Due May 25, the American Democracy Project and National Conference on Citizenship seek 20 institutions to join a two-year initiative designed to identify and develop campus and community civic health assessments and tools, as well as action plans that respond to the findings. The goal is to discover how campuses support and facilitate civic health, and to provide insights into and strategies for measuring civic health on campus and off campus.
Core Activities
- Develop tools for assessing the civic health of campuses and communities;
- Expand our understanding of the current state of civic health on college campuses and in local communities;
- Identify and share ways that a college or university – in partnership with a local community – can improve the civic health of the campus and/or community; and
- Explore the interplay between campus and community civic health.
Expectations of Participating Campuses
Each campus selected to participate in this initiative will have five specific expectations:
- Participating campuses will be asked to create a campus team that will oversee the development of campus activities and projects. For operational purposes, most campuses will identify a campus team leader to provide leadership for the campus work. The project will greatly benefit from the inclusion of students. While it is not a formal requirement, we encourage participation by undergraduate students on the campus team.
- Send at least one faculty member to the ADP National Meeting for the June 7, 2012 Campus & Community Civic Health Initiative Summit, a pre-conference workshop, for the convening meeting of this initiative. This meeting will provide an orientation to the project, and establish the design and development phase of a set of tools and processes with which to begin to assess the civic health of our campuses and the communities in which they are situated.
- Serve as a pilot site to develop and test these civic health assessment strategies and tools. Each campus will have wide latitude to focus aspects of civic health specific to their institutional circumstances and what makes sense in their own local context. Some campuses may focus primarily on assessing campus civic health. Others may focus on both the health of their campus and the community in which it is situated. Focus may also be put on campus/community partnerships and their effects on campus and/or community civic health.
- Share project results at the national American Democracy Project meeting in June 2013 in Denver and at the June 2014 meeting in Louisville. In a pre-conference session of these conferences, provide NCoC and ADP with electronic copies of all materials developed and used in the pilot phase for distribution to ADP member institutions. Campuses will also be asked to provide general feedback on the successes and failures of this initiative. In addition, each campus will be asked to make a presentation during the conference about the experiences of the past year.
- Campuses will also be asked to engage in a follow-up discussion of their assessment results with appropriate campus and community stakeholders. Action plans to improve campus and community civic health should be developed and undertaken. Subsequent reports about these phases of the initiative should also be shared with NCoC and ADP, and should be presented at a subsequent ADP meeting
Benefits for Participating Campuses
This initiative offers a number of significant opportunities for campuses and individuals including:
Opportunities for Faculty, Staff, and Students:
- To become involved in an innovative national civic engagement project
- To collaborate with individuals on other campuses
- To create opportunities for presentations and publications
- To engage students in community-engaged research and civic action about civic health
Opportunities for Campuses:
- To gain national visibility as part of a research effort that reflects our roles as Stewards of Place
- Opportunity to measure actual student voter turnout for 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections via partnership with CIRCLE
- Opportunity to partner with NCoC on producing state and city-level Civic Health Index reports
- Opportunity to track campus civic work using Lyon Software’s Community Benefit Inventory for Social Accountability for duration of this project
- To develop relationships with other civic leaders and key stakeholders in the community focused around a civic health agenda
How much will it cost to participate?
There is no fee for participation in the project; overall costs should be minimal. There is no external funding for this project but we will try to keep any costs as low as possible. Some fundraising may be required for participation in specific research initiatives, such as partnership on a statewide Civic Health Index report. The only fixed expenses will be to send a representative to the national American Democracy Project meeting for the next three years — in San Antonio in June 2012, in Denver in June 2013, and in Louisville in June 2014 – where each campus will be expected to participate in a pre-conference workshop, as well as make a presentation about the project outcomes during the conference.
How do we apply?
Institutions interested in this project do not have to be participants in the American Democracy Project; the only requirement is that they are AASCU-member institutions or members of The Democracy Commitment. To apply, the chief academic officer (CAO) should send an email to Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, the ADP National Manager at AASCU (domagalj {at} aascu(.)org), with a brief statement about why your institution is interested in this initiative.
