Center for Social Change and Belonging
It takes us all to create actionable change and support student success by creating pathways to grow.
We're focused on building community by cultivating an inclusive and positive university climate, contributing to academic experiences by fostering students’ ability to think critically and define success on their own terms, providing students with resources to promote social justice, inclusion, and liberation at Penn State and around the world and facilitate students’ individual transformation and engagement.
In partnership with Student Affairs equity and inclusion units and campus and community partners, we are focused on empowering students, staff, and faculty to become equity conscious leaders and change agents in their communities by creating networks of support, dialogue, and connection.
The Center for Social Change and Belonging offers curricular and co-curricular opportunities that:
-
Build capacity of students, staff, and faculty to acknowledge, understand, prioritize, and embed the tenets of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility into their lives.
-
Create transformative learning spaces and programs that encourage self-reflection, intersectional solidarity, action & advocacy.
-
Develop a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to self-awareness, equity, justice, and collective liberation.
-
In partnership with other Student Affairs Equity and Inclusion units, empower our students, staff, and faculty to become social justice leaders and change agents in our communities.
Defining Social Change
The King Center defines nonviolence as a love-centered way of thinking, speaking, acting and engaging that leads to personal, cultural and societal transformation.
- The Triple Evils
- Poverty
- Racism
- Militarism
- Fundamental Philosophy of Nonviolence
- Nonviolence Is a Way of Life for Courageous People.
- Nonviolence Seeks to Win Friendship and Understanding.
- Nonviolence Seeks to Defeat Injustice, or Evil, Not People.
- Nonviolence Holds That Unearned, Voluntary Suffering for a Just Cause Can Educate and Transform People and Societies
- Nonviolence Chooses Love Instead of Hate.
- Nonviolence Believes That the Universe Is on the Side of Justice.
- Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change
- Information Gathering
- Education
- Personal Commitment
- Negotiation
- Direct Action
- Reconciliation
- Resources to Consider
-
-
Parting the Waters - America in the King Years 1954-63
Taylor Branch -
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Clayborne Carson -
King: A Life
Jonathan Eig -
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
David J. Garrow -
From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice
Thomas F. Jackson -
A Testament Of Hope - The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
Edited by James M. Washington
-
Advocacy and Activism Resources
- Campus Free Speech Guide
-
- Campus Free Speech Guide
Covering academic freedom, campus climate, discrimination and harassment, diversity and inclusion, hateful expression, invited speakers and protests on campus
- Campus Free Speech Guide
Request Assistance from the Center for Social Change and Belonging
Our mission is focused on supporting macro level work that confronts and challenges systems, policies and practices as opposed to micro level work focused on individual behavior. We offer assistance to groups, departments and individuals surrounding activism and advocacy, conflict resolution and de-escalation, allyship and ally identity development, restorative practices and trauma informed care.