The AJRC offers a unique curricular space of law and justice studies courses, allowing law, undergraduate, graduate, and clinical students to engage in collaborative complex problem solving in capstone, intern, and community lab/practicum courses. Through a carefully curated set of community justice courses (over 200!) from across campus, students can build their own pathway of study, grounded in the strengths of their major and their backgrounds in the region. We welcome all, especially indigenous, Black, poor and underserved students with connections to the region who seek to participate in research and curricula centered upon their communities.
These possibilities follow a range of themes and projects that move through the Appalachian Justice Research Center, such as:
- Community Justice and Poverty
- Community Safety
- Community, Schools, and Youth Justice
- Community Justice and Health
- Community Justice and Housing
- Participatory and Community Defense
- Digital and Media Justice
- Community, Restorative, and Transformative Justice
Students who work with us will have the opportunity to:
- Develop a critical and intersectional understanding of justice: Engage a practice of understanding differences based on factors such as ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, abilities/disabilities, community and geographical area, as well as differences of viewpoint, ideas, and life experiences
- Contextualize justice: situate need, harm, and conflict in broader institutional and structural contexts, including legal, moral, cultural, social, political, and economic factors
- Engage in participatory forms of research: learn the principles of community-based participatory action and collaborative community research; reflect on and discuss relations and power differentials between researchers and communities; develop and deploy different formats and strategies of making research outcomes available to communities
- Engage in effective problem solving: Listen to and engage with community members to identify needs, goals, and strategies and improve the quality of justice.
- Collaborate effectively: Learn to give and receive criticism effectively; focus on a common goal; reassess work and strategy; engage in active listening; reflect upon how power and difference play out in collaborative knowledge production.
Students who work with us will develop skill sets for an emergent and transformative justice workforce in the region:
- Develop an understanding of the history and current contexts of Appalachia.
- Deepen understanding of the ways in which laws, regulations, and justice system practices function on the ground in communities.
- Develop a critical analysis of the ways in which law and justice systems have operated in Appalachia and the ways in which law and justice systems have advanced and/or hindered human and environmental flourishing in the region.
- Develop an understanding of the theory and practice of community collaborative research and community justice studies.
- Develop skills in interdisciplinary collaborative problem solving.
- Develop skills in project management.
- Gain proficiency in communicating complex information to lay audiences.
- Advance skills in writing for a variety of audiences including researchers, policy makers and community members.
- Gain proficiency in conducting research on legal and justice policies and practices at the local level.
- Gain proficiency at conducting presentations in community and public settings.
- Gain proficiency at interviewing in a group context.
- Be exposed to a basic introduction to qualitative research design, qualitative interviewing and/or qualitative data analysis as well as quantitative and digital data skills.
- Develop skills in policy, legislative, and community advocacy at the local, state, or national level.
Certificates
The Undergraduate Certificate in Justice Studies (JUST) offers undergraduate students the opportunity to train in complex and collaborative sociolegal problem solving to address the diverse issues faced by marginalized rural and urban Appalachian communities, as articulated by those communities themselves. The certificate is offered through the newly established Justice Studies interdisciplinary program, home to the Appalachian Justice Research Center’s undergraduate curriculum. Working with interdisciplinary UTK faculty and community members, undergraduate students will train in capstone, intern, and/or community lab courses, alongside law, graduate, and clinical students. Students will select their courses from a menu of curated courses from across campus, in consultation with the program director/advisor. In addition to the core JUST curriculum, students are required to choose courses from 1) a foundational set of sociolegal and justice studies courses and 2) a robust set of transdisciplinary methods and skill sets needed for an emergent and transforming justice workforce. Completion of the certificate requires an online exit survey for program assessment purposes.
Work is underway for the development of graduate certificates by 2025–26.
Certificate Requirements
The JUST Undergraduate Certificate consists of a minimum of 12 hours, completed at the upper division level (300 or above), in interdisciplinary coursework outlined as follows. A maximum of 6 credits can overlap between the JUST certificate and the student’s home discipline, as approved by the program director. Courses for the certificate must be completed with a grade of “C” or better. Depending upon a student’s undergraduate program of study, prerequisite courses may be needed in order to complete the requirements of this certificate.
Courses
JUST 300 Foundations in Justice Studies
In this course we survey the amazing interdisciplinary terrain of justice. What is justice? What does its study demand? What are its conditions, possibilities, and limits? What is Justice Studies and what specifically could and should it mean in our region of the world? Here, we introduce key concepts and methods in the study of law, justice, and community. We bring into focus the conceptual foundations, theoretical debates, historic movements, and contemporary issues surrounding the meanings of justice. And we do so in relation to community collaborative work in the diversity that is Appalachia with its connections to national and global issues. (Coming soon in Fall 2025)
JUST 400 Special Topics in Justice Studies
This course will offer rotating special topics in the area of Justice Studies whose content and instructors will vary. Potential course topics will draw from the wealth of scholarly expertise in the UT system to cover a range of classical and emergent forms of justice: restorative justice, reproductive justice, disability justice, economic justice, indigenous justice, racial justice, transformative justice, youth justice, housing justice, science and justice, philosophies of justice, digital justice, energy justice, design justice, environmental and land justice, and more! (Coming soon in Fall 2025)
JUST 455 / SOCI 455 Law & Society
At the intersections of justice are foundational relationships between law and society. The study of law and society is a look at law from the outside in: As the singular social institution which carries the force of violence and the protection of rights, what makes the law law? What is its structural role in society? How are laws and legal processes shaping and shaped by political forces, inequalities, and social change? How is social change impacted by laws (but often not in the way we might imagine)? How is law (always) present in our everyday lives? How – and to what extent – does social science and empirical research inform law and legal policy? How does law want us to think? Why do lawyers think the way they do? How is the profession transforming in the current moment? Got questions like these? This course is for you. Writing-emphasis course. (Currently offered)
Satisfies Volunteer Core Requirement: (SS) (WC)
JUST 450 / 461 Appalachian Justice Research Lecture and Lab
The Appalachian Justice Research Lab (AJRL) is an interdisciplinary laboratory space designed to conduct and disseminate research that supports the needs and priorities of marginalized communities in Appalachia. Working under the supervision of multi-disciplinary faculty and in collaboration with community partners, students from multiple disciplines will conduct research and produce work products appropriate to projects housed within The University of Tennessee’s Appalachian Justice Research Center. This is the centerpiece of the Justice Studies curriculum with limited student placements targeted to current community research projects, running fall and spring semesters. If you are looking to gain research experience and legal skills on the ground in Appalachian communities, this course is for you. (Currently offered. Application process required; applications will be released in mid-March 2024.)
(Undergraduate)
JUST 492N Internship in Community Justice Studies
The Internship in Justice Studies is an opportunity for students who have participated in the Appalachian Justice Research Lab to engage in further and more advanced community collaborative research roles supervised by Justice Studies faculty with the Appalachian Justice Research Center (AJRC). These opportunities will be defined by the research projects that are currently moving through the AJRC, the needs of the community organizations that we work with, and the skill sets that the student brings through their background and training. (Coming soon in Fall 2025)
JUST 493 Independent Study in Justice Studies
The Independent Study in Justice Studies is a space for students to engage more deeply with understandings of justice through a semester-long tailored course of study, appropriately aligned with a Justice Studies faculty member’s expertise (and availability). This course can supplement student theses and creative projects through intensive and concentrated study: deepening conceptual foundations, training in methods and approaches, developing key modes of analysis, preparing for public presentations and writing, and professional planning and portfolio development. (Currently offered with approval of JUST Director and selected faculty member.)
LAW 860 / 861 Appalachian Justice Research Lecture and Lab
The Appalachian Justice Research Lab (AJRL) is an interdisciplinary laboratory space designed to conduct and disseminate research that supports the needs and priorities of marginalized communities in Appalachia. Working under the supervision of multi-disciplinary faculty and in collaboration with community partners, students from multiple disciplines will conduct research and produce work products appropriate to projects housed within The University of Tennessee’s Appalachian Justice Research Center. It is the centerpiece of the Justice Studies curriculum with limited student placements targeted to current community research projects, running fall and spring semesters. If you are looking to generate MA thesis and PhD dissertations, gain community collaborative research experience, and develop legal skills in relation to and in dialogue with Appalachian communities, this course is for you. (Currently offered. Application process required; applications will be released in mid-March 2024.)
(Graduate)