For Immediate Release

Contact:
Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
Humphreys@aacu.org
202.884.7422

AAC&U and The Democracy Commitment Invite Community Colleges to Participate in New NEH Project on Civic and Democratic Learning

$360,000 Grant to the Association of American Colleges and Universities and The Democracy Commitment Will Support Faculty and Curriculum Development and Will Result in New Humanities Courses That Teach Skills and Knowledge Essential for Responsible Citizenship in a Diverse and Globally Connected World

Washington, DC – January 5, 2012–The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and The Democracy Commitment: An American Community College Initiative (TDC) announced today the receipt of a $359,995 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the formation of a new community college network focused on civic learning and democratic capacity-building.  The funding will support a three-year curriculum and faculty development project called Bridging Cultures to Form a Nation: Difference, Community, and Democratic Thinking.

Twelve competitively selected community colleges will work to

• infuse questions about difference, community, and democratic thinking into transfer courses in the humanities;
• promote greater adoption of proven high-impact practices that advance important civic learning outcomes;
• create a series of humanities-enriched professional development opportunities for community college faculty, especially adjunct faculty; and
• expand the project’s impact through collaboration with additional community colleges and partnerships with state humanities councils.

“Diversity has always characterized our nation’s democracy and marked differential access to opportunities,” said AAC&U’s senior vice president and project director Caryn McTighe Musil.  “In the face of ever increasing diversity, intensified globalization, and hardening political polarization,” Musil explained, “it is more urgent than ever that higher education—and the humanities in particular—offer vehicles through which students expand their knowledge of each other’s cultures and develop skills to work across differences toward shared goals.  As a microcosm of our nation’s diversity, community colleges are the ideal public space to infuse such learning.”

This project builds on AAC&U’s long-standing work on issues of diversity, democracy, and civic learning outcomes and is the first step in fulfilling AAC&U’s commitment to advancing the goals articulated in the forthcoming report A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future.  This report from the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement was developed under the leadership of the Global Perspective Institute and AAC&U.  It responds to widespread concern about the nation’s anemic civic health and calls for investing in higher education’s capacity to significantly replenish our nation’s social, intellectual, and civic capital.

Pushing back against a prevailing national dialogue that limits the mission of higher education exclusively to narrow workforce training, the report calls on all of higher education and many partners in education, government, and public life to advance a twenty-first-century vision of liberal education for all students—a vision with civic learning and democratic engagement as an expected part of every student’s college education.  Among other things, this report—which is scheduled for release in mid-January at a White House forum—recommends that the nation, “reclaim and reinvest in the fundamental civic and democratic mission of schools and of all sectors within higher education” and that higher education “make civic literacy a core expectation for all students.”  Bridging Cultures to Form a Nation will advance these goals specifically for students at the nation’s community colleges, where nearly half of all higher education students study.

“There are community colleges across the country committed to the notion that our students deserve an education for and about democracy,” said Brian Murphy, president of De Anza College, one of the founders of The Democracy Commitment, and a member of the National Task Force that produced A Crucible Moment.  “All of our students should graduate with the skills to be active and engaged participants in the democratic process, and capable of providing leadership in our communities.  The Democracy Commitment is ideally suited to provide leadership for this project.  We are a network specifically organized to assert the civic mission of community colleges as a core element of our historic identity.”

TDC is a new and rapidly-growing national consortium of community colleges committed to engaging all of their students in robust forms of civic learning and democratic practice.  TDC has three goals for its national network: faculty and staff development in civic learning and democratic practice; the expansion of democracy-enhancing curricula; and the creation of a national clearinghouse of program and curricular designs.  Within the NEH project and through its larger network, TDC will champion the critical role of the humanities in helping students think through and navigate the complexities of local and global multicultural divides within democratic engagement work on campus and in the community.

The Bridging Cultures project will begin in February 2012 with a call for proposals to community colleges across the country, leading to the selection of twelve teams composed of humanities faculty and administrators from a diverse set of these institutions.  The project will also include an intensive summer faculty development institute in August 2012 and will culminate in a symposium planned for October 2014.  Bridging Cultures’ impact will also be strengthened by a partnership with the New York Times Company education group, which is partnering with TDC in their national initiative.  Through this partnership, project participants will use the Epsilen online learning platform to develop forums and to share and co-create resources and course materials.

Issues of civic learning and democratic engagement will also be central to AAC&U’s upcoming annual meeting, January 25-27, 2012, on “Reclaiming a Democratic Vision for College Learning, Global Engagement, and Success” and the pre-meeting symposium on “Reversing a Civic Recession.”

The Call for Proposals for the project will be available in early February.  For additional information about the initiative, visit: http://www.aacu.org/bridgingcultures.  

For information about AAC&U’s Symposium and Annual Meeting, see http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annualmeeting/index.cfm. 

For information about AAC&U’s work in Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, see http://www.aacu.org/civic_learning/index.cfm.

For more information about The Democracy Commitment’s mission, activities and members, visit http://thedemocracycommitment.org.

About AAC&U

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,250 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs, and publications can be found at www.aacu.org.

About The Democracy Commitment

The Democracy Commitment is a national initiative that provides a platform for the development and expansion of programs and projects aiming at engaging community college students in civic learning and democratic practice. The goal of the partnership is for every graduate of an American community college to have had an education in democracy, whether they aim to transfer to university, achieve an associate degree, or obtain a certificate.

For information and to become a member of The Democracy Commitment, visit: http://thedemocracycommitment.org.