What We’re Reading: Two New Kettering Foundation Publications

Be sure to read these two new free publications from our friends at the Kettering Foundation. All three of the authors have attended previous ADP national meetings; Snyder-Hall collected some of her data at the 2014 conference and Coles and Scarnati led ADP’s Civic Agency Initiative work at Northern Arizona University. We’re excited to share these materials with you!

Civic Aspirations: Why Some Higher Education Faculty Are Reconnecting Their Professional and Public Lives (2015)
By Claire Snyder-Hall, Kettering Foundation (31 pages)

In higher education today, most institutions reward faculty for such things as research productivity, course enrollment, and academic completion. There is little incentive for them to focus on educating students in their civic development. In spite of this, civic engagement programs are popping up across higher education, and faculty have played a critical role in initiating these programs on their campuses. Building on research by Harry Boyte and KerryAnn O’Meara. The Kettering Foundation seeks to make visible the motivations of these faculty. In this study for Kettering, based on faculty interviews, Claire Snyder-Hall explains this movement using Hannah Arendt’s concept of “public happiness,” a sense of fulfillment from engaging with others. Beyond higher education, this study has relevance across fields to practitioners struggling to integrate their civic aspirations into their professional work.

Download this free publication here (pdf).

Dynamics of Faculty Engagement in the Movement for Democracy’s Education at Northern Arizona University: Backgrounds, Practices, and Future Horizons (2015)
By Romand Coles and Blase Scarnati, Kettering Foundation (46 pages)

As scholarship has become increasingly narrow and disconnected from public life, Kettering research has documented an intense sense of malaise in higher education, what Harry Boyte has called a loss of civic agency. Surprisingly, however, faculty at a few campuses have begun to self-organize to integrate civic work into their teaching and research. This study, by Blase Scarnati and Romand Coles, documents such efforts at Northern Arizona University. Rather than making civic engagement a specific project of one or two faculty, what makes this campus special is that civic engagement has taken hold across the university. Building on research by KerryAnn O’Meara, this working paper shows that civic engagement is not only fulfilling to faculty at an individual level but is starting to impact the civic culture of their institutions.

Download this free publication here (pdf).