Learning Communities and Integrated Studies
Upcoming Course Schedule 2025-2026
Learning Communities (LC’s) meet the Integrated Studies (IS) tag requirement by using integrative learning practices to encourage creative and critical thinking, while allowing students and faculty to explore issues and concerns of a major theme from a variety of academic disciplines.
First Year Learning Communities (FYLC’s) are a subset of LC’s tasked with a specific goal to provide a transformative educational experience by bringing together beginning students from diverse backgrounds and providing a specific set of tools for their academic journey.
FYLC’s are Hybrid courses, with in-person sessions on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9:15-12:50 in Rooms 4151 & 3211.
Fall 2025
LC 100 (071008) -- AANAPISI
API Communities: Resilience and Solidarities Across Borders
Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities have a rich history of crossing borders as they navigate the intersections of immigration, identity, and transnational ties. We will explore the complexities of API resilience, solidarity, and the ongoing struggle for social justice. We will examine how API communities have historically navigated the challenges of displacement, colonialism, and migration, as well as how these themes manifest in the present. Focus will be placed on the ways in which racial identity and community strength are framed within global and local contexts. Optional service learning.
Instructors: Takami Nieda & Tracy Lai
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
ENGL& 101 Composition I (Basic Requirement)
AME 111 Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander Issues and Communities (ICS, GS | ESJ)
LC 125 (071009)
Zip-Ties & Zines: Having Our Say
What scares you about the future? What excites you? How much agency do you have? Why?
We will investigate opportunities and responses to current cultural and social changes. You will explore how activists, artists, and academics respond to these questions through mutual aid, creative expression, social analysis/ critique, and other media. With this material as inspiration, we will compose individual and collaborative projects--with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of how worlds are made and remade.
Instructors: Phebe Jewell & Chris Chan
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
ENGL& 101 Composition I (Basic Requirement)
ANTH& 100 Survey of Anthropology (GS, ICS)
Winter 2026
LC 200 (071015)
Sustaining Our Communities: Relationships Between Culture and Land on a Changing Planet
Writ broadly, this learning community asks students to consider what makes a community strong, healthy, and sustainable. Students will ask questions like: How does a community form? How do communities maintain themselves? How can I be a better member of the communities I am a part of? Students will work on three projects that examine community at the level of the individual, the group, and the globe. In these projects, students will pay special attention to: the role of language in forming communities, how communities use food and nutrition to sustain themselves, and how different communities steward the natural world.
Instructors: Alec Fisher & George McGuire
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
ENGL& 102 Composition II (Basic Requirement)
NUTR& 101 Intro to Human Nutrition (NW)
LC 225 (071016)
Separating the Real from the Reels: How to Fight Misinformation, Build Trust and Create Community
Today’s information environment is awash in rumors, lies, half-truths and disinformation. This interdisciplinary class explores how and why misinformation spreads and how we can fight back by building community trust. Through collaborative writing and research, we will unearth misinformation that affects us and take action together to support our communities. Topics will include information capitalism, social media, and the embodied experience of information overload.
Instructors: Erin Steinke & Althea Lazzaro
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
ENGL& 102 Composition II (Basic Requirement)
SSC 187 Information and Social Justice (ICS | ESJ)
Spring 2026
LC 250 (071018) -- Equity and Social Justice Emphasis
Community Spaces, Community Care
This learning community will use contemporary themes in urban studies and political theory to explore models of urban development that move away from privatized, neoliberal projects, and towards community models of care and governance. Students will receive credit in HUM 201, “Cities and Power,” and POLS 201, “Political Theory.” Both courses are also part of the emphasis in equity and social justice.
Instructors: Anna Hackman & Olivia Atkinson
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
POLS& 201 Intro to Political Theory (ESJ)
HUM 201 Cities and Power (US | ESJ)
LC 251 (071019) -- Global Studies Emphasis
A World Without Prisons? The Search for Compassion and Justice
What would a world without prisons look like? Who benefits from the prison industrial complex? What are alternatives to incarceration? How are crime and punishment framed in different countries and societies?
This interdisciplinary 10-credit course integrating Sociology and English takes a global lens in re-imagining prison and other carceral institutions. We will examine different approaches within prisons (such as rehabilitation and reintegration, education in prisons, and “open prison” systems), to alternatives to prison, such as community circles and transformative/restorative justice. Centering writing by people who have been or are incarcerated, we will also study works by prominent theorists and activists on prisons, including Bryan Stevenson, Danielle Sered, Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Nils Christie, among others.
Instructors: Kayleen Oka & Phebe Jewell
Meet the requirement for Integrated Studies + Earn course credit for:
SOC& 201 Social Problems (ICS | ESJ)
ENGL 262 World Literature (C | GSE)
Print-friendly downloadable pdf
Register
What
Learning Communities and Linked Courses explore issues and concerns of a complex topical theme by integrating multiple subject perspectives, leading students to actionable responses and solutions to contemporary problems. These models of teaching and learning are the basis of Integrated Studies at Seattle Central.
They accomplish this with interactive curriculum and critical pedagogy, including student-led seminars, field trips, group projects, performances, guest speakers, co-curricular activities, service learning - going beyond the traditional classroom activities.
Options
Enroll in a Learning Community or Linked Course and earn 8-15 credits that meet the required Integrated Studies special designation for the AA degree.
- Learning Communities (LCs): enroll in one class with fully integrated coursework from multiple subjects; all instructors are present for all sessions.
- First Year Learning Communities support new-to-college students with a strong academic and social foundation. They are 10-credit, hybrid classes that meet in person on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:15am - 12:50pm.
- Linked Courses: enroll in two courses with some integrated assignments & projects from both subjects; the two instructors teach separate sessions.
Students rave about the transformative educational experience and are eager to enroll in other LCs as they continue their college journey.
Why
- Explore issues and concerns of a topical theme with instructors from different subject areas.
- Develop creative and critical thinking skills, while making connections across academic disciplines.
- Enter and complete an educational journey that welcomes life experiences and encourages problem-based learning.
- Meet the Integrated Studies special requirement for the AA transfer degree.
- Gain a sense of belonging at our college while building bonds with peers that will help achieve academic success.
It was extremely different but I enjoyed it thoroughly. This has been such a unique experience, and I can't stress enough that it was for my first quarter of college. When looking back at when I wanted to take a gap year after graduating high school, I am so grateful that I changed my mind and was presented with this class.
I really like that there were constant connections being made between the four subjects and that helped me connect and understand the things I was learning.
Interdisciplinary... Many subjects connected which helped me to think outside of the box and simultaneously about intersecting ideas.
I felt grateful to experience concepts and perspectives that I hadn't before. I wanted to share them with my family and friends, because I wanted them to experience the joy of learning something new too. I wanted to change aspects of my life that I previously thought were given, so that I could make a greater impact on issues that I didn't see before. I wanted to meet more people that had perspectives and concepts that were different than mine, and look for classes that would continue to challenge my view of the world.
The subjects/instructors were cohesive, organized and well-integrated. The assignments were not confusing. I really enjoyed the learning model…
“sets the tone that we are all learning from each other, that there is not just one way to learn or frame knowledge. The kinds of questions we ask are different, and it is deeply beneficial to examine even how and why we pose the kinds of questions we do coming from the perspective of our disciplines, our subject positions, our personalities. I often feel like I am in a laboratory of ideas, a workshop of sorts when I am team-teaching. This practice of enquiry reinforces for our students that knowledge is not a fixed object but is dynamic and exciting.”
Phebe Jewell (Stories Beyond Bars; Say Their Names)
“learned a great deal on how to integrate material from multiple disciplines and to put them together in a meaningful way. It has inspired me to try to incorporate more authentic problems and problems that require an interdisciplinary approach in my other sections of courses.”
Danielle Mallare-Dani (Math in Motion I & II)
Contact: Sharon Spence-Wilcox, LCC.Central@seattlecolleges.edu | Learning Communities Committee