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  1. Eighth College
  2. Critical Community Engagement
  3. CCE Course Descriptions

Course Descriptions 

Inaugural class of Eighth students and staff standing in a crowd and smiling

The Critical Community Engagement (CCE) Academic Program is designed to guide Eighth College students through a process of learning more about frameworks of ethical community partnership and methods of engagement, community care, structural inequities rooted in racism, and their own relationships to the communities that matter to them. Each course in the CCE series emphasizes a different concept essential for collaborating with communities.

Incoming first-year students take a four-course CCE sequence (CCE 1, 2, 3, and 120). Transfer students take a two-course sequence (CCE 110 and 120). General descriptions of each CCE course and specific section information for CCE 120 themes can be found below. 

CCE 1: Critical Approaches in Community Practice (Offered Fall, Winter, Spring)

In CCE 1, students reflect on their assets and gifts to understand asset-based community development, reflect on figures and collectives involved with social justice in specific contexts (such as student activists from UCSD’s history), and work in groups to develop ideas for action products that support the communities they care about. Students will reflect on their learning after each core assignment to consider how key terms like assets, social justice, and community are relevant to their lives.

CCE 2: Methods for Ethical Community Engagement (Offered Fall, Winter, Spring)

In this writing-intensive course, students are encouraged to notice that certain kinds of knowledge are historically privileged and that we have ethical choices to make when we write and research about communities. Students learn to recognize and write from their positionalities, ask key questions informed by participatory action research (PAR) methods, and tell the stories of communities’ ongoing engagement with social justice. This course also emphasizes the writing process and guides students through drafting, giving and receiving peer feedback, and revising. 

CCE 3: Elements of Community-Engaged Collaborative Research (Offered Fall, Winter, Spring)

In this second writing-intensive course, students engage with ideas, research, and communities with greater depth. Students are positioned as members of a research collective tasked with researching and writing in response to a central question related to Pro-Blackness and antiracism. Students will develop their own research questions, employ Participatory Action Research (PAR) practices to amplify marginalized voices, and translate their findings for a public-facing audience.

CCE 110: Foundations for Community Partnership (For transfer students only; Offered Fall, Winter, Spring)

This course is designed to prepare transfer students for critical community  engagement by introducing both foundational concepts and community-facing writing skills. Students will integrate course material with their lived experience and collegiate academic history in preparation for community partnership and project design.

Launching in Fall 2026 

CCE 120: Community Partnership and Project Design (Offered Fall, Winter, Spring)

This course focuses on putting the skills acquired in CCE 1-3 or CCE 110 (for transfers) into practice by acting. This project-based capstone course gives students the opportunity to design, develop, and deliver a project in collaboration with local community partners. Attendance is required for lecture and fieldwork sections (e.g., A00 + A01).

CCE 120 Themes for Fall 2026

  • Liberty and Justice for All?: Prisons and Restorative Writing
  • From Theory to Action: Engagement in the Borderlands
  • Militarized Geographies: San Diego, Empire, and Community Resistance
  • Food Justice is Climate Justice

 

Summer 2026 Course Offerings

Summer Session 1

  • CCE 3: TTh 11:00 am-1:50 pm | Kerry White
  • CCE 120: TTh 11:00 am-1:50 pm | Kassy Lee

Summer Session 2

  • CCE 2: TTh 8:00-10:50 am | Davíd Morales
  • CCE 2: TTh 11:00 am-1:50 pm | Angela Mendoza
  • CCE 120: MW 11:00 am-1:50 pm | Nancy Nguyen

Fall 2026 Course Offerings

This is a tentative schedule. Classes may change or be cancelled. Please consult the official Triton Student System (TSS) Schedule of Classes each quarter. For technical issues with TSS, please contact the ITS Service Desk at tss@ucsd.edu. 

CCE 1

CCE-001 Day Time
001-000-SE MW 8-9:20 am
002-000-SE MW 9:30–10:50 am
003-000-SE MW 3:30-4:50 pm
004-000-SE MW 5–6:20 pm
005-000-SE TTh 3:30-4:50 pm
006-000-SE TTh 5–6:20 pm
008-000-SE TTh 12:30-1:50 pm
007-000-SE TTh 9:30–10:50 am

 

CCE 2

CCE-002 Day Time
001-000-SE MW 11-12:20 pm
002-000-SE MW 2-3:20 pm
003-000-SE MW 3:30-4:50 pm
004-000-SE MW 3:30-4:50 pm
005-000-SE MW 5–6:20 pm
006-000-SE TTh 2-3:20 pm
007-000-SE TTh 3:30-4:50 pm
008-000-SE TTh 2-3:20 pm
009-000-SE TTh 2-3:20 pm
010-000-SE TTh 3:30-4:50 pm
011-000-SE TTh 6:30–7:50 pm

 

CCE 3

CCE-003 Day Time
003-000-SE MW 2-3:20 pm
004-000-SE TTh 11-12:20 pm
005-000-SE TTh 12:30-1:50 pm
006-000-SE MW 9:30-10:50 am
007-000-SE MW 8-9:20 am

 

CCE 110

CCE-110 Day Time
001-000-SE MW 11-12:20 pm
002-000-SE MW 12:30-1:50 pm
003-000-SE TTh 11-12:20 pm
004-000-SE TTh 2-3:20 pm

 

CCE 120

CCE-120 Course Course Title Day Time
001-000-SE CCE 120 Liberty and Justice for All?: Prisons and Restorative Writing MW 11-12:20 pm
001-001-FW CCE 120 FW* W 1-1:50 pm
002-000-SE CCE 120 From Theory to Action: Engagement in the Borderlands MW 12:30-1:50 pm
002-001-FW CCE 120 FW W 2-2:50 pm
003-000-SE CCE 120 Militarized Geographies: San Diego, Empire, and Community Resistance TTh 8–9:20 am
003-001-FW CCE 120 FW F 10-10:50 am
004-000-SE CCE 120 Militarized Geographies: San Diego, Empire, and Community Resistance TTh 9:30–10:50 am
004-001-FW CCE 120 FW F 11-11:50 am
007-000-SE CCE 120 Food Justice is Climate Justice TTh 11-12:20 pm
007-001-FW CCE 120 FW W 4-4:50 pm
008-000-SE CCE 120 Food Justice is Climate Justice TTh 12:30-1:50 pm
008-001-FW CCE 120 FW W 5-5:50 pm

*Attendance in Fieldwork (FW) is required

 

 

Last updated July 2026