Enacting the Vision: Institutionalizing Civic and Community Engagement on Campus
A cohort of senior campus leaders committed to operationalizing and sustaining civic and community engagement across their institutions.
This cohort focuses on leaders enacting strategic and intentional planning about community engagement on campuses.
Since 2020, ADP and Collaboratory have invited AASCU members to join cohorts and participate in meetings to connect with others to form a community of practice; in 2020 and 2021, those cohorts focused on strategies for data collection. For the 2022-2023 academic year, the program focuses on bringing small teams from each campus together to organize and collaborate on implementing an institutional vision for community engagement. As an added benefit, all teams can connect to other institutional teams to share best practices, refine their strategies, and have professional development opportunities.
Who is participating?
- ADP member campuses
- Campus leaders looking to operationalize civic and community engagement across their institutions and who are actively working to identify the most sustainable path forward to support this work
- Senior leaders committed to prioritizing community engagement as a foundational aspect of their institutional mission, strategy, and infrastructure
Benefits of this program
- Define community engagement, sharing effective strategies and approaches
- Ensure institutions create more responsive relationships with community partners
- Build infrastructure to support and sustain deep, pervasive, and integrated partnerships
- Use data to deepen work with community partners and identify the most effective partnerships and models to address pressing issues in the community
- Better tell the institutional story of engagement qualitatively and quantitatively
Cohort membership
Guam
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
impact
Key data captured in Collaboratory from the 2021-2022 cohort
2,681
published activities
3,300
community partners
894
course sections
57,586
involved students
8.1 M+
hours contributed by those students
$844 M+
total funding for engagement and service
Key data captured in Collaboratory from the 2020-2021 cohort
2,324
published activities
2,834
community partners
637
course sections
74,903
involved students
10.3 M+
hours contributed by those students
$1.7 B+
total funding for engagement and service
Institutional civic engagement activity examples
Several years of assessments indicate that the Town Hall Meeting improves students learning of course content, changes students’ self-perception from an identification with high school notions of schooling as too often boring and meaningless to a college appropriate identification of schooling as relevant and part of students’ development as adult participants in a democracy, improves students’ civic participation, and increases students’ self-esteem.
Explore more on the institution's Collaboratory site.By considering the city’s rich history in civil rights and economic justice, as well as the even more powerful desire for civility that has impacted our ability to have deep, community-wide discussion of the area’s struggles, this program explores the different traditions of participation that drive public policy, governance, and citizen engagement.
Explore more on the institution's Collaboratory site.Students in the Gender Institute for Teaching Advocacy program work to compile a digital library including information related to various organizations throughout the state.
Explore more on the institution's Collaboratory site.Professional practice internship on voter registration, marketing, and increasing voter turnout among youth voters.
Explore more on the institution's Collaboratory site.our stories
“How we’ve approached documenting institutional engagement via Collaboratory has actually shaped my current role and responsibilities. Up until [recently] this role didn’t exist on campus, and I like to think that the effort around Collaboratory was actually driving the creation of my role and its placement within the Office of President. It is ultimately an acknowledgment that community partnerships are a campus-wide priority.”
“In addition to capturing engagement data for accreditation, we have also been using Collaboratory when talking to alumni and advancement about donors and how beneficial it would be to show our donors about what engagement our colleges are doing. Additionally, for faculty, they are now leveraging digital dossiers and Collaboratory is an excellent way to link to their community engagement into their digital dossier; it gives so much more color, description, and complexity to their service work.”
“Ten years ago we were surveying our faculty and hoping that people would respond. Then, we had to chase them down for 6 months, all to write one report. Very soon, we had to start the whole process over again. At the time what we were collecting were numbers of students and numbers of hours. And, now with Collaboratory that whole narrative has changed for the faculty members. They now can connect their engagement activities to other pieces of their work, and our campus community engagement reporting that we now capture through Collaboratory.”
Cohort Webinar
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Constructive Dialogue: Fostering Trust, Curiosity, and Deeper Learning in the Classroom
Resources and professional development equipping campus faculty to promote civil discourse and deliberative dialogue within their classrooms and across their campuses.
Providing campus faculty and staff with resources and professional development to foster civil discourse within their classrooms and throughout their campuses.
Participating faculty will use online resources, attend monthly online cohort meetings with faculty across the country, and present work at the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) meeting in Boston in June 2023 where they demonstrate how to integrate constructive dialogues across the curriculum.
2022-2023 cohort member campuses
Guam
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Participants use these resources to equip students with the mindsets and skillsets to have difficult conversations.
Research on constructive dialogue in the classroom.
How an online educational program can reduce polarization and improve dialogue in college classrooms.
Details the randomized study, summarizes the findings, and provides recommendations for fostering mutual understanding and constructive dialogue in the classroom and on campus more broadly.
Read report.Explores three techniques for communicating and collaborating across differences: moral reframing, separating goals from strategies, and integrative thinking.
Read reportNotes how Perspectives users experienced small- to medium-sized decreases in affective polarization, small to medium-sized increases in intellectual humility (understanding the limits of one’s knowledge) and increases in sense of belonging.
Read more.Provides insights not only into debate-based course design and learning improvement strategies but also into how faculty, students, and administrators can partner between institutions to demonstrate a shared commitment to the civic mission of higher education and democratic promise of our nation.
Read more.Our Partner
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Civic Solutions: Problem-Solving Through the Up to Us Case Competition
Equipping faculty and staff to support students’ fiscal thinking, advocacy experience, creative problem solving, and civic engagement experience through participation in the Up to Us Case Competition.
Innovative support to encourage innovative solutions.
AASCU provides participating faculty and staff with resources and learning tools that support students in their journey to develop fiscal thinking, advocacy experience, creative problem solving, and civic engagement skills.
How the case competititon worked.
Faculty and staff at AASCU institutions integrated the nationwide competition into their 2023 spring semester offerings. Teams of students nationwide responded to prompts addressing the rising national debt in the context of growing climate concerns, the affordability of higher education, or rising health care costs by proposing creative yet practical solutions that consider the often competing — yet critical — aspects of the policymaking process: equitable policy development, prudent fiscal management, and long-term political feasibility. More than 30 submissions from a variety of disciplines—including but not limited to marketing, anthropology, political science, economics, social psychology, and pharmacy—showcased how students were able to use their diverse perspectives to craft innovative, thoughtful, and bipartisan policy proposals.
Impact
523
students engaged across 19 campuses to produce policy proposals that addressed the U.S. national debt in the context of growing climate concerns, the affordability of higher education, and rising healthcare costs.
290
communications of proposals were sent to members of Congress.
Over 700
community members engaged in discussing the U.S. national debt through university forums and dialogues.
Participating Campuses
Guam
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Competition Winner
University of Central Arkansas
Aligning Fiscal and Climate Policy
The team chose to address the rising national debt in the context of climate change. Specifically, the team tackled methane emissions from overused landfills and low recycling rates by implementing a landfill tax on businesses to increase federal revenues and incentivize more sustainable practices. Revenue from the tax would be used to fund infrastructure that relates to climate initiatives, including incineration plants and recycling centers. The revenues would also establish a Climate Innovation Fund that would help transition our society to more sustainable practices. A percentage of revenues from the tax would also be used to decrease the nation’s federal debt, which is currently more than $31 trillion. In addressing the national debt, the team aims to put the country in a better position to handle future crises and fund essential federal programs well into the future.
One-pager.
“I developed a larger passion for combining fiscal policy into other policy areas. My favorite memory was making friends with my group partners and developing long-lasting relationships. Our team was extremely passionate about fiscal policy and climate policy and found this opportunity uniquely helpful.”
Runners-up
- Emporia State University
- Emporia State University
- Emporia State University
- Georgia College & State University
- Georgia College & State University
- Georgia College & State University
- Georgia College & State University
- Gordon State College
- Gordon State College
- Gordon State College
- Gordon State College
- Northeastern Illinois University
- Northeastern Illinois University
- Northeastern Illinois University
- Northeastern Illinois University
- Radford University
- Radford University
- Radford University
- Radford University
- Radford University
- Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
- Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
- Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
- Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Central Arkansas
- University of Central Arkansas
- Weber State University
- Bethune Cookman University
- Wayne State University
- William & Mary
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American Democracy Project Steering Committee
Serving as advisers and thought partners, the ADP Steering Committee is comprised of talented and thoughtful individuals who are dedicated to the collective purpose of preparing the next generation of informed and engaged citizens.
Our members are leaders and advocates.
The role of the ADP Steering Committee is not only to provide guidance and expertise on the design and development of programs and practices that are integral, relational, organic, and generative, but also to champion these efforts and envision the thriving democracy we aspire to enact and support through our work. ADP Steering Committee meetings are also attended by ad hoc members, notably the current Civic Fellows and our recent ADP Civic Engagement Award winners.
Shannon
Calderone
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Byron
Craig
Assistant Professor, School of Communication
Illinois State University
David
Hoffman
Director, Center for Democracy and Civic Life
“University of Maryland, Baltimore County”
Dimetri
Horner
Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs
Harris-Stowe State University (MO)
Romy
Hübler
Director of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility
Towson University (MD)
Jyl
Josephson
Professor of Political Science, Women, and Gender Studies
Rutgers University Newark (NJ)
Cheryl Z.
Kerchis
Assistant Professor
Slippery Rock University (PA)
H. Gibbs
Knotts
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Coastal Carolina University (SC)
Julie
Lester
Associate Professor of Political Science and MPA Program Coordinator
Valdosta State University (GA)
Kara
Lindaman
Dean, College of Liberal Arts
Winona State University (MN)
Angela M.
McGowan-Kirsch
Associate Professor of Communication
State University of New York at Fredonia
Julie
Mowrer
Acting Director, Center for Community Engagement; Director, English Language Institute
University of Hawai’i at Hilo
Leah
Murray
Director, Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service
Weber State University (UT)
Elizabeth
Parmelee
Associate Vice President of Undergraduate Studies
Metropolitan State University of Denver (CO)
Chapman
Rackaway
Professor and Chair, Political Science
Radford University (VA)
Ronald S.
Rochon
President
California State University Fullerton
Bidhan Chandra
Roy
Professor of English and Program Director
California State University, Los Angeles
Amy
Sayward
Professor of History
Middle Tennessee State University
Justin
Vaughn
Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Civic Leadership
Coastal Carolina University (SC)
“My institution’s robust civic learning and democratic engagement work has benefited immensely from opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to collaborate and learn with ADP colleagues.”
Learn more about the ADP steering committee.
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American Democracy Project Civic Fellows
ADP Civic Fellows explore assessment, research, and programmatic efforts that enact and support ADP’s mission and national work during a one or two-year renewable terms.
Apply NowCivic Fellows help to support ADP’s mission.
Who should participate?
- Faculty and staff seeking a national platform to develop and advance their ADP-aligned research and programmatic ideas.
How will you benefit?
- Exchange ideas and feedback with Civic Fellows, ADP’s Director, and the ADP Steering Committee.
- Opportunity to lead national initiatives and influence their future direction.
- Build connections with ADP institutions to expand the scope and impact of your work.
- Receive support in publication and program development.
ADP invites rolling applications for this opportunity designed to give professionals/scholars in our network a national platform to develop their research and programmatic ideas. ADP Civic Fellows will be part of a cohort experience and will work closely with our director and steering committee to design and advance ADP national initiatives.
Each Fellow is expected to provide the following information to the ADP Director:
- A one-page proposal delineating the focus of your Civic Fellowship, including where ADP can assist you and your intended timeline and outcomes;
- Specify a one-or two-year appointment (both types are renewable);
- An overview report and an updated proposal at the halfway mark of your term, delineating your progress;
- A final report at the conclusion of your term, which can be leveraged to re-start the Civic Fellowship;
- Updates to the Steering Committee and the larger ADP community about your project as needed.
- Participate in calls with the ADP Director
- Participate in the ADP Steering Committee as an ex officio member during the term of the fellowship.
If you are interested in joining as a team to be in the Civic Fellow program, the only modification would be that you ask one member of your team to be the Steering Committee ex officio member. All reports that you provide would be as a team and quarterly calls would ideally include the full team.
2024-2025 ADP Civic Fellows
Shannon
Calderone
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Paul
Cook
Professor of English
Indiana University Kokomo
Byron
Craig
Assistant Professor, School of Communication
Illinois State University
Kara
Dillard
Associate Director, Madison Center for Civic Engagement and Assistant Professor, School of Communication Studies
James Madison University (VA)
Steve
Elliott-Gower
Associate Professor of Political Science
Georgia College & State University
Romy
Hübler
Director of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility
Towson University (MD)
Steve
Hunt
Professor and Director, School of Communication
Illinois State University
J. Scott
Jordon
Cognitive Psychologist and Chair of the Department of Psychology
Illinois State University
Julie
Lester
Associate Professor of Political Science and MPA Program Coordinator
Valdosta State University (GA)
Erin
O’Hanlon
Coordinator of Service-Learning
Stockton University (NJ)
Chapman
Rackaway
Professor and Chair, Political Science
Radford University (VA)
Allison D.
Rank
Associate Professor and Chair, Political Science
State University of New York at Oswego
Kim
Schmidl-Gagne
Assessment & Accreditation Officer
Keene State College (NH)
Justin
Vaughn
Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Civic Leadership
Coastal Carolina University (SC)
Hear from our civic fellows.
Being an ADP Civic Fellow has allowed me to better engage with the way my scholarship and service can inform matters of race, gender, sexuality, and socio-economic class as rhetorical acts. In the work I do at Illinois State University, I include civic engagement and democratic participation as central pieces. My interest in advancing civic engagement has grown through my role as Civic Fellow.
