Civic engagement groups are beginning to face the challenges and goals of civic engagement reform at the University.
Leaders of service organizations at Duke have begun to consider how their groups can work within the recommendations of the Klein-Wells report, issued Jan. 15. The report recommended centralizing some aspects of civic engagement under the Duke Center for Civic Engagement, which would be led by a professor.
“The challenge is, how do we make sure that Duke doesn’t simply have the biggest or splashiest program, but the best,” said Noah Pickus, Nannerl O. Keohane director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics. “Students, faculty and community leaders [must be] attracted to a common vision.”
The DCCE’s main purpose will be to foster a higher level of coordination of civic engagement opportunities campus-wide. It will be led by Leela Prasad, associate professor of ethics and Indian religions.
“One of our main requests was that we somehow have more of an established network to share best practices so individual groups aren’t repeating requests from campus departments or contacts,” said Joan Clifford, assistant director of the Spanish language program who is involved with Spanish Service Learning.
Leaders of civic engagement programs like Spanish Service Learning, the Hart Leadership Program and the Center for Documentary Studies contributed reports to the Klein-Wells committee when it convened in the Fall.
If executed correctly, DCCE has the potential to support existing engagement opportunities, like a bilingual storytelling program in Durham Public Schools, Clifford said. DCCE should let organizations know what others are doing to prevent miscommunication and allow organizations to best serve their communities.
“We need to know what the rest of the Duke community is doing so we don’t overstress the community,” she said.
Civic engagement should not be too centralized, however, said Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies.
“Civic engagement comes in all shapes and colors,” Rankin said. “Value of civic engagement at Duke is wide range—communally, locally and beyond. I do think a center for civic engagement is a great way for students to advocate speaker series and solidify a lot of the pieces that are happening at Duke anyway.”
Most of the responsibility of developing the new role of the DCCE will fall to Prasad. Pickus said it is important for service organizations to maintain ownership of their programs and for DCCE to act as a resource and not a controlling body.
“When you centralize [civic engagement], you kill it,” Pickus said. “You want different units to own it—the question is can the center make the whole greater than the sum of the parts? It all depends on what the director will set.”
Although Prasad does not officially assume her position until July, she has already started discussions with various civic engagement groups like the Duke Partnership for Service. She is also working with the administration to create a suite of civic engagement courses to connect service with the curriculum.
“Having a faculty member director of DCCE will be a huge benefit for students,” said DPS President Adam Nathan, a senior. “There is hardly anyone better for the job. From a student’s point of view, she is extremely aware of the challenges of creating a cohesive relationship between civic engagement and academics.”
Hart Leadership Program Director Alma Blount said that if the University wants to establish civic engagement with a unified, strong presence, its needs to be incorporated into coursework. The Hart Leadership Program at the Sanford School of Public Policy focuses on leadership through applied research, social entrepreneurship and service learning.
“Students tell me they’re hungry for a sense of integration,” she said. “They want to see how what they’re learning in the summer integrates with a larger intellectual context.”
Tony Brown, director of the Robertson Scholars Program and professor of the practice at Sanford, will rejoin the Hart Leadership Program to teach a service-based capstone course, Blount said. This course reflects the objectives of the suite of service learning courses the administration and Prasad are working to establish.
“I would like to see students go and work in a poor community and come back hungry about causes of poverty, proposals of solutions, etc.” Pickus said. “It needs to be analytical and it needs to be rigourous while still keeping the experiential.”
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