Sustainability and Social Justice students learn from Pronita Gupta ’91, change agent and policymaker
When Clark’s Department of Sustainability and Social Justice — a revisioning of the International Development, Community, and Environment program — launched in 2023, faculty wanted to ensure that students across all five master’s programs had the opportunity to learn from each other.
In transforming the department’s curriculum, faculty purposefully developed a new, common seminar that is required for graduate students.
“We’re excited about our common seminar; this is the unifying experience for students in the department,” says Dean of the College Laurie Ross, ’91, M.A. ’95, longtime leader and professor in the department.
This spring, 52 students are participating in the inaugural common seminar, Principles and Ethics in Community Engagement, which will be offered annually.
“Our department developed the curriculum over two years as a way to weave key themes that connect the different master’s programs and reflect our department’s common mission,” says Margaret Post, lead instructor and an associate research professor in the department who is teaching the seminar with professors Ross, Cynthia Caron ’90, Anita Fábos, and Morgan Ruelle, and Career Development Director Sharon Hanna.
“The course is an opportunity to name our values, reflect on our lived experiences, learn new concepts and theories, and explore concrete strategies for transformative action,” Post says.
The lectures, activities, and writing for the course allow students “to shape and refine their values and future goals for work in fields of sustainability, environmental and social justice, and international and community development,” she adds.
To inspire students as they reflect on the future, the course has included guest speakers. Among them are Deepa Iyer, an advocate for justice and author of “Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection,” whose “social change map” has guided an assignment where students create autobiographies illustrating their core values, commitments, and goals, and Pronita Gupta ’91, special assistant to the president for labor and workers in the Biden Administration and deputy director of the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau in the Obama administration.
Recently, Gupta spent a day at Clark, visiting with students in Post’s Policy Analysis class and the common seminar, as well as at a lunchtime roundtable with SSJ students. She discussed her work in Washington, D.C., including the development of policies that promote workers’ rights, paid family and medical leave, and sick leave.
“A lot of the student organizations shaped who I am. I valued working and learning from so many of the student activists I met.”
— Pronita Gupta ’91
Gupta emphasized “the need to take the long view on important policy changes that will make a tangible difference in people’s lives,” according to Post, and “encouraged students to persevere, to build coalitions, and to follow their heart in their work as change makers.”
Gupta also reflected on her days as a student at Clark, where she served as president of the Undergraduate Student Council, became involved with the Women’s Center and several anti-war groups, and worked in Worcester as a rape crisis counselor.
“A lot of the student organizations shaped who I am. I valued working and learning from so many of the student activists I met,” she recalled in 2021. “They taught me everything from how to organize and how to strategize to how to make a real demand and push for change in a realistic way.”
The common seminar will conclude next week with a celebration of students’ reflections on their learning and growth through the semester and as they look to their futures beyond Clark.
