With a small group of 10 peers, you'll take an active role in shaping your experience, interviewing seasoned leaders, visiting trailblazing organizations, and collaborating on a dynamic final project informed by your observations.
Our approach has been honed and refined over ten years. We'll transform our classroom at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Environmental Sustainability into a dynamic innovation studio through a mix of discussion, lecture, debate and interactive exercises that place you at the center of the conversation through participatory activities, including role plays, problem-solving scenarios and presentations. Research skills are honed through preparing for field trips to and interviewing our guest speakers at sites throughout the city.From our online pre-curriculum through final group presentations, each stage of the experience builds directly upon the last—the result: your changemaker's toolkit, filled with insights, perspective and strategies to take action.
Curriculum:
not just a classroom
How, Not (just) What
Discover ways to take meaningful action, learning multiple approaches for change, and the real world contexts in which this work is taking place.
leadership redefined
Identify your personal potential and goals, and practice new skills. Hone your abilities to give and receive feedback, and transform conflict.
Critical skills
Develop college and career-relevant abilities for research, interviews, collaboration, and public speaking.
chicago as classroom
Visit Chicago’s neighborhoods and board rooms, beaches and marshes, to witness firsthand how the city’s ecological, industrial, and social movement histories shape current efforts to create change.
precurriculum
In our two-week online pre-curriculum ( ~four hrs/week), begin exploring course topics within your own community, learning more about where you and your peers come from, what you care about, and why.
final projects
Work with like-minded peers to develop your own strategies for addressing urgent issues, and present your ideas before an audience of sustainability and social justice professionals, Prep alumni, and others from our network.
Typical Day
Morning
Breakfast at campus dining hall
3.5-hour class period with breaks
Afternoon
Group project work
Research to prepare for field trips and interviews with social change leaders
Evening
Dinner
Community governance
Organized social activities
On field trip days (at least four), we depart from campus shortly after breakfast and return before dinner, typically visiting 2-3 organizations/individuals within a day.
Weekends are focused on community-building, and consist of a combination of group social activities, community service experiences (e.g. gardening), and dedicated time to make progress on final projects and other class work.
At Foresight Prep you take the lead, researching the people we meet, and developing the interview questions you'll ask of them. With the city of Chicago as our classroom, we'll witness first-hand how the region’s rich ecological, industrial and social movement history have shaped the people and places we'll visit. Visit vibrant neighborhoods where community members are shifting realities and narratives by transforming lots, growing food, curating art, and organizing for more equitable education, housing and healthcare. Experience conference rooms where decisions are debated and made about strategy, sustainability and supply chains. Roam restored wetlands situated in the heart of the city's influential manufacturing history. Meet artists, organizers, urban planners, policy advocates, corporate leaders and elected officials who have dedicated their careers to making change.
Because of scheduling dynamics, field trip locations/speakers are not generally confirmed until early June 2023. However, below are some of the people, places, and organizations we often visit.
Field trips
Potential sites
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olga bautista
SOUTHEAST ENVIRONMENTAL
TASK FORCE
Community Organizing
Environmental Justice -
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Cecile DeMello
TEAMWORK ENGLEWOOD
Education Justice
Community Organizing
Community Development -
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Ana Guajardo
CENTRO DE
TRABAJADORES UNIDOS
Worker Rights
Policy -
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CHRISTINA HARRIS
METROPOLITAN PLANNING COUNCIL
Urban Planning
Sustainable Land Use -
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angela hurlock
CLARETIAN ASSOCIATES
Affordable Housing
Community Development -
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Bob Langert
MCDONALD’S CORPORATION (former)
Corporate Sustainability -
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Omar Magaña
OPEN CENTER
FOR THE ARTS
Community Arts
Antiviolence -
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Vee Morris-Moore
ASSATA’S DAUGHTERS
Youth Organizing
Social Movements -
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Mike Tomas
GARFIELD PARK
COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Community Organizing
Community Development -
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Matt Walker
S2G VENTURES
Impact Investing
Food System Issues -
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JENNIFER WALLING
IL ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL
Environmental Policy
Lobbying & Policymaking -
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Rachel Wallis
SOCIAL
MOVEMENT ARTIST
Social Justice Arts
Police & Prison Abolition
Foresight Prep is led by the staff of Foresight Design Initiative, and supported by trained Residential/Teaching Assistants (RATAs). RATAS are Prep alumni—either current college students, or recent graduates—who mentor the Institute’s participants. Our 2023 Institute’s RATAs will be chosen in the spring.
Alongside program faculty, students will engage with diverse social and environmental change practitioners through student-led interviews during field trips and in the classroom.
Faculty
Tim Jones-Yelvington
Program Director, Instructor
Tim’s commitment to social justice began at a very young age, as the product of an amazing single mother who helped them understand what it meant to be accountable for their privileges. Their mom taught them that young people are the leaders of today, not tomorrow, which they continue to put into practice by helping young people claim their power to create change. Prior to Foresight, Tim worked for five years as program staff at Crossroads Fund, a Chicago-area foundation supporting grassroots social, racial, and economic justice organizations focused on a range of intersecting issues, including the criminal justice/prison system; education; housing; immigration; worker, women's and LGBT rights. With Foresight, they have supported coalitions focused on Equitable Transit-Oriented Development and affordable housing. They hold a Masters of Education in Youth Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in Women's and Gender Studies from DePaul University.
Peter Nicholson
Instructor
Peter is passionate about educating the next generation of sustainability-oriented leaders and has consistently incorporated teaching in his professional activities for more than 20 years. He consults on and undertakes forward-looking projects for government agencies, institutional nonprofits, small businesses, and corporations. Considered a highly adept facilitator and teacher, he has moderated numerous conferences, workings groups, and events, as well as developed and led dynamic, sustainability-focused education programs. In 2002 Peter founded Foresight Design Initiative. He began his study of sustainability and design as a graduate student at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and holds a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music.
Calandria Moya
RATA, 2022
Calandria Moya graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Psychology and the intention to participate in work that serves to amplify historically suppressed voices in the name of holistic healing and connection. She believes in fostering young people's agency in their own lives and the more equitable, just, and sustainable world they are helping to create. Currently, she is part of the operations team at a small grassroots youth arts center based in south Phoenix. Calandria participated in Foresight Prep in 2016.
Sazia Patel
RATA, 2022
Sazia Patel is a first-generation Indian-American who is dedicated to seeking healing justice and liberation through an internationalist framework which maintains that no one is free until all are free. She graduated from UMass Amherst last spring where she was a student organizer working as a training and education coordinator at the Center for Education, Policy and Advocacy, a site- coordinator for Student Bridges, and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. Sazia participated in Foresight Prep in 2017.
Foresight Prep places as strong an emphasis on community building as it does the classroom experience. The relationships students form with diverse, like-minded peers during their time in Chicago are one of the program’s most important takeaways.
Students emerge with a lifelong network of supportive friends, many of whom remain in touch year-round, across state lines, and even oceans.
Activities
Program staff support students in organizing and facilitating on-campus group activities, including games and hangouts, and chaperone off-campus activities that make the most of our Chicago setting. Potential off-campus excursions include the beach, urban nature hikes, museums and other cultural institutions, and neighborhood tours.
Community Governance
We use the challenges that arise from living and learning together as an opportunity to practice the skills we hone during the course—including facilitation, conflict resolution, and negotiation.
Students lead— with support from RATAs—their residential and social experience in a manner that is inclusive of all students. They identify shared rules and guidelines for living space, and facilitate weekly “community governance check-ins” to ensure that all are having a positive experience.