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[ Silence ]
>> Larry you want to go [inaudible]?
>> [Inaudible].
>> Larry: Al right I'd like to welcome everybody.
This is Larry Hardison from The National Service Learning Clearinghouse and I'm happy
to have this next webinar in our series with the Campus Compact and Julie Plaut and with
that I would like to introduce Julie Plaut
>> Julie: Thanks Larry and thanks everyone for joining us.
I'm Julie Plaut from Campus Compact and we serve in the higher education program
at Higher Learning Clearinghouse and we are going to mute everybody's phones except
for the presenters so we have less noise on the line.
>> I did forget that.
Hold on a second.
>> Before you do that somebody asked a question about getting into the webinar.
>> Yes.
>> It's asking us to download a program [inaudible] download a program
and install a program on to our computer.
>> Right yeah you shouldn't have to worry about that.
You can download the program it won't do any, any problems to your computer.
>> But we can see it without downloading or do we need to do that?
>> [Inaudible].
>> You do.
>> Okay.
>> I also have a question before we mute my phone.
Are we going to have to listen to this thing, the entire thing through my phone.
>> Yes.
>> So there, there will be a power point you can see on screen and there will be the talking
that we hear through the phone line.
>> If I want to listen.
>> And at a certain point your going to open it up so there can be a discussion at the end.
>> Julie: I'll give you instructions on that in a moment let me just welcome you all.
We're really excited about the topic of the webinar as you know there's lots of excitement
about the Presidential elections but citizen involvement is important all year
around every year, and so this webinar is focusing on how we can help campuses
and support the development of political knowledge and skills and [inaudible]
and while actively engaging and addressing public issues and doing all this
as part of their academic experience.
We're really delighted to have two presenters with us today who have great experience
and knowledge to spare, Tom Ehrlich who is at the Carnegie Foundations for the advancement
of teaching and Rick Battistoni of Providence College
and I will give you a couple of logistical hints now.
One is that you can submit questions at any point in the webinar if you look
to the right hand side of your screen you'll see the power point slides to the left
and on the right below the list of participants you'll see a box there's caps and then there's Q
and A, if you click on Q and A so it appears blue, you can submit click
in and submit a question any time.
If you would put your cursor on the lower box, the smaller box,
type in your question and then hit send.
We welcome questions to be submitted in that way at any point during the, during the webinar Tom
and Rich may answer some questions throughout and then there will also be time for questions
at the end, and just to mention all your lines will be muted and if there's a time
when you want to raise a question, vocally instead of typing it in, or when you're called
on to volunteer to comment, the way to unmute your line is to press star six,
and then when you're done speaking if you would mind pressing star seven again.
>> Actually I'm sorry that's reversed.
It's star seven to unmute your line.
>> Julie: I'm sorry.
>> And star six to mute it back.
>> Julie: So star seven to unmute, star six to mute,
and one other logistical note this entire thing is being recorded so that it will be available
to other people online if they want to hear what happened.
So without further ado I'm going to turn the leadership over to Tom who's speaking first.
>> [Inaudible] after I need everybody's feed.
>> Thanks very much to.
>> The conference has been muted.
[ Silence ]
[ Beeps ]
>> In the book and please feel free at anytime to type in a question
and I'll be able to see it on the screen.
Educating for democracy, preparing undergraduates
for responsible political engagement.
What do we mean by political engagements?
Let's do a little poll to see just how you, the participant here, defines political engagement.
On your screen you will see seven items beginning with volunteering for a candidate
in a local state or national election and ending with boycotting products.
I ask you to rate each of those seven quickly and remember there are no right answer
and it's just, what do you think ranging from clearly a political, which is a one,
to a five which is clearly political so if you go down the list of the seven rating them
as quickly as you can we'll be grateful and then we'll come back
in a minute to talk about the results.
[ Silence ]
Okay can we see the results now of the poll?
>> Rick: Yeah everything is submitted hold on a second.
[ Silence ]
>> Well let's take number six [inaudible] someone thought organizing a grass roots
campaign to stop domestic violence was potentially, clearly made political.
Would one of the two people who had that view uh unmute your phone and tell us why,
and remember to unmute your phone you press star seven.
[ Silence ]
I also would like ah someone who rated this a five meaning ah clearly political to speak
out why you think it's clearly political, and again unmute your phone by pressing star seven.
[ Silence ]
>> Al right can you hear me now?
Hello.
>> Yep.
>> Okay I was one that put clearly a political um because you're,
it could be considered a political as well but I thought it was more or less a right
of the individual to stop what they would consider a bad thing in their community
and consider organizing a campaign to stop domestic violence political unless you step over
and start doing more lobbying towards a political entity.
>> And how about somebody who viewed this as very political?
>> Ah well I'll join in on that I actually put everything as very political.
I'm a very strong believer that the personal is political and anything that we do
that has consequences on others in the social um is in deed political um.
>> Tom: That provides contrast and it does underscore that each of us brings
to our teachings view about what is political or non political.
Which is fine that as long as we're clear ourselves
in articulating towards students what we mean by political engagement and clear
that students may come with very different views themselves.
There isn't any right answer of course but we want to be sure
that our own perspectives are understood by our own students
and that their perspectives are understood by us.
This is one way and I've seen it used in a wide range of of course the help
at the very beginning students think through what they think is political whether they agree
with the last speaker who said that the first one was political, everything was political
or that the former one which said that it's a much narrower band,
and in our own book we give our definition of which involves working for systemic change
and public policy issues as well as, as um electoral politics, but it isn't as broad
as the last speaker nor as narrow as the first speaker, ah,
and again it is important to articulate those views.
We encourage you to do so against the background of what we call the open inquiry imperative.
If you stop for a second and think of what's the lat conversation that you had
about a political issue, some hot spot issue, Iraq, health care, economy,
and then ask yourself did you change you view about that issue as a result of a conversation.
I've asked that to groups of hundreds of people over the last month and I have yet to find more
than one or two people who raise their hand when I ask do you change your view.
Overwhelmingly when we talk about politics we talk with people who think just
like we do and we don't change our views.
We hear about politics from the media and from candidates.
The difference in the candidate is that there's a chance to hear a wide range of perspectives
and it's absolutely crucial in our views that we maintain this imperative of open inquiry
against the background of the basic academic values of a, of a not only pluralism
and academic freedom but a strong sense of rational inquiry which is very different
than what we hear about politics most of the time,
and it is why we believe educating students for political engagement is so important in colleges
and universities cause that's where they can learn the knowledge, the skills,
the disposition, and in a context which doesn't have the biasis that the media
and so often that candidates themselves do.
The things that we underscore if you have a learning [inaudible] program
and you're operating under some regulations that actually require non partnership
and it's important that you look and understand what those regulations are
but at this point we simply underscore that the importance of that imperative of open inquiries,
and again I remind you if you want to have questions
or comments please give us those as we're talking.
Rick and I will do our best to weave our thoughts about your questions into our comments.
>> Rick: Tom before you move to the next,
to talk about the Carnegie Project could I say a word here?
>> Tom: Please do.
>> Rick: This is Rick.
One thing I like about the poll and actually I have done for a number of years both in courses
and in work shops, a variation on that exercise is where I have a list of fifteen items.
It's a much more extensive list and ask students to rank order them from one to fifteen
and then place themselves along a continuum and then we talk about it.
It offers students an opportunity to exercise voice and to in a way that's, that,
that doesn't necessarily polarize or is not [inaudible] to spend the kinds
of things students really don't like about dialog and it allows a pluralism
of perspective it's a really effective way to have a sharing of diverse perspectives
about how we even talk about or define and perceive politics in civic engagements
and so I really think that it's an effective device that enters
into that conversation in the first place.
>> The Carnegie Political Engagement Project was a three year effort that grew
out of an earlier book that my colleagues and I did called Educating Citizens
and in that book we, those of you who, even though, focus on twelve campuses
that we think do a particularly good job of civic engagement generally but overwhelmingly
in accordance to that book we found specific engagement was individual activity,
cleaning up a park, tutoring kids, working in community kitchens.
We found no campus that focused on public policy and politics broadly defined
and so we identified a groups of courses and programs, and Rick is one of the very strongest
at Providence College, and study them over the course of three years
to examine how this faculty can infuse their courses and programs
with the necessary knowledge and skills and dispositions, and we did that looking
at a wide range of different courses and a wide range of different institutions
so I'm very comfortable in saying political engagements can be taught
through almost any different field in the humanities or social sciences
and natural sciences or professional field and we showed good examples of that occurring.
The good news and the core key findings that we came away from with at the end
of this three year study is that students in the courses showed significant gains
in political knowledge and understanding first in political skills of various kinds,
second and in a number of dimensions
in political motivations including what we call political ethicist
to what you think politics is part of your identity.
Actually the gains were strongest with students without significant interest to start with
but even students who have very high initial interest showed substantial gains all
across the board.
Know as important particularity for those in public institutions, the private ones as well,
these courses and programs supported the learning of the students
without creating significant changes in their partisan identification with republic
or democratic or visa versa or where they put themselves as conservative or liberal spectrum.
Actually individual exchange over time
but we did not find any evidence that, of partisan bias.
I'm sure you know there are various critics who claim that inevitably teaching
for political engagement means that they will be partisan bias, we found clear evidence
that that is not a valid criticism.
You will see the surveys, both before and after surveys that we use
in an online document supplement that's available and you will see the resources
at the end of this presentation but as one of, more than fifty documents
that are available online free from the Carnegie Foundation website,
the poll that we did first is another one and Rick will be referring to a number of others
over the course of this presentation.
I want to stress the range of diffeent fields that can be used to educate for democracy,
Anne Colby, my colleague here and I have been working with twenty three faculty
for teleporting Campus Compact in fields as diverse as agriculture, engineering as well,
English, history, political science, all of them are seeking to enhance their courses in term
of political engagement and have done so in an honestly impressive way.
>> So that's to me right?
>> Right. Please do.
>> Rick: Okay so this is Rick once again.
What we thought we would do is talk a little bit about how these and other courses,
especially service learning courses, can provide exercises and activities where,
where students can increase their political education.
Where we can use a service and course and connect exercises and activities
in a traditional service line course to help educate for democracy, and as Tom mentioned most
of the research and the works in educating for democracy is focused on three areas,
political knowledge, skills, and the development of either dispositions or motivation.
Um, I think voice is also very important and I said that a minute ago and I can say more later
on or in response to questions, but we thought it would be useful to talk about ways
in which you can strengthen the political education or the civic education
that students woulds get in a service learning course no matter what the discipline
and no matter where it is.
Alright, so we will have a few examples kind of described,
you can get a much more extensive description of the exercise or the assignment
from the Carnegie website and we'll be showing you how to get there at the end of this session.
So when we talk about political knowledge, as a political scientist,
when political sciences talk about political knowledge usually they're referring to knowledge
about political institutions and so often they ask people questions like name your Senator
or Representative, but when we think about political knowledge particularly connected
to students work in communities one of the most important elements of knowledge is a knowledge
around the issues, around the public problems, or issues that create the very need for service
in the first place and around which different community stake holders have different
perspectives about what the issue is, what the problem is, and how you go about solving it.
One of the ways you can increase political knowledge is a service learning course and it's
to get students to think about how to connect their working communities to public problems
or public issues, and there are a couple ways that you can do that.
If you have a course where you have the luxury of beginning with students passions
or interests, you can have students choose and issue of interest then connect research
that helps them understand the history behind the issue
and then they can select service works that can connect to that issue.
There you're really allowing student voice to drive the selection service.
A lot of courses don't allow that kind of luxury or that kind of time so an alternative,
and one that I've used often is to have students who are already placed at agencies,
or community organizations, or schools to, um, to assign the students to come
up with a public problem or public issue statement
for the organization the the student is working with, and again I can show you what an example
of that might be, but that is students within look into their organization,
do interviews with staff and stake holders and get a sense of what the public problem
or issue is that that organization is attempting to address and even doing research
on alternative ways of addressing the issue besides the kind of work
that students are doing through their service.
So that's one type of exercise to increase political knowledge.
Again at the end of the session we'll refer you to other kinds of exercises.
When we think about skills that we might develop in students there are a whole host of skills
that have to do with political analysis and judgment or organizational analysis,
and one f the skills that I think is really important involves not only analysis
but public speaking and communication.
Um, There's an exercise that I've been using in my classes
and I've actually done a book ended exercise with this.
At the beginning of the semester I asked students to being to class
and present an artifact that they think exlimplifies popular culture
or American culture ideas about democracy or politics or about political engagements.
Very brief presentation and it allows students to think about and then bring
and present an artifact, and then what I've been doing lately id having a book end and at the end
of the semester asking them to come with an artifact that represents their own perspective
on democracy or politics, their own philosophy of political engagement,
and those are usually different artifacts that they present, again it gets them in the habit
of speaking and listening which are important political skills and can allow for some dialog
and deliberation around those kinds of things.
The second assignment or exercise that's on your screen or your slide has to do
with organizational analysis and we really think that's an important skill because,
we find that students of this generation often come not connecting
who they are and what they do to politics.
They tend to be anti political and they think that politics is dirty and a turn off
and there's other who suggest that students who service as a kind of antidote
or alternative [inaudible] either in effectual or partisan or spin oriented politics,
but we also know that students of this generation tend not only
to be anti political but anti institutional.
A lot of students who get involved in service want to plunge into that service if they want
to make a difference and they don't think about themselves as part of an institutions
or organizations and it's really important if their to be effective politically
or even in their service to understand organizational structures, understand the text
and the context of the organizations of which they are working
for the institution within which they are working.
This is a finding that a lot of people, Robert Beeline [assumed spelling] and his colleagues
and the good, and talk about the importance of institutional analysis and understanding .
Okay so an exercise that I used in service learning courses is assigning a paper
or an analysis where students have to understand their organization mission, its history,
their strategies for addressing issues and creating change, that involves them also having
to interview members of the staff and even clients, or citizens,
and members of their organization, in order to get a better sense of that organization
within which they're working and have a better understanding of organizational analysis.
For those there are a couple of exercises are aimed at those kinds of skills.
Also important is to connect servicing courses to pedagogues[assumed spelling]
that will really increase students skills around communication, leadership,
and I think particularly to encourage pedagogues that encourage democratic deliberation
and decision making and so not an exercise but more like a pedagogue is
to have students present in class or to lead class sessions,to facilitate sessions
and what I do is have pairs of students, one facilitating and one surveying
as a vibes watcher as a way of leading class discussion and when you alternate
that what I found is that it increases everybody's responsibility in the class
because the students are going to be leading discussions down the road they're going
to be much more responsible discussion participants because when they come
to lead they'll want other students to participate, and so you can create a sense
of horizontal responsibility, which I think is also an important political disposition to have.
>> Tom: Rick when I've.
>> Rick: Yeah please jump in Tom.
>> Tom: Two points, one when we began the work that lead to the book educating
for democracy we heard over and over again that the reason young people weren't involved
in politics was because they thought it was dirty and corrupt
and they couldn't make a difference.
When we started interviewing students around the country we heard some of that true
but the much more dominate message we heard from students
and from faculty was they didn't have the opportunities to engage
in political work the way they had in civic activities more generally
and they didn't have the encouragement form faculty and their institutions to be engaged
in politics the way they we're encouraged to do individual community service.
I think that's good news because that means we saw in our work
that when students do have the opportunities, are encouraged they really will be engaged
in politics just as we have seen an explosion of interest in the individual civic activities.
The other point I would stress is over and over again we saw that on the whole college
and university are not very good in educating for political skills for times
that Rick has just been talking about.
There are skills that are life skills as well as good for politics for political engagement
but they are enormously important and on the whole not part
of under graduate curricular at most institutions.
>> Rick: Yeah and good point Tom and what I will say also about your first point is
that we've often said that students aren't engaged because they are not motivated
so we kind of flip it around and what Carnegie study and a number
of other studies have been showing is that it is actually the opportunity to participate
that it creates motivation not the other way around
and so the more opportunities the more motivated students tend to be and I think that's true
with political engagement as well.
Well let me talk about another exercise that has to do with skills
around team working collaboration and this is a, an exercise that I actually gained
from a colleague [inaudible] to teachers at Burea College [assumed spelling].
It's a coalition building simulations and it's really,
coalition building I think it's a critical skill for political ethicacies
[ assumed spelling] especially in a, in a diverse democracy like ours
where you have individuals with diverse values and interest but individuals who have
to find common ground in order to address matters of mutual concern.
Now sometimes in a service learning course you have students teamed, that is placed at sites
as a team, you can create that kind of coalition and collaboration
through team based community projects, team based presentations, or analysis,
but where that isn't the case this simulation really has worked for me in classes
to get students to think about how they form coalitions.
Even with people that are unlikely members of a coalition.
What I've done is I've asked students to identify an issue on campus that they think
that needs to be addressed, so a public issue on campus.
Then the students identify who the stake holders would be, so if the issue has to do
with course registration and making that easier or whatever the issue is students can brainstorm
who the main stake holders would be and then once they are identified then each student has
to take on the role of one of those different stake holders.
They have to develop a line of argument and they simply go around with their own of argument
and figure out who might be in line with them based on a simple statement that they made
in their role play, and then at the end of the, the coalition they think about,
a building exercise, they think about what it means to align with people
who may have different interests, how one might be aligned, how you bring stake holders
who see things differently and have different interests into a common ground
and into a decision making together.
>> Tom: I might stress that we have found more just as Rick has mentioned encouraging students
to take a role of a stake holder in a political environment view different
in the one they automatically would identify
with is an enormously powerful learning experience in course to articulate the views
of that different perspective, defend them against others is a self powerful way
to learn about political engagement.
>> Rick: Thanks Tom.
I want to finally give an example of exercise aimed at tapping into questions
of motivation disposition, and here I think we have an area that is often unexplored
and it's often unexplored because it does get a little dicey to talk about areas of values
or where people feel, even peoples political vocation or calling,
but my feeling is that all the knowledge and skills
in the world won't take you anywhere unless you're motivated, unless you have a motivation
to act in a particular way, unless you have direction and so it's important to at least work
on students development of their motivation, development of how they see their identities
as political beings, as citizens.
Again without being partisan, without violating those notions of open inquiries
that Tom opened up with it and started with.
So one of the ways I do that is through a three stage political biography assignment
that I use in my classes.
In the first stage I set up a series of prompts that are aimed at getting students
to write a very brief narrative about their basic political values and ideas,
their commitment to action around them, I had the opportunity to set up courses
through something like a web CT or a black board, we have a system called angel
and students can drop those political autobiographies in a drop box.
They do that for stage.
Then at the second stage I pair students up randomly and they have access
to each others autobiography, they read them ahead of time and then they come into class
and they engage in what I call a one to one conversation,
a basic tool the community organizers use.
I do a little workshop on what a one to one is they get a chance to have a conversation
with another student, a student who may have very different values,
very different motivations, and they're asked to explore their different stories and interests
and try to come to some common ground, some common understanding, some,
some ways in which things that they share or things that they have in common
and that alone has been really revelatory to me because students say in response to that one
to one that they were very nervous about having a conversation with a fellow student,
especially someone they didn't know or had no idea and after reading an autobiography
that seemed to out them at different ends of the political spectrum and
yet after a twenty minute conversation they felt much more comfortable sharing their story
of motivation, of what their political calling or vocation might be, and,
and feeling more confident that they could reach common ground even with people who,
with someone else who would seem to be diametrically opposed to them in terms
of their political identification.
Then what I do is the third stage is I ask them to interview an elder,
someone who represents a generation, one, at least one removed from their own,
again comparing their political autobiographies with this elder,
and this has been a really great exercise because students have had the opportunity
to interview a grand parent, or an aunt or uncle, or a close friend that they hadn't talked
with about politics because as we know we're all told that political conversations are taboo,
often times not to be mixed with family or friendly conversations.
So this is an exercise that I found quite effective to increase students sense
of their motivation, and to tap into those motivations, motivations that students have.
I'll be referring to where you can find some of these and other kinds of exercise assignments
that can bolster the political education, and a different kind of education for students all of,
most of which are on the Carnegie website.
Tom do you want to add anything at this point?
>> Tom: No I would bet, absolutely right the earlier dimension of my underscore is
that we have seen students come with a high degree
of what I'll call relativism saying here's my view and listening ,
probably politely to Rick's view and saying oh that's Rick's view but not really engaging,
saying whatever view you have is fine but I'm not really going to try to persuade you
or I'm not going to listen hard to you with the notion that I may be persuaded myself.
The kind of exercise that Rick suggests, and we have a number of others in the materials
as well, encourage students to not simply say here's my view there's your view
and walk away but rather engage.
Politics is an active involving participatory set of activities and it's important
that students learn how to try to persuade on the one hand and be persuaded on the other.
That's not a process that takes place generally outside of the university setting.
All the more important why it should occur in our classrooms and in our co-curricular program.
Incidentally I should stress that a number of the programs we've studies are co- curricular,
the programs generally range from a two year program at university of Maryland
to a one year program, two year program at university Massachusetts rather,
one yer program at Maryland, a summer program, most of them are single courses
of summer co-curricular as well and we've seen different perspectives and different ways
that those occur just ask whether I'm familiar
with the Carrie Rothstein-Fisher[assumed spelling] Kathleen Bailey [assumed spelling]
on colectiveistic and individualistic work, and I'm not familiar with that so if Michelle,
if Michelle Hertzsprung [assumed spelling] if you want to unmute your phone and tell us
about it or do it by writting that would be just fine.
>> Rick: And this is the time that we wanted to leave open for questions.
We want to leave a lot of time for questions and conversation or contributions
and you can either use the Q and A part of, on the webinar as Julie indicated typing
in your question in the box below that and sending it or if you want to ask a question
over the phone just unmute your phone, star seven, and you can ask your question
or make your comment at this point.
>> Michelle: Hello this is Michelle Hertzsprung can you hear me?
>> Tom: Yes.
>> Rick: Yes.
>> Michelle: Oh my Gosh this is very intimidating but kind of fun.
I raised a question about the collective assisted individualistic orientation
where it's something we've been delving deeply here at the Los Angles county Office
of Education to address a change in depth and looking at diverse learners,
diverse learning styles as it pretains to culture and their work goes very deeply
in the discussions of different cultures operating learning from different styles.
So we know that some cultures operate very collectiveisticly, you know, it's about family,
it's about working in groups, it's about working for the good of the group rather
than in indiviualistic work people tend to be a little bit more individual individual
in their work, independent and almost competitive at times, and how does that match
or mismatch what practices are conducted in classrooms.
The kids that are coming from a collectivenistic nature in their up bringing and their culture
but yet the classroom is operated from a very independent almost cometitive framework.
That's a mismatch for them, and that's typically how most classrooms operate
who has the best scores, who's student of the month,
who's got the best paper, kids working individually.
So what we're trying to look at more deeply is looking at teacher practice and how does
that help our kids particularly our African American and Latino students
who are performing well below the levels of our Asian
and white students in looking at those aspects.
So when you brought up the issue of coalition building and I think that's a real strength
of service learning or any activities that encourages people, kids to work in groups,
to work collaboratively some say it becomes a good match for kids from collective culture.
>> Tom: That makes a lot of sense.
Karen Wolatizic
[ assumed spelling] has asked that, what you do if you have a population of one system
of beliefs and an isolated student with an opposing view that is seen in a negative light?
That is an enormously important question Karen and I'm delighted you asked that.
Let me in start turn to Rick because of I begin by focusing on how we call this imperativeness
of open inquiry because of so often times there are minority views they feel silenced
in one way or another.
They don't feel that it is comfortable for them to express that view
because it is a minority one, and as faculty I think we need to be particularly sensitive
to helping students who are in a minority in terms of their perspective,
articulate that view, whatever it is, and help them defend it.
If it's one of the hot button issues like abortion for example to be sure
that that person can express her view and if the student seems
to be having trouble doing it oneself as a teacher, and so you express as strongly
as you can that view to help the student, and I know Rick you use the vibe watcher as a way
to help ensure that there is a minimum of opression in this dimension.
>> Rick: Yeah and another thing that I try to do is is that I try to bolster
as an instructor I try to bolster minority views myself by,
even if I don't necessarily adhere to them myself.
Adding to or supporting those and bringing in views that haven't been expressed
by the classroom because often times you'll have a class where systems of belief
or the perspectives represented don't reflect all the perspectives that are out there so,
and this is not always easy but you can do it yourself or you can create role plays
as Tom mentioned earlier where people are assigned to perspectives
that they may not hood themselves and that's a way of bringing in pluralistic belief systems
in a classroom, but it's really important, it's important that students don't feel isolated
in the same way that it's important that students who themselves
in the majority feel comfortable.
>> Tom: Well that is no less important that those who are in the majority feel pressed
and uncomfortable a bit of the time because that's part of the learning process.
>> Rick: Right.
Are there other comments or questions that people have?
>> Yeah? I don't know.
If you unmute it it's okay.
[Inaudible].
I can't, she just can't click on?
>> Rick: We can hear you.
>> Inaudible.
>> Rick: You have to press star seven to unmute your phone.
[ Silence ]
[ Beeps ]
>> Tom: Michelle just talked about the framework of a, Michael Fulon [assumed spelling]
about the need for all students to establish a moral imperative for our voices to be heard.
You might write out where those interested would find that work Michelle and I know Nathan,
Nathan Fine[assumed spelling], refers offers to the University of Minnesota Leadership Program,
which is a terrific program, it's one that emphasizes civic engagement general
but also political involvement and is wonderful.
There are leadership programs all across the country, University of Miami
of Ohio is another one that is effect in this dimension.
So I'm glad you raised that question.
>> Uh yes may I ask a question?
>> Rick: Please do.
>> So I just, I think females distend can you believe that teachers should attempt
to be objective in their representation of content and or curriculum in a attempt
to hide their own political leanings?
>> Tom:Ill take that there in two parts.
The terms of trying to be objective I would say yes that it is important as teachers
that we do try to be objective, that we too base our judgments on the reasons,
analysis on evidence and and that we recognize that though our own bias
and try to be as clear as we can about them.
Some faculty believe that they reveal their political views that will create
such an atmosphere in the class that it's hard for students with different views
to express themselves and so I watched them faculty
with very passionate views themselves keep their views from the students and I know that happens
because at the end of the class,
the course students are asked what are the faculty members views
and the students didn't know or were wrong.
On the other hand I've heard a number of faculty say no I'm gonna tell the students what I think,
where I am politically, conservative, liberal, republican, democrat, but I am going to stress
that I'm not only welcomed but affirmatively want their views based on reasoned analysis
and whether those views are the same or different than mine is not the issue
but rather how well the are able to articulate them
and that seems to be a critical distinction.
>> Yeah I'd like to complicate that.
I definitely am on the side of latter in my own teaching and think that it's actually,
I mean I would just argue that in many ways it's impossible to be objective,
I mean maybe some of these teachers fooled their students in terms of you know appearing
to be more neutral than they were but just by the mere choices we make
of curriculum and attention we give topics.
>> Tom: I take your point.
I think you're a, very well said that we make choices all the time that result from our biases
and we need to do the best we can to be objective We need to articulate as much
as we can what our biases are but, but having said that you're absolutely right,
all of our courses have by the material we chose to assign or not assign, the speakers we bring
to class or not bring, that says a lot.
Having mentioned that I would underscore that there are ways
to help emilierate [assumed spelling] and speakers it is one of them.
I was surprised the extent to which students in the twenty one courses and programs
that we studied were really viewed outside speakers coming to their class
as instructive perspective different than their own.
Students identified with the speakers even
when their views weren't the same and learned from them.
So it's a god way to balance ones own perspective in a course or program.
>> Rick: I guess I'd just add to this conversation.
I tend to, I have, I kind of agree with the questioner that it's impossible for people
to be objective but I do think the most important thing to convey to students is
that their voice is important and that my role as an instructor is to get them to be
as effective of arguing from their own perspective, arguing from their own,
arguing their own values and making arguments that are defended,
that have evidence behind them so they can be effective in the world.
It's no my job to tell them what they should think or to convince them to think what I think
but they should be effective thinkers, persuaders, deliberaters in the public realm,
and so my role is to help them be stronger from their own perspective,
and that's what I try to convey to students.
>> .Absolutely.
Thank you.
>> Tom: With this issue objectivity, bias, I, when we began the work to the work that lead
to the book Educating Democracy we knew that there was an issue
but we didn't realize how import and it was in the book now we devoted two chapters
to open inquiry and how to deal
with it including some suggestions in response to John Kitchener
[ assumed spelling] very thoughtful issues raised , how can you be objective,
how can you really be objective, what does objective mean.
So those two chapters are our efforts to try to grapple them with these questions realizing
that they're complex in any field.
Other questions or comments that you want us to deal with?
These have been very helpful and thoughtful.
[ Silence ]
>> Rick: We have a question from Karen Walostic [assumed spelling], I don't know if I pronounced
that correctly, asking about whether we examined political parties
and how they frame issues based on emotional framework and intellectual ones.
Tom do you have examples from the Carnegie Project
of a courses that looks at political parties?
I don't teach courses around political parties but.
>> Tom: Well several of the courses that we studied, one comes immediately to mind looks
at the politics of San Francisco, another one does the same thing at the, in terms of,
of the politics in Chicago and in both cases they look at particular issues
on the perspective of how parties and politicians analyze those issues.
First of all how they analyze them and them the students do their own analysis
and to some degree yes they are framed around emotional rather than intellectual but I think
that it's not a total diconome emotion and the time to give our interacting in many
of the frames, but the students job is to examine carefully issues
to what degree is it appearing solely on emotions, to what degree is it intellectual
and those two courses are good examples of how that happens,
and and I see I was asked whether the power point will be available on the internet
and the answer is yes and I think that Rick is going to now give us some information on how
to get the other resources that are available.
>> Rick: Yeah let me, let me do a little wrap up
and if there are some really urgent questions you can just type them in,
but I think the most important thing to come away with is, is, and it's something
that has come through in my own research and work and certainly in Tom's
and the Carnegie Project is that, that while service learning is a really valuable vehicle
for civic education, for political education it doesn't happen by itself.
It just doesn't automatically happen and so the most important thing that some one who's engaged
in community based or service learning can do it to be intentional about what political
or civic ends they have in mind and then making sure that courses, assignments,
everything that is done is designed with those in mind, and we found that where that's the case
in a wide range of courses at a wide range of institutions that intentionality
and being intentional about how you design your course and your service learning activities
around political ends, knowledge, skills, disposition, values can make a world
of difference in terms of outcome.
Let me talk about some of the resources that are available to you.
There is the book Educating For Democracy that Tom mentioned which is a narrative
of the twenty one course and program project at the Carnegie Foundation engaged
in over a three year period, but more specifically there are supplemental documents
from the political engagement project over fifty of them including assignments, activities,
keeper assignments, there are samples of student work that come out of these courses
and programs, material for evaluation, those can be found also at the Carnegie website.
You have the URL available and again when you get the power point you can just copy
and paste it into your web browser and go right to that page and it's just a wealth
of documentation there, and it can be used, adapted, revised, as you see fit.
To learn more about the California Campus Compact
and the Carnegie Foundation Faculty Fellows Program which kind of follows
up on the Educating For Democracy book end work you have a URL,
URL there to California Campus Compact and you can see a list of the fellows
and where they are at, what disciplines they're in, and the kind of work that they been doing.
Several years ago I wrote a volume
for Campus Compact called Civic Engagement of Classic Curriculum.
It not only tries to explore different disciplinary frameworks that connect,
that can connect to political and civic engagement but it also has a series
of activities and exercises that can be used at any kind of service learning course aimed
at political or civic engagements.
I want to also mention something not on the slide, it just came out,
Association of American Colleges and Universities, AAC and U,
puts out quarterly something called peer review and the latest peer review that came
out is on student political engagement.
It had a lead essay by Ann Colby who is one of Tom's colleagues
in the Carnegie Political Engagement Project, it has a series of short essays
around political engagement including some examples fro different campuses.
You can find most of them online if you don't get peer review
at your institution or in where ever you are.
By just going to www.AACU.org go to publications and look for peer review
and the latest issue will come up and several of the essays in the volume are available online,
not all are but quite a few of them are.
Then finally you can find guidance and those of you who are supported either through CNCS,
particularly through CNCS, learners of America grants or whatever,
you can get guidance about what restrictions exist.
If you are trying to do political engagement work or political education work there may,
you need to avoid restrictions, you need to avoid areas of legislative lobbying
in partisan politics, the URL on your slide can, can, can help you with that,
and if you have questions you can get in touch
with Tristan Breckenridge [assumed spelling] who's on the line listening in
and she can answer any questions you might have about what restrictions might exist
if you're a learn and serve funding from the corporation.
I've flipped it over to the contact list you can get in touch with any of us
at our email addresses to follow up with questions, to ask for resources
that you couldn't find from the resource slides, or things you might have particular questions
about that either Tom or I addressed.
Tom you have anything else to add?
>> Tom: Well let me not only thank Campus Compact on the one hand and Clearinghouse
on the other and you for, for the experience we just had over the last hour.
I want to stress on the one hand I have seen in a enormously wide range
of courses faculty saying there is a potential public policy issue here
and our students are going to address it and think about it
and all of a sudden they are doing political engagement in a very active way.
The other part is that I've been working especially with eight campuses as part
of the American Democracy Project which is sponsored by the American Association
of State Colleges and Universities and the project as a whole is some two hundred
and twenty campuses, but I've been working particularly with eight of them that we want
to educate all of our students and not just a few of them but all of them
to be politically engaged and they have over the past two years developed course,
programs starting from those that welcome incoming students,
our co- curricular ones throughout the year, our courses emphasizing our first year experience,
ones in general education, and ones in their major but the result that I really am,
am quite persuaded that these eight campuses students, virtually all of them are coming away
with significant with education, the knowledge, and skills to be politically engaged.
So it is possible on a campus wide basis as well
as of course an individual program or individual campus basis.
Thank you again for the pleasure of your company over the last hour and ten minutes.
>> Rick: Julie do you want to close?
>> Julie: Yes also thank you both Tom and Rick for sharing all that you did and things to many
of the participants for sharing resources and questions and comments.
I will stress that we will be sending all the [inaudible] participants power point slides
as a follow up.
We will also be sending you a link for an evaluation form
so that you can let us know what was valuable and what successes you have for future webinars
and we're always interested in improving as well as hearing what you thought
of a particular [inaudible], and so we very much look forward to some input that way and just
to say thanks and all of the activities and exercises
that were here toady they do support students political engagement and the development
of their skills to address the issues they care about in ways that are consistent
with the American guidelines just for those of you who have that concern,
and other for the point Tom was making at the end,
we could do a lot of the course a programming level it's also critical
that we create campus cultures that support open deliberation and dialog about public issues
because that is the [inaudible] that count having a campus find that supports the work
and happening more intensely within courses and programs is where we see the greatest impact
on students and that's good for a democracy.
So thank you all for the commitment you have for this work thanks for joining us today
and we look forward to being in touch with the follow up materials soon.
So thanks everybody.