ADP 2012: Town Hall USA with Former Members of Congress

ADP is excited to announce that our friends at the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC) will be partnering with us to bring you a Town Hall USA plenary session at the ADP/TDC 2012 national meeting in San Antonio. Here are the details:

Friday, June 8 | 9 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. 
Plenary: Town Hall Meeting USA with Former Members of Congress  
Discuss today’s most pressing issues—including Congress’ civility/bipartisanship crisis, the 2012 elections, and the important role of public service in our democracy and how to foster it—with two former college professors and members of Congress. This informal and open session includes ample time for audience Q&A. This session is offered in partnership with the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress and its Congress to Campus program.   
Moderator: Alberto Olivas, Director, Center for Civic Participation, Maricopa Community Colleges (Ariz.) 
Presenters: The Hon. Dan Miller (R-FL, 1993-2003) and The Hon. Jerry Patterson (D-CA, 1975-1985)

Learn more about FMC in the guest blog post below, and be sure to talk with Liz Ardagna about bringing their Congress to Campus program to your college or university!

See you in San Antonio!

Jen Domagal-Goldman, ADP National Manager 

Former Members of Congress Continue to Serve Via the Congress to Campus Program

By Elizabeth Ardagna, Member Services Manager, U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress

“Democracy is not a spectator sport; for our system of government to work effectively, we need bright and dedicated Americans to make themselves available for public service. I’ve never been part of any other program that was nearly as successful as the Congress to Campus program in increasing awareness of the importance, and value, of entering the public arena. We show the real face of public service and the good it can do, and as a result, we encourage others to see government as a vehicle for the public good. I love the program.”
-The Hon. Mickey Edwards (R-OK, 77-93)

For over 35 years, the Congress to Campus program of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC) has been cultivating opportunities for students and former Members of Congress to have face-to-face discussions about current issues, the value of public service, and how students can (and should) become active participants in representative government.

The Congress to Campus program (CtC) brings bipartisan pairs of former Members to college, university, and community college campuses across the United States and around the world for two and a half days of packed programming. While on campus, former Members visit with students in a variety of formats, including classroom discussions, Q&A sessions, roundtable talks, open forums, meals with students, and interviews with campus and student media. Since the host school plans the former Members’ schedule, educators can decide how to best utilize the team’s time.

Congress to Campus

The goals of Congress to Campus are to connect with students, strengthen understanding of how Congress does (and does not) work, and inspire the next generation of leaders to be politically engaged. The CtC’s “R” and “D” former Member teams demonstrate that civil—yet still partisan—discourse across the aisle is not only possible, but productive. CtC facilitates an environment in which informal and personal discussions between former Members and students create candid conversations about the role of the U.S. Congress and why all citizens should be actively engaged in civic life.

Additionally, in a recent effort to promote bipartisanship and a more civil political discourse, FMC has created the Common Ground Project (CGP). The goals of CGP are to encourage current Members of Congress  to interact with more respect, so that meaningful dialogue leads to bipartisan solutions to our nation’s dire issues; to foster a more civil and productive political dialogue among American voters; and to restore the public’s faith in its elected representatives and combat some of the misconceptions and cynicism that are attached to the Congress. FMC seeks to accomplish these goals via public panels at the National Archives, budget simulations for students with the Concord Coalition, and roundtable meetings with current Members of Congress.

FMC—founded in 1970 and chartered by Congress—strives to promote public service and strengthen representative democracy both domestically and abroad at no cost to the taxpayer. FMC utilizes the diverse skill set of its Members to help educate the public and create healthy dialogue to foster productive solutions to our nation’s most pressing issues.

Through vital initiatives like the Congress to Campus program or Common Ground Project, FMC works to connect students and citizens with the former Members “who have been there,” fostering unprecedented understanding of why America has the greatest democracy in the world, and how to strengthen and improve it for generations to come.  

To learn more about FMC or how to bring Congress to Campus to your school, contact Liz Ardagna at 202.507.4847 or eardagna@usafmc.org. You can also find her and a bipartisan former Member team at the ADP’s Annual Meeting—during Friday’s 9:00am Plenary Session (Town Hall Meeting USA with Former Members of Congress), Saturday’s 7:00am Breakfast Breakout Session (U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress), or Saturday’s 11:30am Campus and Friends Showcase.

Please visit FMC’s website at www.usafmc.org and follow us on Twitter @USAFMC.

Partner Spotlight: NCoC Civic Health Index

ADP partner and friend NCoC — the National Conference on Citizenship — has announced its deadline for accepting new partners for 2012 civic health initiatives. NCoC plans to finalize all partnerships for 2012 by May 31. Will you join them?

NCoC currently works with cross-sector partners in over 25 communities across the country to use civic health data to measure and understand how our communities and democracy are functioning. We explore everything from the rates at which people are voting and volunteering, to indicators of engagement with neighbors, family, and institutions. This year, we were able to collect new indicators examining pressing issues such as online political engagement, trust of neighbors and confidence in major institutions that will inform 2012 projects.

These partnerships have produced reports, infographics, and initiatives that have been used to drive civic strategies of nonprofits, businesses, and governments. Our partners have used civic health data to pass new civic education legislation, promote statewide voter engagement initiatives, create citizen-driven grant making programs, and more.

We are excited to continue working with our current partners while growing this network to include all 50 states, the 50 largest metropolitan areas, and new demographic focus areas. Our partners serve as authors, funders, and conveners on these projects—giving life to our research, providing critical context for the findings, and preparing recommendations for next steps. Partners also ensure that the information reaches key stakeholders throughout the community. NCoC provides data and analysis, supports project management, leads the design phase, and provides in-depth consultation and support to meet partner needs and objectives.

We invite you to join this growing effort, by bringing the Civic Health Index to your community in 2012. For detailed information on our 2012 partnership opportunities, please visit www.NCoC.net/PartnerRecruitment. To speak further about partnership, please contact Kristi Tate, Director of Community Strategies at ktate@ncoc.net or 202-729-8038. All partnership agreements must be finalized by May 31, 2012.

Learn More About Partnering With NCoC!

Civic Data Challenge Turns Raw Data into Beautiful Community Tools

Believe that communities can take better advantage of key data in their decision making? Want to analyze civic data sets as part of your research or as a course project? Check out ADP partner NCoC’s new Civic Data Challenge!

This week the first-ever Civic Data Challenge launched at the Data 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. It’s a project of ADP partner NCoC (the National Conference on Citizenship) that will bring new eyes, new minds, new findings, and new skill sets to the field of civic health.

The Challenge will turn the raw data of “civic health” into beautiful, useful applications and visualizations, enabling communities to be better understood and made to thrive. NCoC is opening up its data, as well as other data on the important topics of health, safety, education, and the economy.

You’re invited to collaborate with others, analyze the data, and create something amazing to showcase what you find. Designers, data scientists, researchers, and app developers are especially encouraged to join the challenge. And … there will be prizes!

The Challenge opened to the public on April 3 and entries must be received by July 29. Winners will be announced at the 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship on September 14 in Philadelphia.

The Challenge is presented by NCoC (the National Conference on Citizenship) in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. NCoC and Knight Foundation hope the Challenge will uncover new findings on why community engagement and attachment are critical to building thriving communities.

Join the challenge! http://bit.ly/civdata

Like the Civic Data Challenge on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CivicDataChallenge and follow it on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/civicdata.

The Corrupting Influence of Money in Politics: March 29, 2012 Livestream

The American Democracy Project and it’s Political Engagement Project are partnering with the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy (Ill.) to give ADP faculty and students the opportunity to participate in a conversation about money and politics via a live-streamed event, free of charge. This March 29, 2012 event will be a moderated conversation with former Senator Russ Feingold (D) and Trevor Potter (who worked with the McCain Presidential campaign). ADPers will have the opportunity to Tweet questions to the speakers (more information, including the Twitter handle and hashtag to use, will be forthcoming). I encourage campus ADP groups to organize collective viewings of this presentation and to organize their own discussions afterward.

– Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

The Corrupting Influence of Money in Politics

with Senator Russ Feingold and Trevor Potter

Moderated by Elizabeth Brackett

Thursday, March 29, 2012 | 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (Central)

The event above will streamed live from The University Club of Chicago here:

www.livestream.com/stevensoncenter

The escalating monies collected to promote or denounce issues, and the funding of political campaigns, are an increasingly corrupting influence in the creation of public policies which benefit the nation as a whole. The early months of this year’s presidential campaign have seen an unparalleled infusion of money into the campaigns as a result of the 2011 Supreme Court Decision that overturned the reforms Feingold and Senator John McCain championed in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. The discussion will cover the scope of the problem, its significant impacts on current campaigns, and efforts that might be encouraged to rein in the problems of runaway funding.

About the Speakers:

Russell D. Feingold was a Democratic senator from Wisconsin for 18 years (1993 -2011). He served on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Budget, and Intelligence Committees. He also served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1983 to 1993. Well known for leading the fight for campaign finance reform in the Senate alongside Senator John McCain, Russ has always championed efforts to limit the influence of special interests. On February 17, 2011, Feingold announced he had formed a grassroots Political Action Committee, Progressives United, a movement intended, among other things, to fight the controversial United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC.  Russ is also the author of the forthcoming book, “While America Sleeps,” about what America has done wrong both domestically and abroad since the terrorist attacks of September 11, and what steps must be taken to ensure that the next ten years are focused on the international problems that threaten America and its citizens.

Trevor Potter is a lawyer, former commissioner (1991–1995) and chairman (1994) of the United States Federal Election Commission. He is the founder, President, and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, DC based nonprofit focused on campaign finance issues in the courts and before the FEC. Potter served as General Counsel to the 2000 and 2008 Presidential campaigns of John McCain. He is also notable for appearing on the television program The Colbert Report, where he discussed political action committees, and the founding and progress of the Colbert Super PAC and 501C-4. Potter explained to Colbert’s audience the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision made by the United States Supreme Court that allowed the creation of “Super PACs”, and was the lawyer behind the creation and functioning of Stephen Colbert’s PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow”.

Elizabeth Brackett is a Chicago-based correspondent and host for WTTW-TV’s Chicago Tonight program, a correspondent for PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and an author. Her journalism has been awarded a Peabody Award and an Emmy.

About the Stevenson Center:

The international Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy is a newly organized non-profit which seeks to enhance the global understanding and practice of democracy. It brings veterans and practitioners of politics together with scholars to seek information and ideas from history and the world. No ivory tower, the goal of the Center is to address challenges to democratic systems of government and conceive practical solutions that make governments more accountable. Non-partisan and non-ideological, its integrity enables it to challenge conventional wisdom with inconvenient truths when necessary, in keeping with the legacy of Adlai E. Stevenson II.

The Center is located at Stevenson’s former home near Libertyville, Illinois, restored with a grant from the State of Illinois and now a property of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. Participants in its activities come from research and policy organizations as well as from the world of politics, journalism and other fields, thus representing a broad spectrum of expertise and practical experience. The non-partisan Center strives to influence opinion and the political process through public education, the media and other means. It aims to bring practitioners from on the ground and throughout the world together with policy analysts and researchers, bridging the gap between theory and practice, ideas and action. Its international perspective and operation offer a unique contribution.

For more information about the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy (Ill.), go here.

About ADP’s Political Engagement Project:

The Political Engagement Project has the goal of developing a sense of political efficacy and responsibility on the part of undergraduates as well as a set of political skills that students will need as they engage with the political world. To do this, PEP campuses have infused political education and engagement tactics into a variety of disciplines and courses on campus and have made the tenants of political engagement central to the institutional framework of their campuses. The project documents the goals and pedagogies of the participating courses and programs, students’ perspectives on their experiences in the program, and the impact of these experiences on key dimensions of political development such as knowledge and understanding, active involvement, sense of political efficacy and identity, and skills of democratic participation.

For more information about ADP’s Political Engagement Project, go here.

Partner Spotlight: Student Voting Update from FELN’s Campus Vote Project

Student Voting Update for March 12, 2012

Posted by Josh Spaulding

The Fair Elections Legal Network’s Campus Vote Project is excited to launch its new weekly update that focuses on news across the country related to students’ ability to vote. Young people are constantly underrepresented when it comes to voting. While many attribute the low turnout to apathy, specific barriers to the ballot disproportionately affect young people generally and students specifically.

Students, in particular, face additional obstacles to voting as they move to a new community for school. These challenges include not knowing voter registration rules and deadlines, not having acceptable ID for voter registration or voting purposes, confusion about where to vote, lack of transportation to the polls, and occasionally are confronted by unfriendly or unsympathetic elections officials or poll workers.

There are several ways for students, administrators, and election officials to help get students the information they need to register and vote. This weekly update will highlight what is being done on campuses and in the states to get students the information to participate and make voting more accessible as well as legislation that is specifically targeted to limit students’ access to the ballot. These are just a few examples from the past month. Please let us know of any recent on campuses or in the states that will impact students’ access to the ballot. Send your email to info@campusvoteproject.org.

To view non-student specific legislation that will impact access to voting, please visit FELN biweekly update on voter suppression legislation.

If you are interested in joining the new campaign FELN launched, Campus Vote Project, to help get students to the polls, please sign up at www.campusvoteproject.org.

Georgia

In the recent Presidential primary in Georgia, turnout among young voters was only 5%. A local TV station asked students at Albany State University why they didn’t vote. The students responded that they were unaware of the primary election date or that they were registered in their hometown.

Indiana

Students at Ball State University made their case before the Delaware County Election Board for an early satellite voting site on the Ball State campus. Currently, the campus is split into four different precincts with most of the polling locations over a mile from campus. Ball State President Joann Gora was supportive of the idea in 2008, the last time students tried to get a satellite voting site on campus.

Florida

The University of Miami, Miami-Dade Community College, and Florida International University have partnered with Turbovote, an online tool to help students vote. In the next few months, students will be able to start the voter registration process as well as apply for an absentee ballot through Turbovote. Students will be mailed ballots and will receive email and text message remainders as the election nears to either vote the absentee ballot or show up to vote in person on Election Day. FELN provides strategic advice and legal analysis for Turbovote.

Maryland

Although the Maryland General Assembly will not consider new legislation this year, the Student Government Association at the University of Maryland voted 20-0 to call on the legislature to introduce and pass same-day registration in a future legislative session. They noted that states with same-day registration saw an increase in student voters, including an analysis by the California Institute of Technology showing that same-day registration increased turnout of young adults (18-25 year olds) by 9.1 percent.

Minnesota

As lawmakers try to move through a bill in the Minnesota legislature that will put on the November ballot a constitutional amendment requiring a photo ID to vote, the League of Women Voters Minnesota produced a video showing how the law will effect voters – especially students. Among them is a graduate student who has, like many other students, moved 12 times in the past 6 years for internships, work, and when the school year ends. The proposed amendment will add a new barrier to voting for students in a state that has traditionally seen higher levels of student voting because of Election Day registration.

New Hampshire

The House passed legislation two weeks ago that would require a person’s voting address be their residence for all other legal purposes, impacting hundreds of laws and statutes that contain the words residency and domicile. For instance, a person would be required to change their drivers’ license and vehicle registration if it did not match the address they use for voter registration. The bill will likely prevent out of state college students from voting in New Hampshire unless they change their legal residence from their home state to New Hampshire. The bill heads to the Senate.

North Carolina

The upcoming vote on a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage in North Carolina has activated students on the Duke University campus to make voting more convenient for students ahead of the spring election. The Duke Student Government got a one-stop early voting site on campus – allowing students to both register and cast a ballot at the same time.

Ohio

Warren G. Harding High School took a group of students who will be 18 by the November general election to vote in Ohio’s primary election on Wednesday. Dozens more students from Warren City Schools are expected also be bused to vote in the primary.

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Senate passed a voter photo ID law that allows for student IDs from a Pennsylvania college or university to be acceptable ID if the student ID contains a photo, the student’s name, and an expiration date proving that it is still valid. The bill moves back to the House for agreement and then to Governor Tom Corbett to sign. Governor Corbett has said he is in favor of requiring photo IDs to vote.

Texas

The Black Student Alliance at San Antonio College in Texas recently conducted a voter registration drive to educate students on the importance of voting. They were able to register 90 students and plan to hold two more voter registration drives before the November election.

Vermont

Vermont voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2010 that now allows 17 year olds that will be 18 by the general election to vote in the upcoming presidential and August primary.

Virginia

SB 1 passed the Senate on February 6 with a 20-20 vote with the lieutenant governor casting the tie-breaking vote. SB 1 allows an ID card from any 4 year school of higher education in Virginia – including private schools – to serve as voting ID. Those who cannot provide an ID will no longer be able to sign a sworn statement of identity to vote by regular ballot and will instead have to vote by provisional ballot and show required ID later. The House concurred and the bill has been sent to Governor Bob McDonnell.

For the primary this past week, Liberty University was able to get a polling location on campus for students to vote. Previously, students had to take a bus to the polling location. Close to 600 people voted on at the polling place on campus.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s photo ID law was temporarily suspended pending trial over a lawsuit over the new law. Last’s month primary election required photo ID – which also allowed student ID’s – but as of now are not required to show a photo ID in the upcoming primary election because of the injunction. The new law that has been suspended only allows student IDs to serve as IDs if they have a photo, name, signature, date of issuance, and a 2-year expiration date. Students also must bring a letter from their school indicating that they are currently enrolled to be able to use a student ID. One student writes about the complications she encountered trying to vote under the new law, including printing the enrollment verification form.

The Madison Student Voter Coalition and the University of Wisconsin – Madison conducted a voter education awareness campaign prior to Tuesday’s primary.

The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill that would no longer require that voter registration to be offered to students in high school. It now heads to the Wisconsin Assembly.

The University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire is issuing voter IDs to students that do not have acceptable forms of identification to vote but are charging students $2 to obtain one. The Chippewa Valley Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the school urging them to provide the IDs for free.

Whether or not technical school IDs are acceptable forms of identification is now in the hands of Gov. Scott Walker. He must approve the official policy written and approved by the Government Accountability Board that allows IDs issued by technical schools for voting.

________

Re-posted with permission from The Campus Vote Project Blog.

ADP Partners with Fair Elections Legal Network’s new Campus Vote Project

The American Democracy Project and our Political Engagement Project are proud to partner with the Fair Election Legal Network’s new Campus Vote Project.

The new Campus Vote Project is a non-partisan campaign to help college students work with administrators and local election officials to make the process of voting easier and overcome barriers students often face to voting that students often mention such as residency laws, registration deadlines, and strict voter ID requirements.

I hope you’ll consider connecting your campus with the Campus Vote Project!

- Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

To learn more, go here. 

Download the free Campus Vote Project Toolkit here.

————————-

Guest blog post by Dan Vicuna, CVP Coordinator

Concerned about youth being underrepresented in the upcoming election? Our colleagues over at Fair Elections Legal Network launched Campus Vote Project (CVP) to provide college students and administrators with the tools and support to institutionalize best practices on campuses in order to provide voter information, increase student participation in elections and overcome barriers to the ballot often faced by students.

Students face unique obstacles to voting including not knowing voter registration rules and deadlines; not having acceptable ID for voter registration or voting purposes; confusion about where to vote; a lack of transportation to the polls; and occasionally, being confronted by unfriendly or unsympathetic election officials or poll workers. And it’s getting worse with the introduction of new voter suppression laws across the country that shorten early voting periods, require a voter ID that many students lack, and place onerous restrictions on groups holding registration drives.

Campus Vote Project addresses these barriers and will work with students and college administrators to overcome them on college campuses.

For more information on the project visit www.campusvoteproject.org and follow them on Twitter @campusvote. You can also read the CVP blog here.

Partner Spotlight: NYTimes has a great new college rate for Digital Subscriptions!

ADP’s founding partner, The New York Times, has a new college rate for digital subscriptions. Now you can read The Times on your smartphone, tablet or computer at a lower, college rate!

- Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

Get a New York Times Digital Subscription at our new college rate!

Just 99 cents for your first 4 weeks, then 50% off the regular rate thereafter.

We invite you to take advantage of this new rate, available exclusively to college educators and students.  Get a Digital Subscription to The New York Times, bringing you the world’s finest journalism, and you’ll pay only 99c for your first 4 weeks and, at 50% off, as little as $1.88 per week thereafter.*

You’ll be entitled to your special low rate as long as you continue to have a college affiliation as a faculty or staff member.

SUBSCRIBE HERE

Home Delivery subscriptions are also available at 50% off for the college community and include FREE All Digital Access.   Just visit NYTimes.com/CollegeRate or call (888)698-2655.

Share the savings: Share this offer with other students, faculty, and staff.

*Does not include e-reader editions, Premium Crosswords or The New York Times Crosswords apps. All subscriptions will automatically renew and the credit card will be charged in advance of each billing period unless canceled. If the subscription is canceled, refunds and termination of access will follow the Terms of Sale policy. Prices are subject to change. Other restrictions and taxes may apply. K-12 educators are eligible for a discounted rate and may visit NYTimes.com/TeacherRate or call (888)698-2655.

At the Forefront of Change: The Work of Building Democracy Colleges

Note: The American Democracy Project is a partner in the new American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP).

By Harry C. Boyte, American Commonwealth Partnership National Coordinator

At the forefront of change will be a monthly online newsletter about activities and developments in the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP). ACP is an alliance of colleges and universities, schools and others dedicated to the democracy college ideal for all higher education. Democracy colleges have a signature identity of strong connection to their communities, where students learn skills of working across differences on public problems and discover the democratic possibilities of America.

I’ve just come back from San Antonio. Blase Scarnati, director of the First Year Seminar at Northern Arizona University, and I did a featured session on the American Commonwealth Partnership at the Academic Affairs meeting of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). This biannual meeting once simply involved provosts, but in the last several years larger teams have come to help facilitate change in their institutions.

We had intense conversations about ACP, within our session as well as before and after. Overall, the weekend underlined both challenges and opportunities for the sustained work of “building democracy colleges.”

We reported on results from field testing and focus groups organized by the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), ACP’s partner in launching a national discussion on higher education’s role in America’s future. The discussions in communities and on campuses will begin in April and continue through the year. The Department of Education has suggested several ways in which they might help.

Research last year on public views toward higher education and the first tests of the framework to be used in the discussions have generated important findings.

The draft framework presents several alternative roles for people to consider and discuss: higher education as an engine of economic growth; as a path to the middle class for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and as a contributor to communities and the democracy. People want to integrate all three, not choose among them.

But most people also seem unaware of ways in which colleges and universities can play this third role. Since the last two decades have seen significant civic engagement work in higher education, this finding suggests a communications challenge, also highlighted by sympathetic participants from outside of higher education at the White House gathering, who commented that phrases commonly used to describe engagement – civic mission, civic engagement, and others – would not be easily understood by broader publics.

When the third option is illustrated with examples of higher education’s helping students and faculty learn skills and habits of collaborative work across differences on public problems, it generates surprise and animated discussions. Few people are aware that colleges or universities can play any role in teaching such skills. But across many differences, Americans are worried that “we are less and less able to work across differences to get anything done,” and fear for the future of the nation. Citizens are alarmed by Congress, but see polarization, inflammatory rhetoric and gridlock extending to every level of society and to all sorts of issues, from local zoning changes to reconstruction of the nation’s electrical grid.

Powerful forces feed the polarizing dynamic, including the formula, with roots in 1970s activism, which dominates most civic and political campaigns: identify an enemy; define issues as good versus bad; and use inflammatory language to shut down critical thought. Talk radio, cable news and the internet are potent operationalizing tools.

At San Antonio, there were strong examples of developing capacities for collaborative work that push back against such polarization. Blase Scarnati described the curricular innovations at NAU which involve hundreds of students in interdisciplinary Action Research Teams as part of the First Year Seminar. Students undertake public work projects on issues – immigration, weatherization, school bullying and others – in ways designed to teach such skills and build public relationships with diverse groups, connected to interdisciplinary learning.  Over supper one evening I heard a rich account from Dayna Seelig, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Morehead State University in Kentucky, about her own work over many years in teaching such skills and habits to students, faculty and staff of the university.

But such stories are rarely told in describing engagement efforts, and I believe that most examples of teaching and learning collaborative public work remain invisible. There is a need to shine a spotlight on education for such efforts. There are also strong institutional incentives for doing so in a time of public alarm about the fraying of American society and ebbing public support for higher education.  The initiatives of ACP (deliberative dialogues, student organizing, Citizen Alum, civic science, pedagogies of engagement, community civic health, public scholarship, and policy) all help to foster education for collaborative public problem solving. But it will take sustained effort to make such teaching and learning central to institutional identity.

What might a “Democracy College Morrill Class” look like dedicated to this task? We suggested the possibility of a cohort of colleges and universities that make an explicit commitment for sustained collaborative learning to deepen curricular and co-curricular engagement in civic work. It is now only the seed of an idea, but even without detail there was considerable interest. Several administrators said that their institutions would definitely like to be involved.

Find more information about ACP here.

ADP partners with the Earth Day Network’s MobilizeU to help make Every Day, Earth Day

The American Democracy Project is proud to announce a partnership with the Earth Day Network’s MobilizeU project. MobilizeU is a month-long effort to engage campus communities around four weeks of meaningful environmental efforts, from March 29-April 29, 2012. The Earth Day Network’s goals of scaling-up and sustaining longer-term environmental initiatives is in keeping with ADP’s efforts to make civic learning and engagement more central to our campus missions and work: rather than merely celebrating Earth Day, we can engage our campuses and communities in efforts to make our communities more healthy and sustainable on and before Earth Day, and every day.

I hope you’ll join us!

Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

By Carra Cheslin, Earth Day University Campaign Coordinator, Earth Day Network

College and university students have consistently been at the forefront of the environmental movement, rallying and taking a stand for our planet. 2012 will be a critical year for the environment; as our climate and natural environment are rapidly changing, a host of major national elections occur, and the prominent Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development takes the world stage. Thus the time is now for universities to again lead the way in creating environmental change.

As part of Earth Day Network’s global effort to Mobilize The Earth™, Earth Day University is activating college students to join the MobilizeU movement and enable their campus environmental initiatives to have a greater impact than ever before.

MobilizeU is an international competition between colleges and universities that calls upon students to mobilize their campus communities around four weeks of environmental activism surrounding Earth Day 2012 (March 29 – April 29). Over the month-long competition, students will organize activities such as campus clean-ups, new voter registration drives and Earth Day events, as well as amplify environmental initiatives they are already working on at their schools.

Each of these activities will be broken down into a calculable number of “acts of green” – actions that either educate someone about the environment or reduce an individual’s carbon footprint. During each week of the competition, School Coordinators from each participating university will report the number of acts of green they generated and post a creative photo or video documenting their efforts to the MobilizeU Facebook hub. A central objective of MobilizeU is to build an international movement of student environmental activists. Thus, student Regional Coordinators will be working to initiate an exchange of ideas as well as a sense of community between students across the world.

Every act of green generated during MobilizeU will contribute to Earth Day Network’s global A Billion Acts of Green® initiative which will be presented to world leaders at the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development this June. Thus, MobilizeU provides a platform for college students to amplify their environmental initiatives on an international level have a significant influence on global environmental change.

Students: Join the movement and Mobilize your U today as a Regional Coordinator or a School Coordinator.

You can view the MobilizeU YouTube video here.

You can download the MobilizeU Toolkit MobilizeU Tooklit.

Contact MobilizeU@earthday.org for more information.

Public Engagement Grants: NIFI Announces Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund Grants Program

By Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

The National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), an ADP partner organization, announced today a new grants program. The Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund Grants are intended to assist individuals in developing a better understanding of public engagement and/or to plan and launch deliberative forums in their communities. Grants are for use in 2012 and are anticipated to be between $500 and $1,000.

Taylor L. Willingham was a pioneer in the public engagement field and in National Issues Forums (NIF) work and served as a National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) director. She died on Monday, September 5, 2011 at her home in Salado, Texas, after a year-long battle with kidney cancer. NIFI’s new grants program honors Taylor and her legacy and will help others continue the important work of strengthening our democracy.

I encourage ADP faculty, staff, students, and community partners to apply for grants to aid you in your tireless efforts to educate yourselves and others about public issues and to foster deliberative dialogue on your campuses and in your communities. Details about the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund Grants Program are below.

 

Taylor L. Willingham (1957-2011)

Details:

Applications are currently being accepted for a grant from the National Issues Forums Institute to enable an individual to develop an understanding of deliberative democracy and to launch one or more deliberative forums in their communities or organizations.  Grants are expected to be in the range of $500-1,000.

The application should consist of: (1) a resume describing your experience and education; (2) a cover letter that explains why you are interested in becoming involved in the deliberative democracy movement and what specific course of action you propose to become familiar with this work and how and where you would implement forums; and (3) a budget indicating how the grant would be spent.

Applications are welcomed from any U.S. Resident, with special consideration given to residents of Texas. The application should be received on or before December 1, 2011 and e-mailed to bmuse@nifi.org or mailed to:
National Issues Forums Institute
100 Commons Road
Dayton, Ohio 45459

Grants will be made by February 1, 2012 and will be for use during 2012.  A report on activities will be required on or before November 30, 2012.

Click here for more information about Taylor L. Willingham and her work.

Donations to the fund are welcome and can be made securely online.  All donated money will go toward grant awards.