The Digest E-Newsletter
Uniting campuses * Empowering students * Impacting communities
March 2015
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NC Campus Compact News
10 SPACES STILL AVAILABLE FOR THIS THURSDAY!

March 26, 2015 at Elon University (10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.)
sponsored by NC Campus Compact 
Facilitated dialogue on "The Changing World of Work: What Should We Ask of Higher Education?" 

Come experience this new dialogue about the value of higher education!  The dialogue will be facilitated by Dr. Harry Boyte, founder of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, now the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, where he is Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy.
 

This dialogue presents three options for deliberation regarding the role of higher education today. 

#1 Prepare Students for the Job Market

#2 Educate for Leadership and Change

#3 Build Strong Communities


 

If you are interested in filling one of the final slots, please email Rene Summers by Tuesday, March 24.
Harry Boyte to Speak at UNCG
March 25, 2015 at UNC Greensboro (6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., book signing to follow)  
"Revitalizing the Civic Purposes and Democratic Story of Higher Education" 

 

 

Dr. Boyte will discuss reinventing the public purpose of higher education and the great story of colleges and universities as crucial contributors to a democratic way of life. He will address the need to educate students as agents of change in a modern and rapidly changing society and to conceive of universities as a vital resource for our communities in a time of enormous changes in the world of work, the economy and the culture. 

 

Learn more

 

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Community Engagement Administrators Conference - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!
 
 

Thursday, May 28, 2015 at Bennett College, Greensboro, NC (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.)
Registration deadline: May 11 

 

Join community engagement administrators and staff from across NC for 10 days in May (virtually and in person) to examine the past, present, and future of our work. This learning series is facilitated by Patti Clayton, Sarah Stanlick, and Leslie Garvin, 


 

The 2015 CEAC Learning Community will both explore and walk the talk of reciprocal, reflective, democratic engagement -- co-creating new understandings of and enhancements to our day-to-day work while also contributing our unique voices to a national project on the future of service-learning and community engagement. First, we'll do a bit of common reading; gather perspectives from our community, student, and faculty colleagues; and post key ideas we want to share and inquire into together (using a new technology platform NCCC is rolling out with this event). Then, on May 28, we'll spend a highly interactive day reflecting critically on our practice in the context of some of the central questions that have, do, and will shape community engagement. And finally, we will organize our thinking as a learning community of practitioner-scholars, co-generating and disseminating products that will add knowledge, inform practice, and pose questions to call the field forward.

 

Whether you are new to your role or an established leader on your campus ... working on your own or as part of an institution-wide conversation ... focused primarily on work with students, with faculty, or with community members ... we hope you will help us build a forum to collaboratively examine possibilities for deepening, expanding, and integrating community engagement in each of our own contexts, across NC, and nationally.

 

Learn more and register here. 


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Now recruiting candidates for AmeriCorps VISTA placement in 2015-16!

 

null NC Campus Compact has begun recruiting candidates for our AmeriCorps VISTA program. Successful candidates will begin one year of VISTA service in early August 2015. Positions are filled on a rolling basis so candidates are encouraged to apply early. All selections will be made by early June.

 

Our program places VISTA members at community and campus host sites to create or expand programs that leverage higher education resources to assist low-income communities. While the specific nature and objectives of projects vary depending on the host site, each VISTA placement will help address local needs in one of three ways:

  • improving education for low-income K-12 students
  • creating economic opportunity (especially job training or financial literacy) for low-income adults, OR
  • advancing food security/healthy eating in low-income communities.

A year of VISTA service is a great way for young people to gain experience in non-profit and higher ed community engagement and to develop skills in program and volunteer management, event planning, community organizing, and partnership building. The best candidates have background and prior leadership in community service and a passion for reducing poverty.

 

FAQs for Prospective VISTAs

VISTA VIEW Blog 

 

For more information, contact VISTA Leader Perdita Das.

 

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Recent Stories on the NC Campus Compact Newsfeed

 

Colleges and Universities Make AmeriCorps Work

 

PACE Conference a success despite ice and snow 

 

Network honors university president, faculty, staff with 2015 engagement awards 

 

Changing World of Work dialogue will explore role of higher education 

 

Campus Compact VISTAs lead 1300 volunteers on MLK Day of Service 

The President's Honor Roll Application is Open!

Deadline:  May 5, 2015 at 5:00 pm ET


The  President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, launched in 2006, annually highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the communities they serve.

 

In 2014, 28 North Carolina institutions were named to the honor roll (the 5th largest number of institutions amongst the 50 states).  Twenty were NC Campus Compact member institutions.  
Grants and Funding Opportunities
For colleges/universities and your non-profit partners 

State Farm Youth Advisory Board Service-Learning Grants

Deadline: May 1
 

Funding (between $25,000 and $100,000) available for service-learning projects that address the root cause of the following issue areas:  Access to Higher Education/Closing the Achievement Gap, Economic Empowerment and Financial Literacy, Community Safety and Justice, Health & Wellness, Environmental Responsibility, and Arts and Culture. 

The BUILD Health Challenge

Deadline (2nd round): April 10   

 

The BUILD Health Challenge is a national program designed to support community collaborations that are working to give everyone a fair chance to be healthy. Specifically, the Challenge provides awards to strengthen partnerships among hospitals, nonprofit organizations, local health departments, and other community organizations to improve the health of low-income neighborhoods within cities with populations greater than 150,000. One-year planning grants of up to $75,000 and two-year implementation grants of up to $250,000 are available. 

Presbyterian Hunger Program 

Deadline for letters of inquiry: April 30


This program provides grants, ranging from $500 to $20,000, to nonprofit organizations and Presbyterian congregations addressing hunger and its causes in the United States. Grants are provided in the following five categories: 

  1. Development Assistance grants focus on creating a multi-faceted approach to the empowerment of poor people. 
  2. Public Policy Advocacy grants encourage activities that advocate for political and economic policy changes that provide food for the poor.
  3. Lifestyle Integrity grants target programs that help the church to move toward sustainable lifestyles sensitive to the reality of the Earth's limited resources. 
  4. Education and Interpretation grants promote activities to educate the church and the public at large about the root causes of hunger. 
  5. Direct Food Relief grants support programs that provide food to poor people in either acute or chronic conditions of hunger, with a focus on long-range solutions.

The Home Depot Foundation: Community Impact Grants Program

Proposal deadline: September 1


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 and provide support to nonprofit organizations and public service agencies that are using the power of volunteers to improve the physical health of their communities. 

Fellowships and Internships

Institute on Philanthropy and Voluntary Service Internship Program 

Deadline Extended: April 7  

 

This comprehensive package includes a guaranteed internship placement, courses for transferable credit, furnished housing, a variety of guest lectures and briefings, as well as opportunities for professional development and networking. Students intern with a nonprofit organization and work on the front-lines to solving local and national issues.

 

Given their demonstrated commitment to service, they grant special scholarship consideration to Campus Compact students. Currently seeking interns for Summer 2015 ~ Two program options: 4-week or 8-week. 

Faculty and Staff Awards

John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement

Nomination Deadline: April 13

(For AASCU/American Democracy Project member institutions) 

 

This award recognizes exemplary early-career leaders who are advancing the wider higher education civic engagement movement through to build a broader public culture of democracy. Emily Janke, from UNC Greensboro, won in 2012.  

 

Barbara Burch Award for Faculty Leadership in Civic Engagement

Nomination Deadline: April 13

(For AASCU/American Democracy Project institutions)

 

This award recognizes exemplary faculty leadership in advancing the civic learning and engagement of undergraduate students and advancing the work of AASCU's American Democracy Project on campus and/or nationally.

 

William M. Plater Award for Leadership in Civic Engagement  
 
(For AASCU/American Democracy Project institutions) 

 

The award recognizes a chief academic officer in recognition of his or her leadership in advancing the civic mission of the campus. 


Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty  

Nomination deadline: May 15


The award recognizes a full-time faculty member who is pre-tenure at tenure-granting campuses or early career (i.e., within the first six years) at campuses with long-term contracts, and who connects his or her teaching, research, and service to community engagement. 


Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award

Nomination Deadline: May 22 
(For Campus Compact member institutions) 

 

The award recognizes senior, tenured faculty for exemplary leadership in advancing students' civic learning and higher education's contributions to the public good, including teaching with engaged pedagogies, fostering reciprocal community partnerships, building institutional support for service-learning and civic engagement, conducting community-based research, and other means of acting on individual and institutional civic commitments.

Publications and Resources
CC logo

Campus Compact Bestseller Back in Stock

 

The popular Assessing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement: Principles and Techniques is available again the Campus Compact Bookstore. Ordering books is easy and online with special discounts for our members.

Click here to order yours today!

  

Connect2Complete Resource Guide is Now Available!

  

The online version of the C2C Resource Guide is now available here. The print version will be available within a month's time. The C2C pilot project combined service-learning and peer advocacy for low-income community college students in developmental education classes. This C2C strategy encourages community college students' academic, personal, and psychosocial development, social integration, strengthening of cultural identity and civic consciousness-all key factors for student success and persistence.

Latest release of the Currents in Teaching and Learning Online Journal (special edition on service learning)

The 2015 North Carolina Civic Health Index


The Index compared civic engagement activities in all 50 states. NC State's Institute for Emerging Issues co-produced the report with the National Conference on Citizenship. The study found that 
North Carolinians, between the ages of 18-29, generally resemble their peers nationally in being substantially less civically engaged than older Americans

National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE)

vote button

 

In 2013, Tufts University and CIRCLE launched this national study of college student voting rates. Nearly 600 campuses are currently participating. This opportunity is free, confidential, easy, and protective of your students' privacy.

 

NSLVE provides you with an unprecedented opportunity to learn in aggregate numbers:

  • how many of your students are eligible to register to vote,
  • how many registered and voted,
  • where your students voted (locally or out-of-state),
  • the method your students voted (regular or absentee ballot), and 
  • voting rates broken down by specific demographic and academic information such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, field of study, and class level.

You will receive this information in a confidential report tailored for your institution.  To join the study, complete this authorization form and email it to [email protected]
  

For more information: 

NSLVE website
FAQs

 

Sign up by March 31, to receive your 2012 and 2014 voting rates. 

Relevant Articles 

Calls for Proposals/Papers

 

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice (new journal!)

Deadline: March 31

 

Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life 2015 National Conference 

"America Will Be! The Art and Power of 'Weaving Our We'"

September 30 - October 3, 2015, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 

Deadline: April 3

 

Eastern Regional Campus Compact 5th Annual Conference

"Moving Us Forward: At the Intersection of Community Engagement and Collective Impact" October 14-16, 2015 in Newark, NJ
Deadline: April 7  

 

Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning and Community-Based Research (Volume 4)

(for undergraduates)
 
Submissions accepted from April 1 - June 1


 
Society for Values in Higher Education 91st annual meeting

"Working Together? Collaboration and the Future of Higher Education"
July 22-25, 2015, Western Kentucky University

Deadline: April 15
Featured Event

 

 

IARSCLE 2015 Conference

"Revolutionary Scholarship: Innovation of Community Engagement Models"
November 16-18, 2015, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
 

Conference website   

 

Call for Proposals  (due March 27)

 

Call for Proposal Reviewers (due April 1)

 

Call for IARSLCE Board Members (due April 24) 


National Civic Engagement Events

Clemson Collaborations in Service-Learning Webcasts

Episodes involve interviews and discussions with faculty, students, and community partners participating in service-learning activities at Clemson University.

 

Service Learning in K-12 Schools: Avoiding the Canned Food Drive Mentality
 
Wednesday March 25 at 3:30 pm. 


In this service learning webcast, Education Professor Dr. Cassie Quigley addresses the benefits, challenges and successes of service learning in K-12 settings.  Using one middle school as a context she provides examples of what works, what doesn't and ways to increase learning in "service learning."

 

Architecture+communityBUILD: constructing opportunities in service-learning through a graduate certificate program

Wednesday, April 1 at 3:30 pm

 

This conversation with Architecture Professor Dan Harding discusses the activities and operations of the Architecture+communityBUILD graduate certificate program at Clemson University. This design+build centric curriculum provides students who are accepted into the program with diverse opportunities in service-learning.  Prescribing to a process that employees reflection in action and hands on scholarship, the research and design teams assembled through this program routinely embrace community based projects at full scale.

 

For access to the archived webcasts go to http://www.clemson.edu/public/servicealliance/webcast_archives_new.html.

 

18th Annual Continuums of Service Conference

"Seeking Solutions to Complex Challenges Through Inquiry and Engagement,"
April 8-10, 2015, Long Beach, CA
Early registration deadline: March 24

Registration Deadline: April 6  

Reclaiming Broken Places: an Introduction to Civic Ecology Harvard EdX/CornellX MOOC
April 10-May 22, 2015

Free MOCC

Instructor: Marianne Krasny
Co-instructor: Keith Tidball; Teaching Assistant: Samar Deen


 
Students in this free online course explore the people, places, and practices that link restoring nature with revitalizing neighborhoods. Civic ecology practices - such as community gardening, restoring streams, planting trees, and removing invasive species to restore native habitat -- are a means for communities to rebuild and express resilience in places impacted by war, natural disaster, poverty, crime, and environmental degradation. Civic ecology is the study of the individual, community, and environmental outcomes of these practices, and their roles in governance and ecosystems. Participants in this interdisciplinary course learn about contemporary thinking in social-ecological systems, resilience, and nature and human and community well-being. They also contribute to a local civic ecology practice through the course service learning project. 

 

Why would you want to sign up for this MOOC?

  • You want to hear some positive news about people and the environment. You will learn about how people all over the world are reclaiming broken places.
  • You are engaged in local river or vacant lot cleanups; community gardening; tree planting; oyster, fish, or wildlife restoration; friends of parks, rivers, or cemeteries; or other activities where you care for your local environment. You want to understand the larger importance of your work and to meet people with similar interests, or simply access information that you can use to bolster grant applications.
  • You are curious about cutting edge research being conducted to understand the outcomes and larger implications of civic ecology practices-that is people coming together to care for their local environment and community.
  • You are seeking a means to get engaged in meaningful activities in your community or online. Through the course service learning project, you will contribute to a local civic ecology practice or one you discover online.
  • You are an environmental sciences teacher and want to incorporate current research on resilience, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, social learning, and nature and human health into your course.
  • You have heard the term resilience a lot lately, and you want to understand what it means from scientists who study resilience. 
     
  • 7th Annual Connecting Campuses with Communities

    May 11-15, 2015, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) 

     

    "Stewardship of Place: A Civic Mission of Higher Education

    June 4-6, 205, New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA
    Early registration deadline: April 17 

    Summer Instructor Positions Available for the Civic Engagement Project

     

    The Civic Education Project (CEP), a leadership and civic engagement program at Northwestern University, is now hiring exceptional instructional staff for their 2015 Civic Leadership Institutes in Baltimore, Chicago & Berkeley. We're looking for expert service-learning practitioners to serve as Instructors and Academic Deans. 

     

    Desired Instructor Candidate Qualifications include:

    • Minimum 3-5 years of full-time classroom teaching experience or youth facilitation experience
    • Experience facilitating service-learning experiences for middle or high school students
    • Commitment to CLI mission

     

    Desire Academic Dean Candidate Qualifications include:

    • 5+ years of full-time classroom teaching experience
    • Extensive experience facilitating service-learning or experiential education programs 
    • Experience supervising/coaching teachers
    • Strong communication, organizational, interpersonal, and supervisory skills
    • Commitment to CLI mission

     

    Staff receive a cash stipend, room and board, and training in service-learning and experiential education. 

     

    Learn more


                           Visit the
    for a complete list of upcoming events.

     

    FINAL REFLECTIONS

     

    "You are in school to find your voice. Don't ask for anyone's permission about what you want to work for. Consultation is important, but the choice is yours. Figure out what your vocation is, not just your profession; what is your calling, not just your career; don't tell me bout your job, I want to know about your life's task. 


    - Cornel West