Thursday Update * March 27, 2014

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2014-15 AmeriCorps VISTA Positions Available

NC Campus Compact is now accepting applications from candidates for 2014-2015 AmeriCorps VISTA positions. Our next VISTA cohort will begin in early August, 2014 and serve for one full year.

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NC Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA members work with community agencies and college campuses to develop a partnership that addresses local needs in one of three areas: education (especially K-12 success or access to post-secondary education), economic opportunity (especially housing or financial literacy), or healthy futures (especially food security). The specific nature and objectives of the project vary depending on host site. Most VISTA members share work time between campus and community partner offices, and thereby gain experience in both non-profit and higher education arenas.

 

To learn more about the program and the application process, visit the FAQ page for Prospective VISTAs. 

 

William Peace University Nonprofit Career Fair - TOMORROW - March 28 (11am-1pm)

 

NC Campus Compact will have two representatives from our AmeriCorps VISTA program at the William Peace University Non-profit Career Fair. The event is open to students and alumni of WPU, NCSU, Meredith College, Barton College, Campbell University, Mount Olive College, North Carolina Wesleyan, and Methodist University.

 

 

VISTA Camille Smith from NC State's Raleigh College Center and VISTA Leader Carla Davis from NC Campus Compact's main office would love to talk to students about the benefits and opportunities of becoming a 2014-15 NC Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA!  Please visit this link for event details. You can also contact Carla directly.

President's Honor Roll

The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll application deadline is AHonor Rollpril 3, 2014 at 5:00 p.m. EST.  As you complete your application, please review carefully and

  1. Pay attention to measures, and to work study hours (must be at least 7% to receive the Honor Roll, 15% for distinction and higher)
  2. Meet the deadline -- late applications are NOT accepted.
  3. Fill the application out completely -- apparently some have been rejected for missing an item early in the application

If you need assistance, Rob Bisi (rbisi@cns.gov) said campuses can contact him for feedback.

 

Interfaith Community Service will be one of the special categories for the next three years, but it is also integrated throughout the Honor Roll application (i.e., does the campus have a fulltime staff person coordinating student interfaith engagement, does the institution require interfaith engagement courses as part of core). There will not be separate reporting for those campuses building interfaith community service efforts.

Civic Engagement Jobs in the Network

Program Officer: Student Programs
The Carolina Center for Public Service (CCPS), UNC Chapel Hill

  

This position will manage the daily operations, planning and execution of several student programs, including (but not limited to) the Buckley Public Service Scholars, Community Engagement Fellowships, and Bryan Social Innovation Fellowships. The duties of this position include program development and implementation, supervision and advising, general administration, and external relationships and partnerships.


The Carolina Center for Public Service is a pan-university center reporting to the Office of the Provost. The mission of CCPS is to engage and support the faculty, students and staff of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in meeting the needs of North Carolina and beyond. The Center strengthens the University's public service commitment by promoting scholarship and service that are responsive to the concerns of the state and contribute to the common good.

 

A detailed job posting, including required qualifications and instructions for submitting an application, is available here.

 

 

Assistant Director for Community Service
Appalachian & the Community Together (ACT), Appalachian State University

 

Appalachian and the Community Together (ACT) has a 25 year history of meeting local community needs by engaging students in the community.   The successful candidate will have responsibility for the coordination of ACT's successful large-scale programming efforts, and oversight and advising of two leadership teams.  

 

Click here for the full description. 

 

Review of applications will begin immediately, and will continue until the position is filled. Proposed starting date for this position is July 1, 2014.

National Campus Compact Opportunities

Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award

Application Deadline:  April 1stCC logo

  

The Ehrlich Award is given for exemplary engaged scholarship, including leadership in advancing students' civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal community partnerships, building institutional commitments to service-learning and civic engagement, and other means of enhancing higher education's contributions to the public good.

 

The award winner is granted $2,000 and the opportunity to conduct a session at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Annual Conference. Up to four finalists are also featured in a panel presentation at the conference.  

 

Nomination Form 

 

Diving In: Institute for New Community Service-Learning Professionals

June 2-4, 2014, University of Georgia, The Georgia Center, Athens, GA 

    

This gathering, designed for those new to civic and community engagement roles, will provide opportunities and tools to acquire knowledge, build skills, engage with colleagues and reflect on topics and issues that will enable us to develop competence, confidence, and support in our work and in our lives. The Institute curriculum is based on Campus Compact's Looking In Reaching Out publication, which is a reflective guide for service-learning professionals.

  

Session Topics Include:

  • Understanding the Mission, Culture, and Organization of Institutions of Higher Education
  • What Does High-Quality Community Service-Learning Look Like?
  • Developing Reciprocal, Mutually Beneficial Community Partnerships
  • Institutionalization Efforts and Your Future in the Work

 Register

 

Resources from Campus Compact Network

 

Two state Compact offices have created searchable databases containing community engagement resources and tools.

Calls for Proposals/Submissions
The International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) 2014 Conference
"Reaping What We Sow: Growing a Culture of Community Engagement"

September 29 - October 1, 2014, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

Deadline: March 28th

Learn more

  

2014 Assessment Institute

Indianapolis, IN, October 19-24, 2014
Deadline: March 28th

Learn more 

 

"What Went Wrong?": Reflecting and Learning from Community-Engaged Research Conference

July 11-12th, 2014 - Minneapolis, MN
Deadline: March 29th

Learn more   

 

 

A Network for Academic Renewal Conference (AAC&U)
Global Learning in College: Cross-Cutting Capacities for 21st-Century College Students
October 16-18, 2014, Minneapolis, ME

 

Deadline: April 22nd 

 

 

Learn more

 

4th Annual Eastern Region Campus Compact Conference
"Moving Us Forward - Fifty Years On: From Civil Rights to Critical Engagement"

October 15 - 17, 2014, Downtown Omni Hotel, Jacksonville, FL
Deadline: May 1st

 

Learn more

 

  

Community Works Journal
 
Deadline: Ongoing
 

Since 1995 Community Works Journal has provided a unique resource for educators and community members interested in the transformative power of education that is directly connected to community. They are currently seeking stories, essays, and reflections from K-16 and community based educators.

Learn more

Grants and Funding

Ford College Community Challenge

Deadline: May 2nd
   

The Ford College Community Challenge is designed to work with colleges to catalyze student-led, community-building projects that address pressing local needs. This year's overarching theme is "Building Sustainable Communities."

 

Winning proposals must address, in some creative way, a tangible, unmet community need and propose a solution that will help build a sustainable community. Ford will choose up to 10 outstanding proposals and the winning schools or student organizations will receive a $25,000 grant to implement their ideas. 

 

 Learn more 

  

State Farm Youth Advisory Board Grants
 
Deadline: May 2nd 

  

Grants range from $25,000 to $100,000. Each grant request must focus in one of the priority issue areas. Applying organizations must be a public K-12, charter, or higher education institution.   

Learn more

 

True Hero Grants

Deadline:  June 30th

 

True Hero is an organization dedicated to recognizing students doing community service work and awarding grants to the schools and organizations that support these projects. To participate:

 

1) Visit http://www.truehero.org and register. 

2) Once you've registered, add your project information and create your project's profile. 

3) Upon project approval, you can start getting votes. Projects with the most votes come June 30th, 2014 will win grant money to support their service work in their respective categories. 

4) Encourage people to vote for your project - use email, social media, etc. The goal is to highlight and recognize the important work students are doing. Students can win up to $2000.

 

Home Depot Community Impact Grants Program

Deadline: August 15th

 

Grants support nonprofit organizations and public service agencies that are using the power of volunteers to improve the physical health of their communities. Grants of up to $5,000 are made in the form of The Home Depot gift cards for the purchase of tools, materials, or services.

 

Learn more

General Engagement News & Resources

Voter Registration Month (March 11-April 11)

 

April 11 is the registration deadline to participate in the primary election in North Carolina. Democracy NC has created "Voter Registration Month" to encourage people to register. Click here for a 2014 Voter Registration Kit.
 

Call 919-286-6000 x 10 or write info@democracy-nc.org  for a "Register Here" sign, stickers, registration forms, voter-info cards, and other materials.

  

National Volunteer Week (April 5-12)

 

National Volunteer Week, a program of Points of Light and sponsored by AdvilŪ was established in 1974 and has grown exponentially each year, with thousands of volunteer projects and special events scheduled throughout the week.  This year marks the 40th anniversary demonstrating the enduring importance of recognizing our country's volunteers for their vital contributions.

Learn more 

 

 

 

Recent Publications

 

The Impossible Will Take a Little While: perseverance and hope in troubled times
 
by Paul Loeb

 

An updated edition of this book will be released in early April. It includes ten new essays, with themes ranging from climate change to the Arab Spring and lessons from the gay rights movement. You can get a free advance reading copy from Netgalley.com. Click this link and they'll let you download an electronic reading copy to your Kindle, Ipad, Nook, or your PC or Mac. Netgalley does require registration, but so long as you hit unsubscribe from their newsletter lists after their first invitation they don't send you any unwanted follow-ups. And as soon as you register or login, they'll take you to the page for the book-the link already gives you the necessary permission.  

 

Two new articles by Cathryn Berger Kaye, CBK Associates, in the Principal Leadership March 2014 issue. Especially helpful is you work with K-12 students.

  National Civic Engagement Opportunities

Clemson Collaborations in Service -Learning Webcast

"Using Service-Learning to Teach Statistics and Critical Thinking Skills to Undergraduates"

Monday, March 31, 2014, 4:30 PM  EDT (Free)
 

Statistics can be an intimidating, less than exciting course filled with book learning, complex equations and lots of memorization.  Statistics, however, is by nature inferential which means critical thinking skills are imperative.  The question, then, is "how do we change this paradigm?"   In this webinar, students and faculty will share their experiences on working on a Service-Learning project for a local non-profit as part of a statistics class and how their learning was enhanced by this experience.

 

Presenters:
Laura Shick teaches Elementary Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Clemson University. She employs Service-Learning and Critical Thinking components in these courses to help students gain the experience of applying the course concepts while exposing them to some challenges faced by community non-profit organizations.

 

Two statistics students:  Hayden Campbell  and Genevieve Watkins  

 

Webcast information   

Webcast instructions the day of the broadcast    

  

 

NERCHE 2014 Virtual Think Tanks webinar

New Faculty Majority and Community Engagement

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 12:00-1:30 PM EDT 

 

Presenter: Maria Maisto, President, New Faculty Majority

 
This virtual think tank will explore how campuses can advance student civic learning and democratic engagement when a faculty majority lacks a full voice in campus governance and is treated as second class institutional citizens; how campuses sustain long-term relationships with formal obligations in community partnerships while not providing the institutional support for a majority of faculty; how faculty can pursue community engaged teaching and learning on public issues without the protections of academic freedom. How can campuses advance civic engagement without advancing the professional working conditions of faculty who do not have the rights and protections of tenure?

 

The registration fee for participation in each real time Virtual Think Tank session is $195. NERCHE also offers recordings of past sessions for $100. Learn more here.

 

 
  

Faculty and Staff Professional Development Program

Webinar: Setting Goals and Capturing Impacts and Outcomes of Community Engagement

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM EDT 

 

The future of Community Engagement points toward the need for a more strategic and intentional agenda of work that aligns each higher education institution with regional, national and international issues and opportunities for partnership. Engaged scholarship is growing in strategic importance because of its beneficial impacts on academic and community goals.  Webinar participants will learn about these trends and new approaches to the planning of a community engagement agenda and the creation of systematic approaches to monitoring activities and capturing evidence of impacts and outcomes for internal and external purposes.

 

Register for the webinar here. There is no registration fee for participation.

 

 

 

Deadline to Participate in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) is April 10th 

 

CIRCLE (the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement) received a grant to study college student voting rates. To date,260 universities and colleges have already signed up. The NSLVE presents an unprecedented opportunity for your campus to learn in aggregate numbers:

  • How many of your students are eligible to register to vote
  • How many registered and/or voted, and where (locally or elsewhere)
  •  The way your students voted (regular or absentee ballot)

By participating in this study, your campus will also help build a national database for future research. CIRCLE will be working with de-identified student lists, so your students' privacy rights are fully protected. This is not a survey!

 

If you are interested, you can also correlate voting with specific demographic information such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, field of study, and class level. CIRCLE has also been able to provide peer comparisons by Carnegie classification. 

Learn more

 

 

 

 American Democracy Project/The Democracy Commitment National Meeting

"Forging Civic Pathways for Students Between Our Instititutions"
June 5-7, 2014
Early Bird Registration Deadline: April 30th

 

Learn more