Colleges and universities are products of and contributors to our broader civic culture. Higher education reflects the world and often can point to where things are headed. Occasionally it may even influence direction. Untangling what our collective responsibilities are, within academe, to the development of a healthy civic culture, particularly an engaged democracy, is a daunting task. Stating what institutions “should” do and how faculty, students and staff “should” behave is much easier than effecting a meaningful change. Normative statements usually tell us more about their authors’ values and interests than what paths to purse. Nonetheless, we have obligations to think these things through. If higher education does not pick up these issues, who does?
Questions of civic engagement and higher education have long interested me: as a student, engaged adult, and higher education professional. My attention has increased in recent years as I have seen how campaigns and initiatives have played out on the ground at different institutions with different kinds of students. When I started working at a community college with, at that time, relatively low levels of civic engagement, the importance of these matters became much more immediate. Limited student engagement at community colleges is not uncommon. Most community college students lead extraordinarily demanding lives and the value proposition of civic engagement – “What difference would my individual participation make?” – is not consistently clear. However, my college now has a student body more engaged in our community. The institution is engaged in the community. It is our collective priority. After all, “community” is in our very names and description.
How and why should colleges work towards this kind of effort? Learning from the experts is essential and Harry C. Boyte is an excellent guide. A prolific author, a scholar associated with Augsburg College and the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Boyte cut his teeth with Southern Christian Leadership Conference and has worked for decades since on promoting a public work theory that promotes civic engagement and democracy. In fact, Boyte believes that citizenship can be conceptualized as public work.
In 2012, the Obama administration organized the American Commonwealth Partnership, a year-long collaborative endeavor that reached across higher education and related organizations. Its mandate was to make sure that higher’s commitment to democracy carried as much heft as its aim to give graduates good jobs and careers. The partnership brought many people and institutions together, highlighted successes and challenges, and led to the publication of Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, And The Future Of Colleges And Universities, with Boyte as its editor.
The book is a collection of short essays. Boyte’s introductory piece, which serves as a framework and challenge, is the lengthiest. The essays are organized under six headings: Democratic Narratives, Policy Makers and Presidents as Architects of Change, Faculty Experience and Faculty as Agents of Change, From Citizen-Student to Citizen-Alumni: Students and Alumni as Agents of Change, Community Organizers Consider the Challenges, and Possible Futures. Another way to think of the submissions is that the heart of the book is what some colleges have done about civic engagement (success stories), sandwiched between essays on the larger education, economic and political environment. It is an interesting compendium that highlights progress and the massive gap between aspirations and reality.
There’s much to ponder in Democracy’s Education and many examples of initiatives that show what is possible. Reading it, I found myself less interested in questions of “How?” and more excited about questions of “Why?” Why did the program start here and not there? Why do some faculty and academics see democratic engagement as vital and some do not? One of Boyte’s underlying premises is that we all face a crisis of powerlessness, an empowerment gap. That is very important assertion to consider. We will never get to engagement or democracy if there is no hope or sense of individual agency.
Despite all the challenges – in 2013 through today – there is much to be hopeful about when it comes to higher education and democracy. Democracy’s Education serves as a good reminder of just that.
David Potash