THE PERICLEAN: Sharing updates, resources, and stories from our network of civic champions, delivered on the first Friday of each month.

On November 22nd, members of Project Pericles connected for a virtual post-election reflection event. It was a powerful opportunity for our community to document lessons learned, to discuss the impact of the election on their campuses, and to prepare for the challenges ahead. 

More than anything, this post-election gathering reminded us that the Periclean community is ready and equipped to meet the moment ahead. We have the tools, the knowledge, and the passion to drive democracy forwards. Our community and our institutions know that democracy is a work-in-progress– one that all of us need to participate in and strengthen. 

Community members noted key victories–many supported by Project Pericles programming. Despite being scheduled on a Sunday afternoon (and against a Patriots game!), New England College’s November 10th post-election event, “Democracy Dialog” attracted a crowd of seventy-five students and members of the surrounding community eager to discuss their frustrations and hopes for the current political moment. With the help of Professor Nathan Shrader, a Periclean Faculty Leader and the co-director of NEC’s Center for Civic Engagement, students talked in small groups about intricate issues facing our democracy. 

Photo from "Democracy Dialog" event at New England College, credit Nathan Shrader

Photo from "Democracy Dialog" event at New England College, credit Nathan Shrader

In describing the event, Professor Shrader explained: “We framed our event as a conversation about the future of American democracy rather than as an election post-mortem, which we felt was very beneficial given the uncertainly facing the nation.” Event attendees all received shirts with “Defenders of Democracy” on the front, and attendees hope to carry this defense of democracy forward through their education. 

Dr. Shrader shared that: “The support we received from Project Pericles was extremely important. I think it also gave us additional credibility by having Project Pericles, League of Women Voters, and Granite Post (a recently founded online news source) on our brochures and digital graphics. It makes a difference when people see that events are supported by numerous, credible organizations. It was also very helpful for me to attend the Program Directors Conference at Swarthmore because I learned more about what other faculty members had done in the past with these kinds of programs.” 

Rhodes College, meanwhile, was proud of its successful (and well-attended) “Food, Faith, and Free Elections” lunch series that brought together religious leaders and campus stakeholders weekly. The series even better attended AFTER the election than before it. 

Many other takeaways were - unsurprisingly - sobering. Program directors shared their fears around the safety of undocumented, international, and LGBTQIA+ students. They discussed concerns about the chilling of political speech and potential repression of academic freedom through watchlists. Members lamented the continued financial divestment in offices of civic and community engagement - which we need now more than ever! 

Project Pericles is energized for challenges ahead and committed to collaborating with our Periclean campuses, partners, and supporters to strengthen democratic engagement in the years ahead.

🌟 Community Spotlight🌟

Reigniting Printmaking's Activist History

You Butter Vote, Bridget Wappman, Silkscreen (Edition of 14), 2024

Vote You Must, Jake Harris, Silkscreen (Edition of 14), 2024

Vote Poster, Sadie Chow, Silkscreen (Edition of 14), 2024

In the runup to the 2024 Election, Ursinus College was home to a unique Get Out the Vote effort. Alongside the political fliers and campaign posters, Ursinus’s campus was also decorated with colorful screen-printed posters - a limited-edition run of designs created by students to urge their peers to cast their ballots. 

For Professor Sarah Pater, Project Pericles’ Civic and Voter Engagement Fellow at Ursinus College, these Get Out the Vote posters served as a perfect final project for her Printmaking I class. Because printmaking spreads ideas through visual design, it serves as a unique way for artists to engage the community. Pater’s class built on printmaking’s political roots, incorporating Project Pericles’ “Why Voting Matters” and “How to Vote” modules into the class’s lessons on visual design and printmaking’s activist history.

As they prepared for their final project, students considered their audience as well as the broader political context. How would they use design elements to make voting attractive to fellow students? How would they make a national election feel personal to the Ursinus community?

The final posters reflected a range of visual and political strategies: several students referenced the iconic Robert Indiana "LOVE" sculpture on campus; others used clever wordplay and visual puns (“you butter vote"); while one student’s poster referenced the U.S. Capitol set on fire on January 6th.

In reflecting on the final projects, Sarah Pater noted the power of experiential learning in civic engagement: “This project showed my students how something seemingly abstract and perhaps even esoteric[like printmaking] can have an actual public impact, with high stakes and a real audience.”

$1,000 Civic and Voter Engagement Grants

Priority Deadline: January 28, 2025

Inspired by Sarah Pater's Printmaking class? Want to add a voting or civic engagement component to your course? Know any faculty doing innovative civic educational work? Consider applying for our Civic and Voter Engagement Fellowship!

The Civic and Voter Engagement Fellowship, supported by the Mellon Foundation, gives faculty resources and funding to add a civic engagement component to their courses. Fellows are awarded a $1,000 grant to use Periclean Civic Engagement Resources in Spring 2025.

We're excited to invite applications from any interested higher educational faculty and staff. The Priority deadline is January 28, 2025.

Please forward this opportunity to interested colleagues, and if you have any questions about the application, please contact Arielle del Rosario at arielle@projectpericles.org.

We will also be launching a revised version of this fellowship in early 2025 - stay tuned for this exciting update!

📓 Resources for the Classroom 📓

Modules on Voting Rights and Voter Suppression

Does this election have you fired up about teaching voting rights and electoral engagement? Are you preparing your Spring 2025 classes - and looking for useful content?

Check out our newly refined module on addressing Voter Suppression. The module includes:

• A newly updated set of interactive activities, developed by our faculty fellows, including discussion board prompts, journaling exercises, and online activities on redistricting and voter registration

• A faculty guide with examples, themes, and topics you can incorporate into your classes



• Two sets of powerpoint slides, including one on the history of voter suppression, and one on contemporary voting rights issues.

Thank you to the Mellon Foundation for funding this work.

📖 What Staff are Reading 📖

📚 Sanda (Executive Director) just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering” and started Sasha Issenberg’s “The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age.” Both provide interesting perspectives in understanding factors contributing to the 2024 election and forces we need to harness in order to cultivate and sustain an informed, engaged citizenry

📚 Arielle (Associate Director) is enjoying the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Habits of Heart and Mind. This report serves as a guide to the norms, values, habits, narratives, and rituals that embody a thriving civic life.

📚 Suzanne (Program Associate - new to the staff!) is reading Han Kang's Human Acts. Kang's most famous novel uses multiple, interconnected viewpoints to look at the May 1980 democratization uprising in Gwanju, South Korea.

📚 Jason Vadnos (Intern) is currently reading Richard Hofstaeder's The American Political Tradition, a historical account of the ideologies which guided notable American politicians and change-makers. In the book, Hofstaeder posits that a belief in the virtues of capitalism drove political thought from America's inception to the early 20th century.

What are YOU reading (or listening to--Sanda listens to most of her reading these days...)? None of us have enough time to read all that we wish we could, and we appreciate tips from readers and thinkers we admire. We would love to share your suggestions in our next newsletter! Email: Sanda@projectpericles.org

✍️ Pericleans in the Press ✍️

📰 Scott Warren (Project Pericles Board Member) wrote A Reckoning for the Pro-Democracy Community for the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Warren's article, written in the wake of the 2024 Presidential election, provides four recommendations for leaders dedicated to strengthening democracy in the United States.

📰 Mat Gendle and Amanda Tapler (Directors of Project Pericles at Elon University) published an evaluation tool for community-based global learning programs in the latest issue of The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning.

📰 Today at Elon shined a spotlight on Professor and Periclean Civic Engagement Fellow Shannon Zenner's course, Design of Visual Images. In the class, students amplified the importance of democratic participation through unique poster designs.

📰 Bates College's Harward Center featured Periclean Civic Engagement Fellow Professor Michel Droge for his class Visual Meaning: Process, Material, and Format, which explores voter suppression throughout history.

📰 The All In Campus recently recognized their Most Engaged Campuses for College Student Voting. These colleges and universities honored for their outstanding efforts to increase student voter participation. A whopping eleven Periclean institutions made the cut - congratulations to all for your hard work!

🛎️ Upcoming Events 🛎️

Project Pericles will be presenting two panels featuring our staff alongside faculty from seven of our campuses at the 2025 AAC&U Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.--please join us if you will be there! You can read more about our sessions here.

🗓️ January 23, 2:00-3:15pm: Disrupt Distrust: Fostering Well Being and Resilience through Democratic Engagement. Panelists include:

• Sanda Balaban, Executive Director, Project Pericles
• Sinda Nichols, Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, Carleton College
• Danielle Lake, Director of Design Thinking and Associate Professor of Human Service Studies, Elon University
• Bill Harder, Director of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence and Professor of Political Science, Goucher College
• Bernadette Ludwig, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Civic Engagement, Wagner College

🗓️ January 24, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Co-Creation in Education: Strengthening Communities through Curricular Partnerships. Panelists include:

• Arielle del Rosario, Associate Director, Project Pericles
• Brian J. Evans, Assistant Professor of Dance and American Studies, Bates College
• Anita Chikkatur, Professor of Educational Studies, Carleton College
• Julia Chadaga, Associate Professor of Russian Studies, Macalester College
• Michelle Chase, Associate Professor of History, Pace University

If you have a story, event, or publication you'd like us to feature, please reach out! E-mail: suzanne@projectpericles.org

PROJECT PERICLES APPRECIATES THE SUPPORT OF OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND SUPPORTERS INCLUDING: THE EUGENE M. LANG FOUNDATION, THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS, THE MELLON FOUNDATION, THE TEAGLE FOUNDATION, & STUDENTS LEARN STUDENTS VOTE COALITION