CC SOCIAL ACTION INSTITUTE
Overview
This .25-credit mentored internship program is an opportunity for students to engage in activist and/or advocacy work that aims to uphold/construct participatory democracy by addressing the criminalization of immigrant communities, low-wage workers, and other vulnerable populations through direct collaboration with community-based organizations in the U.S. Southwest (Colorado Springs, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Los Angeles) in summer 2026.
Associate Professor of Sociology
epopkin@coloradocollege.edu
Program Tracks
- Community Organizing to Support Labor, Tenant/Housing, and Immigrant Rights (campaign recruitment, event planning, op-ed writing, protest training, policy research, public speaking, criminal justice accountability, case advocacy).
- Environmental Justice Organizing (community organizing, advocacy campaigns, research).
- Immigrant Detention Work and Movement Lawyering (working with attorneys representing immigrants in detention; research on immigrant detention center conditions; advocacy/organizing work to shut down immigrant detention centers).
2026 Partners
Community Organizing to Support Labor, Tenant/Housing, and Immigrant Rights Track Partners
CHIRLA organizes immigrants and families to fight harmful policies and demand equity and justice from government. Organizers build power through forming new relationships, recruiting members, developing leaders, and planning campaigns to create change. CHIRLA organizes communities in California through groups centered on location and shared interests, carrying out campaigns with defined goals. Students will work with community organizing and external affairs teams, plan/participate in events, and conduct research tied to organizational campaigns.
SEIU #105 is one of the fastest growing unions in Colorado, increasing by 50% over the last five years and representing over 8,000 healthcare, janitorial, security, and airport workers throughout the state and the US Southwest. Students will obtain firsthand experience in the labor movement, gaining insight into union operations, worker organizing, policy advocacy, and labor communications work.
Colorado Jobs with Justice (Denver, Colorado)
Colorado Jobs with Justice is a coalition of labor, community, faith, and youth organizations working on fair labor, just wages, and equitable working environments in a way that crosses lines of sector, race, and class to win concrete victories for working people. Students work on active organizing campaigns, including local minimum wage campaigns, empowering women and non-binary folx in building trades, and confronting wage theft campaigns. (High proficiency in Spanish is required for some positions.)
Colorado Springs Pro-Housing Partnership
The Colorado Springs Pro-Housing Partnership (COSPHP) is working to build a local housing-justice movement through grassroots organizing in low-income neighborhoods, apartment buildings, and the unhoused community, where the effects of the housing crisis are most severe. COSPHP organizes residents around the issues they identify—such as displacement due to gentrification, mistreatment by landlords, and over-policing—while aiming to achieve two goals: winning changes on their specific issues and building power for future city-level housing policy change.
Environmental Justice Organizing Track Partners
Conservation Colorado, Denver, Colorado
Conservation Colorado is a leading environmental organization dedicated to Colorado's environment and bringing people into policy. Students will work closely with our community engagement, government affairs, and organizing teams on an advocacy-based project focusing on extreme heat and its effects on Colorado's workforce, with a particular emphasis on environmental justice and the Latino community.
Chispa (“spark” in Spanish) is dedicated to empowering Latinx communities to influence policy, protect natural resources, and combat climate change. Through grassroots advocacy and community engagement, Chispa strives for clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods for the communities worst impacted by the detrimental impacts of climate change.
Immigrant Detention Work and Movement Lawyering Track Partners
New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico
The New Mexico Immigrant Law Center empowers low-income immigrant communities through collaborative legal services, advocacy, and education. Students may be able to assist attorneys representing immigrants in the Torrance, Cibola, and Otero detention centers in New Mexico and engage in local detention center shutdown campaigns. (Spanish language proficiency is required for some positions.)
Application
Second round: January 30, 2026
Program Specifics
This CC Social Action Institute offers students an opportunity to engage in activist and/or advocacy work focused on one of three tracks.
The program is open to all first-year, sophomore, and junior students at Colorado College, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), and select other colleges. International students are welcome to apply.
International students studying in the U.S. on an F-1 or J-1 visa must obtain employment authorization BEFORE participating in an off-campus internship (any training experience away from the institution's campus that holds their SEVIS record). Students on an F-1 visa will pursue Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or Pre-Completion Optional Practical Training (OPT), while students on a J-1 visa will pursue Academic Training. Students on an F-1 or J-1 visa must contact the International Student Services office that holds their SEVIS record in advance for details regarding CPT, OPT, or Academic Training.
Program Cost
There is no program fee for Colorado College students. Housing, food, incidentals, transportation, and all other program costs are covered through the generous support of the Colorado College President’s Office, the William P. Dean Memorial Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project. CC students will receive a $500 stipend upon successfully completing the program.
The cost for non-Colorado College students is $5,000, plus airfare to/from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Funding may be available from your college. Talk to a college representative.
College Credit
All participants will be enrolled in a .25-unit general studies course (GS215). CC students on an F-1 visa will receive a transcript notation applied to their summer transcript in accordance with their Curricular Practical Training (CPT) requirements.
CC students who do not require work authorization will receive .25-units applied to their next fully enrolled semester. Non-CC students will be admitted as non-degree-seeking students and receive .25-units of credit (equivalent to approximately one semester unit at another institution). Non-CC students on an F-1 visa should consult with their primary DSO regarding the CPT process.
Transcripts listing the course will be available to all participants who complete the program.
Work, Local Laws, and Living Arrangement Information
This program requires a full-time work commitment. Students are not permitted to have other work commitments during the program.
Participants are expected to comply with all applicable laws of the U.S., as well as the laws of the city and state in which they are assigned.
The program requires shared living environments (roommates, shared kitchens/bathrooms, etc.).
Peer mentors (students who have previously completed the program) will be available in each city for participants to talk to and ask questions of. Peer mentors will serve in a role similar to an RA in college student housing.
Accepted participants will have an opportunity and are encouraged to share their housing needs and/or request reasonable accommodations after the selection process.
Orientation and Travel to Partner Sites
The 6-week program begins with orientation on the Colorado College campus led by the program director and activists representing the community partner organizations participating in the program. This orientation will incorporate multi-disciplinary reading and discussion focusing on the racial and class dimensions of carceral capitalism and immigrant detention, community and labor organizing theory and practice, immigration policy, and movement lawyering practices. National activists will conduct workshops during the orientation.
Following the orientation, students will travel in groups to their designated community partner sites in Colorado College vehicles. Throughout the program, the program director will travel to each program site twice to reflect on the experience with students. These visits are supplemented with Zoom sessions with the students and community partner organizations. At the end of the program, students present their work to their host community partner organizations and then reconvene at Colorado College for a 1.5-day program recap and debrief.
Participant Outcomes
During the program, students learn skills to engage in activist/advocacy projects, participate in discussions focused on conceptions of social change, and explore career possibilities in social action.
At program completion, students will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of how community-based knowledge structures, organizational analysis, and initiatives shape student collective project work.
- Demonstrate the ability to evaluate systemic inequality and power relationships for effecting social change.
- Practice cultural humility by reflecting on personal cultural wealth and assets as team members to gain awareness of their personal strengths and limitations as community change agents.
- Demonstrate an ability to delineate and utilize appropriate strategies and mechanisms for effecting social change by reflecting on how their civic commitments align with their career aspirations.
