Community and Economic Development (CED)

Return to Community and Economic Development | Courses Index

[1] Graduate Courses in Community and Economic Development (CED)

6101 COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE I This course is the academic equivalent to Year I of UCA’s Community Development Institute (CDI) and is an elective course for the MSCED. CDI offers applied training to elected officials, board members, staff professionals, and interested citizens in a broad spectrum of topics in the field of community and economic development. The instruction is a combination of classroom lecture, discussion groups, simulations, and field trips. Prerequisites: Graduate standing.

6102 COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE II This course is the academic equivalent to Year II of UCA’s Community Development Institute (CDI) and is an elective course for the MSCED. CDI offers applied training to elected officials, board members, staff professionals, and interested citizens in a broad spectrum of topics in the field of community and economic development. The instruction is a combination of classroom lecture, discussion groups, simulations, and field trips. Prerequisites: Graduate standing and completion of CED Institute I.

6103 COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE III This course is the academic equivalent to Year III of UCA’s Community Development Institute (CDI) and is an elective course for the MSCED. CDI offers applied training to elected officials, board members, staff professionals, and interested citizens in a broad spectrum of topics in the field of community and economic development. The instruction is a combination of classroom lecture, discussion groups, simulations, and field trips. Prerequisites: Graduate standing and completion of CED Institute I & II.

6V16 RESEARCH PROJECTS (Variable credit: 1–3 credit hours.) A graduate elective. Students will undertake guided research in a topic related to community development and/or economic development. Students will draw on their skills to write a review of literature, construct a research question, gather and analyze qualitative or quantitative data, and create a significant final document. Prerequisite: consent of the MSCED director.

6301 PROJECT MANAGEMENT This course relies on the Project Management Body of Knowledge to provide an overview of practices, tools, and strategies employed in project management with applications for community development and/or economic development. This course is taught from a non-profit managerial standpoint, and incorporates scheduling, risk analysis, and other quantitative and information technologies.

6302 LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS This course explores the intersection between the practices of leadership and communication in the organizational context. The course challenges students to assess and improve their own communication competencies in light of common organizational leadership opportunities and challenges. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

6305 INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT This course will be an introduction and overview for the field of community and economic development. This course is a required course for the MSCED. Topic coverage is designed to focus on the macro perspective of economic development and cover such areas as developing social capacity and other community building processes critical to success in economic development. Prerequisites: Graduate standing.

6310 COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR A special topics seminar that addresses one or more underlying principles of economic and/or community development at the local, regional, national, or global levels.  Through an interactive learning style, the course combines development theory and case studies.

6311 LEADERSHIP AND DECISION-MAKING This course will provide the opportunity for participants to develop a firm working concept of leadership and its role in community development. Upon completion of the course the participant should be able to identify and discuss the role of leadership in the community development process and to apply leadership principles to community development processes.

6313 TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE This course is a study of the economic environment of those industries involved in transportation and infrastructure. Current techniques of analysis, and regulation issues.

6315 APPLIED RESEARCH METHODS AND DATA ANALYSIS Application of scientific method to research including nature of research problems, theory of research, experimental design, techniques in data gathering, and the interpretation of results. Research reporting, bibliographic techniques and basic statistical methods are included.

6318 BUDGETING The course is designed to provide a broad overview of budgeting and finance in order to improve student’s understanding of how budgeting affects decisions. Public managers, regardless of level of bureaucracy, must deal with a variety of budgetary and revenue information when making daily decisions. Much of that information indicates how effectively they will be able to manage and how others will perceive the way they manage. This course will introduce the nature and character of public sector/non-profit organization budgeting, how managers can more effectively use such information, and the limitations associated with such information.

6320 HOLISTIC PLANNING AND THE COMMUNITY An introduction to planning with reference to applications in the field of community development, including the underlying principles of planning as a discipline.

6330 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT POLICY ANALYSIS A general introduction to the field of public policy analysis.

6335 GRANT WRITING This course addresses the development of grants and contracts and presents an overview of identifying funding sources. One key to development is the availability of resources, human and non-human. Grant writing can provide those resources by matching local resources with resources available from the public, private, and non-profit sectors of society. This course will provide the student with a general understanding of the process, as well as detailed information about grants in the community development field.

6340 ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT An introduction to the field of industrial and economic development as a discipline of study including the underlying principles of that field.

6350 FINANCING COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT This course provides a broad overview of government budgeting, develops an understanding of how budgeting affects government decisions, and explores the relationship of government budgeting to community development.

6360 CULTURAL DIFFERENTIATION AND OUTREACH This course will focus on similarities and differences of humanity with the intention of discovering the “true value” of the individual.

6370 COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP This course provides an opportunity to apply the knowledge being acquired through the course of study in the MS in CED program in a real-world setting by active employment in a community development organization or agency involved in the development process.