Community Problem Solving Fellowship Curriculum
Over the ten week period the fellows are exposed to the following curriculum components:
- Placements
- Leadership and Professional Skills Seminars
- Leadership Interviews
- Networking Opportunities
- Group Projects and Independent Assignments
- Mentoring
Each participant will be hosted by an organization that will serve as an eight week placement. Fellows will work four days a week at their placement and will recieve progessional feedback throughout their experience with the organization. Placements are required to provide supervision of the participant throughout this time and are committed to assigning them meanigful work tasks that will result ina significant professional learning experience. In the past, many placements have offered their CPS Fellow fulltime jobs; however, this is not a requirement of the placement.
Leadership and Professional Skills Seminars
Seminars provide an opportunity for participants to engage in an experiential learning process to hone their leadership and professional skills. Seminars include training in communication, project managment, networking, meeting management, critical thinking, and professionalism, and other topics depending on the participant' needs. Afer each seminar activity the participants debrief the activity. The debrief is crucial to sustained learning and information sharing. Seminars are facilitated by Coro staff and various community leaders.
Participants have the opportunity to meet and netowrk with key community leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sector through leadership interviews. In seminar, participants receive training in effective inquiry and are then given the opportunity to practice these techniques to gain valuable and confidential infromation by interviewing various leaders. The information from these interviews facilitates an understanding of power dynamics and highlights effective strategies to ehance professional development.
Participants have the opportunity to network and build relationships with regional leaders and Coro alumni at various points throughout the program. Coro staff use their contacts and community relationships to identify a variety of vetworking opportunities including conferences, receptions, entertainment evetns, press conferences and community meetings. Participants explore power networking in seminar and enhance these techniques through skill application at these netowrking events.
Group Projects and Individual Assignments.
Each CPS class completes a Capstone Project. The Capstone Project is the synthesis of the Fellows exploration of a topic of their choice. Coro staff provides oversight but the direction, design and implementation strategies of the project belong to the Fellows. This component of the curriculum stresses the importance of group process, time management, understanding and working with different leadership styles, and leveraging relationships gained from leadership interviews and networking.
Each particpant is paired with a personal mentor throughout the program by Coro staff as a strong leader and is matched with a participant based on the Fellow's mentoring needs and professional interest. The mentor is responsible for assisting participants with any academic and professional challenges or opportunities.
