higher ed

The Community College National Center for Community Engagement (CCNCCE) invites you to submit a proposal to present at its 17th national annual conference, Recipes for Student Retention through Service Learning and Civic Engagement, to be held on May 21-23, 2008. The deadline for submitting proposals is February 4th, 2008. Conference presentations are 1-hour or 90-minute sessions, which should be designed to be highly interactive.

(more…)

Here’s an opportunity for younger members of the D&D community from Colorado to look into. Graduates of a four-year university or college who have a Colorado connection (e.g., be a state resident, have attended an in-state college/university, or have family who are current or past residents) are invited to apply for the El Pomar Fellowship, a post-graduate program of the Colorado Springs-based El Pomar Foundation (www.elpomar.org). Fellows have the opportunity to pursue personal and professional growth through direct program and project management, community development, and grantmaking. The fellowship emphasizes leadership and professional development, and is designed to bring together highly qualified individuals with diverse backgrounds and interests and shape them into effective leaders for the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Visit the fellowship website for more information.

J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism (www.j-lab.org) has announced an invitation to U.S. nonprofit groups and education organizations to apply for funding to launch community news ventures in 2008 and to share best practices and lessons learned from their efforts. The New Voices Project will help fund the start-up of ten innovative local news initiatives next year. Each project may receive as much as $17,000 in grants over two years. Of the ten projects to be funded in 2008, at least three will target former Knight newspaper communities. Grant guidelines and an online application can be found at the project website. The deadline for proposals is February 20, 2008.

Here’s a grant opportunity for those of you on university campuses – but the deadline, January 10, 2008, is coming up soon! Americans for Informed Democracy (www.aidemocracy.org) is accepting proposals for its “Rights Camera Action” program from campus groups interested in organizing a human rights campaign at their university. Campus groups will propose innovative campaigns around a global human rights issues and prepare to document their experiences on film. Proposals will be evaluated on their potential to create substantive change at their university and to guide similar efforts on other campuses. Potential campaign issues and ideas include, but are not limited to, getting a university to divest from Darfur, getting fair-trade food served in a university’s dining services, labor rights, immigration and immigrant rights, access to health care and medicines, extraordinary rendition, and a number of different fundraising events. (more…)

Here’s a small research grant opportunity for younger scholars doing work with Native Americans: Based at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, The Phillips Fund of the American Philosophical Society ( http://www.amphilsoc.org/ ) provides grants for research in Native American linguistics, ethnohistory, and the history of studies of Native Americans, in the continental United States and Canada. Grants are not made for projects in archaeology, ethnography, psycholinguistics, or for the preparation of pedagogical materials. The committee distinguishes ethnohistory from contemporary ethnography as the study of cultures and culture change through time.

The committee prefers to support the work of younger scholars who have received the doctorate. Applications are also accepted from graduate students for research on masters theses or doctoral dissertations. The fund’s one-year grants are intended for such costs as travel, tapes, films, and consultants’ fees but not for the purchase of books or permanent equipment. The average award is for approximately $2,500; grants do not exceed $3,500 each. Guidelines and application materials are available at the American Philosophical Society Web site. The deadline for applications is March 3, 2008.

The Community College National Center for Community Engagement (CCNCCE) is now inviting proposal submissions to present at its 17th national annual conference, Recipes for Student Retention through Service Learning and Civic Engagement, to be held on May 21-23, 2008. The deadline for submitting proposals is February 4th, 2008.

Conference presentations are 1-hour or 90-minute sessions, which should be designed to be highly interactive. Proposals to present at the conference must be submitted in electronic form. In keeping with the conference theme, some of the issues you may wish to address in your workshop are: (more…)

The Downtown Education Collaborative (DEC)—a community education partnership between Andover College, Bates College, Central Maine Community College, and University of Southern Maine, Lewiston-Auburn—seeks an experienced, creative, dynamic leader to coordinate a unique initiative: the launch of a storefront center dedicated to joint, community-based educational work in and with Lewiston’s downtown residential neighborhood.

The ideal candidate will be a skilled collaborator, an able organizer, and a social entrepreneur with an ability to work comfortably in both academic and community settings. S/he will be skilled and knowledgeable at working with faculty and students from diverse academic settings and skilled and knowledgeable at working with diverse community perspectives and interests. The ideal candidate will be open, resourceful, and flexible, earning trust and offering good judgment as s/he sets the Center’s agenda, fosters collaboration, and nurtures DEC’s practice of consensus governance. S/he will possess a working knowledge of, or good instincts about, community issues, non-profit management, and academic culture.

The position is temporary, with a three-year commitment and the possibility of longer tenure if further funding is secured. The position offers an annual salary of $40,000 combined with an outstanding benefit package. Tentative start date for this position is January 9, 2007. (more…)

Drew University (www.drew.edu), a highly selective liberal arts college located 30 miles outside New York City, seeks applications for the position of Founding Director for its new Center for Civic Engagement, with appointment to begin summer/fall 2008. The position will involve program development, administrative and teaching responsibilities, and the Director will interact regularly with practitioners and their organizations in the community. The Director will also have an appointment in a department, though rank and academic discipline are open. The Center aspires to build on Drew’s unique proximity to Newark and New York, its distinctive combination of undergraduate, graduate, and theological schools, and its traditional strength in off-campus study, internships, and experiential learning to broaden and deepen the university’s connections to its local, state,national, and international communities.

This is a tenured or tenure-track appointment. PhD or terminal degree required. The successful candidate will have administrative, fund-raising, teaching, scholarly, and community experience. Rank and salary commensurate with experience. Please send letter of application, cv, writing sample, three letters of recommendation, and evidence of teaching effectiveness to: Professor Richard Greenwald, History Department, Drew University, 36 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940. Application deadline: January 11, 2008. Pending budgetary approval. In order to enrich education through diversity, Drew University is an AA/EO employer.

The Democracy Imperative has issued a call for short proposals to write Catalyst Papers on critical issues relating to advancing deliberative democracy in and through higher education. The deadline is quickly approaching on December 10, but these proposals are supposed to be short (less than a page). Writers will work in teams, so even the work load will be spread out. You can propose a team. Mini-grants are $1000 for the writing team organizer and $500 for each member. Teams are capped at five people. For more information, see http://www.unh.edu/academic-affairs/democracy/pdf/announce_20071031.pdf.

NCDD member Jason Diceman sent us word that the Transformative Learning Centre (TLC) and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) are organizing a conference called “Learning Democracy by Doing: Alternative Practices in Citizenship Learning and Participatory Democracy” for next October 16-18 in Toronto. The conference organizers are calling for paper proposals on a variety of topics including: learning democracy in k-12 and higher education, learning democracy in non-formal education, learning democracy in civil society and government-sponsored initiatives, and learning democracy in transnational networks. Proposals are due December 31, 2007. For more information on the conference themes, cost of attending, and how to submit a proposal, read on. (more…)

The University of Austin-Texas is offering a special recruiting fellowship to an incoming graduate student for Fall 2008 who is interested in the intersection of civic engagement and community planning. The fellowship is aimed at broadening the diversity of the students in the graduate program in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas in Austin. It can be used for either a Master’s program or a Ph.D. program. It is intended for first time graduate students with demonstrated financial need (or low socio-economic status). The fellowship includes a $16,000 stipend for the first year, medical insurance, and tuition benefit. The recipient would also be eligible for teaching and research assistantships after the first semester.

The ideal candidate would have a history of working for community change, especially among low income communities, communities of color, or in developing countries. He or she would have a passion for engaging the community in participatory processes that empower individuals and communities. He or she would have a desire to push the cutting edge of civic engagement processes that bring diverse voices together in deep dialogue for collaborative action. The deadline for the application is January 15 for Fall 2008 admission. Visit http://soa.utexas.edu/crp/admissions for more details. For more information, contact Dr. Patricia A. Wilson, Professor, Graduate Program in Community and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, University of Texas in Austin, TX 78712. Tel 512.471.0130 or email .

Students affiliated with Kansas State University’s Institute for Civic Discourse & Democracy (ICDD) are utilizing YouTube to spread the word about public engagement. Those of you at colleges and universities might want to take note of this great idea!

Go to www.youtube.com/icddlive to see the videos and leave comments, or go to www.k-state.edu/icdd/ to learn more about the Institute.

Erika Imbody at Kansas State University wrote to tell us about an upcoming forum that may be of interest to you all. On November 2nd, The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University is co-sponsoring the event: “Civics and Civility Summit: Voices of the Kansas People.” This summit is bringing together political, educational, and community leaders to:

• Better understand the current state of civic understanding and civility by identifying the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions of Kansans
• Build an awareness of civic programs available to schools and focus on civic literacy for 21st century learning
• Identify civic community needs, solutions for addressing those needs, and build local organizational capacities for public problem solving

Summit speakers include: U.S. Representative Nancy Boyda, Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, and National Director for the Campaign to Promote Civic Education Ted McConnell. More information on this event can be found at: www.dce.ksu.edu/conf/civics

Here’s a good grant opportunity for those working or studying D & D and youth: The William T. Grant Foundation (http://wtgrantfoundation.org/) has announced a new Request for Proposals for its Distinguished Fellows Program for mid-career researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. The goal of the Distinguished Fellows Program is to increase the supply of, demand for, and use of high-quality research in the service of improved youth outcomes. The program is intended to help researchers strengthen the ways in which their work reflects an understanding of policy and practice, and help policy makers and practitioners enhance their capacities to recognize and use high-quality research. To accomplish this, the fellowship allows mid-career practitioners/policy makers to spend extended time working in a research setting or researchers to spend extended time working in a practitioner/policy-making setting.

The foundation selects between two and four William T. Grant Distinguished Fellows annually. Each fellow receives up to $175,000 for the total duration of the fellowship, which may range from six months to two years, depending on the proposed design. For details, see the foundation website. The deadline for Letters of Inquiry is January 10, 2008.

Next week, CIRCLE (www.civicyouth.org) will release a major report entitled “Millennials Talk Politics: A Study of College Student Political Engagement.” Commissioned by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, this report is based on 47 focus groups conducted by CIRCLE on 12 college and university campuses in 2006 and 2007. This report is the most detailed current examination of college students’ political and civic attitudes and experiences. The study has compelling implications for higher education, national policymakers, and the news media, among others.

On Nov. 7th, CIRCLE is hosting a presentation by the authors, press conference, and series of panel discussions to be held at the University of California’s Washington Center at 1608 Rhode Island Avenue N.W., in Washington, DC. In the panel discussions CIRCLE will bring together individuals from higher education, the nonprofit sector, and students who participated in the study to discuss the findings and the practical implications of the research. After brief presentations there will be ample time for questions and discussion. The event starts promptly at 10:00am and concludes at 3:00pm. If you would like to attend, RSVP to [email protected] by Wednesday, October 31st, 2007.