Resources for Diversity and Civic Engagement

CENTERS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement

Designed as a catalyst and incubator for new ideas, research, and collaborations, the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement seeks to deepen understandings of the relationship of liberal education to service and civic responsibilities, linking this understanding to actions that address complex, urgent social problems. Founded in 2003, the center is the result of a partnership between the Association of American Colleges and Universities and Campus Compact.

For more information, please visit www.aacu.org/civic_engagement.

Campus Compact

Campus Compact advances the public purposes of colleges and universities by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility. Their work encompasses a broad range of activities designed to increase the effectiveness of those working to make higher education institutions vital agents of civic renewal. Campus Compact’s Indicators of Engagement Project, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, documents and disseminates best practices of civic and community engagement on different types of campuses.

For more information about this project, see www.compact.org/civic.
F or more information on Campus Compact, please visit www.campuscompact.org.

National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good

The National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good was set up to significantly increase awareness, understanding, commitment, and action relative to the public service role of higher education in the United States. The National Forum collaborates with a number of organizations, institutions, researchers, and policy makers, each of whom contributes in different ways to the movement to make higher education a leading force in American society. It aims to sponsor activities that are in line with three broad strategies: Leadership Dialogues, Connecting Research and Practice, and Public Policy and Public Stewardship.

For more information, please visit www.thenationalforum.org.

Tolerance.org

A Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Tolerance.org serves as an online tool for people interested in dismantling bigotry and creating, in hate’s stead, communities that value diversity. Through its online well of resources and ideas, its expanding collection of print materials, its burgeoning outreach efforts, and its downloadable public service announcements, Tolerance.org promotes and supports anti-bias activism in every venue of life.

For more information, visit www.tolerance.org.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
(CIRCLE)

CIRCLE promotes research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Although CIRCLE conducts and funds research, not practice, the projects they support have practical implications for those who work to increase young people’s engagement in politics and civic life. CIRCLE is based in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

For more information visit www.civicyouth.org.

Raise Your Voice: Student Action for Change

An initiative from Campus Compact, this site is dedicated to connecting, challenging, and supporting college and university students in community work, activism, leadership, and civic growth. Here you will find practical information, ideas, and resources, as well as a forum for sharing ideas.

For more information, please visit www.actionforchange.org.

Innovations in Civic Participation

Founded in 2001, ICP is a nonprofit social change organization that provides expertise, ideas, information, research, and advocacy support in the United States and around the world to develop and strengthen policies and programs that promote civic engagement through service. ICP works with government representatives, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and educational institutions to support and strengthen service policy worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.icicp.org.

PUBLICATIONS

Engaging the Whole of Service-Learning, Diversity, and Learning Communities Edited by Joseph A. Galura, Penny A. Pasque, David Schoem, and Jeffrey Howard (OCSL Press, 2004).

Service learning, diversity, and learning communities, among today’s most prominent higher education innovations, are integrated at the University of Michigan’s Michigan Community Scholars Program. Voices included in the book are those of national leaders and faculty, students, staff, and community partners of this living-learning program.

Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility By Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich, Elizabeth Beaumont, and Jason Stephens (Jossey-Bass, 2003).

Educating Citizens reports on how some American colleges and universities are preparing thoughtful, committed, and socially responsible graduates. Many institutions assert these ambitions, but too few act on them. The authors demonstrate the fundamental importance of moral and civic education, describe how the historical and contemporary landscapes of higher education have shaped it, and explain the educational and developmental goals and processes involved in educating citizens. They examine the challenges colleges and universities face when they dedicate themselves to this vital task and present concrete ways to overcome those challenges.

Liberal Education, Volume 91, Number 1

The winter issue of Liberal Education, titled “The Future of Diversity,” explores diversity and the array of issues and approaches that it refers to within the academy. What exactly is the role of diversity in fulfilling the academy’s educational and civic mission? Where is the diversity agenda heading? With these questions in mind, and with an eye to the future, the issue examines the present state of diversity in higher education.

For more information, visit www.aacu.org/liberaleducation.

Public Work and the Academy: An Academic Administrator’s Guide to Civic Engagement and Service-Learning Edited by Mark Langseth and William M. Plater (Anker Publishing, 2004).

Public Work and the Academy provides academic leaders with a resource to increase their fluency with and ability to lead service-learning and civic engagement efforts on their campuses, with their peers, and throughout higher education. It is written specifically for academic leaders—chief academic officers, provosts, deans, and division and department chairs—who have significant responsibility for their campus’s academic programs.