SASAH 2021 Yearbook

Every day, those with social power have opportunities to drive decisions that impact organizations, individuals, and the public at large. How successful they are rests in large part on their ability to effectively use power, influence, and persuasion to move individuals to “think, say, or act” in a way that benefits their perspective / POV. This course, led by guest lecturer David Simmonds, focused on both the theory and practice of persuasion as a tool for change and examined persuasion and how we are persuaded. We explored the impact of advertising and political communications on ideology and everyday life.
Through class reflections and the preparation of a final assignment we looked at how to apply tools as we considered techniques of marketing/advertising persuasion and the ways in persuasion functions politically and through corporate marketing and communications.
The final Campaign Projects were done in small groups of 3 or 4 persons. Students researched, developed, and wrote a strategic communications plan for a public persuasion campaign. Students chose a non-profit organization, NGO, business, or corporation and proposed a campaign to promote a product, service, or mission.
These are the final Campaign Projects:

As one of the cornerstones of higher education, intellectualism (and intellectuals), like the Arts and Humanities, seem to be increasingly under attack, often targets of public suspicion. That is to say, there is an increasingly anti-intellectual mood in the air. Whereas previously the university was a bastion of intellectual work separate from outside response or influence, increasingly we’re called upon to make our research public, to be public intellectuals. But this role goes back at least to Emile Zola’s letter to the President of France in response to the Dreyfus Affair, “J’Accuse . . . !”, even to Socrates, who was sentenced to death for refusing to renounce his beliefs. Investigating the past, present, and future roles of the public intellectual, this course thus urges you to ask as you begin your time in SASAH, and in university in general: What does it mean to be an intellectual in the twenty-first century? Does, can, or should what we do in the classroom and in our research have a more direct public impact? If so, what is the role of the Arts and Humanities in making this impact? Above all, what is your role and responsibility as a public intellectual, whether as a student or elsewhere in your lives, especially at a time when hope for the future seems more necessary than ever? In the process of asking these questions, we’ll look at a variety of historical and contemporary examples and definitions of the public intellectual, and charge you with exploring answers through a variety of assignments both critical and creative.