HED 583G - Civic Engagement and Higher Education

Credits: 4

In 2015, the American Association for State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the Democracy Commitment (TDC), and the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) announced a partnership to systematically advance the civic learning and democratic engagement of college students. This strategic partnership is just one result of a long history of civic engagement in U.S. higher education. The collaboration aims to build higher education cultures and contexts that foster an institutional civic ethos, student civic literacy and skill building, as well as civic inquiry, action and agency for students, faculty and institutions. This course will examine the history and underlying philosophical and theoretical dimensions of civic engagement in higher education including topics on service-learning, alternative breaks and citizenship abroad, community partnerships, social justice, the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement, Campus Compact, and civic engagement internationally. We will explore the organizational, infrastructural and programmatic implications for higher education institutions needed to advance civic and democratic engagement. Through this course, students will gain a more nuanced understanding of the civic responsibility of higher education in contemporary university-community partnerships. Upon completion of this course, students, as the next generation of student affairs and higher education professionals, will have a more holistic sense of their identities as civic professionals advancing justice and equity within higher education.