Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement

Overview

The Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement brings together the resources, mission, and vision of two national organizations, AAC&U and Campus Compact. This partnership enhances the powerful possibilities of campus work on civic engagement and illuminates how higher education's societal obligations can be integrated into the academy's core educational mission.

Although two-thirds of college seniors did community service or volunteered during college, service does not automatically translate into understanding systemic sources of inequities. New research demonstrates that service alone does not provide clear pathways to informed action. To counter that finding, the Center seeks to underscore that knowledge and action can make a difference in the world.

A robust democracy and the public welfare absolutely depend on an engaged and informed citizenry. To articulate that purpose for the period 2003-2005, the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement focused its grants and activities around a common theme: Journey Towards Democracy: Power, Voice, and the Public Good.

Objectives

Guided by the theme, Journey Towards Democracy: Power, Voice, and the Public Good, the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement will focused its attention on:

linking campuses to communities to advance reciprocal understanding, productive partnerships, and collective civic action;
providing and supporting leadership to cultivate a new generation of faculty and graduates who are committed to democracy, diversity, and social responsibility;
providing training and sharing knowledge to expand and deepen commitment to civic engagement in disciplines and departments, and develop interdisciplinary inquiry, active learning, and research,
creating venues for dialogue to share best practices and learn across differences;
advocating for liberal education and civic engagement to build public support for education for a world lived in common;
establishing standards for assessment to measure the impact on students and on community partners of civic engagement activities;
connecting scholarship to campus practices to improve the outcomes of civic engagement initiatives and enhance connections between curricular and co-curricular experiences.

Advisory Council

The inaugural meeting of the national Advisory Council for the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement convened on March 9, 2003. The Council helped shape the objectives of the Center for the short and long term.

Members of the Advisory Council

Richard M. Battistoni, Professor of Political Science, Providence College
Mary Frances Berry, Chairperson for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
José Zapata Calderón, Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College
Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President, Syracuse University
V.P. Franklin, Professor of History and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Daphne Kwok, Executive Director, Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies
Elizabeth Minnich, Core Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Union Institute and University
Paul Nelson, Deputy Executive Director, American Psychological Association
David W. Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College
Vincent Pan, Executive Director, Heads Up- A University Neighborhood Initiative
Sally Pingree, Trustee, Charles Engelhard Foundation
Peggy Rotundo, Maine State Senator
David Scobey, Director, Arts of Citizenship Program, University of Michigan
Preston H. Smith II, Associate Professor of Politics, Mt. Holyoke College
Jim Trostle, Director of Urban Initiatives, Trinity College