Civic Engagement At The University Of Maryland
While civic engagement is prevalent throughout the departments and colleges at the University of Maryland, two campus-wide programs coordinate educating students for civic engagement and university-community engagement, respectively. They also work together to advance civic engagement on and off campus.
Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership
Created in 2004, the Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership (CCEL) is comprised of university programs that have joined in common purpose to promote the integration of civic engagement and leadership into the educational experience of the university’s students. Consistent with the mission of the University of Maryland, the purpose of CCEL is to enhance the education of students to become civically engaged citizens, scholars, and leaders in communities on campus and in the state, the nation, and the world.
CCEL consists of a Steering Committee and subcommittees of faculty, staff, and students. It reports jointly to the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. As of 2008, CCEL will include Coalition Partners, programs that affiliate with CCEL and incorporate learning and practice of civic engagement of leadership, and Coalition Affiliates, individuals who practice and support civic engagement and leadership.
CCEL develops and disseminates resources to enable all students to access the university’s rich opportunities for civic engagement and leadership and to make meaning of their experiences. CCEL also works to increase the number of civic engagement and leadership opportunities in the classroom and the cocurriculum. To this end, CCEL assists faculty and staff to incorporate learning about civic engagement and leadership purposefully into their courses and programs by providing practical tools and resources.
CCEL’s learning outcomes offer a conceptual framework for faculty and staff to use in designing and enhancing courses and programs that integrate learning about civic engagement and leadership in ways that enable learning to be assessed. The conceptual framework adds coherence to students’ experiences so that students graduate with a sense of empowerment to effect positive change in their communities.
CCEL’s initiatives for 2006-07 include:
- A comprehensive web site that will enable students to explore the many opportunities for civic engagement and leadership available to them both on and off campus and to personalize their search for opportunities based on their interests, desired learning outcomes, and levels of knowledge and skills.
- Utilization of a civic engagement curriculum in approximately 90% of ENGL 101 classes, which involves enhanced training of teaching assistants and assessment of the degree of student achievement of civic engagement learning outcomes.
- A faculty resource manual for civic engagement that will provide a wealth of resources, including templates for course assignments, readings, web links, and assessment guides. The manual is based on the results of a faculty survey about how they are integrating civic engagement into courses and what resources they require to further this work.
The Engaged University
The Engaged University (EU) creates opportunities for the university and its surrounding communities to engage in mutually beneficial research, learning, and social action. Its goal is to improve the quality of life in the diverse inner-beltway communities that surround the College Park campus. EU was founded four years ago as part of a university think tank on democracy. In July 2006, the Provost and the Vice President for University Relations supported EU’s transfer to Maryland Cooperative Extension, housed in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, as a step towards the greater institutionalization of community-university partnerships. Most recently, the institution asked EU to administer the Community Partners Program, a five-year, $400,000 initiative to support such partnerships.
The activities of EU focus on youth development services, increased parent and community involvement in public education, and support for low-income, low-performing schools. These areas were identified as the most urgent community needs through three years of community-based research and action. The framework for EU’s activities is the university-assisted community school, an approach that unites school, family and community to create a web of support that nurtures youth development towards productive adulthood.
EU organizes academic, social, and cultural programs that are designed to increase school attendance and grade-point averages, provide critical support services, bolster involvement in constructive extracurricular activities, decrease negative contact with law enforcement, and encourage participation in community-based civic engagement projects. In the past three years, with a small full-time staff and a few graduate students, EU has partnered with the community to provide programs for youth and their parents at four partner schools.
EU’s programs for 2006-07 include:
- Development and maintenance of school-based gardens at partner schools.
- Training of 30 elementary and middle-school teachers to creatively integrate nutrition and health into their core curriculum.
- Working to establish a branch of a local credit union and to introduce parent and student financial literacy courses at a partner high school.
- Organizing tours for university faculty and staff to local schools.
- An after-school program in public leadership with an immigration theme for 150 middle-school students and 75 undergraduates.
- A continuing series of parent leadership workshops.
- Two middle-school summer enrichment programs with community partners.
Prepared by:
Barbara Jacoby, Chair, Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership bjacoby {at} umd(.)edu
Margaret Morgan Hubbard, Director, The Engaged University
mmorganh {at} umd(.)edu
1/07
