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Getting on the Bus: Reflections from ADPTDC13
Posted by Katie James on June 18, 2013 at 02:08 PM CDT

I’m hoping to make the bus.

You could say that Denise Fairchild led me to the bus stop in Denver. She herself had ridden that bus before—back in the 1960s, just a few years younger than me, from Nashville down to Memphis, Tennessee. Fairchild now helps drive the bus, and she’s making sure that people like me not only get on, but eventually take over the wheel and drive our students to their “generational destiny,” as she so eloquently put it.

For all you literal-minded folk out there, Fairchild did not find me wandering the streets of Denver lost, nor did she plant me at a bus stop in the city. While I certainly would have enjoyed the opportunity to stroll with Fairchild, President and CEO of Emerald Cities Collaborative, through downtown Denver and chat while we waited for the bus, I had no such experience. In fact, the only bus I hopped on was the free 16th Street MallRide that dropped me off just a few blocks from the Marriott as I toured the area during lunch, well within the city limits and leading to a predetermined, physical point devoid of the abstraction complementing Fairchild’s call to ‘get on that bus.’  

Last weekend, myself along with my two colleagues—Norma Ramos, Director of Marketing and Communications, and Catalina Nava, Program Coordinator—attended the 2013 American Democracy Project and The Democracy Commitment joint national meeting in Denver, Colorado. Representing the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), our team was enthusiastic about the theme for this year’s meeting: 21st Century Citizens: Building Bridges, Solving Problems. Three full days were spent listening to inspiring speakers, learning from thought-provoking panels, and interacting with engaged teachers, practitioners, and students about ways the educational experience should be one that comes to once again value the liberal arts for their potential to instill in students the intellectual and practical skills necessary to operate within a 21st century community-centered civic structure; instead of preparing students only for a skill-specific workforce, we must broaden our focus so that students develop the capacity for critical thinking and public participation based upon the learned arts of rhetoric, logic, ethics, and more modern academic areas such as the sciences, literature, history, and even religion. A well-rounded graduate with transferable skills is highly valued not only in the community and in matters of citizenship, but increasingly in the work sphere as well. Adopting such a viewpoint in favor of the liberal arts is indeed critical for creating a national atmosphere in which one’s job is no longer disconnected from civic engagement, the latter of which is typically seen as an ‘after-hours only activity’, always riding the heels of work; we must incorporate the values and lessons of the liberal arts—“the arts of citizenship,” according to Peter Levine, Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Director of CIRCLE, Tisch College/CIRCLE, Tufts University—beyond the classroom so that we come to define ourselves not solely by our job title or degree, but by our actions as citizens, both in the workspace and in the community:

Hello, my name is Katie James and I am a citizen involved in work that helps connect fellow citizens to government.

It’s quite a different approach to the introductory rituals that require us to not just state our name, but to also state our purpose defined by our work when publicly declaring our identities. As Americans, our purpose should be citizenship. Our purpose should be citizenship because, despite where our diverging political preferences fall on the Left/Right spectrum, we all have an obligation to uphold the wellbeing of our individual and communal selves by making good on our promise of democratic citizenship; we have a responsibility to uphold our end of the bargain that requires us to actively participate in the public sphere on matters of governance and social justice and to provide a check and balance on the power granted to those representing our interests at all levels of government.  Education in the liberal arts—and consequently education for citizenship—provides us with the social consciousness necessary for our widespread engagement and gives us the values, facts, and strategies that Levine sees as necessary for equipping students in the 21st century with the problem-solving tools needed to improve our communities.

So, our IPCE team came back to Chicago from Denver with notes jotted on notebook pages and ideas stored in mind attending to ways we can move forward with our Institute work of creating a more effective democracy by engaging citizens. With conference sessions ranging from incorporating deliberation and discourse into the classroom to using new media to tell stories of political engagement to expanding the use of twitter on campuses, there were plenty of paths for learning relevant and adaptable to our unique role as an Institute within a university in which we must constantly navigate our interactions among scholars, students, community leaders, and citizens. We’re excited about potentially incorporating some of these ideas in the upcoming year—of which we’ll happily keep you posted.

ADPTDC13 was my first conference as a practitioner in the field of civic engagement and as part of the IPCE team. Coming from an English language and literature background where the work has too easily fallen into an insular slump that makes it difficult for academics and graduate students to substantiate their work in the so-called real world (a statement that I know many of my past colleagues in the English department would take issue with and disagree), ADPTDC helped assign new value to my educational training. I have always put my faith in the fact that, as an English major, I would graduate not only with highly marketable communication skills for the workplace, but also with a heightened consciousness of current social and political issues in my community and country and the capacity to act upon real problems. My experience in the classroom prepared me extensively for the first, but only a handful of teachers here and there really promoted an academic agenda that used the real world as a text to supplement literature, really crossed boundaries in their own work and encouraged students to do the same in order to reframe the discussion so it might be relevant to us as community members, as U.S. citizens, as global citizens. Fairchild and Levine infused the conference with an inspirational call to transform the educational landscape so that it teaches for change, teaches to build a sustainable future, teaches to address challenges and problem solve, and above all, teaches how to be a citizen. We can’t just equip students with the tools and not also provide an instruction manual; educators, practitioners, and administrators at colleges and universities must hand students the tools and simultaneously help them realize the context for the tools’ use, the appropriate practice for such tools, and the necessity of these tools. Higher education, particularly the liberal arts, hands down to students the responsibility to act in the real world as informed and engaged citizens; however, it is likewise the responsibility of their teachers—as Fairchild passionately explained from her own experience as a student in the ‘60s—“to guide us [students] to good outcomes, to get us out of college . . . to nurture our leadership potential, to nurture our intellectual curiosity and capacity, to channel our energies and idealism to productivity and to make sure that we make a real difference.”

So, while I may have missed the bus during my educational career, I found out in Denver that it’s not too late to hop on. I got on in Denver because of Fairchild, and I want to infuse my work with a purpose to help others who may have missed the bus as well. I got on the bus, and now I want to drive the bus. Ambitious, yes. But we all have a responsibility—educators and practitioners alike—to drive students and their adult compatriots in the direction of action and engagement so that they might answer the call of citizenship and work to build stronger communities and a more effective, responsive government.


Katie James
IPCE Staff Member 

Americans Envision a Civic Infrastructure for Public Dialogue and Deliberation
Posted by Norma Ramos on October 31, 2012 at 04:02 PM CDT


I had the opportunity to attend the National Coalition For Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) Conference in Seattle a few weeks ago and thought this was a great overview and blog post about the conference and the efforts in the field to make progress in strengthening our country’s and communities’ civic infrastructure.


Janice Thomson’s post “Americans Envision a Civic Infrastructure for Public Dialogue and Deliberation” first appeared on Involve.org’s blog last week.


Several key points from her blog include:


       Social capital serves as both the foundation and lubricant for a robust civic infrastructure — i.e., knowing and trusting one’s neighbors, public officials, and others with whom one must cooperate.


       Deliberative public engagement seems to be most sustainable when it is a process (not a project) that the community itself owns and which government officials trust.


       Engage politicians as politicians to support deliberative public engagement.


       Politicians in states with direct democracy (initiatives and referendums) appear to be more supportive of deliberative public engagement than politicians elsewhere.


       Politicians in states with direct democracy (initiatives and referendums) appear to be more supportive of deliberative public engagement than politicians elsewhere.


       Citizens must stop behaving like demanding consumers and take responsibility for their decisions.


       Courage is needed to engage a divided public on a growing number of contentious issues.


Read the full blog post: http://www.involve.org.uk/americans-envision-a-civic-infrastructure-for-public-dialogue-and-deliberation/



~Norma Ramos


UIC IPCE Staff Member 


 www.ipce.uic.edu 


 


 



 

"We the people of the United States" are Celebrating Constitution Day
Posted by Katie James on September 13, 2012 at 03:38 PM CDT

We are all familiar with the first line of the Preamble to the United States’ Constitution: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” And stop. Here our memory fails us, because civics class in elementary school happened just too long ago, and the Constitution isn’t short and rhythmic like the Pledge of Allegiance or the Star Spangled Banner to make for easy memorization. Of course we are all aware of the relevance and constant referencing in public life to the Constitution and its Amendments. We see it when people practice their right to free speech in protests and when people gather in their houses of worship to practice their religion without persecution. We see it in the structure of the United States government, in the power invested in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and in the checks and balances that occur in all three branches. And we see it, perhaps most significantly, when ALL citizens—no matter race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political preference—gather on Election Day in November to exercise their civic duty and cast their vote in local, state, and national elections. We don’t need to have the Constitution memorized to know that its impact on our daily lives is substantial and influential.  

However, I do think it’s worth noting that it’s not insignificant that Americans are able to recite the first line of the Constitution, particularly the first three words. “We the people.” We, signifying the all-inclusive. We the people, signifying a commonality—a nationality—that connects our personhoods to one another and to a larger good. “We the people of the United States,” from past, present, and future, understand and accept the organization of government laid out for us by our founding fathers and commit to participating in our right to civic life to the fullest degree. We see ourselves in terms of communities, as citizens of a nation, and in order to make our communities and our nation function as we see best, we—the all-inclusive we—need to take part in the simplest and yet most instrumental aspect of civic life: voting. The United States is not an “I” country; the head of state does not hold all the power. We as voters hold the power and the choices that keep our country working and moving forward.


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Today, September 17, 2012, is Constitution Day. On this day we as a nation celebrate the creation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by the 39 delegates and commemorate all those who have become citizens (whether by birth in the United States or by naturalization).

Today the University of Illinois at Chicago is leading Constitution Day events, much like communities throughout the country, and I encourage you to participate. Throughout the morning the campus community will have the opportunity to register to vote as well as sign up for internships and volunteer work. At noon, the public is invited to attend a guest lecture on “The First Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court” by Professor George Anastaplo from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Whether you choose to participate in Constitution Day events or not, I urge you to consider your role within that “we” come November when it’s time to cast our ballots and elect the president of the United States. Our government provides us the opportunity to vote for our elected officials, and that’s not something to be ignored or taken for granted.


Katie James
IPCE Staff Member 

It's Finally Summer: Time to Heat Up Civic Engagement
Posted by Katie James on June 21, 2012 at 02:52 PM CDT

Happy Summer!


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Yesterday’s solstice marked the official start of summer, and it sure felt like it here in Chicago. We’ve been feeling the heat in the city for awhile now, and we’re happy to finally have the season match the temperatures. We’re even more excited for the opportunities and free time that summer can bring.

Here at the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), we are committed to helping citizens find ways to engage with the policymaking process and current social trends. We believe that an informed citizenry increases engagement in our democratic system and creates a more responsive government. That said, it’s not always easy to find information that is relevant, accessible, and, let’s face it, interesting. Sometimes it’s difficult to relate a cause to our personal well-being and find meaning in an issue that doesn’t directly affect us. It can also be hard to decode the encrypted language that makes up so much of our government documents and data; even harder is finding and accessing this information, which is not always open to the public. Probably most common, however, is the pervading sense of boredom that has latched on to anything government- or policy-related. But how is our government benefitting you if you remain detached and uninvolved?

CivicSource is dedicated to combating these three issues of disengagement by motivating you to become an informed, participating citizen. By visiting our web portal regularly and following us on Facebook and Twitter, you’ll have access to the latest news regarding community and government efforts to increase civic engagement. You’ll see success stories, bold ideas and initiatives, and even matters of concern that might rile you up and instigate reaction. And see, just by READING these stories, you are a concerned citizen who is using the coupled power of knowledge and information to participate in our democracy. Engagement doesn’t always have to be active, outward shows of involvement. Simply sitting down to learn what’s happening in our government and across the country in local communities is a great way to stay up-to-date on policy and community issues.

I’m pretty sure, however, that it won’t be long before you run across that one story that hits close to home and challenges you to take the next step and lend your efforts to a cause. For those ready for action, CivicSource has plenty of ways for you to engage locally or nationally with issues that inspire you to help create a more equitable democracy. When you get involved, you’re creating a two-way flow of communication that is telling our governing institutions you matter and you want to be heard. And that is the best outcome of civic engagement efforts: creating a responsive government that is held accountable for its actions.

One of the biggest challenges to overcoming disengagement is simply finding the time to participate. Work, school, and family life can easily get in the way of extending our interest into and beyond our communities. Summer, however, is a great time to begin building our capacities as engaged citizens. The sunshine makes us feel more energized and longer days can mean more time. Some may have summer vacations that allow even more room for an active role. This is great and you should definitely take the opportunity to volunteer your time and effort to an issue that inspires you. Yet time off during these hot days is not the reality for many. This is why CivicSource is a great resource. It only takes five minutes to read a post and share your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter. You can do it at work on your lunch break, on your phone when you’re on the go, or right before bed when you have settled in for the night. Reading, learning, and communicating with others are all great tools for building an informed citizenry, so let this summer inspire you to start.


Katie James
IPCE staff member

Let the need drive the technology in civic engagement
Posted by Norma Ramos on September 09, 2011 at 11:26 AM CDT


I recently attended a conference for civic engagement academics and practitioners who discussed the role of technology in engaging citizens in democratic activities.  While there was a real sense of excitement about the potential that the Internet, mobile devices, and interactive applications hold for creating better informed and engaged citizens, that excitement was balanced by several concerns about the limitations or even negative consequences of a rush to adopt new technologies in our field.  One nearly universal concern among participants was that high-tech engagement tools, particularly those that are Internet-based, could replicate existing digital or non-digital divides in society usually associated with cost of access, differences in educational attainment, income, and other factors. 


Another concern was that with technology advancing so quickly there could be a drive for seeking a use for a particular application rather than first identifying a need/problem that technology could help solve.  I know that sometimes we don’t ‘see’ the need for something to be done better until a technology comes along that demonstrates its potential to us.  However, I think the concern here was more rooted in the ‘cool’ factor of a particular technology blinding us to the fact that it may actually be expensive, more time consuming to set up, or introduce new challenges for engaging citizens in a deliberative process.


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More research is needed to fully understand the ways that technology is helping/can help people become better engaged.  For example, a certain technology may make it easier for a facilitator to engage or communicate with larger numbers of citizens than before.  However, is that communication more likely to result in a citizen becoming better informed or participating more fully in our democracy?  With the overwhelming speed with which the Internet has become a ubiquitous communication tool, research is only beginning to catch up in this area, and even then good longitudinal research needs enough time to generate useful results.  Some of these concerns are addressed in recent research supported by the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 


There was general agreement at the conference on the potential for technology to transform how people participate in democracies – in fact that transformation is clearly underway.  My impression is that there was consensus that the use of technology is to be welcomed, rather than feared.  At the same time, the use of technology should be 1) filling a clearly identified need 2) improving the scale and/or quality of engagement  and 3) resulting in more inclusive participation of different segments of our population, or at the very least not creating a more exclusive form of participation.


Joseph K. Hoereth, PhD
Director, IPCE 

 

Let the need drive the technology in civic engagement
Posted by Norma Ramos on September 09, 2011 at 11:26 AM CDT


I recently attended a conference for civic engagement academics and practitioners who discussed the role of technology in engaging citizens in democratic activities.  While there was a real sense of excitement about the potential that the Internet, mobile devices, and interactive applications hold for creating better informed and engaged citizens, that excitement was balanced by several concerns about the limitations or even negative consequences of a rush to adopt new technologies in our field.  One nearly universal concern among participants was that high-tech engagement tools, particularly those that are Internet-based, could replicate existing digital or non-digital divides in society usually associated with cost of access, differences in educational attainment, income, and other factors. 


Another concern was that with technology advancing so quickly there could be a drive for seeking a use for a particular application rather than first identifying a need/problem that technology could help solve.  I know that sometimes we don’t ‘see’ the need for something to be done better until a technology comes along that demonstrates its potential to us.  However, I think the concern here was more rooted in the ‘cool’ factor of a particular technology blinding us to the fact that it may actually be expensive, more time consuming to set up, or introduce new challenges for engaging citizens in a deliberative process.


71086592


More research is needed to fully understand the ways that technology is helping/can help people become better engaged.  For example, a certain technology may make it easier for a facilitator to engage or communicate with larger numbers of citizens than before.  However, is that communication more likely to result in a citizen becoming better informed or participating more fully in our democracy?  With the overwhelming speed with which the Internet has become a ubiquitous communication tool, research is only beginning to catch up in this area, and even then good longitudinal research needs enough time to generate useful results.  Some of these concerns are addressed in recent research supported by the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 


There was general agreement at the conference on the potential for technology to transform how people participate in democracies – in fact that transformation is clearly underway.  My impression is that there was consensus that the use of technology is to be welcomed, rather than feared.  At the same time, the use of technology should be 1) filling a clearly identified need 2) improving the scale and/or quality of engagement  and 3) resulting in more inclusive participation of different segments of our population, or at the very least not creating a more exclusive form of participation.


Joseph K. Hoereth, PhD
Director, IPCE 

 

Welcome to CivicSource-A New Tool for Civic Engagement
Posted by Administrator on September 13, 2010 at 11:27 AM CDT


CivicSource is born! This wonderful new web resource created by the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), offers useful information for concerned citizens, community leaders, academics, or students seeking to learn more about civic engagement or connect with civic engagement efforts. I invite you to take CivicSource for spin – browse through all it has to offer.


As the Director of IPCE, I see this moment as a great opportunity to write a few words about our motivation behind creating this resource. CivicSource brings individuals, organizations, and institutions together with information they need to understand, deliberate, and take action on policy issues. We believe a more effective democracy is one in which all citizens are fully informed and engaged in the democratic process and we believe CivicSource can help make that happen.


The term civic engagement is used many different ways, so it is important for us to explain what we mean when we use it on this Web site. Civic engagement includes exercising our rights and responsibilities as citizens, but CivicSource represents a concept of civic engagement that goes well beyond voting and jury duty. Generally we define civic engagement as any action by an individual or group that contributes to a more effective democracy. This may include participating in a town hall forum, or becoming better informed about a particular policy issue. Civic engagement also includes expressing one’s opinion on policy issues, such as writing a letter, posting something online or joining a group of others with similar opinions. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of our broad definition of civic engagement. For more on our thoughts regarding civic engagement, click here http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/ipce/civicengagement.shtml to read more about our definition and to learn about examples of what we call civic engagement in action.


Why is civic engagement important? There is currently a 'deficit of trust' between citizens and government in the US. Many individuals have lost faith in government and are becoming disengaged from the democratic process or are not engaging in it in the first place. We believe that taking steps to keep citizens informed and create a more responsive government can help to improve trust in our democratic system and re-engage (or newly engage) citizens both as participants in the democratic system as individual agents of change in their communities. Engagement has the potential not only to improve the democratic process, but to also improve lives and communities through either policy change or direct community development efforts. CivicSource offers tools for such engagement, including stories about innovative civic engagement leaders who have done this kind of work and how they used their passion for engagement to bring about real change in their communities.


We spend a lot of time thinking about how technology makes a difference in civic engagement. Technology is completely transforming what is possible in a democracy. In 2011, we need to be thinking about civic engagement as a 'space,' a virtual space where people, government, and institutions come together to share information, learn, plan, or take action to address key issues of the day. When the US was mostly small towns this physical space may have been the 'Town Square', but it was also the church basement or the kitchen table where neighbors chatted on the day's events over a cup of coffee after dinner. To share information or do anything collectively people had to physically be in the same place at the same time.


Today thanks to technology and the Internet, the space for civic engagement is not limited by where you are or when you are trying to engage. People with common interests, people with different interests, government, corporations, and neighborhood organizations can be anywhere and gather to share, learn, and take action at any time through the web. In this new space and in the old, new forms of interaction are possible and old forms are enhanced. The movement toward deliberative democracy, where citizens deliberate policy alternatives themselves and rank their preferred choice and share the results directly with their elected representatives has been enabled partially due to changes in technology.


Government is an important player in this new space, but governments at all levels must also become better consumers and users of technology. This new space for civic engagement allows government to be more responsive and effective. There are more ways for citizens to reach government directly and government can provide some services more efficiently through the Internet. One of the primary goals for CivicSource is to house research and data on how governments are using technology.


We believe CivicSource has the potential to make difference in civic engagement. Though it is important to remember like any other web-based resource, it is just a tool. It is a great tool for learning more about policy issues , an important tool for discovering policy research, a useful tool for engaging like-minded (or even not so like-minded individuals) in dialogue, and ultimately a tool for improving how government works for all citizens. We have also made efforts to integrate this resource with social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, so that you can easily access CivicSource through whatever mechanism you primarily use for connecting and sharing with others. Please make it one of your spaces for engagement. If nothing else we will all feel just a little bit more connected with each other in some meaningful way.


Joseph K. Hoereth, PhD
Director, IPCE


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