COURSE DESCRIPTION

Stories make change possible. This is true for individuals, organizations, and communities. Because the stories we tell can either narrow or expand the space for change, narrative strategy is a potent strategy for social and environmental justice. Narrative interventions give both somatic and intellectual power to the information people need to make change.

In this class, you will engage with narrative tools to shift minds and behaviors. You need not be a gifted or voracious reader to become an effective user of story strategy. You will be presented with insights from neuroscience, trauma theory, change management, communications theory, organizational psychology, and emergent strategy through hands-on practice, case stories, media, and real world experimentation.  These insights will make it much easier to engage successfully with stakeholders across policy, management,  industry, citizen  groups, and in educational settings.  Learners will come away ready to apply the empathic skills environmental, food systems, and social changemakers need to communicate across differences in identity, world view, and lived experience. You will gain confidence in operating more effectively under conditions of socio-political polarization and in breaking stalemates on matters of eco-social concern.

Learning Objectives: 

This course provides an opportunity for learners to:

• define and demonstrate competence in Story Strategy. (This includes discerning the elements of story, identifying possible foci of intervention, deconstructing narrative assumptions, and placing story in a systemic context.)
• contribute, contextualize, and expand their individual knowledge, experiences, and traditions pertaining to storytelling and the community use of story.
• become aware of their own and their community’s somatic responses to the need for story and how storytelling works as a trauma-aware intervention.
• apply narrative strategy to advocacy and decision-making settings for leaders, policy analysts, managers, and activists.
• recognize and define key terms in the field of narrative to create a shared vocabulary.
• begin to work with theories of change and Change Management for individuals in organizational settings and in policy and community work.
• collectively create an understanding of the systemic, institutional, and psychological barriers to change.
• experience the pleasure and joy of applying story strategies and narrative interventions to their own environmental and food system issues.

This course was created through and is part of :

COURSE-AT-A-GLANCE

Story Justice is one of five (5) thoughtfully and intentionally created courses that features the voices of several experienced, well-learned and inspirational movement builders and activists. These include:

• Dr. Monica Coleman;
• The Reverend Charles Howard;
• Clementine Morrigan;
• Kelly Diels;
• Reginald Hubbard; 
• Alan Miller; and
• Kurt Allerslev

The topical overview of the course below provides an early taste of what you can expect as you embark on this 16 module learning journey.

Module 1: Story Empathy

Module 2: What Are We Up Against/Setting of Our Story

Module 3: Storytelling Basics

Module 4: Neuroscience and the Somatics of Story

Module 5: Listening

Module 6: Octavis E. Butler’s Change Shaping

Module 7: The Trouble with Science Communication

Module 8: Community Organizing with Story: A Conversation with James Davis

Module 9: Kim Stanley Robinson and Cli-Fi as a Solution to Data Talk

Module 10: Connecting with Stories to Make Change

Module 11: We Are the Culture Makers – A Conversation with Kelly Diels

Module 12: A Conversation with Clementine Morrigan About Culture, Attachment, and Change Shaping

Module 13: Story Based Strategy

Module 14: Building Your Story Process

Module 15: Curating Your Revolution

Module 16: Sending Your Stories Out Into the World

AUDIENCE

This course is designed for:

• Established and budding activists, organizers, community leaders, and coalition-builders;
• leaders, staff, and volunteers affiliated with organizations making change within their spheres or seeking to have greater impact in the wider world;
• anyone interested in building stronger and more resilient communities;
• anyone who wants to pause and consider what is needed psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually to feel resourced and prepared to find their place and purpose in challenging times.

LEAD CREATOR

Michelle Auerbach (she/her) is a world builder and community maker who uses all her geeky skills to support and educate change shapers. She works toward a more just and loving place where more people get taken care of better. Michelle works as a consultant, educator, and writer focused on change shaping, creativity, and leadership for individuals, organizations, and communities.

Michelle has been studying change and developing her change shaping practice for over 40 years. She has worked with institutions (the NY City Department of Health, Kaiser Permanente, and The National Institutes of Health), organizations (from Fortune 50 companies to NGOs and nonprofits) and communities (through activist movements, consulting, designing change processes and facilitating), and she creates communications and storytelling strategies for universities, legislative change groups, and pro-social businesses. 

Michelle was trained in facilitation and change management as well as individual and group coaching at the Columbia University School of Public Health, Kaiser Permanente, and the New York City Department of Health as well as through movements and teachers on the ground.  She was a professor of Ancient World Languages and Humanities for a decade and served as chair of the Arts and Humanities discipline for the State of Colorado Department of Higher Education. Currently, she teaches communication and story for changemakers at The University of Colorado and Sterling College. 

Michelle was also trained as a chef in New York City at the Natural Gourmet, where she studied nutrition, Chinese medicinal cookery, and healing traditions as well as studying pastry at Peter Kump’s Institute for Culinary Education. She worked in restaurants and has done food writing for the New York Times, the London Guardian, and Sunset magazine as well as other outlets. MIchelle has a particular passion for supporting food sustainability and justice.  

Michelle’s PhD dissertation was written on story as a trauma sensitive change technology for individuals, organizations, and communities. She studies the way we respond to change from wisdom traditions that go back 6000 years to the neurobiology that drives our connected selves. Her book, Resilience: The Life Saving Skill of Story came out in 2022. If you want to read her novels or her nonfiction you can find her writing at www.michelleauerbach.com.

AGREEMENT & TERMS

To participate in any learning community spaces (such as discussion boards and videoconferences), you agree to follow Sterling College’s Code of Online Conduct You also agree not to reproduce or circulate proprietary materials from this program.

Course descriptions are for informational purposes only. Content may be updated or changed as planning evolves.  Sterling College reserves the right to alter the program specifics, including details about course content, instructors, collaborations, field trips and facilities at any time without notice.