Campus Spotlight: Georgia College’s Engaged Learning Quilt

By Gregg Gregg Kaufman, ADP Campus Coordinator and Instructor in Dept. of Government & Sociology, Georgia College

Georgia College, like many universities, offers a variety of engaged learning opportunities. The 2012 Engaged Learning Quilt project served to visually “stitch together” endeavors that reflect student and professors’ applied scholarship in community settings. The three, four-by-four foot fabric quilts hang in the new Center for Engaged Learning at Georgia College (GC) house adjacent to campus and the corresponding digital quilt provides a portal to a variety of engaged learning programs.

The Georgia College 2012 Engaged Learning Quilt was showcased at the ADP 2012 national meeting in San Antonio. The quilt panels are displayed in GC’s new Center for Engaged Learning.

The Engaged Scholars Quilt reflects Georgia College Academic Affairs’ civic engagement and community-based scholarship endeavors. The digital quilt replicates three fabric quilts that hang in the new center for Engaged Learning at Georgia College. Many people contributed to the quilt project including Autumn Day, Senior Art Major, Professor Michael Murphy, Art Deparment, Mark Misinco, GC Web Site Department and last, but not least, Terri Taylor, the incredibly gifted quilter who created the fabric quilts.

You can view the digital quilt here. Hover over the various quilt panels to learn more about the organization or initiative or click a patch to visit its website.

Screen capture of the digital version of the quilt.

The quilt not only represents particular GC American Democracy Project work but partnerships and alliances with academic affairs initiatives across the campus, including:

• Times Talk – a weekly current events discussion hour.
•  Public Achievement – a two-semester course promoting active citizenship where college students coach 100 4^th and 5^th grade public school students.
• Public Deliberation – a first-year student course that incorporates National Issues Forum materials and deliberative democracy methodology.
• The Public Voice Partnership – PVP works with community partners to apply deliberation to community issues in which students have an opportunity to participate. Shaping Our Future: How Should Higher Education Help Us Create the Society We Want? will be a featured forum throughout the year in campus/community forums.
• The Georgia College Annual Global Citizenship Symposium – a three-day symposium organized by the International Education Center and the GC ADP in conjunction with academic departments and student affairs. Literacy, Learning and Leading: Education for a 21^st Century World will feature Georgia College’s new president, Dr. Steve Dorman as well as Dr. John Saltmarsh, NERCHE and Dr. Timothy Eatman, Imagining America.
•  The Innovative Course-building Group – IC-bG is a cohort of faculty members dedicated to designing courses to address civic issues.
•  Georgia College Annual Student Research Conference – The conference now includes a “Citizen Scholar” category for showcasing public scholarship.

View an #ADP12 PowerPoint about the Georgia College quilt here.
Learn more about ADP at Georgia College here.