Collaborative Master’s Program in
Community Development

What is Community Development?

Community development is positive change in the social, economic, organizational, or physical structures of a community that improves both the welfare of community members and the community’s ability to control its future. It entails a variety of citizen-led efforts, carried out within or on behalf of a community, to define problems, develop solutions, and attract the resources necessary to implement activities that address the identified problems.

Community development is a process, not an end in itself. It is the process of organizing, learning, and implementing practices that increase a community’s ability to (1) achieve existing goals and (2) reach toward higher-level goals in the future.

To improve people’s lives, community members have to organize and work together. They need the power, insight, and resources to make decisions and take action on their own well-being. Organized communities can mobilize people who are directly affected by a community situation to enable them to take action. A successful community development process helps the people who participate increase their confidence, co-operation, social responsibility, motivation, sense of purpose, skills, and organizational capacity.

Civil society organizations play a major role in promoting, enabling and sustaining community development initiatives. “Civil society” consists of civic organizations, associations and networks that occupy the social space between households (individuals, families), the state, and the market. People come together in civil society organizations (through a community development process) to advance their common interests through collective action. Civil society includes volunteer and charity groups, parent-and-teacher associations, senior citizens’ groups, academic institutions, sports clubs, arts and culture groups, faith-based groups, trades unions, non-profit think-tanks, and issue-based activist groups.

Within universities, the study of community development processes and the evolving role of civil society organizations in community change is an area of scholarship shared by several disciplines and professional schools.

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What is a Collaborative Program?

“A collaborative program is intended to provide an additional multidisciplinary experience for students enrolled and completing the requirements in one of a number of participating graduate programs” (OCGS Report of the Working Group on Collaborative Programs, May 2001).

The rationale for a collaborative program is that it provides a student with a broader base from which to explore a novel interdisciplinary area or special development that crosses a number of disciplines.

It builds on the strengths of individual graduate units and their faculty, while providing common experiences, such as a core course, seminars, and other intellectual activities.

Students register in degree programs in their home units. They must meet the home unit’s admission standards and complete its degree requirements, as well as those of the collaborative program. Students may be admitted to collaborative programs either at the time they begin their graduate studies in one of the collaborating departments or faculties, or later during their program.

All degree requirements of both the degree program and the collaborative program must be completed. Courses completed to fulfil the requirements of the collaborative program may also be used to fulfil the degree requirements of the master’s program. The degree conferred is in the home discipline, and a notation on the student’s transcript indicates completion of the collaborative program.

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Why a Collaborative Program in Community Development?

Given the dynamics and local impacts of globalization, the field of community development is experiencing a rebirth. As the slogan “think globally, act locally” implies, people are coming together in many types of organizations to achieve some common (“community”) objective. There is a need to better serve graduate students who have an interest in community development theory, research and practice.

The Collaborative Program in Community Development brings together graduate students and professors from several disciplines and professional programs who have an interest in better understanding the role of communities and civil society organizations in the community development processes that are shaping contemporary societies.

Community development processes are multi-sectoral, involving the economic, social and physical health of communities. The process requires skills in education, planning, policy and political action. These do not belong to any single university department or faculty.

Students who want a fuller appreciation of the many dimensions of community development need to draw on several disciplines. The Collaborative Program in Community Development will allow students the opportunity to work with faculty from collaborating departments and to tackle research, policy and practice topics that cross disciplinary boundaries. While maintaining the subject area focus of their home department (such as social policy, planning, adult education, health), students in the collaborative program will have the benefit of learning from the approach of other disciplines and professional programs.

Each of the collaborating units has an existing focus on community development within its substantive area. It is a specialty of a few faculty and a small sub-set of students in each program. The University of Toronto does not have a program focused on “community development” per se. The Collaborative Program in Community Development is designed to fill this void for graduate students working towards a master’s degree.

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Why a University of Toronto Collaborative Program?

University of Toronto courses in this field are offered by a number of graduate programs. Although students from these graduate programs may find their way to courses outside their home department, one purpose of the collaborative program is to assist students with an interest in this field to formally connect with other professors and graduate students. Another purpose is to provide an organizational home within the University for students and professors who focus on community development processes within their various disciplines and professions.

The collaborative program has the potential to permit better coordination of course offerings in this field within the university. It will also connect graduate students with the research projects of a broader range of professors. Students in the collaborative program will receive recognition of their specialization on their transcript, providing a helpful credential for their future careers. The creation of the Collaborative Program is also likely to serve as a useful recruiting tool for attracting the best students to the participating departments and may also help in recruiting faculty.

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Who is Collaborating?

The hub for this collaborative program is the University of Toronto's Cities Centre (previously, the Centre for Urban and Community Studies).

This collaborative program is a partnership involving five UofT departments/faculties and six graduate programs:

• Adult Education and Community Development (M.A. and M.Ed.) and Counselling Psychology (M.Ed.) in the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at OISE/UT;
• Program in Planning (M.Sc.(Pl.)), in the Department of Geography;
• Public Health Sciences (M.H.Sc.) in the Faculty of Medicine;
• Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing (M.N.)
• Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (M.S.W.)

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Application Procedures    Deadline: Friday, 7 August 2009 (Application process now closed for the 2009-10 academic year)

Collaborative programs are administered under the auspices of the School of Graduate Studies. Applicants apply after they have been accepted by one of the participating graduate units in the Collaborative Program.

1. Applicants apply to one of the six participating graduate units and comply with the admission procedures of that unit.
   
   
2. Applicants send the following to the Program Committee of the Collaborative Program in Community Development:
1. a copy of the letter accepting you into one of the participating graduate units;
2. a résumé or curriculum vitae;
3. a letter explaining how your program of study, your specific interests, and your career goals relate to community development (i.e., why do you want to enrol in the Collaborative Program in Community Development). Maximum length: 500 words. Include reference to any relevant experience (volunteer, work, education, e.g., previous related courses).

Send the application in electronic format to Grace Ramirez, Registrar, at grace.ramirez@utoronto.ca.

Please note that we are asking for electronic submissions to reduce our environmental footprint, and facilitate the review of files during the summer months among faculty members on different parts of the campus.

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Program Requirements

Students must register in the master’s degree program through one of the participating home graduate units. They must meet all respective degree requirements of the School of Graduate Studies and their home graduate unit.

To fulfil the requirements of the Collaborative Program in Community Development, they must complete the following requirements. With the exception of the non-credit seminar, the required courses listed below are options within regular departmental or faculty degree requirements, not additional courses:

1. the core course in community development (“Community Development: Theory and Practice,” UCS 1000H, a half-course);
2. two additional half-courses in the subject area of the Collaborative Program, to be approved by the Collaborative Program director; at least one of the two additional half-courses must be external to the home graduate unit; for a PDF of approved courses, click here.
3. participation in a non-credit coordinating seminar on community development;
4. where required by the home degree program, either a thesis or the major research paper, as designated by the home degree program, on a topic related to community development; the supervisor for this work must be a member of the faculty associated with the Collaborative Program.

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Synopsis of the Core Course

Name: Community Development: Theory and Practice
Instructor: J. David Hulchanski, Faculty of Social Work, and Cities Centre

Note: The required core course, UCS 1000H, Community Development: Theory and Practice, is offered on Tuesday evenings, 6 to 9pm, Winter Term (January to April).

This graduate seminar provides an overview of the theory and practice of the field, including a historical review, an examination of contemporary issues and debates, and methodological considerations. Participants in the course will draw significant insights for community development practice from the various theoretical positions on the nature of society, social change, and social mobilization. The course explores the various models of community development in relation to their goals, processes and outcomes. It incorporates contributions from the six graduate units participating in the CD collaborative program: Adult Education and Community Development; Counselling Psychology; Program in Planning; Public Health Sciences; Faculty of Nursing; and Faculty of Social Work.

The objectives of the course are

• to develop an appreciation of community development both as a change process and as an interdisciplinary field;
• to provide a broad understanding of the scope and range of activities in community development in Canada and internationally;
• to develop an understanding of the main traditions, theoretical debates, successful experiences, and research findings in community development;
• to develop an understanding of the basic skills needed to work with diverse communities;
• to introduce students to the research and scholarship on community development undertaken by faculty and students in the five collaborating units.

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Common Learning Experience

The Collaborative Program in Community Development will contribute to a common learning experience for enrolled graduate students through the following:

• A required core course called “Community Development: Theory and Practice.”

• A non-credit seminar series that all students registered in the Collaborative Program are required to attend. The seminar is the place to discuss, compare, and synthesize different approaches to community development. Students will be expected to present and discuss their areas of interest in the seminar. Student participation is mandatory and will be monitored, as this is a key part of the common learning experience. They will be expected to attend 80% of the seminars in order to satisfy this requirement.

• The Collaborative Program will also host speakers, seminars, and workshops from time to time. Students in the Collaborative Program are expected to participate in these events (including decisions on the themes, topics, speakers, format, etc). This is a benefit to the university and the community in general – in addition to the students in the Collaborative Program.

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Administration

The Collaborative Program has a Director and a Program Committee composed of a faculty representatives from each participating graduate unit. The following individuals are the initial director and members of the program committee.

Director & Chair of Program Committee
J. David Hulchanski

Program Committee Members
Deborah Cowen, Geography/Planning
J. David Hulchanski, Cities Centre & Social Work
Jody Macdonald, Nursing
Blake Poland, Public Health Sciences
Jack Quarter, Adult Education and Community Development
Suzanne Stewart, Counselling Psychology
Daniel Schugurensky, Adult Education and Community Development

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Questions?

If you have any questions regarding this collaborative program, please contact the Director, J. David Hulchanski, by email: david.hulchanski@utoronto.ca

Collaborating
Departments

Students in the Community Development Program must be registered in the masters degree program in one of the following departments/faculties:

Adult Education and Community Development
f
Public Health Sciences
f
Counselling Psychology
f
Nursing
f
Planning
f
Social Work

Elective Courses

For the list of approved elective courses for the Community Development program (see Program Requirements section for more details), click here