACCEL-421 Advanced Project Management (2 credits)
ACCEL-425 Implementing A Leadership Initiative (4 credits)
ACCEL-430 Rhetorical Advocacy (2 credits)
This advanced-level ELM helps the learner develop their understanding of what it means to be a rhetorical advocate in various situations. In ELM 430-A, using disciplinary frameworks, the learner will understand the meaning of rhetoric, agency, and rhetorical advocacy/leadership. Using this understanding as a foundation, the learner will identify what it means to be a rhetorical leader in specific contexts. Through rhetorical analysis and invention, the learner will develop their skills as a rhetorical leader by critically identifying rhetorical audiences, constraints, and resources specific to disparate rhetorical situations. This ELM will culminate in an analysis of a potential rhetorical situation specific to their project initiative. Feedback will be given on the quality of their articulation of the disciplinary frameworks pertinent to rhetorical leadership and their capacity to conduct initial rhetorical analyses related to their project initiative.
ACCEL-431 Digital Rhetoric (2 credits)
In ELM 431-B, the learner will be guided in understanding the process of and skill involved in persuasively arguing for a particular position. Revisiting their understanding of rhetorical advocacy/leadership within rhetorical situations, the learner will identify the interdependent relationship between the rhetorical and technological resources at a rhetor's disposal. The ELM will also guide the learner in understanding what it means to communicate ethically and reflect on the moral implications of rhetorical decisions. This ELM will culminate in a communication plan for their project initiative. One aspect of the plan will include a written argumentative description of their initiative's rhetorical situation and the second aspect will be in the form of a recorded mini-presentation that helps them practice their rhetorical leadership skills. Feedback will be given on the learner's ability to consider the rhetorical situation, the role of agency in making technological and rhetorical choices, and the implications of their communicative decisions as rhetorical leaders.
ACCEL-435 Leading A Project (4 credits)
ACCEL-440 Independent Study (4 credits)
ACCEL-450 Advanced Leadership Strategies (2 credits)
ACCEL-451 Leadership in Context (2 credits)
ACCEL-460 From Printout to Publication (1-4 credits)
ACCEL-461 Grant Writing (4 credits)
In this Experiential Learning Module (ELM), the learner develops an understanding of the communication, analysis, and problem-solving strategies that non-profit organizations use to raise funds and employs these strategies in creating a grant proposal for a local non-profit agency that is suitable for submission.
ACCEL-462 Stories of Illness and Recovery (4 credits)
In this advanced Experiential Learning Module learners use personal response and the critical framework of intersectionality (an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege, including race, ethnicity, culture, gender, class, disability, religion, spirituality, and sexual identities) to analyze graphic novels, videos, memoirs, and film about illness and recovery to reflect on how the personal is indeed political when it comes to health and health care.
ACCEL-463 Faces, Places, and the American Dream (4 credits)
In this Experiential Learning Module, you will explore theoretical frameworks defining culture, cultural competence, and cultural humility while focusing on diversity and immigration in the United States. You will examine these concepts through the lens of Latinos to understand different perspectives on key issues like healthcare, immigration, education, and the American Dream. You will increase your cultural proficiency and be empowered to engage with greater confidence and responsiveness when acting as a cultural mediator.
ACCEL-464 My Nonprofit Idea (4 credits)
Do you have an idea for starting a nonprofit? Maybe you're passionate about this idea and helping people, but you don't know where to start. Welcome to "My Nonprofit Idea"! In this Experiential Learning Module, you'll explore your idea, create a plan for why you want to start an organization, and what needs your nonprofit idea will fill in the community. You'll learn about the basic structures of nonprofits and the kinds of decisions nonprofit leaders make to remain sustainable long-term.
ACCEL-470 Health Humanities Capstone (4 credits)
An advanced level capstone for the Health Humanities Specialization that builds on the first two ELMs and will give learners an idea of jobs, careers, and benefits related to health and wellness in this exciting and rapidly growing field. The main emphasis of this capstone ELM will be to expand learner's awareness of the myriad ways in which the health humanities (including all the arts) are being used to foster health and wellness in many different environments. In the major project for this ELM, learners will research a chosen area of interest within health humanities, interview and shadow a health professional, and create a job fair flyer that will help chart future personal or professional (or both) contributions to the health humanities.
ACCEL-490 Advanced Capstone Assessment (1-5 credits)