Innovation and Impact

Spring 2025 CCCX 300 - Innovation and Impact Courses

  • CCCX 310: Accessible Chicago

    Section 01: Reimagining Columbia Spaces
    Taught by: James "Jim" Van Manen (Communication and Culture)
    Tuesdays 3:30pm-6:20pm, 33, #302

    One of the purposes of Columbia College Chicago is to “to provide a college climate that offers students an opportunity to try themselves out, to explore, and to discover what they can and want to do.” Do the physical spaces at Columbia allow that to happen for everyone to their full ability? This Innovation and Impact course will look at our campus through the lenses of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Universal Design. Students will use methods including site visits, case studies, research, and more to better understand the application of disability law on public use buildings. Students will deliver a final project that strategizes to improve, educate, remediate, or advocate for universal design in barrier-free Columbia College building structures.

     

  • CCCX 316: Equitable Futures

    Section 01: Internet Culture & Open Access
    Taught by: Sean Andrews (Communication and Culture)
    Tuesdays 9:00am-11:50am, 33, #302

    This course will consider the tensions and overlaps between open access and contemporary capitalist property regimes and the way digital platforms have allowed for greater access to the creation, distribution and consumption of culture. Looking at the social and technological innovations that have allowed the open web to flourish, the class will evaluate the impact cultures of open access and online collaboration have had on global information inequality. Students will also consider this impact as they create an innovative and collaborative development of open access resources. 

  • CCCX 399: Innovation and Impact

    Section 01: A 21st Century World's Fair
    Taught by: Hilary Sarat-St. Peter (Communication and Culture)
    Thursdays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 618, #LL02

    In Imagining a 21st Century World’s Fair students will utilize observational, archival and analytical research methods to explore world expositions as problematic cases of innovation and impact. Students will examine primary and secondary sources, including eyewitness accounts, artifacts and fictional works. These sources will assist students in understanding how world expositions have sparked and sustained innovative projects such as business ventures, social and civic services, and creative projects in arts, media, the sciences, and design. The course will equip students with concepts and resources for understanding how race, gender, sexuality, disability and difference construct our past and future experiences. In the final weeks, students will employ a range of methodologies drawn from the course experiences and their own disciplinary backgrounds to build a collective vision for an equitable and inclusive 21st Century World’s Fair. 

Spring 2024 CCCX 300 - Innovation and Impact Courses

  • CCCX 310: Accessible Chicago

    Section 01: Reimagining Columbia Spaces
    Taught by: James "Jim" Van Manen (American Sign Language)
    Mondays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 600, #101 

    In this class, the topic of disability access provides a focus for employing a range of ideation strategies to imagine and create a future for fully accessible communities. Students will investigate barriers in site-specific situations, and create proposals and plans of action to address and remedy inaccessibility. Rather than approaching any given disability as a 'problem to solve,' the course emphasizes inclusivity of human diversity. Together, we will explore the political, social and cultural aspects of a number of disabilities as we work to create a world that is fully accessible to all. The larger goal is for students to take the lessons learned in this course, to apply to them to their own disciplines, and to be change agents for a better, more accessible world.

  • CCCX 316: Equitable Futures

    Section 01: Environmental Equity in Chicago 
    Taught by: Elizabeth "Beth" Davis-Berg (Science and Mathematics)
    Tuesdays 9:00am-11:50am, 618, #LL01

    Chicago is a city of diverse neighborhoods and communities. Some of these neighborhoods and communities have brownfields, air pollution, and incinerators but others do not. How have and do structural policies like zoning laws, decisions of the city council, and other factors contribute to the types and location of environmental issues in the city? Can we understand the impact of these environmental issues directly or indirectly on the lives of people in these communities? In this Innovation and Impact course, students will use methods including site visits, research, interviews, and more to better understand some of the environmental inequities in our region. Students will research a variety of polluted sites and related environmental issues to explore issues of environmental inequity and to design approaches that address this inequity. Students will deliver a final project that proposes an approach on how to improve, educate, remediate, or advocate for a method that would support community members in addressing environmental issues. Examples of environmental issues may include brownfields, air pollution, incinerators, and other planned developments on current green spaces.

    Section 02: Internet Cultures and Open Access
    Taught by: Sean Andrews (Humanities, History, and Social Sciences)
    Thursdays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 33, #421

    This course will consider the tensions and overlaps between open access and contemporary capitalist property regimes and the way digital platforms have allowed for greater access to the creation, distribution and consumption of culture. Looking at the social and technological innovations that have allowed the open web to flourish, the class will evaluate the impact cultures of open access and online collaboration have had on global information inequality. Students will also consider this impact as they create an innovative and collaborative development of open access resources.