CODES

Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) is a pathway for motivated students in all fields and majors to use their general education credits to work alongside community organizations to study and address the world’s most pressing problems.

CODES students take a set of core courses emphasizing transdisciplinary research and problem-solving methods together in their cohort. They meet each semester in research-team courses facilitated by their mentoring instructor and a community organization to address major problems in our region such as food insecurity or the inequitable effects of climate change. Students take their education beyond the walls of the classroom and into the St. Louis region.

The research teams analyze, visualize, and share their work with the broader public using digital storytelling, content-rich mapping, and audio and video production. In this way, the pathway gives students firsthand experience applying twenty-first century skills including collaboration, leadership, and innovative approaches to communication. In this community-based program, students learn the important skill of negotiating the civic responsibilities they bear toward others in both physical and digital spaces.

General Education Requirements for CODES Students

CODES students are required to complete a general education program that combines the requirements outlined in University policy 1D1 – University-wide Criteria for the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.), and Professional Baccalaureate Degrees – with the following 22 credit-hour curriculum.

CODES Research Teams (9 hours)

Students meet in intensive research teams comprised of eight to ten students, a faculty mentor, and a community partner. Teams focus on a “wicked” or seemingly unsolvable problem. Working alongside the Missouri Botanical Garden, the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, and Heartlands Conservancy, research teams have tackled educational equity, systemic violence, and a growing loss of biodiversity along the Mississippi River. The level of difficulty the research teams undertake grows with students, and the curriculum is intentionally organic, transforming each year based on student and faculty interest and community need. Students and faculty work together to structure a series of readings from diverse fields such as history, literature, anthropology, biology, and sociology that supports their work. They study their problem using critical thinking, writing, and qualitative research methods. In final projects each semester, research teams apply a variety of digital methods to communicate the results of their research.

CODES Core (13 credit-hours)

CODES students are required to take CODE 121 and CODE 123 during their first year. These courses are designed to help student research, map, conceptualize, and communicate about global problems and their impact on our region. Students will learn how to write and speak using interdisciplinary, multi-modal forms of communication. In their second year of instruction, students will take CODE 220, in which they learn how scientific modes of inquiry can apply to their problem. Their work culminates in CODE 320, in which students complete their project by completing a public-facing digital project to explain their problem and propose solutions, incorporating creative non-fiction, graphic design, and data visualization. In their final year, students enroll in CODE 420 to reflect on their work and prepare for careers and continuing studies.