Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Why This Book?
to the HEX book underway, and he readily agreed, seeing his work
with Kettering as contributing to his work and commitment at
Penn State.
In his piece, Cohen ranges beyond the Penn State story to put
it in the larger context of American constitutional history and argues
for “purposeful democratic learning,” that is, “learning to be democratic.”
He thinks, “We have failed as educators to fully grasp the
fact that nothing about democracy, not its theory and certainly not
its practice, is hard wired into anyone.” The story then at Penn State
seeks to remedy this “failure.”
Chapter Five—Public Making
There was no better person to discuss democratic deliberation
than Noëlle McAfee, visiting associate professor of philosophy at
George Mason University, who has worked closely with Kettering
and others to make such a practice take hold in various jurisdictions.
In fact, having the book’s contributors deliberate together in workshops
over two years could have been McAfee’s idea in the first
place. We were sure that we needed her for such an undertaking,
which, to borrow David Mathews’ observation about democracy
itself, was to be “more a journey than a destination.”
For the book, we asked McAfee to offer her perspective on the
potential of higher education institutions for “public making,” or
“public building” as some put it. She resisted any “model” for such
institutions that has them “organize” others, which can too easily
resort to the hierarchical relationship between expert and public. She
insisted that only citizens through their own democratic deliberation
and public work can become a “public.” McAfee believes, however,
that academic institutions can be an important “ally” through their
“research and teaching with a newfound respect for public work.”
As she put it at the concluding workshop, “ally” fits her preference
for “horizontal” relationships and makes it more “HEXish.”
The perspective of public making needed an institutional story
to ground it and Doug Challenger, associate professor of sociology
at Franklin Pierce University, has certainly lived that perspective in
the work of the college allied with the community of Rindge, New
7