Our Community Development Program

Our three-year Bachelor of Arts in Community Development provides students with both the practical and analytical skills needed to effectively work with a variety of communities to bring about societal change.

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With required courses in Community, Economic, and Social Development (CESD) and Social Work, this unique program offers an interdisciplinary learning opportunity. Students will work alongside people in their community to effect change by helping to identify common concerns and solutions, and build relationships with organizations and local stakeholders. Students will learn how to create opportunities for communities to learn new skills and foster social inclusion and equality by enabling people to act together.

Choosing to earn a degree in community development has many benefits. The hands-on experience students will earn while fulfilling their degree requirements are both worthwhile and highly rewarding. In students’ third-year of study, they will complete a 150-hour work placement. Students have been placed in organizations such as the Rotary Club, the Timmins Anti-Hunger Coalition, Missanabie Cree First Nation, Thinking Rock Community Arts,, NORDIK Institute, the Soup Kitchen Community Centre, the Algoma Community Foundation, and more.

These placements allow students to apply concepts, theories, and methods from their coursework in the community, advocate for change, and implement new strategies to improve people’s lives, making the degree action-packed and very hands-on. The skill set students acquire are very versatile and can be applied to a multitude of career paths, and graduates are sought after by a wide range of employers.

Community development practitioners often work within a defined geographical area (urban or rural), and with specific groups of people (persons with disabilities, youth, children, families, newcomers, the unemployed, and the homeless). Our programs prepare students for experiences tailored to their campus community, whether it’s Sault Ste. Marie, Brampton, or Timmins, and to work with a diverse and cross-cultural groups of people.

Get hands-on experience

In your third year, students will participate in a 150-hour field placement, which will apply concepts, theories, and methods learned in the classroom to real life. You’ll get real hands-on working knowledge and valuable experience to add to your resume. Click the button below to watch videos on field placements!

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International Experiences

With program links to social movements and universities throughout the globe, CESD students have taken part in international learning experiences in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and taken part in international gatherings like Slow Food International’s Terra Madre event in Turin, Italy. CESD students Professor Dr. Sheila Gruner is also a founding director of the Institute of Peoples, Territories, and Pedagogies for Peace (IPTP), a non-governmental organization that fosters decolonizing, intercultural dialogue and grassroots diplomacy efforts in Canada, Colombia, Bolivia and other countries across the Global South. Students can become involved with the IPTP in a variety of ways, including as volunteers, field placement students, through work study programs, and through graduate studies supervision. For more information, please visit the IPTP’s website.

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Find Your Community

At Algoma University, Community Development can be studied at three distinct campuses across Ontario. Whether you’re looking for a northern university experience, an urban campus close to home, or a smaller community setting, you can choose the environment that fits you best. Wherever you study, you’ll receive the same student-centred education, small class sizes, and opportunities to make a meaningful impact in the communities around you.

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Sault Ste. Marie

A traditional university campus surrounded by nature and community connections.

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Timmins

A personalized northern experience offered in partnership with Northern College.

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Brampton

A vibrant urban campus in the Greater Toronto Area.

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What You Can Expect

Hands-on learning, a close-knit campus community, and caring faculty.

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Create Change. Build Communities

Our program provides students with the knowledge and tools to bring about active change in their community and the world around them. Students work alongside local stakeholders and leaders to effect change by identifying shared concerns, building relationships, and collaboratively crafting solutions.

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Earn your bachelor of community development at Timmins

Students can earn their Bachelor of Community Development in Sault Ste. Marie, or at our extension programming site at Northern College in Timmins, Ontario. No matter where you choose to study, you’ll study in a student-centred environment – the ideal learning environment.

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NORDIK Institute

A community-based research institute with longstanding links to the CESD program, NORDIK has been instrumental in investigating key issues which directly affect Northern Ontario and helping communities strategize to achieve the futures they aspire to. Students can become involved with NORDIK in a variety of ways, including as volunteers, field placements, interns, summer students, through work study programs, and through graduate studies supervision.

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The People’s Garden

The People’s Garden is an initiative started and maintained by the CESD program, in partnership with the Algoma U Student Food Bank, Student Services, and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig. The People’s Garden was undertaken in an effort to address student food security, as well as to provide an arena for fun on-campus events and community-building activities.

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Career outcomes

Career paths and opportunities include community development practitioner or officer, program officer, researcher, volunteer coordinator, consultant, youth coordinator, entrepreneur, community researcher/facilitator, employment counsellor, housing development officer, social services administrator, legal advocacy worker, job developer, case worker, foundation manager, public relations and communications officer, environmental stewardship coordinator, green energy consultant, policy analyst and many more.

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Community Based Delivery

The CESD Department has been delivering Community Based courses in partnership with communities and organizations for more than a decade. Past Community Based Partnerships included working with Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, Atlantic Policy Congress (APC) of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat, Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute (KTEI), Fort Albany First Nation and Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation. Our current partner for the First Nation Social Service Administrators Certificate is The Ontario Native Welfare Administrators Association (ONWAA). Reach out to [email protected] to inquire how we can tailor program delivery to your community or organization.

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Get hands on experience

In your third year of Community Development, students will participate in a 150-hour field placement, which will apply concepts, theories, and methods learned in the classroom to real life. You’ll get real hands-on working knowledge, and valuable experience to add to your resume, and you’ll have already started building your professional network before you even graduate.

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Our Courses

Please visit the Student Portal or the Employee Portal to access the Course Catalogue via “Self-Service“.

For members of the general public who wish to learn more about Algoma University’s academic programs and course offerings, please visit our Academic Calendar webpage.

Meet our Faculty

Our Community Development faculty are experts in the field. Get to know them!

Dr. Laura Wyper

Associate Professor, Department of Community Economic and Social Development; Faculty Chair, Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies

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Melissa Jones

Lead, Field Education & Strategic Initiatives, Department of Community Economic and Social Development

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Dr. Sheila Gruner

Associate Professor, Department of Community Economic and Social Development; Director, Institute of Peoples, Territories and Pedagogies for Peace (IPTP)

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Dr. Ushnish Sengupta

Assistant Professor, Chair, Department of Community Economic and Social Development

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Dr. Laura Wyper

Associate Professor, Department of Community Economic and Social Development; Faculty Chair, Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies

Assistant Professor
[email protected]
705-949-2301 ext. 4811

I was born in Sudbury and largely raised in Sault Ste. Marie, so I have spent summers on Goulais River, Goulais Bay, and Lake Superior kayaking, canoeing, and swimming. I’ve also spent a good deal of my time walking local hiking trails, camping at local provincial parks, and sitting on the Robertson Lake cliff tops while working a student summer job in my early twenties. This has given me a love for this land, an understanding of indigenous sovereignty, and a consciousness of my place in this history as someone of settler ancestry who sees reconciliation as our way forward.

I spent more than a decade away from the area related to my studies and my work as I have a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Midwifery from Laurentian University, a Bachelor of Education from Trent University, a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Community Development from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development with a specialization in Comparative, International and Development Education from OISE, at the University of Toronto.

I have worked in community development for more than twenty years in women’s health care, informal community-based adult education settings, and formally within adult education for the Algoma District School Board (ADSB) at Northland Adult Learning Centre as a Literacy and Basic Skills Instructor and then a Program Coordinator for three of their adult education programs. From 2012 – 2017 I worked for both ADSB and at Algoma University (AU) in the Community Economic and Social Development (CESD) Department. My CESD work has included both part-time and full-time faculty positions with a complete move over to Algoma University in January of 2018 for a full-time contract position.

Because of my background I have a commitment to Northern Ontario in relation to place-based development and I love working at Algoma University in what I consider my ‘home’ community. Outside of my university work I put into ‘praxis’ some of the activism I teach in courses like: Environment and Community Resilience, Sustainable Community Development, and Community Advocacy and Social Justice, for CESD.

As most of my degrees, besides my Bachelor of Health Science degree, were acquired while raising my daughter and working fulltime, I have an appreciation and understanding of adult learners who often have full plates, and a respect for the work I see from students in the classroom. I love meeting, working with, and learning from students and other faculty, and I look forward to meeting all new students!

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“My experience at Algoma U in the Community Development program will be something I will always remember. I liked the program because it combined several areas of interest…The people I met in the program have become lifelong friends and made my university experience unforgettable. The professors in the program went above and beyond their job description to ensure my success…The Community Development program is one of a kind and I would highly recommend it for any interested students.”

Sabrina Jordan

BA, Community Development

“I can’t pinpoint one thing that I liked because I loved the entire program and experience – I loved that it was in Timmins, it was a program that I was interested and passionate about, I loved the small classes and the rapport I was able to build with my professors. I wasn’t just a number, my professors knew who I was – by name – even the professors from Sault Ste. Marie…The small classes also allowed me to build stronger relationships with my fellow classmates.”

Tanya Malette

BA, Community Development

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