Undergraduate Minor

WCPC working on developing a Poverty and Policy Undergraduate Minor at UW

To further the UW’s educational mission of graduating students who are informed about public affairs and can act as leaders in Washington State, and to encourage undergraduate and graduate students, as well as junior scholars, to embark upon poverty-research related careers, the Poverty Center is currently working with the College of Arts and Sciences to create an undergraduate minor in poverty and social policy. We hope that the minor will be available to UW students at the Seattle campus (and eventually, the Tacoma, and Bothell campuses) beginning in Fall 2007 or Winter 2008.

Our goal is a minor that links undergraduates’ academic majors and real-world events through classroom learning, service learning and the emergence of a diverse undergraduate learning community. The minor will also provide career-relevant skills, both through course content (e.g., learning to consume, compile and transmit information graphically, statistically, and verbally through a variety of media). Common (required) courses will provide opportunities for students to share and discuss their disciplinary perspectives.

The minor program will tentatively require 30 credits (i.e., six courses), including two required courses introducing students to poverty and policymaking, and a required “capstone” course combining an internship and an integrative seminar.

Under current plans, poverty-policy minors will also take three elective courses from 20 to 30 possibilities across departments that have a direct relationship to poverty. (For a current list of poverty-related courses offered at UW, click here.

It is hoped that students will be able to enroll in the minor program beginning in Fall 2007 or Winter 2008. Faculty who might be interested in participating in curriculum development for the minor program are encouraged to contact Professor Barbara Reskin, Department of Sociology. She can be reached at reskin@u.washington.edu.