PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 6, Sept. 21, 2006

Task force studying civic-engagement activities

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@uiuc.edu

Click photo to enlarge Photo by L. Brian Stauffer Cultivating civic engagement James Wescoat, a professor of landscape architecture, and Rose Ann Miron, assistant chancellor, are among members of the Task Force on Civic Engagement. Wescoat chairs the committee, appointed by Chancellor Richard Herman, and Miron is an ex-officio member. The task force hopes to strengthen connections between the campus and its communities. The effort includes identifying already existing opportunities for civic engagement, developing new opportunities and to make civic commitment more prominent in campus life and in the identity of Illinois.

James Wescoat, a professor of landscape architecture, uses the analogy of a flowering prairie to describe civic engagement efforts at the Urbana campus: There are hundreds of flowers blooming on the landscape, but there’s little connectivity between them and no collective identity.

However, the Task Force on Civic Engagement in the 21st century, which Wescoat chairs, aims to cultivate altruism on campus, enhance already flowering initiatives and create a fertile bed for new growth.

Chancellor Richard Herman appointed the task force in January and asked it to create a sharpened and sustained curricular and co-curricular emphasis on advancing the public good. The 26-member group, which includes representatives from campus units ranging from the department of architecture to WILL-AM/FM/TV as well as the University YMCA and Urban League of Champaign County, plans to strengthen connections between the campus and its communities, from the local to the global levels.

The effort is part of Herman’s Strategic Plan for the Urbana campus, an initiative to “establish Illinois as the leading public research institution that engages students in civic commitment and community-based learning experiences,” to help students meet the challenges of modern citizenship and address the most pressing societal problems.

The task force is leading a campuswide effort to identify the many existing dimensions of civic engagement, to help define it for the Urbana campus, encourage innovative thinking about it and make civic commitment more prominent in campus life and the identity of the institution.

During the spring semester, the task force surveyed people on campus and compiled an initial list of current civic-engagement initiatives. As task force members quickly realized, there are hundreds of opportunities for students and faculty members at Urbana to engage with the community – whether through service-learning courses or other activities, on the local, state, national and global levels.

But while faculty members and students may be aware of what’s blooming in their own backyards, they may be unaware of what’s being cultivated next door, in other academic departments or units.

“We found that there were many offices, projects and people who were devoting significant or major parts of their work to the community engagement mission,” Wescoat said. “We found that there are scores of fabulous projects and efforts all over campus. Most people have a network that they have good knowledge of, but they’re not aware of other things happening across campus that would be comparable or complementary. Bringing them into creative connection with one another is a high priority.”

Over the summer, the task force began four studies. In the first study, they’re compiling an index of courses and activities that have civic engagement components. The index will be put online so that visitors to the Urbana campus home page can quickly locate and learn about opportunities available on campus.

In a study called the “Essentials of Civic Commitment,” task force members are examining scholarship related to civic engagement in order to advance future efforts on campus.

“The essentials study is interesting because it’s asking – from a scholarly standpoint – what types of learning take place in civic-engagement courses, what people learn, how they learn it and how does it transform subsequent educational growth,” Wescoat said.

In the third study, the task force is investigating community interest in designing   innovative curricula and school environments for preschool through eighth-grade children in Champaign. The task force provided $10,000 in funding for the initiative, known as the Great Campus Project, which is being led by the Urban League of Champaign County.

In the last study, the task force is examining the options for a Center for Public Engagement and Social Research in Champaign that would promote community-based entrepreneurship and studies.

Preliminary reports on the studies are expected by the end of the spring semester 2007.

Additionally, the task force hopes to boost civic-engagement opportunities on campus by offering grants of up to $20,000 to fund new and/or restructured courses, programs, research projects, events and other activities that help focus the campus’ collective identity. The task force recently issued a request for proposals with a deadline of Oct. 16. A campus committee will select the projects to be funded, and the grants will be disbursed at the start of the spring semester so the projects can be conducted, produced, presented or performed during the 2007 calendar year. 

While the proposals can be for new initiatives or for enhancements to existing efforts, emphasis will be placed on proposals that connect and enhance current activities, broadening their scope and/or impact and heightening their visibility. The potential sustainability of the proposal also will be a key criterion.

The East St. Louis Action Research Project, one of the many engagement efforts at the Urbana campus, is celebrating its 20th anniversary, an exceptional achievement for any university, Wescoat said.

By studying durable civic-engagement initiatives such as the East St. Louis project, “we hope we’ll get a better understanding of how the campus can organize itself to make recommendations to sustain those projects over time,” said Rose Ann Miron, assistant chancellor and an ex-officio member of the task force.

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