MoMent

iV. trailblazers for Civic
learning: From Periphery
to Pervasiveness W
I’ve…made it a personal mission to ensure that professors and administrators
embrace the civic mission. Administrators often talk about creating better
citizens, but the mission never filters down to students.
Rachel Karess, student, Indiana University
Democracy can survive only as strong democracy, secured not by great leaders
but by competent, responsible citizens.…And citizens are certainly not born,
but made as a consequence of civic education and political engagement in a
free polity.
Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age
The foundational work has already begun for reinvesting in education for
democracy and civic responsibility in their twenty-first-century global
context. But opportunities for civic learning and democratic engagement
remain optional rather than expected on most campuses, and peripheral to
the perceived “real” academic mission of too many others. Civic learning is
still too often random rather than progressively mapped by the institution
for its students. Academic professionals spearheading civic investments too
frequently go unrewarded, and in some cases, are even penalized for their
invention and commitment. Progress has been made in civic learning and
democratic engagement, but not enough.
A study conducted for AAC&U by the Center for the Study of Higher
and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan found that, of
twenty-four thousand college students surveyed, only one-third felt strongly
that their civic awareness had expanded in college, that the campus had
helped them learn the skills needed to effectively change society for the better,
or that their commitment to improve society had grown. Likewise, only
slightly more than one-third felt strongly that faculty publicly advocated the
need for students to become active and involved citizens (Dey et al. 2009).
Reaching the other two-thirds of students should be the benchmark set
for 2020.
The Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, in investigating
the progress students are making across various learning outcomes, offers
similarly clear evidence that higher education has to rethink its curriculum,
pedagogy, and educational experiences to foster higher levels of college
learning. Its longitudinal examination of student learning over four years
indicates that in six of eleven learning outcomes measured, the majority of
students experienced either “no growth or a decline” (this and other Wabash
National Study statistics are summarized in Finley 2012). Regarding students’
level of commitment to socially responsible leadership, for example, data
reveal moderate to high growth in 52 percent of students, small growth in
13 percent, and no growth or decline in 35 percent. Growth in students’
Of twenty-four thousand
college students surveyed,
only one-third felt strongly
that their civic awareness had
expanded in college, that the
campus had helped them learn
the skills needed to effectively
change society for the better,
or that their commitment to
improve society had grown.
A CRUCIBLE MOMENT: College Learning & Democracy’s Future 41