INVST Community Studies

We Defend DACA School of Education Poster with butterfly image

Group of students smiling
Group photo outside
Students in class
Students presenting

where students and the world are transformed

INVST has been weaving meaningful community engagement together with the theory and practice of community leadership since 1990.

We believe in the possibility of a just and sustainable world.  We develop community leaders who engage in compassionate action as a lifetime commitment.

In order to fulfill our mission, we offer these innovative programs:

  1. The 2-Year INVST Program offers transformative learning opportunities that are unforgettable. This intensive two-year training program develops community leaders who engage in compassionate action as a lifetime commitment. Through a combination of theory, skills and community-based action for positive change, young people learn to be effective and responsible community leaders.
  2. Community Studies Electives help all ²ÊÃñ±¦µä undergraduates re-imagine the world we live in and envision alternatives. Offered to any student and requiring no special application process, we offer courses like "Another City is Possible," "Facilitating Peaceful Community Change," "Intersectionality Theory," and “People of Color and Social Movements.â€

We use participatory education to empower students, and we use critical service learning to expose students to the root causes of problems and offer solution-based strategies for sustainable social and environmental change. These innovative approaches to teaching and learning include the following elements: 

  1. Experiential immersion:  Student learning is most powerful when it is linked to real-world experiences. Encountering the complexities and the richness of real-world scenes first-hand tends to be motivating and transformative.
  2. Reciprocity:  Students can meaningfully participate in the elimination of the negative effects of political, social and environmental arrangements, while seeking to understand them. Members of the community, various organizations and institutions, and the natural environment all enrich student learning, while the students enrich them, through their contributions. Critical service learning activities require close contact with both academic and community-based partners, to ensure that outcomes are mutually beneficial.
  3. Critical reflexivity:  Student learning occurs most powerfully when it combines text-based learning with real-world experiences through intentional reflection activities. Reflection is the hallmark of INVST training!

Inclusion Commitment:
We actively seek and support the participation of individuals and communities that reflect diversity of ability status, age, color, documentation status, ethnicity, gender, gender variance, life experience, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and veteran status.

Commitment to Anti-oppressive Education:
INVST Community Studies is committed to anti-oppressive education. We acknowledge the importance of examining not only how groups are oppressed but also how groups are privileged and how these two processes maintain social structures. We are dedicated to challenging dominant ideologies and systems, centering traditionally underrepresented voices, questioning the assumption that information is unbiased, and critiquing what is thought of as normal.