Free 2/28 Webinar–Walking our Talk: Converting Civic-Focused Mission Statements to Student Learning

Walking our Talk: Converting Civic-Focused Mission Statements to Student Learning 

Register Now!

Many higher education institutions include complex civic concepts as part of their missions, but how do we know if we are translating these lofty goals into student learning? Assessment is often viewed as a secondary or even bureaucratic institutional practice, but done well it supports learning improvement processes that prioritize student development, organize institutional efforts, and direct change. This session will discuss recent ETS research initiatives focused on national trends in the assessment of civic competency and engagement as well as an institutional perspective on assessing and addressing these skills in students.

Join AASCU’s American Democracy Project and The Democracy Commitment on Wednesday, February 28, 2018 from 1 p.m. -2 p.m. for a free, live, hour-long webinar: Walking our Talk: Converting Civic-Focused Mission Statements to Student Learning. Register now.

Welcoming Remarks:
Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, American Democracy Project National Manager

Presenters:
Ross Markle, Senior Assessment Strategist for Higher Education, ETS
Kara Owens, Special Assistant to the President for Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment, Salisbury University (Md.)

The webinar will be held Wednesday, February 28, 2018 from 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. Eastern.

If you are interested in participating on the webinar, you may register online by February 28. The webinar link and dial-in instructions will be provided via email after you submit your online registration. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and available afterwards on our websites.

Please share this webinar information with others on your campus that may benefit from participation.

Free Civic Engagement Webinar on Wed. 10/11 at 2 p.m. EST

Our partners and colleagues at ETS, IUPUI, and James Madison University are hosting a free webinar in conjunction with The Chronicle of Higher Education this Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 2 p.m. EST:

Register today>> http://www.workcast.com/register?cpak=4738495060796906

A House of Civic Engagement, A Foundation for Civic Learning
Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 2 p.m. EST
Producing informed and civically engaged citizens is a fundamental objective for many colleges and universities, but the way civic engagement is put into practice varies greatly from one institution to another. While most strive to increase the civic-mindedness of their students, there isn’t necessarily a clear picture of exactly what civic learning looks like or how outcomes can be assessed.

You’ll learn about:

• Possible learning outcomes in civic engagement, and the importance of student learning among them
• Articulating student learning outcomes amid an institutional drive for civic engagement
• Transitioning research into practice in the assessment of student learning

Register today>> http://www.workcast.com/register?cpak=4738495060796906

 

Announcing the 2017 ADP Civic Fellows

ADP is excited to announce our inaugural cohort of ADP Civic Fellows. These six ADP Civic Fellows will explore assessment, research and programmatic efforts that enact and support ADP’s mission and national work during a one-year renewable term. ADP invited applicants for this opportunity designed to give professionals/scholars in our network a national platform to develop their research and programmatic ideas that correlate with on-going ADP initiatives on a national scale​.

Each of the six ADP Civic Fellows will receive support from the ADP national office in the form of programmatic opportunities (e.g., webinars, conference presentations), publication opportunities (e.g., blog posts, monographs, reports and journal articles), leadership opportunities (e.g., serving on steering committee and/or appropriate initiative and/or network teams) and free registration to an appropriate AASCU event /conference. ADP Civic Fellows will be part of a cohort experience and will work closely with our national manager and steering committee to design and advance ADP national initiatives.

Please join us in welcoming Mike, David, Steve, Morgan, Molly and Leah!

2017 ADP Civic Fellows

Mike Caulfield

Mike Caulfield is the director of blended and networked learning at Washington State University Vancouver. Caulfield was actively involved in ADP’s eCitizenship Initiative in 2009 and is the leader of the more recent Digital Polarization Initiative, otherwise known as DigiPo. Caulfield’s dedication to advancing online community learning and ensuring informed civic engagement brings life to DigiPo’s goals of building student web literacy and involving students in a cross-institutional project to fact-check, annotate, and provide context to news stories.

The Digital Polarization Initiative, Caulfield’s work as a Civic Fellow in partnership with ADP, hopes to eliminate the spread and normalization of “fake news,” the pervasiveness of online “callout culture,” state-sponsored hacking campaigns that breed distrust, and the impact of algorithmic behavior that prevents users from viewing online content from more than one perspective. It is Caulfield and ADP’s hope that students will learn not only to be more discerning of the information they trust but also how to help fix the problems in our current information environment

David Hoffman

David Hoffman, the Assistant Director of Student Life for Civic Agency at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), is an ADP Civic Fellow with a plan to affect change. A dedicated, long-time member of UMBC’s community, Hoffman understands theory, service, civic engagement and leadership.

Hoffman has already been heavily involved in ADP’s work in recent years, first as a member of the steering committee and later as a member of several Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) planning committees. Hoffman’s “Theory of Change” was an integral part of the 2017 CLDE meeting, prompting critical conversations about our democracy. Hoffman hopes to expand and improve his Theory of Change in partnership with ADP and then explore its impact at the 2018 CLDE meeting.

Stephen Hunt

Stephen Hunt, professor and Executive Director of the School of Communication at Illinois State University in Normal, IL is ADP Civic Fellow for Political Engagement. Hunt specializes in instructional communication, debate and communication pedagogy. His research reflects his interest in the pedagogy of civic and political engagement, critical thinking and analysis and the assessment of communication skills. Hunt’s dedication to training students and educating them about communication and speech will lend to his work with ADP and his expertise will help improve ADP’s programming.

In partnership with ADP, Hunt plans to lead a new research project on nonpartisan political learning and engagement and spearhead the ADP political engagement learning network. Hunt will bring his wealth of research experience and deep prowess in communication pedagogy to ADP to inspire change and growth in the network.

Morgan Lewing

Morgan Lewing is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership at Texas A&M-Central Texas and an ADP Civic Fellow for faculty development.  His research primarily focuses on the relationship between faculty member’s commitment to service-learning and the support provided by their institutions.  A recent area of interest centers on millennial faculty members committed to community engagement, and Lewing hopes to leverage his findings towards the development of intentionally designed ADP programs providing support to early-career faculty members.

Specifically, in partnership with the ADP, Lewing will lead a new research project aimed at identifying motivations, perceptions, and needed areas of professional development for early-career faculty members that engage, or may be interested in, community engagement.  These findings will then be utilized to ground the design of an ADP Early-Career Faculty Institute that attempts to build understanding and capacity in future community engagement leaders.

Molly Kerby

Molly Kerby is an associate professor in the Department of Diversity & Community Studies and Director of Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) at Western Kentucky University (WKU). Her current research and teaching focuses on issues pertaining to assessment in higher education, organizational sustainability/resilience, democratic engagement, and community-based research. She has been an active member of the American Democracy Project since 2004.

Kerby will serve as a Civic Fellow for assessment and will chair ADP’s new civic assessment learning network, providing a stimulus for ADP to re-envision assessment practices. The first, and foremost, part of the plan creates a collaborative group of highly experienced assessment researchers and academic faculty who are involved in creating civic and democratic engagement projects at ADP schools. The goal is to identify current best practices in assessment, evaluation, and data collection methods that address immediate and future demands. In the second phase of this project, the collaborative team will begin creating an assessment plan to empirically measure the impact of ADP on member institutions. Although the design of this effort will grow organically through collaboration, the proposed the blueprint will be grounded in the theoretical notions of risk and resilience.

Leah Murray

Leah Murray, is both a professor of Political Science and Philosophy and the Democratic Engagement Coordinator in the Center for Community Engaged Learning at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Murray dedicated her own education to studying political science and is now committed to educating her students about government and politics. Murray’s courses are particularly relevant in this political climate and undoubtedly guide and her inform students on their path to become civically engaged citizens. Murray’s devotion to community service and her desire to advance the effectiveness of the American Democracy Project make her Civil Fellowship all the more timely and meaningful.

As a Civic Fellow, Murray intends to improve how information about ADP’s work is spread. Murray feels that not all members of ADP can attend the yearly Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Conference and therefore do not have adequate access to all the important information spread at these meetings. Murray intends to create a protocol to gather information from these conferences and distribute it using various means through various networks so that the information becomes more accessible. Smooth communication is an important part of what makes any organization function and with Murray’s help, expertise and dedication ADP hopes to improve these connections.

#CLDE17: Three Half-Day Pre-conference Workshops the Morning of June 7, 2017

 

During the 2017 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) Meeting, there are a variety of pre-conference sessions geared toward honing in on our civic skills. On Wednesday, June 7th, there are three morning pre-cons exploring assessment, engaged scholarship, and dialogue and deliberation training.

Check out the session descriptions below and be sure to register by May 1st for our early-bird rates.

Half-day Morning Pre-conference Workshops
Price: $65/person
Wednesday, June 7 | 9:00 a.m. – Noon

• Planning for Institution-Wide Data Collection on Civic and Community Engagement
  Most campuses are eager to answer the question “How are the students, faculty, and staff on campus working to address civic issues and public problems?” We will explore this question in this workshop by reviewing a range of strategies to assess community-engaged activities (i.e., curricular, co-curricular, or project-based activities that are done in partnership with the community). In addition to these many strategies, institutions also often approach assessment with a variety of lenses including assessment and evaluation of community outcomes, student outcomes, partnership assessment and faculty/staff engagement among others. In practice, campuses confront an array of challenges to align these approaches into a comprehensive data collection framework and infrastructure. This session will give participants tools, strategies, and information to design, initiate and/or enhance systematic mechanisms for monitoring and auditing community-engaged activities across your institution.
  Organizers: H. Anne Weiss, Director of Assessment, Indiana Campus Compact and Assessment Specialist in Community Engagement, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; and Ross Markle, Senior Research & Assessment Director, Global Higher Education Division, ETS

 

• Measures That Matter: Regarding Engaged Scholarship In Tenure and Promotion
  Many higher education institutions have faculty involved in community engaged scholarship but lack strategies for assessing the quality of this work for promotion and tenure or contract renewal. Engaged scholars do not know how to make the case that their work is scholarship and personnel committees do not know how to evaluate non-traditional, engaged scholarship. A knowledge gap exists related to criteria that might be held up against engaged scholarship projects to assess quality and impact. The purpose of this pre-conference workshop is to share specific reforms that can be put in place to define, assess, document, and reward community engaged scholarship. The presenter will share promotion and tenure language that has already been put in place at other institutions and then suggest four criteria that could be used to assess engaged scholarship portfolios.
  Organizer: KerryAnn O’Meara, Professor of Higher Education, Director of UMD ADVANCE, University of Maryland, College Park

• Dialogue and Democratic Deliberation: Moderator Training
  
  In preparation for the Friday plenary session, Democratic Deliberation on Safety and Justice, we invite conference participants to this pre-conference institute for an introduction to democratic deliberation and moderator skills. During this session, participants examine democratic dialogue and deliberation while learning the skills and roles of active and engaged moderation.

  Organizers: Kara Lindaman, Professor of Political Science, Winona State University (Minn.); John Dedrick, Vice-President, Kettering Foundation; William Muse, President Emeritus, National Issues Forum Institute; and John J. Theis, Executive Director, Center for Civic Engagement, Lone Star College (Texas)

In order to promote forums on this issue for the Kettering Foundation’s annual report to policymakers in Washington DC,  National Issues Forum Institute (NIFI) is making the PDF of this issue guide FREE to download for anyone convening forums from January 1, 2017 – May 9, 2017. If you hold a forum using the free materials, please submit a moderator report and have the forum participants complete the post-forum questionnaire to ensure the insights from your community are captured in the report. More information about this opportunity can be found on the National Issue Forums website.

Be sure to register by May 1st for our best rates and book your hotel room by May 16 at our special group rate!

Civic Assessment Webinar Recording & Materials

We had a record number of participants for our joint American Democracy Project and The Democracy Commitment Civic Competency & Engagement: Building an Impactful Assessment Process webinar, which was supported by ETS.

ETS is continually engaging in the research and practice of higher education student learning outcomes assessment, and has recently built assessment frameworks in the areas of Civic Competency and Engagement as well as Intercultural Competency and Diversity. To stay informed on the development of these unique assessment modules, and take advantage of early adopter offers, visit the ETS mailing list sign-up page and select “College Program Assessments (Student Learning Outcomes and Student Success).” You may also learn more about ETS’s work with institutions to support effective student learning outcomes processes by visiting their website: www.ets.org/highered.

SLIDES & RECORDING
You can access a pdf version of the webinar slides. The full recording can be viewed here (1 hour and 3 minutes).

REPORTS
In addition, here are two ETS publications that were mentioned during the webinar that may be useful as you reflect on how we assess civic competency and engagement.

• Assessing Civic Competency and Engagement in Higher Education: Research Background, Frameworks, and Directions for Next Generation Assessment – 2015 ETS Research Report
• Assessing Intercultural Competence in Higher Education: Existing Research and Future Directions – 2016 ETS Research Report

ASSESSMENT PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS AT CLDE 2017
Wednesday, June 7^th from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Civic Engagement Assessment Pre-Conference Workshops with Networking Lunch
Organizers: H. Anne Weiss, Director of Assessment, Indiana Campus Compact and Assessment Specialist in Community Engagement, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; and Ross Markle, Senior Research & Assessment Director, Global Higher Education Division, ETS

Attend both half-day assessment pre-conference workshops for a reduced price and participate in our assessment networking lunch from Noon – 1 p.m. Alternatively, you can register for either the morning or afternoon session.

• 9 a.m. – Noon | Planning for Institution-Wide Data Collection on Civic and Community Engagement
• 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. | Measuring Civic Outcomes During College (see below)

You’ll find more information about the 2017 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement conference (CLDE17) here. Register by May 1 for our best rates.

Learn about upcoming ADP events.