The international award-winning course C4: The Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom聽is kicking off its second year聽at 91亚色 with a Pitch Week, running from Sept. 8 to 14.
C4 is open to all 91亚色 students at the end of their degrees and enables students聽from different faculties聽to work in聽multidisciplinary teams focused on solving pressing, real-world challenges posed by organizations operating in both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds聽鈥 and聽to聽get credit for their work.
Danielle Robinson
鈥91亚色 student are being offered a chance to customize their final year and impact the world at the same time,鈥 said Danielle Robinson, the聽co-founder and director of C4 as well as an associate professor in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.
颁4鈥檚 interactive website enables hundreds of students at 91亚色 to explore potential projects that engage with challenges that have the power to transform people鈥檚 lives, including their own.
This year, the program is showcasing more than 75 projects from a wide range of partners, who are eager to mentor the interdisciplinary teams of students on their project journeys.
Community partners involved in this year鈥檚 projects include the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, Markham Arts Council, Jobster,聽Centre for Free Expression,聽TechConnex,聽the聽Canadian Language Museum, University Women's Club,聽StoryPlanet,聽Peel Community Climate Council,聽 Toronto Region Immigration Employment Council, Electronic Recycling Association, For Youth Initiative, YuRide, Barnes Management Group,聽MaRS聽Discovery District and聽Nascent Digital, in addition to several on-campus partners.
Students will only be able to preview the projects during Pitch Week, when聽the community partners pitch their challenges to the student teams, by pre-registering for C4 at:
Some of the exciting, big-picture questions students can expect to engage with include:
- What would a collaborative community-integrated and industry-based loop waste system look like that is engaging, affordable, scalable and effective?
- What does a community-driven approach to celebrate and support Afro-Diasporic heritage and promote paths to further learning look like?
- Which policies and structures in Ontario and Canada would we revise to address anti-black and systemic racism, and how?
- How can student learning and well-being be supported by reaching out both locally and globally, in the wake of the challenges from COVID-19?
- How can design and use of AI be reframed to ensure more equitable benefit for all?
- How would we reimagine city and rural spaces to make them more equitable, sustainable and healthy to live in?
- How can we imagine repairing the cracks, tears and vulnerabilities in society that have been exposed through the challenges of social distancing?
- How can countries better support their newcomers, to feel welcomed, supported and successful?
- How can we support community efforts to enhance their own mental health and wellness?
- How can interdisciplinary approaches to medical research and design speed innovation as well as accessibility?
C4 makes it possible for as many as eight students from different to come together to engage in problem-based learning, with the potential for each group to have a completely different disciplinary makeup.
The good news is that these challenges aren鈥檛 only for C4 students. After Pitch Week, any remaining projects will be converted into a Capstone Project Bank for the whole University to make use of, which will be managed by the . To learn more contact ycn@yorku.ca.
Faculty, staff and students can learn more about getting involved with C4 by joining a Zoom Townhall on Sept. 10 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and pre-registering at: ht.
Want to get involved? Write to聽c4class@.