Internships
A diverse number of internship sites are available from non-profits, governmental organizations, and faith-based sites. Students apply for these internships and are selected by the sites. Students may submit a site of their own choosing, but it must be approved by the Graduate Program Director. Internships for this degree are not primarily service positions: they involve student interns in the work of systemic change, social advocacy, and community organizing. All approved internships must demonstrate the site's readiness to support such involvement.
Students in the MA in Social Justice and Community Development complete their internship in the Fall of their second year in the program. Students who want to complete an international internship, or an internship outside of Chicago, can register for internship in the summer after their first year in the program. International internships must be planned in advance, with the Graduate Program Director, and require at least a semester of preparation before a summer assignment. For all students in the program, one semester of internship (IPS 640) is required and students may complete a second semester (IPS 641) as an elective.
Below is a sampling of some of the organizations where students in the MA in Social Justice and Community Development have completed their internships:
- 8th Day Center for Justice
- AIDS Foundation of Chicago
- A Just Harvest
- Amnesty International
- Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation
- Chicago Archdiocese
- Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement
- Center on Halsted
- Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
- Council for a Parliament of World Religions
- Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
- Fair Trade Chicago
- Free Street Theatre
- Ignatian Spirituality Project
- Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries
- Interfaith Worker Justice
- Local Initiative Support Corporation
- Northside POWER
- Sierra Club
- Voices for Creative Non-violence
- World Vision