Campus Highlights
August 2020
Indiana University Southeast, submitted by Jean
Abshire, associate professor of political science and international studies
coordinator of the International Studies Program:
On Aug. 19, Indiana University Southeast’s Global Civic
Literacy Initiative hosted a Campus Summit on Global Civic Literacy. For the
first time, this summit brought together faculty and staff from Academic
Affairs and Student Affairs in a collective professional development event to
build bridges for collaboration and spark new ideas for enhancing global
learning and global civic engagement on the campus.
The summit opened with a keynote
address by Charles Hopkins, director of teaching and learning at the Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), about the importance of global learning as well as the
CFR’s World 101 modules, which provide ready-made materials for immediate use
for virtual or in-person learning. Following the keynote, nine faculty and
student affairs professionals presented breakout sessions with strategies for
incorporating global learning into a variety of curricular and extracurricular
contexts, including biology, graphic design, strategic communications,
political theory, and science and technology education. The summit also featured
a World Café activity and community connections through an Ethiopian Coffee
Ceremony, international business etiquette, and things people should know about
our international student population. The summit concluded with a virtual
speed-dating activity in which participants brainstormed ideas about cross-unit
collaboration for enhancing global civic literacy among students. This summit was
part of a national pilot project sponsored by the American Democracy Project
and the CFR. Links to watch the recorded summit will be available on the
ADP website.
University of Central Arkansas, submitted by
Lesley Graybeal, director of service-learning and volunteerism:
The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) is commemorating
the 100-year anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which made it
unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sex when voting, with a range of
virtual and on-campus events focused on using the arts for democratic
engagement. Public activities for the Suffrage Centennial project, "Shall Not Be Denied," will take
place on the UCA campus in Conway, Arkansas, and at the Crystal Bridges Museum
of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The project is funded in part by a
grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and will include multidisciplinary collaborations on
and around two new site-specific public art installations located on UCA's
campus.
In addition to commemorating the historic anniversary,
discriminatory practices within the suffrage movement and continued barriers to
voting for people of color will be explored through a wide range of artistic
media and voter engagement and education programming. Arts programming will
include a temporary sculpture installation by artist-in-residence Sharon
Louden, with assistance from student apprentices; a suffrage dance performance
by Core Dance; spoken word suffrage speeches by The Writeous Poets; a
community suffrage singalong with lyrics by local artists; a ceramic floor
mosaic installation by Liz Smith and project partners in the community; “Threads
Through Time” art exhibit at the
UCA Baum Gallery, curated by Brian Young and Sue Bennett; suffrage swag by art
student Lillie Wren; zine-making workshops and a virtual zinefest with
campus and community partners; and more.
University of Alaska Anchorage, submitted by
Donna Aguiniga, associate professor in the School of Social Work:
In 2018, faculty members Donna Aguiniga, associate professor
in the School of Social Work, and Marsha Olson, term instructor in the
Department of Communication, came back from that year’s Civic Learning and
Democratic Engagement Meeting motivated to create an annual weeklong event to
explore diverse perspectives about the role of democracy and civic engagement
in the United States. Under the auspices of the University of Alaska
Anchorage’s (UAA) Center
for Community Engagement & Learning, they worked with departments, programs, and organizations
across campus who presented activities to engage participants in reflecting on
their rights and responsibilities that are fundamental to creating a civil
society.
Events that have quickly become annual favorites
include Read a Line, Get a Vine, which has students read their
favorite line from the U.S. Constitution and receive a Red Vine licorice and
their own copy of the U.S. Constitution; a debate by the
nationally-recognized Seawolf
Debate Program; an essay contest organized by Dr. Jackie Cason (Professor
of Writing) for Anchorage School District high school and UAA students; and a
Civics Fair held at the Loussac Public Library in partnership with the
municipality’s Welcoming
Week Anchorage programming.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Democracy
& Civic Action Week 2020 will
be held online. An ePortfolio is being created to host the week’s schedule,
recordings of live events, and a virtual civics fair, again held in partnership
with Welcoming Week Anchorage, where local organizations can share a brief
video about their mission, services, and volunteer opportunities.
Some of this year’s events include a debate provided by
Seawolf Debate Program, a lecture by Dr. Ian Hartman (Associate Professor of
History) on civil disobedience movements in American history, and a panel
presentation with local journalists on the role of local journalism and social
media hosted by the Department of Journalism and Public Communications. All
Democracy & Civic Action Week events are free and open to the public.
July 2020
James Madison University (Va.), submitted by Carah
Ong Whaley, associate director, JMU Civic:
JMU Civic at James Madison University (JMU) is including "justice" as a central tenant to conversations about the future of democracy. Its goal is to use how people define and live "justice" to create a sense of shared responsibility that links us together in a common pursuit of ensuring every individual thrives. Its virtual discussions of “Ending Systemic Racism & Creating an Inclusive
Society” and “Athletics and Social Justice” brought diverse voices to work to create a more
just and inclusive society and democracy; its antiracism and social justice
work continues to
expand.
JMU has been deeply involved in working at the local, state,
and national levels to ensure a complete count in the 2020
Census. This past
spring, JMU Civic created an interdisciplinary
course to educate
students in the critical efforts to build a more just and inclusive democracy through census engagement efforts. Students
focused on educating about the importance of the census and facilitating
get-out-the-count initiatives in hard-to-reach communities.
Working with students as co-educators and co-creators, JMU
emphasizes the value of voting to exercise agency and as means of full
participation in democracy. Initiatives through the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement in partnership with students, faculty and staff
across the university work not only to register students to vote and apply for
absentee ballots, but also to deliberate about major issues such as racism and
social justice, the economy, the public health crisis, the environment and
immigration, just to name a few. At JMU Civic, student-led efforts lean
into politics through learning-centered,
action-oriented dialogues in
public spaces on campus and virtually while physically distanced. In classroom
visits by trained undergraduate volunteers, in new and transfer student orientation,
and even at the campus gym, students also have opportunities to learn about why
voting matters for the issues they care about and how to register and vote.
With support from JMU Civic and Political Science faculty,
students also produce a nonpartisan voter
education guide that is
distributed throughout the campus and the community. Prior to voter
registration deadlines, students facilitate a traveling town hall with political
candidates to residence halls to literally meet students where they are. On
Election Day, with support from the Center for Inclusive Music Engagement,
Music Education students contribute their talents by playing at the campus
precinct to build a culture that celebrates democracy. Election night features
live coverage of returns by student media organizations from an Election Night
Watch Party. Post-election, students and faculty participate in a panel to
analyze and discuss what results mean for governance. Read JMU’s full 2020-21
Voter Engagement Plan.
Illinois State University, submitted by
Stephen Hunt, professor in the School of Communication:
Illinois State University’s Department of Psychology and
School of Communication partnered to livestream a presentation titled “What
Should Empathy Be in This Moment of Historical Reckoning? Reconciling Black
Trauma, Whiteness, and the Historical Structures of Racism Since 1619” on
Saturday, June 20. The video is available on the
School of Communication’s Facebook page.
The presentation was led by Byron Craig, assistant professor
in the School of Communication at Illinois State University, and
Stephen Rahko, lecturer in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana
University. Craig and Rahko discussed what empathy should look like
in this moment of historical reckoning in the aftermath of the untimely deaths
of deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor,
and Rayshard Brooks. According to Craig and Rahko, “A
renewed discourse of social justice around the historical legacy of structures
of systemic racism has started to blossom. We seek to discuss this dilemma in
the context of the moral responsibilities Black and white communities owe to
each other.”
Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Illinois State
University initiated the Extending Empathy Project in the fall of 2018 as
a way to project a positive, empathic message into the university
community and the public at large. Treating others with compassion,
particularly children, victims, members of minority groups, and refugees, is a
basic human decency. Psychologists are well-versed in the value of extending
empathy. To date, they have sponsored 15 colloquia, organized public viewings
of social justice documentaries, and worked with high school culture councils to
advise them in their social justice efforts.
Please
enjoy this story (produced
through NPR from Illinois State University) written about the event.
June 2020
Stockton University (N.J.), submitted by
Tina Zappile, associate professor of Political Science, and Claire Abernathy, assistant professor of
Political Science:
The American Democracy Project
(ADP) committee at Stockton University provides
programming on timely political and policy issues that is designed to increase
political awareness and engagement for its campus community and support the university’s
mission of developing “engaged and effective citizens.” Its ADP committee is
comprised of more than a dozen active faculty, staff, students, and
administrators. Committee members regularly partner with the William J. Hughes
Center for Public Policy on campus and work closely with the provost’s and president’s
offices to host large-scale events, including the Constitution Day series that
has featured Sandra Day O’Connor and Anita Hill, among other distinguished
speakers. With representatives from both Academic Affairs and Student Affairs
on its ADP committee and through partnerships with other offices across the
university, staff are able to bridge common gaps and generate
long-term institutional support and buy-in from different stakeholders. The committee
membership structure has supported continuity during periods of transition in
administrative leadership as well.
In recent years, programming has also come to reflect
diverse disciplinary perspectives. This shift was a direct result of assessing
the impact of prior work and realizing that events had been largely reaching
students in the social sciences. In an effort to expand the reach of its
programming and to support the university’s commitment to interdisciplinarity, the
ADP committee reoriented its focus, creating new programming that considers how
politics and policy intersect with other disciplines. Its goal was to reach
more students and involve more academic schools and programs. For example, in
three events focused on the opioid epidemic, the committee brought together
faculty from Biology, Health Science, Exercise Science, Physical Therapy, and
Social Work for interdisciplinary panel discussions about how opioids affect
the body, what alternative treatment options are available, the broader causes
and effects of the opioid crisis, and what policies can help address it. Panels
were built with an interactive deliberative dialogue, facilitating student
discussions about the opioid crisis. At these dialogue sessions, participants
were asked to share their own perspective on several proposed policy solutions
to address the opioid epidemic and to engage with a small group of their peers
in an in-depth discussion about the benefits, costs, and trade-offs inherent in
different policies. Another example was the lecture series on climate change and
the Green New Deal, featuring faculty in Sociology, Sustainability, and Biology
as well as leaders from a local community organization for panels about the
proposal, its scientific feasibility, and its environmental justice
approach.
To further strengthen its relationships across
campus, the committee also collaborated with other programs or student clubs to
co-sponsor interdisciplinary events. For example, it worked with the Model
United Nations and Amnesty International student clubs to host a film screening
of “The Prosecutors,” followed by a panel featuring faculty and
students from Political Science, Communications, Women Gender and Sexuality
Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies. It also worked with the Model UN
to host a campuswide series for classes to attend the Council on Foreign
Relations Academic
Conference Call series. And it partnered
with the School of Education and the interdisciplinary Migration Studies Minor
to host a speaker on child detention in the U.S. These interdisciplinary events
and partnerships on campus have allowed the committee to reach a new and more
diverse student audience and to help students across campus see the relevance
of civic and political engagement in their own fields of study.
Stockton was also a participating institution in AASCU’s
multi-campus Global Engagement Initiative. On campus, it partnered with the
Provost Office to make available a free four-credit online course titled "Go Global!" to more
than 100 incoming first-year students each summer, and all merit scholars are
invited to join regardless of major. This program is now in its seventh year
and today, its students use the new digital Global Challenges curriculum developed from the same AASCU initiative. Assessment
of the Go Global class reveals an average of a two-point higher retention rate
in the first and second year, and students are also more likely to graduate
earlier. These interdisciplinary events, partnerships, and programs have
allowed Stockton to reach a new and more diverse student audience and to help
students across campus see the relevance of civic and political engagement in
their own fields of study.
Sam Houston State University (Texas), submitted by
Steven Koether, Foundations of Science coordinator/instructor:
In
2016, George Mehaffy, then the vice president for Academic Leadership and
Change at AASCU and now senior advisor at Sova Solutions LLC, toured Sam
Houston State University (SHSU). One of SHSU’s courses, the “Foundations of
Science,” was featured as a way to improve student critical thinking
and science literacy skills. Its novel approach included the use of case
studies (many from National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science) to
distinguish science from pseudoscience. It engaged non-science majors in the
philosophy of science—something rarely taught outside of science graduate
program. Part of the reasoning for the course was that citizens must understand
how scientists think and obtain scientific knowledge. Mehaffy saw this as a
model for what others could do across the country to improve democratic
participation and thinking. He included the course as part of the Teagle-funded
National Blended Course Consortium. Koether was asked to work with faculty from
other universities, AASCU, and SmartSparrow to reenvision it as a
hybrid course with an at-home interactive, engaging, differentiating component.
The new course was called “Science for Citizens” and sold through SmartSparrow, Inspark.
The Science for Citizens team is now working with the Center for Education
Through eXploration at Arizona State University to offer it as an
Open Educational Resource.
In working with AASCU on Science for Citizens, Koether met
many wonderful ADP friends and colleagues, locally and nationally. He was asked
to work on various AASCU and ADP-related projects at SHSU, including Re-imagining
the First Year (RFY), leading deliberative dialogues, evaluating the campus
political learning and engagement, and leading the campus ADP committee. Work
with the RFY committee led to more thorough professional development for
graduate/undergraduate instructors and instructional assistants, or the Graduate/Undergraduate
Instructor Academy (GUIA). GUIA hosts 300–500 student employees each semester
and continually grows. This demographic easily has the largest number of
contact hours with students. They are on the front lines when it comes to
support, resource recommendations, and diversity/equity/inclusion endeavors.
The Critical Thinking through Deliberative Dialogues (CT-DD)
scholarship events originally derived from Foundations of Science programming.
The event grew and required greater funding and support. The SHSU ADP committee
offered to aid in running the events and SHSU’s Common Reader Program offered
space, food, and publicity. The SHSU CT-DD events are modeled after the
National Issues Forum dialogues and the Center for Assessment and Improvement
of Learning CAT Applications. Topics discussed include immigration,
universities as businesses, and GMO foods as a solution for food insecurity.
The event began with 25 individuals and can now include more than 100
participants.
In 2018, Mary Robbins, now retired vice provost, nominated Koether
to work with AASCU and the Institute
for Democracy and Higher Education to assess and
improve political learning and engagement on campus. SHSU, along with 12 other
institutions, created a large and diverse coalition to engage in this endeavor.
The valuable work aided SHSU in highlighting its successes and uncovering some
uncomfortable truths. The university is now positioned to engage in the
difficult work of addressing findings from this rewarding and rigorous effort.
The results have encouraged many campus areas to improve transparency, shared
governance, and diversity/equity/inclusion efforts.