American Democracy Project

Recommitment to AASCU’s American Democracy Project

At this critical juncture in the nation’s history, we invite all AASCU member institutions to commit to the American Democracy Project.

Make your commitment.
ADP

AASCU’s American Democracy Project creates engaged global citizens for a just society.

For over 20 years, AASCU’s non-partisan American Democracy Project (ADP) has engaged thousands of campus leaders, faculty, staff, and students in a broad network of regional public universities to instill all students with knowledge and skills, preparing them to be informed and engaged global citizens, empowered to create a more just society and world.

At this critical juncture in the nation’s history, we invite all AASCU member institutions to commit to the American Democracy Project.

ADP campuses are committed to the nonpartisan project of preparing students who are ready to participate and lead effectively as global citizens in a multicultural society. They model open, democratic engagement on important issues from multiple perspectives for the communities and regions that they serve. ADP institutions foster an ethos of civic-mindedness throughout the institution; make civic learning and democratic engagement an expectation for every student; practice civic inquiry across the curriculum; and advance civic action through democratic processes and practices.*

*Based on the key recommendations for higher education in A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy’s Future (AAC&U, 2012). 

ADP Testimonials

Students, faculty, staff, and administrators shared their experiences with ADP at the Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Meeting in June 2023.

Watch playlist.
Thank you

We celebrate the institutions who have already committed to AASCU’s American Democracy Project.

Confirmed committments.
Commit Now

If your institution has not yet committed, we invite you to encourage your president/chancellor or provost to do so via this form.

Make your commitment.
Questions?

We recognize that this work requires thoughtful conversation, so please reach out to Cathy Copeland, director of ADP, with any concerns.

Contact us.

AASCU recognizes that each institution engages in ADP according to its unique mission, history, and context.

ADP campuses have access to:

  • A broad network of leaders, faculty, staff, and students who share resources and generate collaborative research and scholarship
  • Regular convenings, including at the annual Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement meeting
  • Professional and leadership development to help leaders at all levels to create, maintain, and lead civic-minded institutions
  • ADP’s extensive national partners network
  • Opportunities to participate in grant-funded national projects, programs, workshops, writing circles, and other initiatives to help them achieve their mission

What does it mean to commit to the American Democracy Project?

  • President/Chancellor, Provost or designee completes this simple form.
  • Campus must be an AASCU member
  • Annually, the campus identifies someone to serve as ADP coordinator, the liaison between AASCU and the campus
  • Campus participates in regular assessment of ADP impact

We commit to the American Democracy Project.

At this critical juncture in history, we invite all AASCU member institutions to commit to AASCU’s American Democracy Project
to prepare students to be engaged global citizens in a multicultural society and world.

Check to see if your institution has committed.

On behalf of my institution, I commit to the nonpartisan goals of AASCU’s American Democracy Project:

  • Make civic learning and democratic engagement an expectation for every student
  • Integrate civic inquiry across the curriculum
  • Model open, democratic engagement from multiple perspectives
  • Foster an ethos of civic-mindedness
  • Advance civic action through democratic processes and practices

My institution will identify an ADP liaison and participate in regular assessment of civic engagement impact. As an American Democracy Project campus, my institution will have access to:

  • Recognition as part of the American Democracy Project network
  • Resources, national partners network, conferences, and grant-funded projects
  • Professional and leadership development to help leaders (at all levels) create, maintain and lead civic minded institutions

Authorization

Name(Required)
Role on Campus(Required)

Point of Contact

Please provide a name and e-mail for a point of contact between the national American Democracy Project office and your campus.
Name
From the American Democracy Project Archives
The original ADP logo.

The New York Times salutes The American Association of State Colleges and Universities on the completion of the first year of the American Democracy Project for Civic Engagement  See ad.

All smiles with ADP co-founder George Mehaffy at the 2023 Academic Affairs Summer Meeting in Baltimore.
All smiles with ADP co-founder George Mehaffy at the 2023 Academic Affairs Summer Meeting in Baltimore.
Faculty and staff participating in Stewardship of Public Lands at Yellowstone National Park.
ADP Infographic
The infographic was created early in ADP’s history to help tell the story of the variety of programming and work that ADP encouraged.
Tom Ehrlich, former president of Indiana University, joins students, faculty, and staff from Illinois State University at a Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement meeting in 2009.
Students gather under the Declaration of Independence at Richard Stockton University (NJ).

Membership in ADP allows ready access to partnerships and resources.

We thank our partners for their continued work to strengthen democracy by providing the following resources.

AASCU
AASCU Campuses
The New York Times
Collaboratory
CFR Education (from the Council on Foreign Relations)
National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement
  • Election Imperatives
    Drawing from our research on college student voting and the campus climates of highly politically engaged institutions, this report offers ten recommendations to improve campus conditions for political learning, discourse, engagement, and agency during election seasons and beyond.
Visual Capitalist
Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)
  • BPC Explainer Blog
    DEI Legislation, Academic Freedom, and Free Expression: Where to Go from Here?: Assesses the scope of DEI policies, explores toward transparent relationships with legislators and boards of regents, and recommends adjustments to acknowledge academic freedom and free expression concerns.
Bringing Theory To Practice
  • The Paradigm Project
    A multiyear initiative that aims to develop new models of holistic, inclusive, engaged learning and to activate systemic change—not simply piecemeal innovation—across higher education.
National Issues Forums (NIFI)
  • Resources to Organize Deliberative Dialogues
    Deliberative learning is an approach to education that emphasizes dialogue, inquiry, and choice making. Deliberative learners explore complex topics in-depth, consider diverse perspectives on these topics, identify and work through tensions inherent to those views, and attempt to arrive at reasoned judgment. When used to support students’ development as citizens, deliberative learning takes on a public dimension: students grapple with issues of public significance in order to arrive at a shared decision.
Project Pericles
  • Civic Engagement Resources
    Project Pericles’s civic engagement resources are for faculty, across all disciplines, who are interested in: civic engagement course syllabi, community-engaged learning, deliberative dialogue, nonpartisan voter education, and addressing voter suppression.
More Perfect
  • Ask and All: A Plan to Expand National Service & Volunteering
    A plan to create within a decade a rite of passage, common expectation, and common opportunity for more than 1 million young Americans as they come of age and 500,000 older Americans as they seek an “encore career” to perform a year of national service.
Unify America
  • Unify Challenge College Bowl Overview
    This is a two-pager about the Unify Challenge College Bowl. The Unify Challenge College Bowl is a face-to-face video conversation between two students who attend different schools and may vote differently, live in different geographies, or have different life experiences.
The Citizens Campaign
College Futures Foundation

Specific to Voting

Fair Elections Center
  • Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project
    A program that operates on a bi-annual bias assisting institutions to develop on-ramps to our Democracy for their students, primarily through nonpartisan political engagement and voting rights advocacy. The program is run jointly with NASPA and also recognizes the tremendous efforts of the participating institutions in the Spring semester after each federal election cycle.
Students Learn Students Vote
  • Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV)
    The SLSV Coalition is the national hub and largest nonpartisan network in the United States dedicated to increasing college student voter participation. This library is a collection of resources submitted by SLSV Coalition partners.
ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge