What is the public purpose of higher education? What is the potential of college students as agents of positive change in our communities?
A UNCG symposium on Wednesday, March 25, 2015, will look at these questions.
The symposium will be led by Dr. Harry Boyte, director, Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Augsburg College. Harry C. Boyte is founder of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, merged into the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College where he now serves as Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. Boyte has served as Coordinator of the American Commonwealth Partnership, a network of higher education groups and institutions created on invitation of the White House Office of Public Engagement and as National Coordinator of the New Citizenship, a cross partisan alliance of educational, civic, business and philanthropic civic groups.
Boyte’s edited volume, Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, and the Future of Colleges and Universities, a collection of essays by leading university presidents, policy makers, faculty, students, community organizers and public intellectuals on how educators can be agents of change not victims of change, was published by Vanderbilt University Press on Feb. 1.
The symposium will offer the following:
Faculty and Community Partner Workshop:
“Agents of Change: Educating Students toward Civic Professionalism”
Breakfast: 8:30am – 9:00m
Workshop: 9:00am – 11:00am
UNCG Faculty Center
Register Online Here
Led by Harry Boyte, UNCG faculty and community partners will explore civic and democratic purpose as foundations for the mission of higher education and the key to rebuilding deep relationships with broader publics. Attendees of this session will engage in activities designed to foster connections with our public identity and purpose, work together towards the civic education of college students as effective change agents, and gain an introduction to the constellation of democratic skills and habits of great importance in this time of transformation in higher education. Please register at the link provided above.
Student Workshop:
From Citizen-Student to Citizen-Professional: Students as Agents of Change During and After College
3:00pm – 4:30pm
Tillman-Smart Room, Shaw Residence Hall
Register Online Here
This session will address the potential of college students as agents of positive change in our communities. Students will learn about the importance of civic professionalism in preparation for the changing world of work – how to be at the forefront of innovation and humanizing of professions and institutional change.
Keynote Address:
“Revitalizing the Civic Purposes and Democratic Story of Higher Education”
Reception: 5 p.m.
Keynote: 6 p.m.
Book Signing: 7 p.m.
118 School of Education
Open to the Public.
Dr. Boyte will discuss reinventing the public purpose of higher education and the great story of colleges and universities as crucial contributors to a democratic way of life. He will address the need to educate students as agents of change in a modern and rapidly changing society and to conceive of UNCG as a vital resource for our communities in a time of enormous changes in the world of work, the economy and the culture.
Boyte’s visit is sponsored by the UNCG Office of Leadership and Service-Learning, the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, UNCG’s NASPA Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Initiative, Faculty Senate, and the American Democracy Project. Boyte’s visit to UNCG is also presented as part of the Debra Turner Bailey Global Citizenship Lecture Series.
Full story is at http://communityengagement.uncg.edu/2014-2015-speaker-series/