TV: It’s prime time for volunteerism
Even before TV’s Stand Up to Cancer special raised more than $100 million for research with a star-studded, prime-time broadcast in September 2008, Hollywood and its leading charitable arm, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, were hunting for another major initiative to support. »Read the full article in USA Today.
Which Colleges Make Best Neighbors
Here’s a way for students and parents to size up potential colleges using a metric not found in most guide books: Which institutions have the best relationships, fiscal and otherwise, with the communities in which they reside? Dr. Evan S. Dobelle, the president of Westfield State College in Massachusetts has compiled just such a list, highlighting the good works of 25 colleges, which he released today. (He calls them “Saviors of Our Cities.”) His top five? … Read the full article in The New York Times.
College Students Vote Smarter Than Expected
College students make strategic choices about where to vote, most prefer absentee ballots, and they are especially likely to vote absentee if their homes are in swing states, according to a new Northwestern University study of student absentee voting in the 2008 presidential election. »Read full article in ScienceDaily.
The Effects of Service-Learning on Retention
In a report of results of a study to the Northern New England Campus Compact, students who participated in service-learning courses scored significantly higher on all measures. The students reported higher community engagement, academic engagement, interpersonal engagement, academic challenge, and likelihood to remain at the university (retention) than students in courses that did not include service-learning. In addition, a mediation model showed that academic challenge and academic engagement were the elements of service-learning courses that most influenced students’ decision to stay at the university (retention). FULL REPORT
Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy?
Ultimately, community-college administrators hope their schools will emerge stronger from the downturn as it highlights their potential for juicing the economy. “In some ways, the terrible nature of the economic recession will actually help people understand ,” says Kinslow. “People are going to be forced into looking at it more carefully.” Read the full article in Time Magazine.
Obama to unveil $12 billion community college plan
President Barack Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative on Tuesday to boost community colleges and propel the United States toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, administration officials said. »Read full article from Reuters.
How Young People Develop Long-Lasting Habits of Civic Engagement: A Conversation on Building a Research Agenda
This report grew out of two meetings held by the Spencer Foundation to inform its Civic Action and Civic Learning initiative. Campus Compact participated in the higher education meeting and contributed a “memo to the field” for the report that shares key questions, implications, and challenges designed to stimulate discussion and research among both scholars and practitioners. Posted by permission.
Youths’ Civic Engagement Seen to Rise
The good news, according to researchers presenting findings here last week, is that after waning for years, civic participation among young people appears to be on the rise. Read the full article in Education Week.
National Service Program Gets Boost
NPR: President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., school. The bill triples the size of the AmeriCorps program over the next eight years, aiming to help the poor, improve education, push energy efficiency, increase access to health care and help veterans. »Read or listen to entire story on the NPR website.
Campus Compact’s 20/20 Vision: Celebrating Our First Twenty Years and Planning for the Next Two Decades
Campus Compact crafted this essay to mark its achievements during its first 20 years and to frame the next two decades of work. This work resulted in provocative essays from more then 40 presidents, faculty, CAOs, community service staff, students, community partners, and funders, which provide a challenging analysis of key issues related to the three themes of the 20th anniversary: 1) to embed engagement more deeply across all institutions, 2) to bridge the opportunity gap by improving educational access and success, and 3) to educate students for global citizenship. Read the entire essay here.
Nation needs youthful idealism more than ever
By Michelle Obama for USA TODAY Embedded in our nation’s core values is a spirit of community, generosity and entrepreneurship — a can-do attitude that says no challenge is insurmountable. When so many people are struggling to make ends meet, we need everyone pulling together to solve our nation’s problems and to lift up our fellow Americans. And this includes our young people. » Read the full story in USA Today
Presidents’ Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education
The Presidents’ Declaration has been signed by hundreds Campus Compact member presidents and chancellors. The purpose of the declaration is to articulate the commitment of all sectors of higher education–public and private, two- and four-year–to their civic purposes.
College Success Foundation
The College Success Foundation provides college scholarships and mentoring to low-income, high-potential students.
Transforming Students into Global Change Agents
Transforming Students into Global Change Agents Theme: Global Citizenship Author: Name: Sally Susnowitz Title: Director, MIT Public Service Center & Assistant Dean, Student Life Programs Institution: MIT, MA Constituent Group: CSDs / SLDs Natural disasters shake us out of our complacency, creating a burst of energy that overrides our comfortable inertia; faced with forces totally outside of our control, we are, ironically, inspired to act. The South Asian tsunami, the Pakistan landslides, the Gulf Coast hurricanes — the very magnitude of hundreds of thousands of lives disrupted, of towns destroyed, of regions reconfigured — have recently energized thousands of…
Town-Gown: A New Meaning for a New Economy
Town-Gown: A New Meaning for a New Economy Theme: Embedding Engagement Author: Name: James Davitt Rooney Title: Director of Public Affairs Institution: The Boston Foundation, MA Constituent Group: Funders This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Campus Compact, a national coalition of over 950 college and university presidents that promotes community service, civic engagement, and service-learning. For the past two decades the Compact, which features over sixty members from Massachusetts, has contributed to and been a beneficiary of a dramatic thawing of town-gown relations that better positions the Commonwealth and the entire country in today’s knowledge economy. As regions…
The Making of a Global Citizen
The Making of a Global Citizen Theme: Global Citizenship Author: Name: Mark Hower Title: Interim President & Faculty, Center for Creative Change Institution: Antioch University – Seattle, WA Constituent Group: Presidents Global citizenship would seem a recent concept, but its origins can be traced back to at least 4th century Greece when Diogenes declared himself a cosmopolitan ? a citizen of the world. At the time, the earth’s shape, the configuration of the vast majority of its surface, and even the existence of its varied peoples and cultures, would have been largely unknown to him ? or anyone. The…
The Everyone, Everywhere: Global Dimensions of Citizenship
The Everyone, Everywhere: Global Dimensions of Citizenship Theme: Global Citizenship Author: Name: Dé Bryant Title: Director, Social Action Project (SOCACT) Institution: Indiana University South Bend, IN Constituent Group: Faculty We get the scripts for handling life’s challenges from folklore, fables, and fairy tales. Tales from around the world admonish us to fear the unknown and the darkness from tales of terrible things lurking there. In Xhosa folklore he is called the tokoloshe; in North America he is called the Boogyman. Other bedtime stories tell us how to treat our mother, brother, sister, wife, or father. In Umdhlubu’s tale, the…
The Engaged Campus and College Access
The Engaged Campus and College Access Theme: Access & Success Author: Name: Carol Wolf Title: Coordinator of Service-Learning, Associate Professor, and Director, UMM Writing Center Institution: University of Maine at Machias, ME Constituent Group: CSDs / SLDs The University of Maine at Machias is a small liberal arts campus located in a remote, rural, county on the coast of Maine. The current crisis in higher education is more severe in Maine than in many other parts of the country, and the situation is particularly difficult in the part of the state surrounding UMM, where traditional resource-based jobs are disappearing…
The Benchmarking Potential of the New Carnegie Classification: Community Engagement
The Benchmarking Potential of the New Carnegie Classification: Community Engagement Theme: Embedding Engagement Author: Name: Amy Driscoll Title: Associate Senior Scholar Institution: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, DC Constituent Group: Friends Much like other assessment terms, benchmarking has been used appropriately and inappropriately to rate, compare, chart progress, and evaluate. Palomba and Banta (1999) provide a definition that comes close to the processes and potential for the new Carnegie classification — Community Engagement. The authors describe benchmarking as a “promising practice” defined as “the process of identifying and learning from institutions that are recognized for outstanding practices.”…
Teacher Expectations: The Link to Educational Access and Success
Teacher Expectations: The Link to Educational Access and Success Theme: Access & Success Author: Name: Mary Mendoza Title: Recent Graduate Institution: Middlebury College, VT Constituent Group: Students / Recent Graduates Inequality is ubiquitous. It exists everywhere in society including places like the work place, hospitals, elderly homes, and, of course, schools. There are many theories as to why such inequity exists. Some argue that IQ is what brings inequality: some people simply retain information and understand better than others, making them more successful. Though this may be true in some cases, it cannot explain the clear patterns of inequalities…
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