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Curriculum and Content

Over the course of the weekend, students will learn through interactive and dynamic workshop sessions, keynotes, and hands-on small group work to apply the Social Change Model of Leadership to eight current social justice issues.

The 2010 ACC Leadership Conference is focused on the theme of social change. Students from each participating university will be grouped with peers from their fellow ACC schools. These teams – called Social Issue Groups – will work together to apply and act upon a specific social justice issues of interest. Social Issues Groups will devise a plan and a commitment to campus-based action for their respective issue. These ideas will be promoted through the groups’ creating of a video PSA to be shown to all attendees on the final day. In addition, all PSA videos will be given to each delegate team to screen on their respective campuses in order to encourage student leadership and action on these issues.

Eight Social Interest Groups will develop PSA’s on the following topics:

1. Access to Healthcare: Increasingly across the globe, we see a need for healthcare systems to become more equitable, inclusive and fair. The World Health Organization calls for a universal coverage reform that would ensure that health systems contribute to health equity, social justice and the end of exclusion, primarily by moving towards universal access and social health protection. (Source: The World Health Report 2008)
2. Discrimination: In many societies, there are groups of people who are denied access to the rights and privileges enjoyed by others on account of physical, biological, social, or other traits. When prejudiced feelings or beliefs move into the realm of behavior, the result is discrimination, which denies equality of treatment to individuals or groups of people. (Source: “Prejudice and Discrimination” by Warren Blumenfeld and Diane Raymond in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice.)
3. Education: The 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights declared that “everyone has the right to education.” Since then, more people than ever have benefitted from access to a quality education. However, an unacceptable number of individuals remain excluded from a safe learning environment, free from all forms of violence or discrimination.  (Source: UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
4. Environmental Justice: The Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is strong evidence that most of the warming over the last fifty years is attributable to human activities, which have altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the buildup of greenhouse gases. Protection of our natural resources is essential to creating healthy environments in which to live, learn, and work. (Source: Environmental Protection Agency)
5. Homelessness: According to the United Nations, about 1.6 billion people live in substandard housing and 100 million are homeless. Today, a billion people — 32 percent of the global urban population — live in urban slums. In the United States alone, 95 million people, one third of the nation, have housing struggles or experience homelessness. (Source: Habitat for Humanity and United Nations)
6. Human Trafficking: Human trafficking is the practice of people being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their home or country, and then compelled to work with no or low payment on terms which are highly exploitative. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, with a global annual market of approximately $42.5 billion. (Source: Council of Europe)
7. Hunger: Over one billion people worldwide are hungry. In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food. Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. (Source: Bread for the World)
8. Women’s Issues: In a large part of the globe, girls are uneducated and women are marginalized. It is not an accident that those same countries are stricken with high poverty rates and chaotic political systems. There is a growing recognition among international policy and aid organizations that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. (Source: New York Times Magazine)