Social Justice Engagement & Education is a 1 credit course taught by the professional staff of Multicultural Student Services designed to bring together students from diverse backgrounds in a facilitated learning environment.  

This course utilizes interactive dialogues and activities to introduce students to the tenets of social justice, explore current issues, and encourage students to reflect on their personal and social responsibility as citizens of the University and greater society. Students will expand their own self-awareness, gain valuable skills to effectively utilize this knowledge and continue these important conversations long beyond the classroom.  

This class is an online synchronous class listed on SIS as UNST 2500 – 001 Navigating University Life: Social Justice Engagement & Education. Class meets once per week for 90 minutes. If interested, students enrolled will be eligible to join MSS’s Multicultural Peer Educators at the completion of the course! We also recommend this course for students who interested in internship opportunities with MSS, aspiring student organization leaders, or those with budding interest in social justice who want to put their learning into action. 

To enroll in UNST 2500 

Log in to SIS and use the 5-digit course number for the course you wish to enroll in. This course is instructor permission only.  If you have any issues registering or have other questions, please email Dashan J. Axson-Lawrence, MSS Assistant Director, at [email protected] or Dean Vicki Gist, Director of Multicultural Student Services at [email protected]. 

This section of UNST 2500 is intentionally crafted to provide students the space to explore social group identity, power, community and social justice. Overall, the course will be guided throughout by the following questions: 

• How have you come to learn about your social identities (ie race/ethnicity/disability/gender/sexuality/religion)? How has this shaped your worldview? 

• In what ways can you use the information gained in this course to become an actively engaged, socially just global citizen within the UVA, Charlottesville and greater communities? 

At the conclusion of the course, students will be able to: 

• Recognize the commonalities and differences that exist among people with various social identities and how these factors influence their relationship with others. 

• Define power, privilege, value systems and difference and be able to identify their different forms.  

• Identify ways in which they can challenge/address systems of power and privilege  

• Use observation, conflict management, dialogue and active listening as a means of understanding and engaging with others. 

• Discuss how they will be socially just global citizens as part of their lifelong learning