students tout MU's - Monmouth University

that, instead of helping us grow up,
work very hard either to keep us children
or to turn adults back into children.
These are some of the issues I’m exploring
in my new book.
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WOULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THE WORK OF THE DEMOCRACY
COLLABORATIVE, PARTICULARLY THE PROJECTS YOU ARE
SPEARHEADING IN YOUR NEW YORK OFFICES?
W
ell, if I am right in thinking that
schools and universities should be
on the side of democracy and work
against trivialization; and if it’s true—as
many people would suggest and I would
agree—that America’s colleges and universities
represent some of our nation’s
most extraordinary civic assets; and if
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were
right that schools and universities ought
to play a role in the education of citizens;
then the question is: How can we turn
the universities and colleges of America
back into nurseries of democracy?
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THE LONG-TERM
PROBLEM FOR AMERICA IS THAT THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE SEEM TO BE
DISEMPOWERING
THEMSELVES AS CITIZENS,
EVEN AS THEY EMPOWER THEMSELVES
The Democracy Collaborative represents
a group of colleges and universities
that wants to see the university become
a more effective asset in democratization,
in citizenship, and in social
responsibility. And so we are working
with colleges, universities, and academic
organizations where like-minded
people can be found to create a model of
what we call the “engaged university”—the
university that’s engaged not
just through professional training and
abstract scholarship and service to the
corporate sector, but engaged in the
classic American mission of public education,
democracy building, and civic
involvement. Being engaged means
being involved in academic projects,
like the development of a democracy
studies curriculum within the university,
but it also means using the assets of
the university to help build civic
competence, education, and democracy—locally,
nationally, and internationally.
The Democracy Collaborative has a
whole series of projects aimed at trying
to do that.
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AS CONSUMERS.
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CAN MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY JOIN SUCH A COLLABORATIVE?
IS THAT OPEN TO ANY COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY THAT CAN
COMMIT ITS FACULTY AND RESOURCES?
W
ell, there are two important ways in
which any college and university—
and certainly one with the history of civic
responsibility that Monmouth University
has—can become part of this collaboration.
The most important is to make sure that
the institution’s own curriculum, its activities,
and its role in the larger community
play out in ways that service the civic and
social needs of that community. And, you
know, one doesn’t have to join anything to
do that. One has to develop appropriate
curriculum, appropriate community service
programs, and appropriate relationships
between the faculty and research, on the
one hand, and the problems of the community
on the other.
But second, it’s also possible for administration
and professors and students who
believe in and care about these issues to join
with us in the narrower sense of actually act-
FALL 2003 • Monmouth University Magazine 5
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