Title: Building a Global Public Community: Service Learning Projects That Span the Distance

Presenters: Shyam K. Sriram, TDC Campus Faculty Director and Tamra Ortgies Young, Director of Adult Learning Initiatives, Georgia Perimeter College

This session will demonstrate service-learning and civic engagement projects that raise awareness of global citizenship in undergraduate students. This workshop will provide assessment guidelines and tips to increase success in implementation including rubrics.

Goals:

1. Share what we are doing at GPC and see how other institutions with similar demographics are engaging in global-focused engagement.
2. Discuss how civic engagement can mean different things to students who are citizens versus those who are not.
3. Engage audience in debate on whether or not international students become better citizens in their native countries if they take part in civic engagement and/or service learning in the United States.

Title: Capturing and Assessing Student Voting on Your Campus

Presenter: Abby Kiesa, Youth Coordinator and Researcher, CIRCLE: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

Using public voting data, it is difficult to assess student turnout on a single campus and what institutional strategies positively affect turnout. In 2012, CIRCLE will be working with interested campuses and partners to fill this gap. We are developing a free service to calculate turnout using data collected by a national firm. This session discusses current student voting research, what participants most want to know about student voting and how campuses can get involved to assess strategies used to register and mobilize students.

Title: Launching TDC: First year initiatives at Delta College

Presenters: Lisa Lawrason, Associate Professor of Political Science and Kimberly Klein, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Delta College (Mich.)

After attending the Democracy Commitment meeting in 2011, faculty members at Delta College faced the challenge of how to involve key players in initiatives to civically engage students. We began with a presentation to administrators, followed by an invitation from the college president to members of our faculty and staff to serve on a Civic Engagement Integration Team. This team has served as a hub for collaboration across the college on two strategic initiatives intended to spark a culture of civic engagement on Delta’s campus. The “Civic Team” intends to spearhead projects that will provide students with exposure to civic engagement in a variety of contexts throughout their career at Delta College. The idea is to go beyond episodic exposure to civic engagement, but to weave it into the fabric of the college. This first year, we have launched two initiatives: Democracy In Motion and Public Achievement. Democracy In Motion is a movable triangular wall with a writable surface, on which students respond to questions of current political issues. Public Achievement is a program by which Delta College students are working with students at a local persistently low performing high school to identify issues of concern, research the problems associated with those issues, and develop and implement a plan to address those issues. The faculty at Delta College has secured Endowed Teaching Chair funding, as well as other funding through the college, to implement these initiatives. Future work will continue to explore how to further create spaces on campus for students to be civically engaged and politically empowered.

Goals:

1. Share strategies for getting the Democracy Commitment off the ground at member community colleges
2. Generate ideas for taking civic engagement beyond being an episodic experience to weaving it into the culture of the college
3. Discuss how to bring key players within the college on board to create a civically engaged campus

We will be sharing a PowerPoint with photos from first year initiatives.

In addition, we will bring two students who can speak to how their experience at Delta College has civically engaged them, preparing them to become agents for positive change in their communities. We will invite dialogue from the audience as to strategies they have found successful in gaining buy-in across the college for creating a culture of civic engagement.

Title: Realizing the Potential of TDC and ADP: Developing Partnerships between Universities, Community Colleges and Municipalities

Presenters: Sarah Diel-Hunt, Heartland Community College (Ill.); and Stephen Hunt, Professor of Communication, Jan Murphy, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Lance Lippert, Association Professor of Communication, Illinois State University

Over the last 10 years, scholars, educators, administrators and others have devoted significant attention to the development of programs that support education for citizenship in higher education. These efforts have born significant fruit, as evidenced by the many programs featured at the TDC/ADP National Meeting. A central concern for the next 10 years will be how those in higher education will sustain the commitment to civic engagement, especially in light of personnel changes and budgetary constraints. Presenters on this panel discuss how campuses can develop meaningful partnerships across campus and community to ensure that education for democracy remains a vital component of higher education.

Title: Closing Plenary: Going Public—Aligning Classroom Pedagogy with Institutional Commitments to Civic Engagement

Introducer: Jocelyn Lee Payne, Assistant Professor of Education, Northeastern State University-Broken Arrow (Okla.)

Presenters: Thia Wolf, First-Year Experience Director and a Professor of English Studies; Ellie Clifford Ertle, Lecturer of Political Science and Faculty Coordinator for the Town Hall Meeting Program; Zach Justus, Assistant Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences; and William Loker, Dean of Undergraduate Education, California State University, Chico

Many AASCU-member universities stress regional, civic engagement as a key strategic priority. Yet translating that priority to the classroom via faculty teaching practices can be challenging. This session provides participants with an overview of an innovative teaching approach that improves students’ civic dispositions and retention. The approach, Public Sphere Pedagogy (PSP), embeds a tailored public arena in varied courses to permit discussion of students’ research, questions and concerns about contemporary issues. Faculty, staff, administrators and community members act as dialogue partners with students, helping all participants to move their thinking and their plans for civic action forward. At CSU, Chico, PSP has broad faculty appeal and is used in disciplinary areas as varied as political science, communication studies, economics and English to improve students’ engagement with subject matter learning, assist students’ construction of civic dispositions, and increase students’ persistence to graduation. This session includes both a set of models of embedded public spheres (e.g., a student-led Town Hall, a “Great Debate” and a multi-media festival where students present and discuss their work) and tools for developing PSP approaches on participants’ home campuses.