Community Empowerment Activists

The Community Empowerment Activists program is on hiatus for 2025-26. We invite you to check back next fall for future plans for the 2026-27 school year.

Program Vision

The Community Empowerment Activists (CEA) is a yearlong community-engaged learning program that develops students as visionary organizers and movement workers to critically examine the historical and current contexts of systemic oppression and movements of resistance that shape today’s sociopolitical climate. Students will learn, practice, and apply skills in base-building, mobilizing, grassroots organizing, and advocacy building through their internships working alongside community leaders in grassroots organizations on the frontlines of resisting to disrupt the status quo in the San Francisco Bay Area. Students will work within the community to advance the vision, campaigns/initiatives, and coalition building of their host organization, while standing in solidarity with diverse neighbors in the San Francisco Bay Area––to analyze the complexity of policies, politics, and regional Bay Area dynamics that oppress local communities.

Overview

  • Attend and participate in weekly CEA classes on Thursdays, 4:35-6:20pm.
  • Complete all pre- and post-class assignments and year-end project with critical thought and care, creativity, imagination, and authentic vulnerability.
  • Meet the 5 hours per week at the assigned internship (includes in-person activities).
  • Be responsive and keep an open communication with Professor Ramos, teaching assistants (TAs), and co-educator (host mentor) at your internship.
  • Attend regular semester mentee meetings with Professor Ramos.
  • Attend community excursion building activities on campus and in the community throughout the year (e.g., Meet and Greet, Welcome Fall Weekend Retreat, visits to community partners’ organizations/gatherings, Fall End Celebration, Mid-Year Retreat, and year-end block party).
  • Community leaders, with direct lived experiences of the phenomenon we are exploring––share their wisdom, heart, and time with us as guest speakers/co-educators. Revolutionaries include: community leaders, activists, movement workers, artists, healers, youth advocates, educators, public health advocates, and pro-people policymakers.
  • Students are aligned to their internship with intention and care of the students’ passions, gifts, and dreams for liberation in response to the needs of the community partner and community members in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Passing completion of the yearlong program (i.e., fall and spring semesters, 2 units each semester) fulfills the CEL requirement (4 units total).
  • Students will receive stipends upon successful completion of each semester.