Franklin Pierce College has been developing a larger public mission for itself in recent years. This evolution is occurring, in part, because of several new initiatives at the college that foster more active, public-spirited citizenship and that strengthen civic life in New Hampshire communities outside the campus.

A dialogue group of faculty formed this year and is meeting regularly to rethink the ways they teach and practice citizenship. They are reconsidering the relationship between the “”expert”" and the public, the teacher and the student, and its underlying presumption that there are those who know and those who don t. The group is also discussing how higher education and the liberal arts might have deeply civic purposes that might be more effectively taught across the curriculum in using experiential techniques. Much of this reflection is being provoked and guided by their experience of engaging with the public not as experts, but as fellow citizens in deliberation aimed at creating “”public knowledge”" useful for addressing public problems. In addition to their traditional academic scholarship and teaching, these faculty are beginning to see themselves as engaged in more public forms of scholarship not simply as people who provide expertise or collect information from the public, but as participants in the exchanges by which citizens collectively frame and understand issues and problems.