"An educated citizenry is the essential instrument for promoting
responsible social action and community well-being." - Eugene M. Lang
National Office News
Project Pericles Announces New Round of the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™
Project Pericles is pleased to announce the third round of the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™. With the support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, we are now able to offer this signature program on an ongoing basis.
This faculty leadership and course development program is dedicated to incorporating civil dialogue, civic engagement, and social responsibility across the undergraduate curriculum.
Our nation's future depends on ensuring that our student leaders have the dispositions, habits, and skills to apply academic knowledge to real-world problems in ways that are meaningful, thoughtful, and that they can sustain over their lifetimes
The Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) create new courses that incorporate civic engagement; promote civil dialogue locally through lectures, town hall meetings, and public events; and advance public scholarship nationally and internationally through publications and conference presentations. Each PFL is paired with a colleague from another campus throughout their tenure.
Demonstrating that civic engagement and community-based work can be incorporated into any discipline, our second cohort (2017-2018) included a diverse group of professors from a wide range of disciplines including Archaeology and Classical Studies, Business Law, Computer Science, Dance, English, Environmental Studies, History, Mathematics and Statistics, Psychology, Sociology, Theatre, and Urban Studies.
Praise for the 2017-2018 PFL Program:
This program has changed the way that I think about citizenship, civic engagement, and community through first-hand experiences and thought-provoking course material. I have no doubt that this program has better prepared me for my future in law and the rigorous academic challenges that face me moving forward.- Student,
"Inventing the Citizen: The History of Political Action and its Limits" taught by Ulrike Krotscheck, Member of the Faculty in Archaeology and Classical Studies (Course Lead) and Bradley Proctor, Member of the Faculty in History, The Evergreen State College
...YES, [Dr. Phong Le, PFL 2017-2018] and this course have been spectacular. I can't say enough good things about this."
- José Antonio Bowen, President, Goucher College
Through courses and other campus and community-based activities, Periclean Faculty Leaders reach thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members. By developing and linking activities in the classroom, campus, and community, the PFL program promotes and reinforces social responsibility and participatory citizenship as essential elements of the educational experience. PFLs' Civic Engagement Course Syllabi are available online.
We look forward to working with our future PFLs on this exciting and important program which aligns so clearly with the mission of Project Pericles and all our Periclean Colleges and Universities.
Each Periclean institution is invited to nominate one or two eligible faculty members from different disciplines to be Periclean Faculty Leaders. Faculty in disciplines in which civic engagement is not traditionally a focus should be encouraged to apply. Applications are due by Monday, December 17, 2018. Please see your Project Pericles Program Director for detail. Award announcements will be made in March 2019 for courses to be taught in Fall 2019.
The 2018-2019 PFL Program is made possible through the generous support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation. Previous support was provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and The Teagle Foundation. (See Periclean in the News for an Article by Two PFLs).
Student Choices-Student Voices (SCSV) Influencing Young Leaders
Comprised of student-led task forces on our member campuses, SCSV efforts encourage civic participation by hosting an array of events and activities about national issues for students and community members. Pericleans have successfully registered thousands of voters and distributed important information about candidates and issues.
Ryan Perez
('20) of Macalester College and a leader of its SCSV Task Force recently wrote to Project Pericles to tell us about the impact Periclean programs have had on him.
I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to Project Pericles. The D4D Letters to an Elected Official Competition, the D4D National Conference, the D4D on the Road workshop, and Student Choices - Student Voices have given me valuable skills and shaped my career interests in ways I would not have imagined at the beginning of my first year in college. I am currently interning for a state senator, and I plan on being involved in elections and voter engagement. Civic engagement related to our democracy has truly become one of my greatest passions.
Thanks to Ryan, Avik Herur-Raman '20, and others, the Macalester College SCSV Task Force has been doing great work throughout 2018, hosting multiple voter
registration tabling sessions and a discussion with a "March for Our Lives" student
organizer (founded by students from Parkland and focused on ending gun violence). They also distributed valuable information on voting to members of their community. Avik and Ryan organized a "Campaign Involvement Lunch," an event designed to promote involvement in a variety of campaigns leading up to the November elections. Representatives from organizations including the Minnesota Youth Collective, Outfront MN, Faith in MN, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund came and discussed opportunities for involvement. More than 40 students attended the event and many signed up to get involved with the campaigns.
The SCSV Task Force at Skidmore College, led by Hannah Fishman '19, held a National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) event (September 25) in collaboration with the Skidmore Student Government Association and the Saratoga Springs League of Women Voters. This campus-wide event encourages students to register to vote. Earlier, in September they held a training session for newly recruited student volunteers teaching them how to register students in preparation for NVRD. They have also been sending e-mail blasts to registered student voters informing them about relevant voter information such as polling places (there is a location on campus) and absentee ballots.
As part of National Voter Registration Day, Project Pericles supplied voter pledge cards to several campuses after receiving requests. We continue to support our campus-based Task Forces on their voter engagement projects.
Through SCSV, we facilitate information and strategy sharing between task forces on different campuses allowing students to collaborate with their peers and organize similar activities on their own campuses. We share tools including TurboVote, which assesses voter engagement, and Text, Talk, Vote, which helps motivate political dialogue and awareness, with our campuses. Our partnerships include Civic Nation; Democracy Works; National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE); Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV); and YVote, among other organizations, to exchange ideas on how to increase student participation in voting and other civically engaged activities.
Our Program Manager, Arielle del Rosario, is in regular contact with the student Task Force leaders. Small grants, of up to $200, are available to support innovative work.
Chatham University Hosts First Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ 2018-2019 D4D on the Road™ Workshop
Over 30 Chatham University students and Allegheny College students turned out for the first 2018-2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D) workshop. Hosted by Chatham, the workshop received high marks from those in attendance.
A Chatham University student noted that the workshop made her realize that "I have influence as long as I take the time to look at who has power." While another student commented, "Just because something is not winnable now, it may be later."
Using case studies on Immigration Reform, LGBTQ Rights, Race and Inequality, the workshop uses a systematic framework to help participants identify solutions to problems they are concerned with and then build winning strategies to make change. Through small group exercises and role playing, with trainer feedback, the daylong session takes students from researching a problem to analyzing solutions, developing strategies, and meeting effectively with decision-makers. Participants leave with concrete tools, which they can put to use in a wide variety of public policy settings and efforts.
Pericleans will host a total of eight workshops with an additional seven Pericleans sending students to participate. Other issues addressed in case studies this year include
Education Access, Mass Incarceration, and Voting Rights. For the second year in a row, we are partnering with Midwest Academy. They received excellent reviews from students and community members for the 2017-2018 workshops. All of their trainers have experience working as organizers on issue-based or political campaigns and we are pleased to work with them again.
2018-2019 D4D on the Road Workshop Schedule
Friday, September 28 - Chatham University (Pittsburgh, PA) (Allegheny College visiting)
Saturday, October 6 - Rhodes College (Memphis, TN) (Hendrix College visiting)
Friday, November 16 - Pitzer College (Claremont, CA)
Saturday, December 1- Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY) (RPI visiting)
Saturday, February 2 - Carleton College (Northfield, MN) (Macalester College visiting)
Saturday, February 9 - Bates College (Lewiston, ME) (New England College visiting)
Saturday, February 23 - Ursinus College (Collegeville, PA) (Swarthmore College and
Widener University visiting)
Friday, March 1- Goucher College (Baltimore, MD)
Project Pericles to Present Panel at AAC&U in Atlanta, Georgia
We are delighted to share the news that Project Pericles' panel presentation "Creating Curricular Coherence: Three Examples of Institutional Change" has been accepted for AAC&U's 2019 Annual Meeting to be held January 23-26, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Higher education faces the challenge of creating efficient and cohesive educational experiences for students that integrate academic learning, civic engagement, and preparation for life after college. Project Pericles and three Periclean institutions (Macalester College, Morehouse College, and Widener University) are exploring distinct approaches to designing streamlined and integrative curricular pathways within majors, interdepartmental initiatives, and college-wide general education requirements. This panel will share insights, strategies, and resources to inform and inspire curricular coherence and pathways at other institutions. The three-year project is part of The Teagle Foundation's Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence initiative and is also made possible through the support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
Macalester will discuss the creation of civic engagement pathways within two academic departments (Geography and History), as models for other departments and as a foundation for broader institutional change. The project supports the development of sequenced course offerings paired with increasingly advanced community-based opportunities and highlights the public purposes of disciplinary learning. By focusing on change within departments rather than individual courses, the project creates more effective and efficient pedagogy and allows students to design more coherent academic careers. Macalester will share the process of working with faculty members to map and assess learning goals, create pathways, and discuss replication at other institutions.
Morehouse will discuss transforming a large, fragmented, and costly general education program. Their redesigned "general education integrative learning experience" focuses on the African Diaspora and five other learning outcomes. Morehouse has significantly reduced required general education credits and combined student learning outcomes. They will discuss the challenging process of gaining approval for this large-scale undertaking and the effort to redesign courses to meet the new requirements.
Widener will discuss its new Sustainability and Civic Engagement pathway with links to general education requirements and courses in a variety of majors. The pathway introduces more coherent curricular options within Widener's existing general education distribution system and thus, a more cohesive experience for students. The pathway model supports an interdisciplinary, inquiry-based approach employing multiple high-impact practices. The pathway network of courses features a freshman seminar, multiple approved pathway courses across nine academic departments and an option for an interdisciplinary capstone experience. Widener will share the process and challenges involved in developing this thematic pathway and how this approach can be replicated.
Presenting will be: Jan Risë Liss, Executive Director, Project Pericles; Frederick Knight, Chair, History Department; Director, General Education Department, Morehouse College; Paul Schadewald, Associate Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; Karin Trail-Johnson, Associate Dean, Institute for Global Citizenship; Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; and James (Jim) E. Vike, Professor of Political Science; MPA Program, Director, Widener University.
2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D) National Conference
The 2019 D4D National Conference
at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts will once again feature
the D4D Legislative Hearing, in which students present and defend their "Letter to an Elected Official" and the issues it discusses to a panel of judges including current and former government officials. On the second day, students will have an opportunity to visit a non-profit organization and meet with its senior leadership. Seventy student leaders from our member Periclean colleges and universities will be joined by college presidents, provosts, foundation, government, and community leaders for a two-day agenda of workshops and panel discussions.
Christopher Kush
, CEO of Soapbox Consulting, will facilitate an interactive workshop for students as part of the National Conference. Soapbox trains citizens to effectively communicate their issues to Congress, and to state and local officials. The workshop will provide an opportunity for students to practice skills and techniques for engaging elected officials and other decision-makers around issues the students are passionate about. Christopher led the D4D on the Road workshops for Project Pericles in 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, and also presented a workshop at the 2017 D4D National Conference.
Project Pericles will cover the costs of transportation and lodging for the two student delegates from each campus, as well as for the ten students selected as finalists for the D4D Legislative Hearings. Two student delegates are selected to attend the conference by their Program Director based on their leadership and contribution to civic engagement activities on their campus.
About Letters to an Elected Official
The D4D Letter to an Elected Official Competition engages teams of students around public policy issues, the political process, and the roles of their elected officials. Every year, a panel of judges with significant legislative experience select the five winning letters written by teams of students from Periclean campuses. Winning teams are selected based on their letters and their advocacy proposals. Since 2008, hundreds of teams from all Periclean colleges and universities have participated in this competition.
Letters have proposed innovative solutions on a wide variety of issues including climate change and environmental protection, education reform, financial literacy, gun control, immigration, prison reform and reducing recidivism, sexual violence, and negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program.
Project Pericles Continues
Work on Voting Module
The
Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition and Young Invincibles (YI) approached Project Pericles to design a classroom module on voting. For use by faculty, the curriculum will illustrate why voting matters, why students should care, and will provide an overview of the registration and voting process. Designed to fit into a single class period, it will include sections on deliberative dialogue that can be customized for courses in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
Over the Summer and continuing into the Fall, we reached out to our Periclean Faculty Leaders and Periclean Program Directors, in a range of disciplines, for advice on the development of this module. We are pleased to report tremendously positive responses from both groups. Domenick Scudera, Professor of Theater, Periclean Faculty Leader (PFL) 2010-2012, Ursinus College commented, "...This is a critical time for our democracy, so please let me know what I can do to help with this initiative." Input from faculty members is critical to the success of this project. We have had conversations with more than 30 colleagues that has been very illuminating. They provided feedback based on our questionnaire and have been eager to assist in the project. If you would like to provide input, please reach out to Jan Liss at Jan.Liss@ProjectPericles.org.
We appreciate the support of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition and Young Invincibles.
This work is also made possible by the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
Fall Program Directors' Conference at Reed College
Our Program Directors' Conference will be held October 23-24 at Reed College. Program Directors from almost all of our member campuses will attend. At our Fall 2017 Program Directors' Conference at Chatham University, participants expressed interest in conducting a review of Project Pericles' programs (D4D National Conference, D4D on the Road™, Letters to an Elected Official, Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™, Program Directors' Conference, and SCSV). The Program Directors Working Group that was formed at the 2017 meeting will discuss their findings from a survey and a series of interviews with fellow Program Directors. In addition to our programs, they will discuss 1) culture, structure, collaboration, and values; and 2) special programs (practice and research.). We look forward to discussing their findings and much, much more.
Pericleans in the News
Peer Review: What We Learned from Each Other as Periclean Faculty Leader Peers
By Jessica A. Magaldi, Assistant Professor, Legal Studies and Taxation, Pace University; and Casey Schreiber, Assistant Professor, Urban Studies, Dillard University
We were selected as Periclean Faculty Leaders in academic year 2017-2018 and paired up as PFL peers, to offer support to one another as we embarked on our individual Project Pericles journeys. Although our grant year has concluded, we remain Periclean Faculty Leaders into the future and our commitment to Project Pericles and to civic engagement in our classrooms and on our campuses continues.
It is in that spirit that we reflect back on what we learned from each other over that first year and how it might inform the civic engagement activities we undertake in the future. It was a great pleasure getting to know one another through our portfolios and our conversations and we have stayed in touch, as a resource to one another, to offer support for each other, and to continue to share ideas.
Professor Magaldi taught "Business Law - Civic Engagement." Professor Schreiber taught "Housing Policy."
Jessica Magaldi on Casey Schreiber:
It was inspiring to get to know Casey Schreiber through her portfolio and our conversations about our courses and philosophies. Her portfolio demonstrated what a significant impact her project had in promoting the civic engagement of her students. I found the variety of projects her students undertook so interesting, including direct services work such as volunteering with UNITY of Greater New Orleans and homebuilding with SBP (formerly St. Bernard Project), as well as the campus awareness-raising work, and participation in the social sciences symposium "Civic Engagement: Action-Oriented Research," and the Housing, Health, and Community Resource Fair. What tremendous opportunities she offered her students to understand - and to have some direct impact on - the issues around the housing crisis in New Orleans and its effect on vulnerable populations. I feel certain that Casey's efforts and the efforts of her students have laid a strong foundation to continue collaboration between Dillard University and their community services partners for years to come.
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| Dillard Students Plant University's First Community Garden on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. |
As different as our courses and our institutions are, both of our campuses share a spirit of civic engagement and volunteerism. I appreciate that we each designed our courses to harness that spirit with our relevant pedagogies to build courses that promote civic engagement in connection with our particular subject matter. We took very different approaches toward the same goal - to inspire civic dialogue on important topics and to inspire our students to action.
I particularly want to thank Casey for inspiring me to think more broadly about the type of projects that students can engage in and with over the semester - and I want to credit her with a change I will be implementing the next time I teach this course. Since my course was in legal studies, I had
sought out or created opportunities where students were directly involved in legal services activities. After reviewing her portfolio and learning about the variety of projects her students participated in and speaking with Casey about the ways in which law and policy classes are similar, I gained an expanded notion of what activities would be appropriate for my class. I am already planning to offer my students a wider variety of community service placements, which will provide more opportunities to my students without losing the valuable connection to our coursework.
Casey Schreiber on Jessica Magaldi:
I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing Jessica Magaldi's portfolio and seeing how another Periclean Faculty Leader chose to enact the civic engagement mission of Project Pericles. Being able to have conversations with her about our civic engagement courses and overall participation in the PFL Program was both insightful and helpful for my work.
Her portfolio documented the ways in which she infused civic engagement into her coursework. Including reflections, from both herself and her students, provided an additional layer of analysis to her overall project that I found to be really valuable. The service learning component gave students a chance to get involved in different issues such as stop and frisk policies, civil forfeitures, and mortgage foreclosure. The variety of community service placements allowed students to perform specific community work that was meaningful to them.
I was interested in the way that she packaged current news topics for her students as a way to connect legal studies with questions of fairness and equity. In many of the policy classes I teach, students are required to complete an oral brief of a current news article and classroom discussions often center around prominent news topics each semester. Based on her approach, I am reconsidering how to best package and deliver news content as part of a civic engagement framework.
I particularly liked the way that Jessica talked about social justice and how infusing lessons about social justice is in itself an act of civic engagement. Prior to speaking with Jessica, I placed more emphasis on hands-on projects or acts of community service as a measure of student involvement. Jessica helped me see how the lessons and conversations about social justice can be a mechanism to achieve increased levels of civic engagement that lie at the intersections of classroom discourse and service work. While social justice feels like a natural extension of my field of Urban Studies and Public Policy, I was excited to see how she incorporated this into a class in the School of Business. From both her portfolio and our conversations, I can tell that Jessica is going to incorporate civic engagement into future courses and offer civic engagement opportunities for the great benefit of her students.
We thank The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation for their support of the 2017-2018 PFL Program.
Bates' Student Partners with Community Group to
Promote Prisoner Re-entry Program
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| Rachel (Raye) Chappell (Bates College '18) Discusses Her Video Project. |
Thanks to Rachel (Raye) Chappell ('18) of Bates College, a local prisoner re-entry program can tell its story far and wide. Working as part of the college's Short Term Action/Research Team last spring, Raye created a video that highlights the work of REPAIR, a program that provides supportive services for men and women re-entering communities from prison or jail. Based on extensive shadowing and interviews with REPAIR staff, volunteers, and participants, Raye's video offers an intimate account of the compelling needs REPAIR meets and the positive outcomes and community benefit of its services. The re-entry specialists at REPAIR of Maine now have an engaging and informative promotional video for use as they make presentations to churches, clubs, and organizations in search of volunteers, donors, and other forms of support.
A Sociology/African-American Studies major at Bates and a four-year leader at the college's Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Raye was able to put her significant filming, editing, and storytelling talents to work in the production of a video that left REPAIR Chairperson, Eric Terrio, speechless. Raye's video captures the essence of REPAIR's mission and history while helping to ensure that this dynamic, community-changing organization can continue its work in the future. Check out the video for yourself:
In the words of Bruce Noddin, director of the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network, "This project is a prime example of how community partnerships can benefit organizations, missions, individuals, relationships,
and
our neighborhoods and communities."
Project Pericles Program Director Appointed to BTtoP Advisory Board
We are pleased to announce that in August Tessa Hicks Peterson, Project Pericles Program Director at Pitzer College and member of the Project Pericles research team examining civic engagement and well-being, was appointed to the BTtoP Advisory Board. Tessa Hicks Peterson is an Associate Professor, Urban Studies; and Director, Community Engagement Center, Pitzer College.
Please make a donation today to Project Pericles so that we can continue to prepare student leaders for lives of engaged citizenship. Donations can be made directly through our website www.projectpericles.org by clicking donate in the upper right corner.
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