Monthly Archives: April 2008

branding citizenship

This morning, I guest-taught a class of college students who are in Washington, DC for the semester. Without having planned it in advance, I asked them what they thought about the following words or phrases that might be used to promote civic participation:

♦ citizenship

♦ responsible citizenship

♦ service

♦ voluntary service

♦ public service

♦ networking for change

♦ community organizing

♦ activism

♦ political activism

♦ social entrepreneurship

♦ civic engagement

We can’t generalize from this group, and they weren’t in agreement. There was a lot of positive feeling about “social entrepreneurship.” They were concerned that “networking for change” was too easy–it meant adding a link on FaceBook but not doing anything. Some defended “civic engagement” even though I suspect it sounds bland. (It’s in the title of my own organization.) “Service” sounded conservative to this relatively liberal group, and they thought “activism” sounded too liberal to attract their peers.

policies for youth civic engagement

Jim Youniss (a developmental psychologist from Catholic University) and I are editing a volume of essays on public policies that would help young Americans develop into active and responsible citizens. The various chapters defend policies for schools, political parties, local governments, and other institutions. We just received word that Vanderbilt University Press will publish the book, which means that it should be in bookstores–as they say–this winter. We could use a suggestion for a title. “Policies for Civic Education,” the placeholder title, isn’t very exciting and it probably suggests a narrow focus on schools.

imagining a new college

This is part of a largely abandoned section of my home town of Syracuse, NY. It’s very close to downtown and there are some lovely Victorian houses in the neighborhood, mostly boarded up today. A lot of it consists of empty parking lots where once there were factories. I’m surprised that this aerial shot makes it look so green. Most of the green areas must be overgrown but abandoned lots.

Imagine if a government or private donor had the resources to found a new college or university. Such an institution could be designed to create a vibrant new urban neighborhood in a place like this–enriched by students and faculty but not reserved for them alone. To create such a community, planners should harness and direct market energies, and thereby magnify the impact of their investment.

Here’s one way to do this: Obtain most or all of the property, perhaps with some use of eminent domain. Select some non-contiguous blocks in which to build campus buildings. Each block could be designed by a different architect in order to promote variety. At the same time, each block would share some common features. They would all provide a mix of student residences, some apartments for faculty and staff, spaces for eating and studying, and classrooms. I like to imagine all these blocks being built around central courts, and each one might have a tower to create a dramatic skyline.

Then the remaining blocks could be sold or leased to developers. The college or university could use its market leverage to select proposals that contributed variety and quality of design. It could even impose unusual zoning rules, such as requiring developers to build a public inner courtyard in each block. If every courtyard opened to the street in the middle of every block, pedestrians could cross the neighborhood from court to court while traffic passed on the streets.

I’d keep the traditional street plan and retain any historic buildings and major trees. If new streets had to be laid out, I would make them narrow in order to concentrate foot traffic, slow cars, and generate a feeling of energy.

I suppose there are two basic models for universities, with various hybrids and exceptions. One is a park-like campus with the buildings set on lawns and connected by paths or private roads. The other is an urban neighborhood with academic buildings and student residences scattered throughout–the standard European model, which we also see at Boston University, the New School, and some other American institutions. I do not prefer the European model overall; both can be nice. I do think that integrating a new university into an urban neighborhood would be a powerful way to spur economic development and turn abandoned property into valuable real estate.

me on the tube

Several film crews are going around interviewing people about citizenship or civic engagement. Last week, I was filmed for Song of a Citizen, which is still in production. The following clip is from iCitizen Forum, which is produced by Colonial Williamsburg.

My 8-year-old likes it but says that people will be surprised. When they hear the intro, she says, “they will expect an old guy with glasses.”

a national conversation on race?

Senator Obama said in a major speech, “race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” The New York Times columnist Bill Kristol presumed that this comment would lead to a national discussion similar to the one that Bill Clinton formally launched in 1997, complete with op-eds, academic panels, and blue-ribbon commissions. Kristol hated the idea. “With respect to having a national conversation on race, my recommendation is: Let’s not, and say we did.”

I wouldn’t be nearly as snarky as Kristol was about that idea. However, I find it interesting that two of our most experienced and thoughtful organizers of public discussions have separately argued against having a formal dialogue on the topic of “race.”

Rich Harwood wrote, “I do not believe a so-called ‘national conversation’ on race is the way to go, if that means a repeat of former President Clinton’s effort on this matter. Remember the national commission he appointed, which soon became embroiled in endless issues about its focus? That initiative had all the negative trappings of a high-falutin’ blue-ribbon panel: formal hearings with far more posturing than conversation. After a much ballyhooed launch, the commission landed with a thud.”

Rich offers six good pieces of advice regarding interracial dialogues, including this one: “It is important to actually do something together (the size and scope of the action does not matter as much as the action itself), because conversation alone cannot create the bonds of trust and relationships that we need. Deeper connections will emerge only by rubbing shoulders and finding solutions together to common challenges, demonstrating to ourselves and others that progress is possible.”

Martha McCoy, the executive director of Everyday Democracy, has organized many Study Circles in racially divided communities. She provides a great post about how to make those conversations work. Like Harwood (but unlike Kristol), she thinks that we need to talk about racial tensions and about disparities in social advantages by race. But we need to talk in contexts where people can raise conflicts of interest and values, work through their differences, and accomplish something together. In other words, the issue cannot be reduced to our attitudes about race (why we “pre-judge and fear one another”), but must encompass the ways our communities and institutions are structured. In Study Circles, participants have patiently and carefully addressed gaps and disparities in ways that have led to real change.

So we need local conversations with racial differences very much on the table. We also need national conversations or deliberations about concrete policy options in various domains. It would be great, for example, for Congress to fund national public discussions about climate change and agree to hold hearings on the report that citizens wrote deliberatively.

But I’m not at all convinced that a formal, national discussion of “race” would be focused enough to produce tangible change. If it led nowhere, it would be worse than nothing at all.