MMW Serves – Disability/Environmental Justice is a hybrid “study away” global seminar in Summer 2022, which combines remote and in-person instruction and activity. The program embeds a two-week engaged learning on-site experience in a five-week summer term, with two courses: MMW14 (or MMW122 for transfer students) and ENVR150 Environmental Justice.

This program examines the interconnections of environmental history and human rights, focusing on disability as its primary topic of inquiry.   The MMW course sets a broad, global context and the Environmental Studies class focuses closely on the American setting.   The program addresses issues of civil and human rights, development and dislocation, production and pollution, structural and cultural coercion, and diverse communal and individual responses.    

Participants do not need outdoor or disability experience, but do need a willingness to lodge and work together for two weeks, to participate in group activities and spend extended time in the natural world (hiking and working outside), to “get dirty” through manual activity like gardening, weeding, and other service work, and to interact closely with diverse people of all abilities.   

The program has three community partners for its engaged learning work: Camphill, Common Roots Farm, and the CA State Park Service.

• Camphill Community:   Camphill is part of a global network of communities. Camphill CA is a community for adults with developmental disabilities and of all abilities who seek to live out a vision of community that involves relationships of mutual respect, ongoing education, meaningful work, and natural circles of support. Their mission is to create a community that supports all individual abilities and recognizes the dignity and potential of every person.  Residents of Camphill California are dedicated to caring for the land using organic and biodynamic practices. During the long growing season, they tend to six properties of land and gardens. One of their main day activities is gardening, as well as producing and processing herbs.     

• Common Roots Farm:   This is an urban, organic farm where people with and without disabilities grow healthy food and build community.  The farm offers horticulture and farm skills training, internships for people with developmental disabilities, environmental and gardening education, and micro-enterprise opportunities on a four-acre urban organic farm.  We will also work with a related organization called Costal Haven Families. 

• Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park:   We will visit and volunteer at Henry Cowell Redwoods SP and its 40-acre grove of old-growth redwood trees, within its 4,650 acres of forest and open space, which helped inspire the efforts to preserve California’s redwoods.

Format:   This is a five-week program in Summer Session 1 2022.  The first two weeks of the program will utilize remote instruction.   Weeks 3 and 4 will be the intensive in-person, on-site experience in Santa Cruz, CA, with daily activity six days each week.  Week 5 will conclude in remote format when final assignments and exams will be due.

Travel and Lodging:   Students can either meet at UC San Diego and travel together by van to Santa Cruz or meet directly in Santa Cruz.  At the conclusion of the two-week Santa Cruz program, students can either travel by van back to UC San Diego or depart directly from UC Santa Cruz.  During the program, the group will lodge and dine together on the campus of UC Santa Cruz and commute together between the campus and the partner locations.

Note:  Only students enrolled in this Global Seminar are allowed to participate in program activities.  No family, friends, or guests can attend the program. All activities are required and must be completed to pass the MMW and ENVR courses.  

Space is very limited for this program.   

Applications open in Fall 2021. 

Contact the MMW Program, UCSD Study Abroad Office, or Prof. Herbst for details.