Power, Place, and Community Leadership in Puerto Rico

(3 Credits)

This course examines the leadership strategies required to navigate Puerto Rico's colonial context. Students will evaluate how past juridical and political mechanisms, such as the Insular Cases, Jones-Shafroth Act, and the PROMESA Act, function and structure social-sector leadership in Puerto Rico. By investigating the promises, problems, and paradoxes (3Ps), students will analyze how leaders in the nonprofit and public sectors negotiate solutions and innovations to navigate multiple, ongoing catastrophes. The course concludes by tracing the 3Ps back to New York City and evaluating how the Puerto Rican diaspora leverages philanthropic and political capital to either bypass or bolster institutional gaps on the archipelago.