********COURSE MODULES/CORE CURRICULUM:*********
[90 Quarter Hours Total/5.0 Credit Hours Per Course]
Note: Please bear in mind that the successive entries listed below are not Links or Portals. There is no need to click on them; all information is already provided. They represent a suggested Reading List for independent study by all students/seekers enrolled at Thomas Paine Memorial College for Redemptive Social Justice. These carefully selected, cogently developed Course Modules stand as the heart and soul of your continuing education. Enjoy & learn!........
GEN101- THOMAS PAINE: BACKGROUND AND FORETHOUGHT. Live and learn as you literally bring to life the weighty words and mighty pen of this enduring patriot of eternal influence. Paine (1737-1809) was far more than a patriot: He is in all actuality the namesake and the spokesperson for everything which Thomas Paine College stands today. Remember him well. He still has a story to tell.
TEXTBOOK: Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776). Philadelphia, PA: Robert Bell Printers Alliance.
COROLLARY RESOURCE: You Tube video(s)--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsbgawRqkLY
Thomas Paine, Patriot
GEN102- THE MAJESTIC MAGIC OF DUE PROCESS AND EQUAL PROTECTION: ESSAYS ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. Perhaps no foundational tenet of American law is lesser known or more powerful: Examine here the underpinnings of fair hearings, airing of grievances, proper procedure for protesters, the right to receive written records, and, most especially, the guarantee that all people -- regardless of citizenship -- shall be entitled to "equal protection under law" (the sacrosanct words carved in stone above the Supreme Court Building). Did you ever wonder why Gitmo exists in Cuba? [hint: those disenfranchised souls imprisoned there would instantaneously be afforded due process and equal protection if they ever set foot in America, the land of the free].
TEXT: Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. [1868]. Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Fourteenth Amendment 1868
GEN103- FAITH AND FREEDOM: THE NEXUS OF THE BIBLE AND THE BOLD PROMISE OF A NEW LAND. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, KJV). The United States of America -- indeed all countries around the globe -- can draw wisely from the wellspring of the ancient and altruistic text when it comes to drawing boundaries and drawing up blueprints for a New Nation. Faith and freedom are inextricably intertwined, and wrongheadedly seeking to separate them would be like an all-day job on the sunlit pier with an oyster fisherman and his tangled nets. Separation of church and state is not the be-all and end-all of efficacy and egalitarian behavior when it comes to foundational underpinnings. Of a surety, people of no faith and people of all faiths are equal. But there truly is no equal to the gallant guideposts standing like silent sentinels from the pages and parchment of The Book. Be prudent. Be pragmatic. Always consider The Book.
TEXTBOOK: The Holy Bible/King James Version. (1611). Various authors, prophets and seers. London, UK: Robert Barker Printing Guild.
THERE IS no greater treatise on the timely topic of street-level bureaucracy and grassroots governance than Michael Lipsky's keen article.
The Bible: Often Denied, Denigrated, Downplayed
but Never Duly Discussed
SOCJUS222- STREET-LEVEL BUREAUCRACY: THE FRONTLINES OF SOCIAL CHANGE. "Most citizens encounter government (if they encounter it at all) not through letters to their Congressman or even by regular attendance at school board meetings, but rather through their children's teachers and the policeman on the corner or in his patrol car. Each encounter of this kind represents an instance of policy delivery" (Lipsky, 1980, p. 2).
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TEXTBOOK: Lipsky, Michael. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Critical Role of Street-Level Bureaucrats. Russell Sage Foundation Yearbook & Compendium, 73(1), 1-10.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION [pictured above] may have highlighted homelessness, rampant unemployment, and the complete collapse of the American Dream, but it certainly had no monopoly on the persisent plague of homelessness, whose raw numbers still stand at a shameful 633,000 overall in the 2014 version of the United States of America. For shame.
SOCJUS332- HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA: A NEGATIVE EXEMPLAR OF SOCIAL INJUSTICE IN A LAND OF PLENTY. This course offering explores all the myriad negative ramifications stemming from the daily travails of the least, the last, the lost among us, and how this humble existence is even possible in one of the richest lands on earth. Our scholarly inquiry and probe goes far beyond mere demographics and stale statistics to study what is truly at the root of this travesty, and what precisely can be done to change it. A must for footsoldiers.
PRIMARY TEXT: Homepage of the National Alliance to End Homelessness [top-tier advocacy group/Retrieved
http://www.endhomelessness.org/
COROLLARY TEXT: Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters: The Advent of 'Wet' Shelters for America's Homeless [master's thesis]. (2011). By David Alan Johnson. Minneapolis, MN: Walden University.
(Available Upon Request).
CURRENTLY only 11 percent of all American workers even belong to a trade union. It appears, for all intents and purposes, the captains of industry and middle-level managers cracking the whip are content to leave the score at 89-11, favoring bland corporate interest over rich workplace equilibrium.
POLEQ333- THE GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS AND SHOCK WAVES OF APARTHEID AND OTHER HATE REGIMES. For every devil, there is surely an angel -- and Nobel Laureate/president of a nation/former "terrorist" Nelson Mandela walked among men, not clouds. He left a lasting legacy in his ethereal and spiritual footprints across the plains of his beloved nation and down the seemingly endless hallway of the embattled prison at Robben Island. He was so much more than Prisoner 46664, though -- he somehow, through it all, through the mists of hate in the night, cultivated a New Dawn and eternal lexicon of righteousness, which still glistens today at sunrise.
TEXTBOOK: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (1995). Johannesburg, SA: Macdonaldo Purnell Publishers.
POLEQ443- FIRST AMERICANS: THE LAST TO BE SERVED AND THE GREATEST TRAVESTY OF TREATMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY. The honorable flag of the American Indian Movement [AIM], pictured at right, flutters far more proudly and, yes, patriotically (and certainly purely) than that of a cankered conqueror. Today, centuries later, the greater population of the United States is comprised of only some 2 percent of indigenous people, nearly decimated by horrific oppression. Can we change? TEXTBOOK: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (1970). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
COROLLARY RESOURCE. Free Leonard Peltier Homepage. (2014). http://www.freeleonard.org/
POLEQ553- FREEDOM'S FIRE: IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS AND IN OUR NATION. The Greyhound bus burning to nothingness (at right) smoldered less than a mile from Dr. Johnson's first home, his birthplace of Anniston, Ala. It sadly signified the terrible Mother's Day Massacre of 1961, when CORE activists [Congress of Racial Equality], the footsoldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, were viciously attacked by local rednecks and ruffians. Miraculously, no one was killed (but the bus was indeed destroyed). The dream kept right on rolling.
The symbolic three-legged stool of sustainable communities (economic, environmental, and social equity) is reprised in- TEXTBOOK: Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity edited by Robert D. Bullard (2007). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Books.
TEXTBOOK: All Politics Is Local and Other Rules of the Game by Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill [longtime Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives] (1994). New York: Times Books, Inc.
TEXTBOOK: The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts (1982). New York: St. Martin's Press.
SOCJUS442- TRADE UNIONS & THE WAY OF THE WORLD: THE HISTORIC, INNATE STRUGGLE OF INTERNATIONAL WORKERS FOR THEIR RIGHTS. Fully vested and cloaked in the mantle of rights granted under the aegis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) [Article 23(4)], workers the world over have long been "in the right" when they organize and seek collective bargaining, but grievously wronged by the powers that be which dare to compel them otherwise. The struggle and the saga continues. The ultimate outcome may well depend upon you.
PRIMARY TEXT: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948). By Eleanor Roosevelt et al. New York, NY: The United Nations.
AIM [the American Indian Movement], a radical group working for nearly 50 years to somehow realign the political landscape with what once was.
Dr. Johnson's original work is curated in Civil Rights Archives and repositories in Birmingham, Montgomery and Anniston, Alabama [available upon request].
TEXTBOOK: Freedom's Fire: The Untold Story of the Anniston Bus-Burning by David Alan Johnson (1994). Anniston, AL: Civil Rights Archives Press.
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SUSCOM222- SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE BARE (& BOLD) BASICS. As a very wise illustrator once said, think of a truly sustainable community as a classic three-legged stool: One leg each represents economic factors, environmental components, and concerns of social equity, in no particular order. If any community falters on any one of the three symbolic "legs," the entire foundation falls, and can no longer be propped up desite best efforts and good faith. There must thus be a robust economy, a conscientious cultivation of the environment, and an equally healthy harmony of overarching social justice which permeates the target horizon of hope.
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SUSCOM332- ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL: THE TOOLS OF SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES. An acute examination & analyses of the major forms of American local governance: Council-manager (in 55 percent of all cities and towns); Mayor-council (34 percent); and, Commission form (1). Strongpoints and weaknesses are highlighted and scrutinized...
SUSCOM442- MILKING IT: TRANSFORMING & TRANSCENDING COMMUNITY TO EXTEND TO THE DISENFRANCHISED AND DISCRIMINATED AGAINST. Assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk's legacy didn't just go away or fade away when he was abruptly killed in 1978. Even today his promise, his premise -- and his controversy -- live on. Some Americans even refuse to accept mail to which is affixed the official Milk stamp (at left). However, for every hater is a debater, one who is willing to dream and scheme new ways and new days to govern (and include). That alone makes Milk's ending a happy one and focuses still on his blueprint for inclusion...
COMPREL333- THE OVERARCHING RAINBOW OF THE WORLD'S MAJOR RELIGIONS, & THE STORMCLOUDS THEY CAN BREW. In annual holiday ceremonies at one of his adopted hometowns, Dr. Johnson joyously participates in the ceremonial Lighting of the Peace Tree -- a traditional Christmas edifice decorated non-traditionally with one ornament for each of the globe's ten major religions (based upon raw number of adherents): Christianity; Islam; Atheism/ Agnosticism/Neutral; Hinduism; Buddhism; Sikhism; Judaism; Bahaism; Confucianism; and, Jainism. In that same spirit, the myriad beliefs and hues of the rainbow of overarching belief systems are examined.
COMPREL443- SHAMAN-LIKE SEERS, PROPHETS AND CHARISMATIC LEADERS ACROSS THE SPAN AND SPECTRUM OF WORLD RELIGIONS. Throughout the most troubled (and blessed) times in world history, there have been powerful prophets, seers and shaman who guided the way for humankind through their words and deeds. The Greek word for charisma literally means "divine grace," and such deliverances from evil and invocations of innate goodness as the famed "I Have A Dream" Speech (right) point to the power of the prophets throughout the ages. The direct role of religion and mysticism in such earth shattering (& earth changing) events cannot be denied and likewise demands to be duly analyzed in earnest.
COROLLARY RESOURCE: "They Killed Him" by Kris Kristofferson (1986) [music video].
COMPREL553- FREEDOM AND RELIGION: NOT FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. There is a universal quest certainly, deep within the collective soul, not only to know God but to gain Freedom. No doubt, just like the old folk song, "People everywhere just want to be free." There are 197 separate and sovereign nations on the face of the earth (193 in the United Nations), each with varying degrees of freedom emanating within their borders. The inherent nexus between that freedom and the fulcrum of religion and its greater good is the essence of this course offering, lovingly to people everywhere who just want to be free.
PRIMARY RESOURCE: Freedom House Homepage. (2014). A scholarly scrutiny of the varying degrees of freedom promulgated via government across the globe. http://www.freedomhouse.org/
PRIMARY RESOURCE: The Mighty Pen international political blog by David Alan Johnson (2012-present). http://davejohnson419.wix.com/the-mighty-pen
COROLLARY RESOURCE: Dr. Johnson's Facebook Page, which serves to fuel The Mighty Pen political blog, and likewise any number of other interconnected social justice & social change projects worldwide:
TEXTBOOK: Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions by Wendy Doniger, ed. (2006). New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
COROLLARY RESOURCE: Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance website (2014). Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org/var_rel.htm
'I Have A Dream'
PRIMARY RESOURCE: '"I Have A Dream" speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28th, 1963: Washington, D.C. Complete Text:
http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf Excerpt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDWWy4CMhE
Background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream
People Everywhere
Just Want to be Free~
NEWMED222- THE NEW TELEGRAPHY: STRINGING THE WIRES FOR BLOGGING, FACEBOOKING & UNIVERSAL SOCIAL CHANGE. My, how the "West" has changed, from Pony Express to telegraphy, now to more modern (and effective) blogging and Facebooking -- all in quest not of the West, but a fuller direction, encompassing all of God's children and the four farflung winds. Illustrative exemplars are Dr. Johnson's own humble Facebook account, which swelled to some 5,000 strong when providing a platform for the reelection of Barack Hussein Obama in 2012; and, later to strategically augment the internationally ranked (& influential) blog it launched, The Mighty Pen. Your prosaic pen too can be imbued with power -- cyber-power -- as you harness the New Media to propagate future vision... The tools of the trade have changed, but not the aim.
You Tube:
The New
Frontier...
PRIMARY RESOURCE: Michael Tackett on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/whedonfreak976
Tackett, a brilliant young man from the greater Cincinnati area, has overcome homelessness and hopelessness to become the harbinger of hope and one of the Midwest's leading vloggers (video bloggers). Let him tell you all about it in his own words. You too can catch your dreams on You Tube. [Editor's Note: In the course of human development, "Michael" has transitioned to Michelle Lynn Montague-Tackett, and that is how she is now known both personally and professionally.]*
NEWMED333- OPEN MIC FOR A NATION: THE EMERGING, PERVASIVE INFLUENCE OF YOU TUBE. In bygone eras (not that far removed from past channels), Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather ruled the roost and the airwaves with their suave delivery (and their perch) on network television. Now, literally anyone can be a Cronkite, jacking his laptop up to a worldwide network fueled by You Tube and its associated platforms. With the fame and the name come the blame (and responsibility): What social cause and imbedded movement will one push? How precisely can he best advance it, technologically and technically? The answers are all here, just waiting to be screened. Film at eleven.
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*THOMAS PAINE COLLEGE**
KEY WEST, FLORIDA.............*
INCREASE The PEACE======
NEWMED444- ONE MOMENT IN TIME: TURNING SINGLE EVENTS INTO SNAPSHOTS THAT CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY. Know when -- and how -- to conjure up a social movement (and an image that fuels it) like a magic wand, in the blink of an eye, whether it be fists to the sky at Mexico City 1968 (left), or the Freedom Riders' bus blazing likewise skyward on the side roads of Anniston, Alabama, Mother's Day Sunday, circa 1961, or any other of the dozen (hundreds?) of iconic single events which have taken on a lifetime and a legend all their own. Often, the wand & the camera are waved indiscriminantly and the image captured much more through luck and happenstance than strategic planning or discernment. But can such a magic moment be planned or "staged" on the national stage? Learn all about how to adroitly leverage media & movements.
TEXTBOOK: Silent Gesture by Tommie Smith (2007). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
COROLLARY TEXT: "My Party Should Respect Secret Union Ballots, " A Guest Editorial by former U.S. Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.) published in the Wall Street Journal (August 8, 2008, p. A5). This brilliant essay still stands as the seminal exemplar of a social-change Letter to the Editor that actually (& rather swiftly) affected social change. Sen. McGovern, despite his liberal credentials and lifelong support of labor, quashed the controversial Card Check Law, that would have ended secret ballots in workplace union votes.
-----School of Leadership & Sustainable Communities-----
Dr. David S. Broxterman, Chair
LEADR662- THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP WITHOUT LEADERS: THE THREE MAJOR MODELS. Leadership (and leaders) do not exist within a vacuum or a laboratory -- it's more a real-world concept fit for the parade grounds and board rooms of America, rather than an erstwhile, empty academic exercise in futility. This succinct, systematic overview focuses finely on the three major models (authoritarian, laissez-faire, and participative) and widens the lens of research to explain and explore just how (and when) each mode is incisively, insightfully implemented; they are surely not automatically interchangeable. Learn the difference (and how to make a difference) in this innovative introductory course.
ORIGINAL LECTURES & CORE CURRICULUM designed by decades of military and civilian life experiences and best practices, from the files of Dr. David S. Broxterman. In his talks and texts, he strikingly paints a prosaic, patriotic picture of contemporary leadership in commerce, scholarship and personal venues of endeavor.
LEADR675- LEADERS MATTER: THE HEART OF THE MATTER. Regarding the genesis (and revelation) of leaders, are they "made," or born? This eternal Question -- along with the probative, integral characteristics of effective, efficient, egalitarian leaders -- are scrutinized at some scholastic length in this key foundational course which props up the very pillars of leadership, and those who shoulder their load like Samson of old. Do you have that innate strength that it takes to be a leader? Just what core elements do make leaders different from the rest of the pack, and from perennial followers? Is it all random, or is there a method to the madness?... These cogs and components (and more) of the intricate proverbial Machine of Leadership are painstakingly polished and presented in crystal-clear plateaus, step-by-step, which all student/seekers can cogently comprehend.
CENTRAL TEXT: Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca (2008), New York: Scribner's.
COROLLARY TEXT: Leadership by Art Padilla (2013). San Francisco, CA: Wiley Educational Publications.
The Curriculum Design:
Now You Are Ready...
...After carefully studying and scrutinizing the packaged Curriculum Design [above] and all its affiliated resources and attachments, you are more prepared than anyone on the face of the earth, tested by trial and proven by fire, to use your Thomas Paine College Doctor of Theology degree to spark those same fires of liberty and trials and tribulations of social change! Now is the time to step onto the battlefield.**
LEADR686- SERVING TO LEAD & LEADING TO SERVE: SERVANT LEADERSHIP IN AN OTHERWISE DRACONIAN WORLD. The very concept of "servant leadership" is paradoxical at best, perhaps originated in all its glory on the hillsides of Galilee by none other than the truest teacher himself, Jesus Christ. For those who fear the fomenting fountainheads of "purely" authoritarian-style leadership, Jesus (and Servant Leadership) presciently provide an able alternative to barking orders and demanding compliance (and respect). In almost Jedi fashion, the Servant Leader receives more respect by demanding less.
CENTRAL TEXT: The Servant as Leader by social pioneer Robert K. Greenleaf (1970, reissued 1991). Indianapolis, IN: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
COROLLARY TEXT: 'The Beatitudes' as delivered in lecture format by Jesus Christ (32 A.D.), in the hills of Galilee: Matthew 5:1-14 (KJV).
INDEPENDENT STUDY: Work with Chair Dr. Broxterman to construct your own original concepts of servant leadership. You will be richly rewarded.*
SUPPLEMENTAL WORK: Jack Welch and the 4 E's of Leadership, by Jack Welch (2005). New York: McGraw- Hill.
Thomas Paine College, Key West, Fla., and the virtual classroom:...
A virtual experience in virtual goodness
