F24 - ChesterSemester Fellowship
Section outline
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The Writing Center (Trotter 120) is available to you as an additional out-of-class resource for developing any aspect of your writing—from brainstorming a topic, organizing a draft, to polishing a final submission. Writing Associates hold conferences in-person or through Zoom and will offer you a thoughtful reading of your document, from any discipline, and talk with you about next steps. Speaking Associates can also help you prepare to give a presentation or lead seminar discussion. The Center is open Sunday through Thursday evenings, with afternoon hours on Monday through Wednesday, starting the third week of classes. To set up your WCOnline account and schedule an appointment, follow this link: bit.ly/swatwritingcenter or us
e the QR code provided. (Step-by-step instructions here: How to Schedule a Writing Conference.) You can also drop in during open hours. Want to know who is working when? See the Writing Center Schedule. Questions? Check the Writing Center Policies or email writing@swarthmore.edu. -
The Final Assignment for this course is an Oral Presentation (early May, 2025) and a Final Research Paper (Due: Saturday, Dec 21, 2024).
Oral Presentation
Some tips:- Use Google Slides instead of PowerPoint.
- SlidesGo is a great source for free templates to use.
- We recommend more visuals and less words on your slides if possible. Please include an introduction slide.
The May 2024 Oral Presentation is a brief public presentation (5-7 minutes) on your learning, internship experience, reflections, and fellowship take-aways for the entire (Fall 2024 and Spring 2025) academic year. Final public presentations will take place in early May 2025 at a location TBD. Invitations to attend will be extended to prospective Fall '25 ChesterSemester Fellows, Lang Center staff, Chester partners, select faculty members, etc.
Research Paper (Due: Saturday, December 21st)
In this research paper students are asked to critically analyze an issue of their choosing that has relevance to the ChesterSemester course (i.e., course topics, themes, community engagement issues and experiences working with your Chester-based organization). The assignment calls for a research-based essay that critically analyzes complex issues, past responses to such issues, and contemporary solutions. It is designed to help readers understand a particular problem, how past responses to this problem have worked or not, and the value of a proposed set of steps toward addressing the problem in real time. The research paper should integrate both critical analysis and solutions mapping – a skill set that will serve professional development as a ChesterSemester fellow.
The Research Paper should be approximately 8-9 single-spaced pages (including notes and bibliography). Structure your paper with an introductory thesis, a development of your thesis in the paper’s main body and concluding recommendations at the end of your paper. Carefully proof-read your work.
Use the following to organize and structure your paper:
- Abstract: single paragraph overview
- Key words: list 7-9 keywords that underlie your analysis; this should go under the abstract paragraph
- Introduction: approximately ½ page summary of your paper’s major points of analysis and overall contribution
- Challenges: approximately 2-3 pages of your analysis of (1) civic challenges you set out to address as a fellow this term, and (2) past or current gaps you perceive in addressing these challenges. What is happening on the ground you find most troubling? What is missing in collective approaches to addressing this troubling situation?
- Case study: approximately 2-3 pages of thick description of the particular issues you are investigating. Oftentimes students shift into a different mode of discourse in this section. Consider writing autobiographically or ethnographically in this section, using your weekly reflection postings.
- Recommendations: approximately 2-3 pages of proposed solutions to the challenges you’ve identified. What models and resources do you think are positively addressing – or could positively address – the challenges on which your paper has focused?
- Bibliography: ½ page. Cite and list upwards of 7-9 or so bibliographical sources in your research; this list can include course readings and materials. Use whatever citation and bibliography style you prefer.
ChesterSemester earns credit in both Environmental Studies and Black Studies. Use both of these areas of study to provide your paper's academic framing in order for readers to understand how you address the intersectional disadvantages and harms communities of color face in the wider society.
Here are other resource recommendations:- At college libraries, meet with Roberto Vargas “Humanities,” Simon Elichko "Social Sciences and History," or Andrea Baruzzi "Sciences and Engineering" for research support for your paper. Review the Writing Associates Program resources for writing different papers. And consider meeting with a Writing Associate (WA) at the Writing Center to review your working draft.
Please do not hesitate to contact any of us for guidance and support!
- Use Google Slides instead of PowerPoint.
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ChesterSemester Spring 2025 Guidelines
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Spring Kick-Off!
Our first cohort meeting 12:30-1:30pm on Friday, January 31 in the Keith Room at the Lang Center
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Our 2nd spring term cohort meeting is Friday, February 21 at 12:15pm in the Keith Room at the Lang Center
Please come prepared to provide an update on your internship, any announcements to share, and speak on the discussion prompt.
Discussion Prompt
PLEASE POST YOUR RESPONSE BY 5:00pm THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20.
Discuss your experience in your spring internship this semester. Reflect on the goals you have set for yourself and the issues (accomplishments and challenges) that you may have faced in your ChesterSemester internship; this may include topics such as relationship building, practicing the values of reciprocity, engaging in ethical campus-community engagement, and the aims of personal and professional development.
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Discuss your experience in your spring internship this semester. Reflect on the goals you have set for yourself and the issues (accomplishments and challenges) that you may have faced in your ChesterSemester internship; this may include topics such as relationship building, practicing the values of reciprocity, engaging in ethical campus-community engagement, and the aims of personal and professional development.
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Our 3rd spring term cohort meeting is Friday, March 28 at 12:15pm in the Keith Room at the Lang Center.
Please come prepared to provide an update on your internship, any announcements to share, and speak on the discussion prompt.
Discussion Prompt
PLEASE POST YOUR RESPONSE BY 5:00pm THURSDAY, MARCH 27.
Reflect on some of the course readings, themes, keywords, and concepts that we explored during the fall semester course and discuss how you see some of these themes emerging or being expressed in your internship experience. Imagine you have been invited to share your thoughts and experiences as a ChesterSemester fellow with the Mayor Stefan Roots and city council members about the prospects of Chester's future? What would you recommend they need to put on the agenda?
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Reflect on some of the course readings, themes, keywords, and concepts that we explored during the fall semester course and discuss how you see some of these themes emerging or being expressed in your internship experience. Imagine you have been invited to share your thoughts and experiences as a ChesterSemester fellow with Mayor Stefan Roots and city council members about the prospects of Chester's future? What would you recommend they need to put on the agenda?
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Our last cohort meeting is 1:30-3:00pm Friday, May 2
This meeting is a Dress Rehearsal/Practice Session for our Final Oral Presentations on May 6, 2025
The Oral Presentation is a brief public presentation (5-7 minutes) on your learning, internship experience, reflections, and fellowship take-aways for the entire (Fall 2024 and Spring 2025) academic year.
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Oral Presentation
The May 6, 2025 Oral Presentation is a brief public presentation (5-7 minutes) on your learning, internship experience, reflections, and fellowship take-aways for the entire (Fall 2024 and Spring 2025) academic year.Final public presentations will take place in on May 6 2025 beginning at 10am. Invitations to attend will be extended to prospective Fall '25 ChesterSemester Fellows, Lang Center staff, Chester partners, select faculty members, etc.
Some tips:
- Use Google Slides instead of PowerPoint.
- SlidesGo is a great source for free templates to use.
- We recommend more visuals and less words on your slides if possible. Please include an introduction slide.
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Introductions & Course Overview; Digital Chester & Racialization
Digital Chester
Chester Justice Digital Collection
The YES Center’s Digital Storytelling Project
Chester Made Digital Storytelling ProjectIntroduction: Chester's Racialized History and Urban Development
Slides from first class are available here
Mele, Race & the Politics of Deception, Chapter 1
Invited Option: Saturday, September 7: Overtown CMP Radio program planning session at Indigo Mills, 10:00am-noon
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Chester’s Future: Renaissance? Redevelopment? Gentrification? Community Development?
- City of Chester. 2024. State of the City 2024. (PowerPoint slides). June 25
- City of Chester. 2023. Chester Vision 2035: The City of Chester Comprehensive Plan. April
- City of Chester. 2022. City of Chester Economic Competitiveness Plan 2022-2025
- Riverfront Alliance of Delaware County. 2020. Chester Waterfront Master Plan
In each of these four planning documents, how do "art" and "leisure" (broadly defined) fit into the image of Chester's future? - Gentrification and the Artistic Dividend: The Role of the Arts in Neighborhood Change
- Gentrification, Displacement and the Arts: Untangling the Relationship between Arts Industries and Place Change
For Readings #5 and #6, consider the following discussion questions:
Reading #5: From a critical social justice perspective, what are the ‘costs’ of the ‘artistic dividend’ for systematically marginalized communities?
Reading #6: The authors write “In each of these [gentrification] scenarios, the arts –whether clusters of artists, artistic businesses, arts facilities or arts districts – are framed as changing the character of an area and, in this way, are assumed to play a causal role in the gentrification process” (2018: 810).
Let’s consider this ‘process.’ Who are the actors? What is the sequence of changes?
What is physical and symbolic appropriation in relation to gentrification and how does “art” contribute to both?As a case study and possible comparisons, have a quick look at gentrification in Washington, DC's Shaw-U Street neighborhood:
A Brief Overview of Shaw & U Street
Pushed Out (2019) -
Chester's Overtown & Arts-based Community Development: Risks, Benefits, and Possibilities
- Daughenbaugh, Wendy. 2023. “Chester's Historic Avenue of the States Undergoes Food & Cultural Renaissance,” ABC News, June 28, 2023.
- Abello, Oscar Perry. 2018. “Chester Artists Revitalizing Corridor on Their Own Terms,” Next City, June 5.
- Art Saved This Block Swarthmore, Spring 2024
- Chester Made/ Artists Warehouse
Meet at Indigo Mills 114 W 5th St, Chester, PA 19013
Guest speaker: Mr. Devon WallsSepta Bus Route 109 Chester Schedule
Invited Option: Saturday, September 21: Overtown CMP Radio program, recording episodes 1 & 2, 9:00am-noon
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Racial Capitalism & Urban Space: Implications for Social Justice
- Dantzler, Prentiss A. 2021. "The Urban Process under Racial Capitalism: Race, anti-Blackness, and Capital Accumulation." Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City 2(2): 113-134.
- Tuttle, Steven. 2022. "Towards a Theory of the Racialization of Space." American Behavioral Scientist 66(11): 1526-1538.
- Rothstein, The Color of Law, Chapter 11
- Greater Wealth, Greater Uncertainty: Changes in Racial Inequality in the Survey of Consumer Finances
- Wealth Inequality and the Racial Wealth Gap
Invited Option: Saturday, September 28: Overtown CMP Radio program, recording episodes 3 & 4, 9:00am-noon
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Racializing Inequalities in Chester & Delaware County
- Meli, John T. 1971. “Barriers to Employment Growth in a Distressed Area: A Case Study of Chester, PA.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Peruse entirety but focus on Chapter 5.
- Education Law Center, Chester Upland Rising: Where Do We Go from Here?
- Forbes, "In Pennsylvania, The Dismantling of a Public School System"
- Picower, Bree and Edwin Mayorga, "What's Race Got to Do with It? Examining Race and Neoliberalism in Current School Reform."Read pages 2-6 only.
- Rogers, Christopher R. "A Labor of Love. A Requiem for the Workers of the Chester-Upland School District."
- Stories of Women Leaders: Ms. Barbara Muhammad
Guest speaker: Ms. Barbara Muhammad, Chester Education Foundation
We will meet 2pm at CEF, 7th Floor, 419 Avenue of the States, Chester, PA 19013. A five-minute walk from Chester Transportation Center (#109 Bus stop). - Meli, John T. 1971. “Barriers to Employment Growth in a Distressed Area: A Case Study of Chester, PA.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Peruse entirety but focus on Chapter 5.
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Chester's Enduring Consequences of Racialized Inequalities
- City of Chester Receiver's Recovery Plan
- Receiver's Bankruptcy Update & Approach
- Analysis of Pensions
- City of Chester Receiver's Recovery Plan Modification
- Anderson, Michelle, The New Minimal Cities
The Chester Water Authority
The Receiver's Office is currently focused on the Chester Water Authority (CWA) as an asset that could fund the city's coffers moving forward. This is not without controversy and a tie-in to past municipal mismanagement and corruption. Mr Kapoor asked me to share with a two-part presentation entitled "Who Owns the CWA?"Part 1 of the presentation took place Tuesday, September 24, and you can watch the video and view the PowerPoints.
Part 2 of the presentation took place Tuesday, October 8 at 1pm, you can watch the video and view the PowerPoints.
The organization, Save CWA, is leading up community-based opposition to privatization efforts. Read their Updates, which includes a detailed timeline of the battle over control of the CWA
Guest Speakers: Mr. Michael T. Doweary, Receiver for the City of Chester and Mr. Vijay Kapoor, Chief of Staff, Chester Receiver's Office.
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Racialized Development: History of Chester City
Chapter 2, Race and the Politics of Deception
Chester Black History Tour, conducted by Ms. Twyla Simpkins, YES Center.
- Meet 1:15pm in the lobby of the Inn at Swarthmore, 10 S Chester Rd, Swarthmore, PA 19081
- BUS WILL LEAVE PROMPTLY 1:30pm
- 3:00 PM Walking tour of Overtown/Arts Corridor, led by Chester Mayor Stefan Roots and highlight Swarthmore's engagements with residents and organizations located within the Overtown “triangle”. We will walk the streets of downtown Chester, meet with key stakeholders, and discuss a few examples of longstanding and new campus-community collaborations.
- 4:00 PM drop/off arrival to Inn at Swarthmore
Critical Reflection Essay on Arts-Based Community Development
Due by 11:59pm FRIDAY October 25, 2024 on Moodle -
American Indian Resurgence in Chester
Guest Speaker: Dr. Nolan Fontaine, President, Urban Indian Heritage Society
1. Indian Civil Rights Act (titles II-VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-284, 82 Stat. 73 (Apr. 11, 1968)) (original version) (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1303)
2. Petras, Elizabeth. 1991. “From Paternalism to Patronage to Pillage: Chester, PA.” North Central Sociological Association Annual Meeting.
3. Baldwin, Davarian L. and Emma S. Crane. 2020. "Cities, Racialized Poverty, and Infrastructures of Possibility." Antipode, 52(2), 365-379.
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Resistance to Racial Segregation: Social Justice Movements in 1960s-1970s
- Chapter 4, Race and the Politics of Deception
- Pope, Danny et al. c1964. “Chester, PA: A Case Study in Community Organization.” Students for a Democratic Society, Swarthmore Political Action Committee.
- Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. 1965. “The Chester Case.”
- Global Nonviolent Action Database, African American residents of Chester, PA, demonstrate to end de facto segregation in public schools, 1963-1966
- Delaware County Historical Society, Civil Rights & Segregation: 1960's Protests in Chester, PA
- VIDEO:
- Stories of the Civil Rights Movement in Chester
Guest Speakers: Mr. Ike Jones, Mr. Marvin Price and Mr. Lou Fields
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Racialized Development in Chester
Guest Speaker: Ms. Cynthia Jetter, Founder, The Jetter Center, Chester Education Foundation
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From Environmental Racism toward Environmental Justice
- Cole, Luke and Sheila Foster. 2001. Chapter 2, “The Political Economy of Environmental Racism.” In From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: NYU Press.
- Pulido, Laura. 2016. “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity, II: Environmental Racism, Racial Capitalism and State-Sanctioned Violence.” Progress in Human Geography 41, no. 4: 524–33.
- Sicotte, Diane. 2016. “Introduction" and Chapter 6, “Intersectionality and Environmental Inequality in the Philadelphia Region,” In From Workshop to Waste Magnet: Environmental Inequality in the Philadelphia Region. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
- CRCQL Why Is Incineration Toxic?
- Podcast, Chester is Rising | RSS.com Podcasting
- Andrew O’Reilly, “She’s Taking Out the Trash,” Patagonia, 2019.
- Sarah Lomax-Reese, “We Can’t Breathe,” EcoWurd, 2019.
- Kamau Bell, Toxic America, July 2019, 28:40 (final section on Chester and Covanta)
- Frank Kummer, "For 30 years, she has fought a waste-to-energy plant in Chester City: ‘We don’t have a choice,’" The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 23, 2021.
- Video: , 1997.
Guest Speakers: Ms. Zulene Mayfield, CRCQL and Prof. Giovanna Di Chiro, Swarthmore College
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Advancing Social Justice in Chester
Chapter 6, Race and the Politics of Deception
Guest Speaker: Mayor Stefan Roots, City of Chester
ASSIGNMENT
Option #1: Critical Reflection Essay on Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice
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Option #2: Advanced Preview of Final PaperDue by 11:59pm December 5, 2024 on Moodle
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Seminar Discussion, Reflections, and Final Remarks
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Final Reseach Paper to be uploaded to Moodle by 11:59pm.
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Please sign up for a time slot to meet with Prof Mele to discuss progress on your final paper, wrap-up for the semester class and internship, and plans for the spring term.
Sign-up sheet for Wednesday, 11/11 or Thursday, 11/12Here's the Zoom link: