Office of Academic Affairs-- Medgar Evers College

AASCU Academic Affairs Winter Meeting
Embracing Change: Universities in a New Era
February 8-10, 2004
Tampa Florida

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) Chief Academic Officers met from February 8 to 10, 2004 with a focus on the American Democracy Project (ADP). The theme of the conference is “Embracing Change: Universities in a New Era”. During its 4-day deliberation, AASCU renewed it’s commitment to the civic education of its students - the rationale for instituting the American Democracy Project. The New York Times, which is a partner organization in the formation of the ADP featured prominently at the meeting.

George Mehaffy, Vice President for AASCU is the organizer of the conference and the prime mover of the ADP. Dr. Mehaffy is of the opinion that higher institutions should play a greater role in the training of students who are responsive to their societies. Therefore, AASCU institutions must provide leadership in ensuring that our students get enough education in democracy building and civic education during their college experience. All around us, there is ample evidence that our youths are not engaged enough in the democratic processes, and as such, AASCU members must embrace themselves to the challenges of providing practice opportunities for our students.

In a keynote address delivered by Elizabeth Hollander, executive director of Campus Compact, she decried the absence of these practice opportunities in our higher institutions and asked what do we do to get the ADP on the agenda of those outside AASCU? Chief academic officers, Hollander said, must devise several ways to realize the goals of the ADP – through the curriculum, first year experience, change faculty culture, get departments to talk to each other, provide research funds on areas of civic engagement, and re-write evaluation, promotion, and tenure requirements to reflect scholarship of engagement. In addition, attention of policy makers should be focused on the civic value of campus life. The view of higher education as primarily a place to receive education that will help one get a job should change. Higher education should primarily be seen as arming students with the necessary tools to serve the community. Finally, Hollander said that there is the need for students to be encouraged to push civic engagement in the community.

Brian Murphy of San Francisco State University questioned if community service has any impact on students’ political activities and if students see themselves as political persons. He advised faculty to create tasks that will make degree students see themselves as political actors and conditions in which students see themselves as able to create and influence policies. “Students are prepared to act in the name of and with their communities if provided the opportunities,” Murphy said. A very powerful experience for students is when they work within their communities. Therefore, administrators and faculty should empower students to see themselves as political actors; start public conversations on their campuses; initiate voter registration exercise where the College President and Provost will send messages to the students; provide grant to re-write a number of courses to include service learning; and approach city Board of Elections to identify the campus as a voting area. Finally, Murphy asked; “does the fact that we care about the education of our citizens and producing engaged students influence the faculty we hire?”

In his presentation, Harry Boyte , Co-director, Center for Democracy and Citizenship and Senior Fellow, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Twin Cities gave examples of situations where young people can learn skills of empowerment tied to everyday politics. One instance, Boyte said, is a civic education initiative called “Public Achievement.” Teams of young people – ranging from elementary through high school students – work over the year on public issues they choose. They are coached by adults, teachers, college students, community members, who help them learn political skills and concepts. Another example is in St. Bernard’s where several teams of ten to thirteen-year-olds worked four years to build a playground, overcoming neighbored opposition, negotiating with the city, and raising more than $60,000 from local businesses. These young people interviewed people, wrote letters, gave speeches, called people on the phone, negotiated with the parish priest, adult school leaders, and neighbors.

The Honorable Kenton W. Keith, a retired U. S. Ambassador and Senior Vice President, Meridian International Center (D.C.) noted the lack of international education and the ignorance of U. S. youths of the events that happens in other parts of the world. The absence of this, he opined, led to several failed U. S. foreign policies and intelligence gatherings. Honorable Keith drew examples from his wealth of experience as Ambassador to highlight the need to engage and educate the youths in the knowledge of the world outside the boundaries of the U. S. Todd Purdum, Correspondent with The New York Times discussed the chronicling of the Iraq war by reporters while Ozier Mohammed, also of The New York Times presented pictures of the war. Mohammed was imbedded with the U.S marines, therefore, he was able to show a first hand pictorial representation of the Iraqi invasion.

The AACSU conference devoted a session to the three CUNY campuses participating in the American Democracy Project. Our Provost, Dr. Dr. Charlotte Phoenix narrated the experience of Medgar Evers College faculty, staff, and students at civic engagement. He articulated faculty’s view on the nature of the U. S democracy and questioned some of the assumptions of the American Democracy Project. “Real democracy,” he says, “should start by teaching our youths the history of those who fought for the freedom every one is now enjoying in the U. S. It must start by acknowledging the actions of those who died in pursuit of freedom, and one way of doing so is to highlight the activities of those before us. That is why at Medgar Evers College, the American Democracy Project started by documenting the civic engagement activities going on since the inception of the college over thirty years ago.” The huge enthusiasm of the faculty, staff, and students for the project does not come as a surprise to the Provost because, traditionally, the College has a long history of activitism. Other CUNY campus provosts who participated are David Podell, The College of Staten, and Stuart Suss, Kingsborough Community College. The session was presided by Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Louise Mirrer. Dr. Augustine Okereke, Coordinator of the American Democracy at Medgar Evers College was also present at the meeting.

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