UC Santa Barbara Asian American studies professor Diane Fujino and Black studies professor Jaime Alves created a new course that will be taught in the upcoming fall quarter, which will explore how various communities work together to inspire change.

The new course will be taught in the upcoming fall quarter and explores how communities work together to inspire change. Wesley Haver / Daily Nexus

The course, titled Community Studies Organizing for Change, is cross-listed on UCSB’s Gaucho On-Line Data (G.O.L.D.) in the Department of Asian American Studies and Department of Black Studies, as both ASAM 11 and BLST 11.

Fujino explained that the course content was designed to cover different aspects of community organizing and social movements.

“The curriculum for the fall quarter course is going to be looking at how community organizing works … learning histories of social movements, race-based social movements and intersectional social movements,” Fujino said.

The course will utilize an “ethnic studies approach,” which aims to educate students on case studies of various ethnic groups, including Chicana/o and Indigenous movements. 

“We take an ethnic studies approach,” Fujino said. “Which is why even though it’s cross-listed in Black and Asian American studies, we also feel like we can teach race-based social movements that pertain to [other groups].”

This course serves as a feeder course into the larger upcoming Community Studies Pathways Program. The program plans to provide insight on how to get jobs centered around community organizing and how to “work for justice”. Fujino and Alves are developing this program and plan to offer courses in the upcoming winter and spring quarters. 

“We want students to see community work as possible career paths, to even envision that as [a] possibility,” Fujino said. “Where students can think about … how we move the needle [and] how we involve ordinary people in changing the conditions that impact their lives.”

Currently, students can register for the course on G.O.L.D. The course instructor is still being decided on, but is set to be announced soon.

Fujino said she hopes students who take the course gain a better understanding of “the power” of ordinary people. 

“I want people to be able to see possibilities beyond what exists today, but also to look to the past and to recognize that people did a lot to create change,” Fujino said.

A version of this article appeared on p. 4 of the May 29, 2025 print edition of the Daily Nexus