Washington, D.C. – According to a recent poll conducted by CBS News, UWIRE, and The Chronicle of Higher Education,
94 percent of students at four-year colleges in four battleground
states — Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania — said they
were registered to vote. While pundits and campaigns alike are
expecting a record-shattering turnout by student and young voters, the
American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ (AASCU)
American Democracy Project (ADP) is turning its focus to what happens
after the election with the creation of the new Civic Agency Initiative,
which hopes to extend student civic and political engagement beyond
November 4.
In partnership with the Humphrey Institute’s Center for Democracy and
Citizenship (CDC), the American Democracy Project will host the Civic
Agency Institute November 5-7 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Institute
will help campuses participating in ADP’s Civic Agency Initiative
develop methods to harness the civic currency that has accumulated on
the part of students during the 2008 election and cultivate a sense of
continued efficacy and agency.
In addition to multiple sessions on organizing, the Institute will
include a session on Institutional Investment in Civic Agency:
Experiences from the Field and a panel discussion with undergraduate
students. CDC Co-Director Harry Boyte, author of numerous books on
civic engagement including The Citizen Solution: How You Can Make a Difference, will deliver the Institute’s keynote address on Thursday, November 6.
The Civic Agency Initiative, a three-year partnership between
AASCU/ADP and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, seeks to deepen
the civic identities of higher education, including new approaches to
learning and associated engaged scholarship focused on questions of
civic agency.
Initiative participants, all AASCU/ADP institutions, will create
strategies and programs on university campuses and in surrounding
communities to foster civic agency in undergraduates; design instruments
and processes for measuring civic agency; and create campus-wide
cultural change that strengthens community partnerships, civic learning
and public scholarship.
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AASCU is the leadership association of 420 public colleges and
universities Delivering America’s Promise through their common
commitments to access, affordability and educational
opportunity. Enrolling more than 3 million students, these institutions
fulfill the expectations of a public university by working for the
public good through education, stewardship and engagement, thereby
improving the lives of people in their community, their region and their
state.