(415) 293-1010 (phone)
(415) 293-1020 (fax)

The San Francisco Experience: Forums on Urban America

Each semester the San Francisco Program offers students a choice of urban forums from a rotating selection of topics.

Plan of Study

(Note: 1.0 course credit at Trinity College equals 3.0 semester hours at applicable institutions.)

A typical plan of study will include the following components:

Core Course (1.0 Trinity Credit)

"The West Coast Experience: Perspectives on American Social and Environmental History"

This course explores the social and environmental history of the San Francisco Bay Area and how these themes interrelate.  Topics analyzed include immigration patterns, issues of identity and assimilation, the city as gateway to Asia and as a wellspring of American social movements.  From the Gold Rush to the present, population growth and economic prosperity have dramatically influenced California’s forests and watersheds and have prompted a succession of debates on appropriate use of land and other environmental resources.     

Forum seminar (2.0 Trinity Credits)

Through extensive reading, field study and discussion, the forum seminar provides the student with both the historical foundation and the contemporary discourse for the selected topic.  Detailed descriptions of each forum are found below.

Each academic forum will consider the theory and implications of its topic in broad application, while using the resources of San Francisco for case studies.  For example, the Urban Planning Forum will consider general principles of “good city form” and trade-offs between built and natural environments that can be applied to a variety of urban settings, while investigating contemporary problems in the application of this theory to the San Francisco Bay Area. Similarly, the Government Forum will consider the topic of government in American cities, while looking to the local city hall for examples.

A significant part of the two-credit academic course will be an extensive independent research project on a specific question relating to the forum’s topic. The program director and the forum professor will work together to help students identify the human and physical resources in the city, including its many archives with holdings that range from maritime history to gay/lesbian history, as well as the diverse topics housed in labor unions and in the area’s universities, historical associations, and media organizations. The student’s research will be integrated into the seminar discussion.

Internship (1.5 Trinity credits)

Each forum will offer students a choice of internships specific to its topic.  Thus, a student in the Community Studies Forum will work for a non-profit organization serving the needs of one of San Francisco’s many organized groups and neighborhoods.  The Government forum will offer placements in city agencies, the Cultural Forum will interact with arts groups or publishers, etc.  Students will discuss selected internship experiences in the seminar in order to learn how theory applies to “real life” and how life, in turn, informs theory.  A typical internship will engage the student on site for 16 – 20 hours each week.

Elective (0.5 Trinity Credit)

 "Race and Environment: The Ethics and Practice of Conflict Resolution"

Using case studies from the San Francisco Bay Area, the course examines disputes between communities or interest groups, involving issues of race or environmental policy.  Readings include source documents that create a better understanding of the history and root causes of a conflict, as well as those that illuminate the ethical, philosophical, and psychological theories that pertain to its resolution.

Forum Offerings

2002-2003

 Fall 2002:

 Community Studies Forum  or

Gay/Lesbian History, Culture and Community Forum

(depending on greater applicant interest)

City Design Forum

Culture Forum  

Spring 2003:

City/regional Government Forum

Culture Forum  

 City Design Forum

Note: The minimum enrollment for each forum is 5 students (4 students for the Culture Forum).  Every effort will be made to enroll a student in his or her forum of choice.  In the event that the minimum enrollment in that forum is not met, the student will be offered his or her second choice.

The Forums 

 City/regional Government Forum  (Spring)

San Francisco has a centralized professional city government with a strong Office of the Mayor, coupled with a lively and influential Board of Supervisors.  Thus, it provides students with a model for how a sophisticated government, with adequate authority centered in its public officials, can work to accommodate the demands of a number of claimant groups.

 San Francisco, as a key Pacific Rim trade center, also provides a fine venue to study the role of a city in the global age.  But, it is also a city of extraordinarily vocal and politically sophisticated communities and interests. Thus, the seminar will examine how the city government can balance both downtown and neighborhood interests, as well as simultaneously address the needs of ethnic and immigrant groups and meet the requirements of its position in the world economy.  It must also contend with the preservation of affordable housing, visible homelessness, a much-maligned municipal transportation system, a parking crunch, and the tricky political terrain of urban redevelopment.

 San Francisco has been historically bound to the fortunes of the surrounding area.  Thus, city government must address some problems and economic opportunities that are more regional than local: transportation, water, tourism, new technology, along with the variety of challenges that are associated with significant regional population growth and gentrification

 Community Studies Forum  (Fall)

 This forum examines the differing understandings of “community” from the prospective of diverse disciplines: anthropology, history, sociology, urban planning.  Through field research, the reading of case studies of Bay Area community history and sociology, and internship placements with non-profit groups serving one or more communities, students examine how these communities were formed within the city, the means through which they maintain identity, what issues most concern community life, and how communities wield political influence. In addition to studying these groups separately and in relation to one another, there is also the opportunity to consider California as “border culture.”

 The Bay Area has a wealth of communities.  It has been enriched by waves of immigration: from China, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Central America, the Philippines, Vietnam and Korea.   From within the United States, African-Americans arrived in significant numbers during the Second World War to build America’s naval fleet, and in later decades gays, lesbians and others sought community within the city’s comparatively tolerant ethos.  San Francisco has rich human and archival resources to consider communities formed through cultural/counter-cultural or political identification: the Beats, Black Panthers, the Environmental Movement, etc.  There are communities united through spiritual practice.  Finally, many students in the Trinity-in-San Francisco Program have chosen projects designed to achieve a greater understanding of the Homeless population in the city.

 Culture Forum  (Fall/Spring)

 San Francisco has a richly varied arts community, which prides itself in offering a less commercial alternative to New York and Los Angeles. There is an ethos of experiment over profit.  In the Bay Area, the arts often have a stronger relationship to communities than to “the general public.” Many San Francisco theater and dance companies are African-American, Asian-American, Chicano, Feminist, Gay, Jewish, or are centered around a political identity or agenda.  The city abounds in mural art and a vibrant, diverse music scene.  The City hosts the San Francisco International Film Festival, along with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.  The arts, including the recent proliferation of poetry slams, have become fertile territory for the expression and exploration of issues of community identity and assimilation.

 The Culture Forum is based on the idea of the “Citizen-Artist,” the notion that art, both in its expression and in its targeted audience, may closely relate to communities and their social, spiritual and political concerns and aspirations.    The forum, which will be guided by the Director of the Program, a professor of theater, will also feature artists from other media, who will be invited to enrich the seminar.  The forum includes field trips to theater/dance/music performances, to museums and mural sites. 

 Gay/Lesbian History, Culture and Community Forum  (Fall)

 San Francisco has a justifiable reputation as a mecca for people who are Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual or Transgender. The city is home to the Castro district, the Folsom Street Fair, the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, the Gay Pride Parade, sophisticated activism for gay rights and AIDS education, and it has one of the principal gay/lesbian/bi/transgender historical archives in the world.

 The academic seminar explores the development of the field of Gay and Lesbian Studies in history, sociology, and anthropology with primary examples from the San Francisco Bay Area and comparisons to New York and to cities abroad.  The forum explores similar questions as that of the community forum but with a special focus on sexuality, e.g. is it possible to form a community around marginalized erotic desire?  The seminar examines the political agenda and clout of the gay and lesbian communities, the ways cultural identity have been established, and the educational, legal and spiritual challenges encountered in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

  City Design  (Fall/Spring)

 Using San Francisco as a case study, the City Design Forum will explore topics concerning the urban environment. Elements of both the natural and the built environment will be considered. Beginning with an overview of San Francisco's historical evolution as an urban center, the seminar will address subjects including city planning theory, city form, urban sprawl, density, environmental degradation and sustainability, neighborhood and downtown vitality, and public open space. Reading materials drawn from the fields of geography, city planning, architectural history, journalism and the natural sciences will be supplemented with guided walking tours and individual site observations.

back to cover