civic engagement
New Course on Community Engagement in Higher Ed
Submitted by David on Sat, 08/28/2010 - 5:36am. We are pleased to have the support of faculty from UMass Boston for our AmeriCorps member training program. Dwight Giles, one of the professors we are working with, is offering a new course on "Community Engagement in Higher Education." The graduate level course is open to anyone interested that has a Bachelors degree--i.e. you don't need to be enrolled at UMass Boston. So I thought I'd share here as it might be of interest to some in our network. The course summary is pasted in below, with the full flier attached which includes Prof. Giles' contact info.
Course Description Wed. 5-7:30 p.m.
Civic Engagement & Social Change Events This Week
Submitted by David on Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:59pm.I'm doing a workshop on Wednesday with Dave Weed of Healthy City Fall River at the Southeastern Mass. Civic Engagement Summit, a regional event at UMass Dartmouth, inspired in part by the statewide Civic Engagement Summit SCI and many other groups put together during the fall of 2007. Now that http://myfallriver.org, one of our new network community websites is up in running, we find ourselves in Southeastern Mass. quite a bit. You can learn more about the event here: http://www.umassd.edu/engage/cce/summit.cfm
Thursday evening, I'll be joining a panel & community dialogue session on Social Change hosted by the New Prosperity Initiative at the Boston Public Library. Should be an interesting conversation, feel free to join us! Details in the attached press release.
Youth propel push toward volunteerism
Submitted by David on Mon, 11/24/2008 - 6:02am.Today's Boston Globe article "Youth Propel Push Toward Volunteerism", cites further evidence that youth are volunteering in record numbers. A recent Corporation for National Service study suggests the number of young volunteers has roughly doubled from a year ago. This growing move to serve seems to be one factor laying the groundwork for the increased voter participation among young adults in the recent election.
Social Capitalist in Chief & Other Election Notes
Submitted by David on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 3:36am.Tom Sander does a nice job on his Social Capital Blog articulating the significance of Tuesday’s election for those of us focused on social capital and civic engagement. He notes that after reaching all time lows a decade ago, voter turnout approached, and perhaps surpassed, the all time highs.
Clearly there are signs the tide is starting to turn on civic engagement, with the significant youth vote being especially heartening for me. Motivated by what at the time was low youth interest in politics and other forms of participation beyond volunteering, the Youth Council was the first program we established when we started SCI seven years ago. One of my favorite Youth Council projects is the one where the youth facilitate debates among candidates for local office at the local high school. read more »
