Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Public Work at Colgate
administrator. I actually thought that I would be one of those people
who moved back and forth between the nonprofit/government to
university worlds. But, I became excited by academic administration.
I came to work for a great college president, Rebecca Chopp.
Brown: In your “Social Change” piece, you say that “there
is neither one magic factor nor even one linear process that leads
to universities becoming an agent of social change.” If so, does
that mean that what is happening at Colgate cannot be replicated
somewhere else?
Weinberg: The lessons learned can be replicated. I am a community
organizer and educator, at heart. I don’t think that there is
a one-size-fits-all model. But, I do believe that we can train people
with skills, concepts, and theories to build their own paths for their
own communities.
Brown: And now…?
Weinberg: I am not sure! I am having fun. When an institution
takes up public work/civic education as a driving principle
you can achieve amazing results on students, faculty research,
community development, alumni, and parents, and even helping
to shape the agendas of foundations and trade associations. In my
current role, I was able to advocate that civic learning become a top
priority for Colgate. We are on the verge of universities becoming
more relevant … or we could be.… I wanted to be part of that
process. I also see management as another arena of public work.
In three years, we have managed to deprofessionalize our student
affairs division, recentering it around notions of public work. This
is my own way of thinking about and contributing to a “democracy
through the workplace” movement.
Having said that, I am ready for a new set of challenges. In
January ‘06, I will be moving to World Learning to become the
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and the provost of SIT
—the School for International Training. I want to spend the next
phase of my career working on civic education in more global settings.
World Learning has been a leader in this field. They are also
the only academic institution with a large international development
operation. At any given point, they have about 3000 people working
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