Civic Prompts in the Major: Disciplinary Knowledge, Democratic Culture, and the Public Good

Most students have substantial exposure to civic knowledge, values, skills, and hands-on learning through general education, but the road to responsible democratic engagement too often disappears in a student’s specialized field of study. Three campus practitioners leading efforts to build solid civic learning pathways for departmental majors described what worked best to engage colleagues about disciplinary-driven questions of social responsibility. They also shared how they created more intentional designs focused on the public good in courses scaffolded across requirements for their majors.

Designed primarily for faculty, departmental chairs, and academic administrators, this webinar was part of AAC&U’s larger project on incorporating civic learning in the significant—Civic Prompts.

Participants gathered:

• A variety of practical approaches for engaging departmental colleagues in how to make civic learning and social responsibility more visible and integrated across courses in the major;
• Strategies for identifying the most salient public purposes in their fields and civic issues most urgent to explore;
• Discipline-specific approaches to civic inquiry that yield language, modes of analysis, and pedagogies appropriate to their areas of specialization; and
• Ways to tap internal institutional priorities and external bodies that can serve as catalysts for reassessments, resources, and actions.