NPR recently released an interview by Steve Drummond with authors Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy on their new book: The Political Classrom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education. The book discusses the delicate topic of how much politics should be allowed in the classroom.
The full article is available here: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/16/459673575/politics-in-the-classroom-how-much-is-too-much?ft=nprml&f=1001
Civic Aspirations: Why Some Higher Education Faculty are Reconnecting Their Professional and Public Lives was released this year. The piece discusses the motivations behind faculty who focus on civic initiatives even though it may not offer any bearing to their status at their university.
Here is the Abstract:
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.
The full work can be read as a free download on the Kettering Foundation website here: https://www.kettering.org/catalog/product/civic-aspirations
New annual research on Volunteering and Civic Life in America was released by the National Conference on Citizenship and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The report has several key findings. Most noteworthy, Americans aged 35-44 have the highest volunteering rate at 31.3%. Older generations have the highest average number of volunteer hours at about 92 hours. Other elements of this demographic population were evaluated including the nature in which they enjoy dinner (68.5% have dinner with family or friends frequently) and other involvement beyond volunteering (36.3% are involved in civic, recreational or religious organizations).
With a new election coming up just next year, understanding American's civic involvement is exceedingly important. The full report can be reviewed here: https://www.nationalservice.gov/vcla
Early registration for Science Education for New Civic Engagement (SENCER)’s Summer Institute this summer is Nov 4 – March 11. The Summer Institute tracks this year will include: Working and Teaching with Data and Public Engagement with Science. Link here for more information.
The Community-Campus Partnerships for Health recently announced their Fall Regional Community Partner Forums, to be held in Denver, Minneapolis, and Boston. For more information on the forum, please visit here.
A community-partner forum is an interesting model, and one that might be usefully replicated here in the DC-region, particularly given the number of institutions of higher education here.
The goal of each forum is to “support the ability of community-based organizations and community leaders to play significant roles as partners in research, ultimately ensuring that the results of research are used to eliminate health disparities and achieve health equity in their communities.” They work by fostering regional networks, connecting with existing regional efforts, and helping community members to negotiate community-academic research partnerships.
A number of collaborative councils exist in the District of Columbia to work on neighborhood-based prevention services. Such groups work together to improve the lives of community members in the DC area. The group each have a different set of goals as per the talents of the combined efforts of the involved community partners and the needs of the communities they serve.
Examples of work include family services to maintain healthy and strong families, develop the unemployed and underemployed to build a robust economy, and prevent youth violence. Partners differ based on the neighborhood and include local and national organizations alike. Prominent partners include the American Red Cross, Capital Area Food Bank, and the Sasha Bruce Youthwork.
These councils provide a great basis for community-based research and great connection to partners conducting positive initiatives in their local neighborhood. Check out the work these councils do as well as connect with them on future projects by communicating through their website: http://dccollaboratives.org/the-collaboratives/
The Truman Scholars program is a $30,000 merit-based award for college juniors who intend to pursue a career in public service of some kind. The award provides assistance for graduate or professional study that will prepare the student for a government or public-service career. Students should begin their application process now.
Students must be nominated, and GW may nominate up to four students each year. Students must apply to GW to be selected for nomination by November 20, 2015. Please encourage your students to apply, and support them with recommendation letters.
For more information about the Truman Scholarship, visit the Truman website. For more information about the GW nomination process for this award, visit this website provided by the Center for Undergraduate Fellowships and Research.
The Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) has submitted the 2013-2014 report to Congress. The report highlights the potential of the National Science Foundation to,
“be the catalyst to help higher education take greater responsibility for a diverse STEM workforce, transforming STEM at all levels and educating STEM domestic talent that fully reflects and represents the US population.”
Below are the links to the cover letter from the CEOSE committee, the two-page summary of the report’s recommendations, and the full 2013-2014 CEOSE Report to Congress.
CEOSE Advisory Committee Colleague Letter
The Nashman Center Executive Director Amy Cohen shares this interesting discussion at the American Council on Education’s 97th Annual Meeting. The interview, held here in DC, was broadcast nationally via the NPR program, On Being, and both the written transcript and the recording are available here.
As Amy Cohen shared with us, the interview offers,”quite different perspectives, about higher education, the connections between the curriculum and the “real world,” civic engagement, neighborliness, civility, and living with the history and legacy of slavery and racism.”
We encourage you to have a listen and continue the conversations.
The general public is invited to “an afternoon conversation with Alicia Garza.” Tuesday, Oct 20th, 4:30pm, Grand Ballroom, Stamp Student Union, University of Maryland. Please link for more information.
Share widely with your colleagues, it is that time of year again. Applications are now available (link to a PDF here) for the Nashman Center’s mini-grant competition to support community engaged scholarship and teaching at GW.
The purpose of these awards is to promote the development and institutionalization of new community-engaged scholarship opportunities that are consistent with the University strategic plan.
Funds are available to support
Timeline
As a reminder, all posts to the e-newsletter for community engaged faculty remain on the Faculty Foci blog to review in your own time. Click the categories in the right-hand column to find the posts that interest you most. Enjoy and forward to your colleagues.
The Nashman Center is proud to announce that GW has received the “Engaged Campus Award” sponsored by the Maryland-DC Campus Compact. The award is in recognition for our institutional commitment to community-engagement.
“This is the region’s highest award for a community-engaged campus which is actively seeking to fulfill the public purposes of higher education.”
We thank President Knapp and the community of faculty at GW who are committed to connecting scholarship and community engagement.
The Nashman Center is proud to announce that GW has received the “Engaged Campus Award” sponsored by the Maryland-DC Campus Compact. The award is in recognition for our institutional commitment to community-engagement.
“This is the region’s highest award for a community-engaged campus which is actively seeking to fulfill the public purposes of higher education.”
We thank President Knapp and the community of faculty at GW who are committed to connecting scholarship and community engagement.
You must explore this incredibly valuable resource: an excellent online curriculum of ten learning units covering issues such as service-learning course planning, building course infrastructure, establishing community-campus partnerships, building cultural competence, and pursuing service-learning scholarship. The curriculum includes case studies, worksheets, research findings, and sample syllabi from over 60 different disciplines.
This resource was originally create by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health and recently redesigned by California Campus Compact and Campus Compact of the Mountain West. Click here: https://ccph.memberclicks.net/efi-units
Additional materials are available for those interested in using the curriculum to facilitate a collective faculty institute experience. If your department or other collective of engaged faculty are interested in exploring that option, please contact the Nashman Center – we would love to support you. Email: gwsl@gwu.edu
