Graduate Human Rights Practice Courses for Summer and Fall 2025
Summer and Fall 2025 Human Rights Practice Graduate Level Courses
Summer I (May 19 – July 3, 2025)
HRTS 501 - Advancing Human Rights Organizations (3 units, required for MA students. Certificate students may take either 501 or 510)
Instructor: Mette Brogden, Ph. D.
The course focuses on the practical aspects of advancing human rights through civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with a special emphasis on some of the dramatic transformations they have undergone in the past couple of decades. The course will cover such critical issues as: management of resources, relationships with personnel and boards of directors, marketing human rights issues, fundraising and financial management, accountability, navigating governmental corruption, program evaluation, and delivering outputs such as shadow reports and white papers.
HRTS 520: Community-based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) (3 units elective, may substitute for HRTS 521 requirement for GBV Certificate)
Instructor: William Simmons, Ph.D.
This course focuses on how to plan and implement community-based participation action research projects relevant to protecting and advancing human rights in marginalized communities. Students will learn to work collaboratively with communities in developing research questions, choosing and implementing data collection methods, interpreting findings, and sharing/presenting of results. Community ownership of the research process and conducting research ethically will be emphasized. A wide variety of case studies of community research that resulted in empowerment and transformation will be presented. Students will work with faculty and community members on at least one community-based action research project.
HRTS 541 – Advancing Human Rights Through Documentary Media (3 units, required for Doc Media Certificate, elective for others)
Instructor: Beverly Seckinger, MFA, Professor and Documentary Filmmaker
This course surveys current models for making and using documentary media in the service of human rights practice and activism. Interrogating concepts such as witness, testimony and evidence, historical memory, trans-media storytelling and convergence, strategic partnerships and impact campaigns, and emergent participatory frameworks, the course explores a variety of approaches to media production, exhibition, distribution and advocacy. Each course module includes interactions with filmmakers and/or media activists in the field via video conferencing; exploring media products such as films, websites and online tutorials; and critical and practical readings. Students will develop term projects in consultation with the instructor.
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Darcy Roman-Felix to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Darcy Roman-Felix to provide permission to enroll.
Summer II (July 7 – Aug 22, 2025)
HRTS 502 - Advancing Human Rights Non-Governmental Organizations II (3 units, elective)
Instructor: Mette Brogden, Ph.D.
Advancing Human Rights Organizations II addresses practical aspects of non-governmental organization (NGO) management and operations. Students will explore a variety of envisioning, planning, fund development, and evaluation tools commonly used by NGOs to guide, support, and govern their work. The course will also feature guest speakers talking about their work in local, regional, national or international NGOs. HRTS 502 is a highly practical, creative, interactive class to help students prepare for future NGO careers and learn to research potential positions of interest based on preferred workstyles. Major learning objectives: exploring and applying multi-revenue generation approaches to NGO sustainability; the how-to’s of project management and drafting logical frameworks to help with strategic planning and implementation.
A special focus of this class iteration: Much is rapidly changing in the NGO world with the new U.S. administration’s rapid executive orders. The fields of philanthropy and international development—which typically grant funds to NGOs—have garnered criticism for their failures to address deep causes of wicked problems, including poverty, global climate change, migration, human rights violations, and structural violence. Accordingly, we will begin the course with a quick review of the rapidly changing political environment in which NGOs must operate and generate funding and recent critiques of philanthropists as determining NGO agendas through grant programs. We will closely examine how NGOs are learning to maintain their focus on mission and vision via other methods of revenue generation, including via social media, donation solicitation, merchandising related to human rights campaigns, making and marketing products related to mission, and fee-for-service provision. Storytelling, narration, and engagement are all part of this mix, along with foraging and hunter-gatherer mindsets. Students will also learn grant writing and grants management skills for NGOs, as these remain critical skills for HRTS practitioners.
HRTS 542: Advancing Human Rights through the Arts (3 units, elective)
Instructor: Ozlem Ozgur, Ph.D.
Explores visual arts, performance, theatre, puppetry, music, dance, poetry, ritual, and arts consortia/communities/venues as sites for human rights documentation, advocacy, appreciation, critical examination, and commentary. Students will meet and talk online with guest artists and arts advocates who have crafted responses to human rights issues with cannot be "spoken of" fully or compellingly except through use of artistic non-verbal or performative actions/creations. Students will examine with guest artists the conceptualization, execution, and personal/social/ political/historical impacts of their projects. Key theoretical learnings will include use of play and as-if frames in addressing human rights, and how to explore arts' impacts. Students will acquire basic skills and create a human rights-focused art project during the class.
HRTS 543: Advancing Human Rights through Technology (3 units, required for Technology Certificate, elective for others)
Instructor: Onur Bakiner, Ph.D., M.Sc.
This course provides a broad overview of the range of technology applications used in human rights reporting, documentation, data sharing, and secure communications. Students will gain an overview of emerging technologies and applications for human rights advocacy, such as using satellite imagery, analyzing big data, working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and using text messaging and participatory video to build grassroots support communities.
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
Fall I 2025 (Aug 25 – Oct 15, 2025)
HRTS 510: Advancing Human Rights Law (3 units, required for MA. Certificate students may take either 501 or 510)
Instructor: TBD
Provides students with an understanding of human rights law and the means for human rights enforcement (as found in international, regional, and national processes). Law can be the means for fomenting change and advancement of human rights initiatives. Human rights lawyers and practitioners will participate with us as guest speakers. Students will acquire the necessary tools for promoting legislative initiatives, engaging executive actors, and bringing challenges before a range of international bodies.
HRTS 531: Femicides/Feminicides (3 units, required for GBV Certificate, elective for others)
Alethia Fernández de la Reguera Ahedo
In this course, students examine one of the most widespread and yet understudied forms of gender-based violence, femicide/feminicide, or the targeted killing of women and girls because they are female, often enabled through state complicity. Students will learn about scholarship, activism, and legal policies related to femicide/feminicide. Root causes and psychologies of femicide/feminicide are explored as well as compounding forms of violence that often lead to the death of women and girls, especially intimate
partnerviolence, but also forced sterilization, forced motherhood, and sexual violence. The class will offer an international perspective on the struggle of women’s organizations and feminist to generate social and cultural awareness and transformations about this problem and to demand legal and public policy actions from States to eradicate these kinds of crimes.|
FTV 544: Documentary Production (3 units, req for HRTS/Doc Media Certificate, for others, elective)
Lisa Molomot, M.F.A.
An introduction to documentary filmmaking for students with diverse academic backgrounds and research interests. The course is designed to serve students with no prior production training, as well as those with experience. Students will acquire and further strengthen camera, sound and editing skills, and learn to conceptualize, develop, shoot and edit short documentary projects geared toward their research interests.
The course is structured primarily as a workshop to support the development, production and post-production of your projects. A significant amount of time will be devoted to individual meetings to develop and workshop your work in progress. We will also have video lectures, class discussions, weekly readings, production exercises and assignments to strengthen your knowledge of documentary filmmaking.
HRTS 596b: Cutting Edge Advances in Human Rights: Media Skills for Human Rights
Raymond Smith, Ph.D., LL.M.
This new course will provide training in key media advocacy skills useful for those seeking to promote human rights and social justice through their work and/or activism. Students will be introduced to several distinct skill sets, receive a training session in each, and complete readings and assignments related to each, in addition to a final project focused on one of the skills. Each media advocacy skill is taught by an instructor who is an experienced practitioner in their field. The skillsets covered in fall 2025 session 1 will include the following: digital storytelling; working with the press; op-ed and blogpost writing; and social media advocacy. At the start of the semester, students will identify the particular human rights or social justice issue that they wish to focus on, which may be one on which they are already working or one that they wish to work on. Students will be encouraged to identify a specific non-governmental organization (NGO) or community-based agency that works on that topic.
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
Fall II (Oct 16-Dec 10, 2025)
HRTS 500: Advancing Human Rights (3 units, required for MA and Grad Certificates)
Malia Womack, Ph.D.
This course provides an overview of human rights practice and activism. We will examine grassroots social movements and participatory approaches to human rights activism focusing on the potential ways and means for moving human rights initiatives forward. The focus is on practical methods for assessing, analyzing, and engaging human rights issues.
International human rights are designed based on the ideology that all people deserve basic rights because of their shared humanity. However, international human rights processes are rife with inequalities at the local, transnational, and global levels. This class deconstructs human rights failures and processes. In particular, the class explores how human rights treaties and operations (in their present form) cannot adequately address the complexity of lived experiences, diversity, and intersectionality. Some topics, among others, that will be covered include universalism, cultural relativism, and the role of nongovernmental organizations in human rights.
HRTS 511: Strategic Litigation (3 units, elective)
Elisa Marchi, Ph.D., LL.M.
This course provides an overview of strategic litigation, with insight into using strategic litigation as a human rights tool within social movements and examining methods that exist for strategic litigation beyond the courtroom. The course will provide methods of strategic litigation and social action that achieve optimal results for your organization or social movement. We will focus on strategizing, involving actors relevant to your movement (including authorities and other organizations), and creating immediate as well as long term results. We also will explore funding strategic litigation and different forms of campaigning. External input from strategic litigation actors from around the world will further sharpen our approach to strategic litigation methods and offer further comprehension into the ways and means of strategic litigation that we have developed in the course.
HRTS 541 – Advancing Human Rights Through Documentary Media (3 units, required for Doc Media Certificate, elective for others)
Beverly Seckinger, M.F.A., Professor and Documentary Filmmaker
This course surveys current models for making and using documentary media in the service of human rights practice and activism. Interrogating concepts such as witness, testimony and evidence, historical memory, trans-media storytelling and convergence, strategic partnerships and impact campaigns, and emergent participatory frameworks, the course explores a variety of approaches to media production, exhibition, distribution and advocacy. Each course module includes interactions with filmmakers and/or media activists in the field via video conferencing; exploring media products such as films, websites and online tutorials; and critical and practical readings. Students will develop term projects in consultation with the instructor.
HRTS 596A: Human Rights Crises and Trauma (3 units, elective)
Mette Brogden, Ph.D.
This course will explore trauma sequelae of human rights violations and also secondary trauma sequelae, including for human rights practitioners and students in our program. We will look at traumatic events, what causes trauma impacts in those who experience the events, lingering impacts of traumatic events and the harms that violence and war, social and economic exclusion can bring to people and societies. We will interrogate the literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as a relatively new literature on post-traumatic growth. Finally, we will explore how people manage traumatic stress symptoms and PTSD related to human rights violations—either acute violations associated with torture and war/refugee flight sequelae, or long-term violations associated with marginalization, exclusion, racism and other forms of identity discrimination, and structural violence. We will then turn to ways to manage secondary trauma, including mindfulness, meaning, beauty, nature immersion, and support groups. Students will submit weekly reflection pieces as well as contribute to discussions.
*******The following courses require permission to enroll**********
Certificate Projects courses 3 units each (required for Certificate students, by Certificate Type)
HRTS 598a Certificate Project in HRTS and Technology
HRTS 598b Certificate Project in Gender Based Violence
HRTS 598c Certificate Project in Human Rights and Doc Media
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.
HRTS 599: Independent Study (1-3 units, elective)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll. Independent studies are useful for helping to explore a literature or a topic that prepares you for undertaking your MA capstone or Certificate Project.
HRTS 909: MA Capstone (3 units, required for MA Students)
Arrange a project with a professor with whom you want to work, and then fill out an independent study form (599 form) and send to the professor. The professor will forward the request to Mette Brogden to provide permission to enroll.