Project History

At its annual meeting (August 1999) and subsequent board meetings, SVHE engaged in a series of discussions on higher education's public mission and the role SVHE can and should play in what was perceived as a "movement" to promote civic education and engagement. This process led to a specially-created task force (Chicago, June 1999) consisting of SVHE members and nonmembers, distinguished leaders in higher education renewal initiatives.

Based on the design created from these discussions, we obtained a planning and piloting grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund and piloted activities through August 2001. The pilot initiative was called Models for Democracy: Strengthening Higher Education for Social Justice and Civic Responsibility. Working with three campuses - Florida State University, Pacific University, and the University of Hartford - we began by asking campuses to identify a values-based issue for consideration, one linked to SVHE's core values of integrity, diversity, social justice, and civic responsibility. The campuses chose as their issues academic and civic integrity, diversity, and the scholarship of teaching and learning, respectively.

We created a toolkit and made available to participating campuses a number of workshops and activities. Those included: a values audit; workshops on public dialogues and issue framing with the Kettering Foundation and Study Circles Resource Center; a Listening to Communities guide for campuses interested in exploring public perceptions of their civic roles; and an asset-mapping inventory tool. We did not expect any campus to employ all of the tools. Our goal, however, was to test as many tools as possible so that we could create a program based on a composite from the pilot campuses' experiences.

Midway through the project, we added a fourth campus, Manhattan College, interested in conducting a values audit without selecting a specific issue for consideration. Working with Manhattan College, we redesigned a values audit employing a Study Circles approach.

As a result of the extraordinary efforts of the campus teams, we developed a process that has broad applicability. It can work at any campus on any values-based issues. For more on the process, see the Planning Guide.


Project History
For more information about the project, contact: democracyproject@aol.com	At its annual meeting (August 1999) and subsequent board meetings, SVHE engaged in a series of discussions on higher education's public mission and the role SVHE can and should play in what was perceived as a "movement" to promote civic education and engagement. This process led to a specially-created task force (Chicago, June 1999) consisting of SVHE members and nonmembers, distinguished leaders in higher education renewal initiatives. Based on the design created from these discussions, we obtained a planning and piloting grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund and piloted activities through August 2001. The pilot initiative was called Models for Democracy: Strengthening Higher Education for Social Justice and Civic Responsibility. Working with three campuses - Florida State University, Pacific University, and the University of Hartford - we began by asking campuses to identify a values-based issue for consideration, one linked to SVHE's core values of integrity, diversity, social justice, and civic responsibility. The campuses chose as their issues academic and civic integrity, diversity, and the scholarship of teaching and learning, respectively. We created a toolkit and made available to participating campuses a number of workshops and activities. Those included: a values audit; workshops on public dialogues and issue framing with the Kettering Foundation and Study Circles Resource Center; a Listening to Communities guide for campuses interested in exploring public perceptions of their civic roles; and an asset-mapping inventory tool. We did not expect any campus to employ all of the tools. Our goal, however, was to test as many tools as possible so that we could create a program based on a composite from the pilot campuses' experiences. Midway through the project, we added a fourth campus, Manhattan College, interested in conducting a values audit without selecting a specific issue for consideration. Working with Manhattan College, we redesigned a values audit employing a Study Circles approach. As a result of the extraordinary efforts of the campus teams, we developed a process that has broad applicability. It can work at any campus on any values-based issues. For more on the process, see the Planning Guide.