This past October, I contracted with the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI) to complete a brief but rigorous evaluation for the online community they manage, JDAIconnect. Over the past three months, we employed a series of focus groups and a user survey to collect information from a range of current and potential JDAI users. JDAIconnect users helped us analyze the information and assisted in drafting a set of recommendations to improve the site.

On Friday, we put the final, final touches on the syllabus for the new online course to be offered at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at CWRU. As some of you know, I’ve been working with Mark Chupp and the developers at 2U on this course since April 2020. The course uses challenging readings and real world examples to help prepare students to work with communities to build power from the ground up.

Happy to report that all course design work and filming has been completed for a new, masters-level online course at @MandelSchool—Strategic Power Building with Communities! The course presents frameworks for power and strategy and guides students through various models and methods for building power from the ground up. The course features many interviews with those building power in communities addressing issues of health, safety, freedom and justice.