The Periclean Progress is a publication of Project Pericles, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that encourages and facilitates commitments by colleges and universities to include education for social responsibility and participatory citizenship as an essential element of their educational programs, in the classroom, on the campus, and in the community.

 

National Office News

PERICLEANS IN THE NEWS:

Thoughts on Pericles from Afar
By Adrienne Falcón, Director of Academic Civic Engagement, Center for Community and Civic Engagement and Project Pericles Program Director, Carleton College. Falcón is currently on a Fulbright in Ecuador.

Once a campus has been invited to join, Project Pericles requires a statement from their Board of Trustees indicating a commitment to the ideals of the Pericles program namely that the college includes preparing "students for socially responsible and participatory citizenship as a part of its educational agenda." (Liazos and Liss, 2009 Project Pericles White Paper Civic Engagement in the Classroom: Strategies for Incorporating Education for Civic and Social Responsibility in the Undergraduate Curriculum). For many of the colleges, obtaining this board participation shifts or strengthens their institutions to a new level of commitment. This fall I have been learning about the implementation of an even more intensive commitment that institutions of higher education in Ecuador have to fulfill.

Much of the current literature in the United States on civic engagement and higher education examines the experiences of US students who travel abroad and participate in some form of service learning. Instead, with the support of the Fulbright Foundation, I have been in Ecuador for the past five months researching the implementation of the 2010 Organic Law of Higher Education (LOES). LOES mandated " Vinculación con la Sociedad" (aka linkages with society or in other words community/civic engagement) for all institutions of higher education. This transformative law put vinculación into the center of each university and technical college's policy and practice by stating that the three core principles of all institutions are teaching, research, and vinculación. 

 
According to the LOES, higher education must be relevant for students and for the nation. As the law states: "The principal of relevance means that higher education responds to the expectations and needs of the society and of the national development plan; to the potential global development of the sciences, humanities, and technology, as well as cultural diversity. For this, institutions of higher education will link their teaching, research, and vinculación con la sociedad offerings to the academic demands, to the local, regional, and national development needs, to the innovation and diversification of professions and academic levels, to the characteristics of the local, regional, and national labor markets, to the local, regional, and provincial demographic trends, to connections with the current economic structure and to the potential development of the province and region and the national policies for science and technology" (Ley Organica de Educacion Superior Title 6, Chapter 1, Article 107).

In order to implement this vision, over the past five years, the national higher education regulating institutions have developed new graduation requirements and policies for all institutions of higher education. These requirements include that all students must complete 160 hours of vinculación or service to the community as well as 240 hours of pre-professional practice (similar to internships) for a total of 400 hours. Students are also required to complete 60 hours of academic service at the University as a way of paying back the university for the educational opportunity they have received since there is no tuition at public universities. The government offices of higher education have included assessment of these new programs as part of their accreditation criteria through which they evaluate all institutions of higher education and give them a grade as well as recognize them as valid institutions.

For the past five months I have been researching the implementation of the law at one site, the University of Cuenca , a comprehensive public university that has approximately 12,000 students studying in 12 schools from medicine to social sciences and economics; hospitality, gastronomy, and tourism; the humanities; agriculture; and architecture. Faculty are given work time dedicated to develop and supervise vinculación  projects and participating students. The faculty and student hours are coordinated through their academic departments and are linked to their fields of study. Each school has a coordinator of vinculación  who also teaches. All of the coordinators meet monthly to try to develop integrated programs under the guidance of an overall institutional vinculación  coordinator. Through these meetings, observations, and conversations, I have learned about accomplishments but also challenges. These echo many of those I hear at the annual Project Pericles Program Directors meetings: lack of time, resources, space, as well as feelings of commitment and satisfaction about the meaningfulness of this work and the potential impact on all involved, students, faculty, and community partners ( continued).

Rhodes D4D Students Organize Get Out the Vote Event with Tennessee's Secretary of State Tre Hargett

Rhodes College Students Samuel Holder and Jolie-Grace Wareham with Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

In January, Rhodes College students Samuel Holder '17, one of the winners of the 2015 D4D Legislative Hearing, and Jolie-Grace Wareham '17, organized a voter registration event. Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (Rep.) discussed the importance of civic engagement and voting with Rhodes students and fielded questions about the registration process. Hargett also discussed online voter registration which is currently under consideration in Tennessee. State Senator Reginald Tate (Dem.) attended as well.
Holder and Wareham are using the D4D Legislative Hearing award received by Rhodes College to raise awareness about the need for broadband internet access in rural communities in Tennessee.

Students at Carleton Organize Screenings on Campus to discuss the complexity of relationships with Iran

Hannah Nayowith '16 and Reilly Simon '16 organized screenings of Iranium and Iran Is Not the Problem on February 17 and 18 at Carleton College. The screenings explored both sides of the current approach to Iran's nuclear capabilities and explained the complexity of the relationship between the U.S. and Iran over time. Attendees discussed the issues addressed in the documentaries and gained a more comprehensive understanding of the factors involved.

Nayowith and Simon were finalists in the 2015 Letters to an Elected Official Competition and presented their argument at the Legislative Hearing, which is part of our D4D National Conference. Their topic was the P5+1 negotiations about Iran's nuclear capability. Since an agreement was reached shortly after their presentation, they have been advocating for a greater understanding of this topic among students and they have collaborated with numerous organizations on campus to increase their reach.

Widener Receives Grant for Culture and Arts Corridor Running to City Hall

Widener University has received a 2015 Catalyst Fund from the Barra Foundation to support a Boundaries and Bridges initiative, which aims to strengthen and support arts collaboration in the city of Chester and realize the planned Culture and Arts Corridor from Widener University to Chester's City Hall. The $211,000 grant will allow for a range of collaborative arts and creative place-making activities over the course of the next year. Members from Widener and the greater Chester community will work with artists to identify boundaries that may be obstructions to deeper trust and stronger collaborations between the university and community. Workshops will be offered to catalyze and encourage new collaborative possibilities, and funds will be available for artistic interventions that strengthen or build new bridges.

Seeds of Change Grow Engagement at Wagner College
By Theresa Reed '17

At Wagner College, we believe that the best way to engage communities is through deliberative dialogue and intentional relationship building. In order to create cohesive pathways of civic engagement, the Wagner Project Pericles team has supported the enhancement of community building through community theater efforts in collaboration with Imagining America and the Wagner College Center for Leadership and Community Engagement. 

This past fall, Seeds of Change Theatre Company continued to build upon their original show, Every Time You See Me. The show was created to address issues of race and class in 21st century America and draws on the personal stories and experiences of members of diverse Staten Island communities. The scenes were written and inspired by the casts' own experiences regarding race and identities. Some of the scenes in the show include a spoken word piece on what it is to be black in America, a Mexican dance number, and personal accounts of situations in which a person's race affected the outcome of an interaction.

In the powerful final scene, inspired by the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the New York Police Department, the cast lines the stage in pairs with one cast member putting the other in a chokehold. As the cast members in the chokehold begin to say the words "See Me", the person choking them responds "Every Time" and begins to release the chokehold and create a loving embrace around them. The scene ends with the words "I can breathe."

Thoughts on Pericles from Afar (continued)

In addition to the relevance of board commitment vs. national regulation in terms of institutionalizing civic engagement, the LOES and Ecuadorian approach to civic engagement social responsibility has two parts that seem relevant to Pericleans as we all explore various versions of pathway models: 1) What does it mean for pathways and what does it make possible when such a level of institutional commitment is required? 2) What does it mean to connect the goals of the University to the national, regional, and local development goals? Obviously in many ways Ecuador is very different from the United States, with its own culture, history, demographics, and economic sector as well as its current's president's mission to create a nation living with and by principles of wellbeing (buenvivir). Still, by committing to vinculación as a core principal of higher education, the current system in Ecuador offers another model for us all to consider.

My thoughts here are not evaluative, nor do I provide examples of programs or student experiences. Instead I plan to analyze the data that I have gathered during my Fulbright intercultural exchange for future presentations. Given the fundamentally different mindset towards institutionalizing civic engagement, as well as exchange and learning from other campuses, both core principles to Project Pericles, I seek to offer another way of conceptualizing the role and mission of civic engagement from a cross-national perspective.

Upcoming Events:

March 21

Project Pericles presentation, "Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement:  Intentionality in the Organization and Integration of Programming for Civic  Engagement and Social Responsibility" at Campus Compact 30th Anniversary Conference, Boston, MA. Panel: Jan R. Liss, Executive Director, Project Pericles; Karin Trail-Johnson, Associate Dean Institute for Global Citizenship & Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; Marcine Pickron-Davis, Chief Community Engagement and Diversity Officer, Widener University.

Debating for Democracy-D4D On the Road: 2016 Schedule
We invite you to attend either of the two remaining D4D workshops. Please let us know what will work for you.

March 19               Ursinus College (visiting campuses: Goucher College , 

 

March 30               New England College, Concord, NH (visiting campuses: Bates College                                and Hampshire College)

 

 

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