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RESOURCE GUIDE FOR STAFF AND FACULTY
WORKING IN SUPPORT OF ENGAGED STUDENTS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What specific thing does the initiative plan to accomplish?
The general goal of this initiative is to broaden and deepen student participation in the life of the democracy.
This work is founded on the idea of student ownership and respect for the different forms of civic engagement on different campuses. Thus, the initiative has taken a different shape from one state to another and, in some cases, from one campus to another. In general, students are encouraged to get to know their campus and community better through a mapping process and to encourage broad-based student thinking about institutional and societal change through inclusive dialogues.
It is also hoped that this process will contribute to a national network of students that reaches across campuses in a region, a state, and the nation so that students can draw upon the work of others and take on agendas that are regional and national in scope.
What tools are available for students engaged in the campaign?
Most of the tools available for student use can be found on the Raise Your Voice website www.actionforchange.org. These include:
• Networking - Students are given opportunities through training sessions, conferences and state and regional meetings to meet other student, share ideas and develop collaborative plans. See Upcoming Events calendar
• Campus-Community Mapping
• Dialogues
• Raise your Voice – A Week of Action - President’s week in February has been designated as a time when campuses are encouraged to highlight their civic engagement activities. To find out what’s going on across the country click here.
• A Guide to Organizing Resources
• The New Student Politics - a document which examines contemporary conceptions of civic engagement, politics, and service and provides specific suggestions about how campuses can improve their commitment to student civic engagement through service-learning, increased support for student political activity, and attentiveness to student voice.
• Documentation
What outcomes might be expected as a result of the campaign?
We believe that as a result of this campaign, students will
• Become more engaged in both service and political activity both on and off campus.
• Better understand how to identify areas in need of change and how to bring about change.
• Increase their confidence in their own ability to understand and analyze issues and speak out in effective ways
• Create new programs and/or initiatives on campus that bring added value to the civic engagement of the student-body
What can staff/faculty members do to help?
It is important to note that while this initiative has rich educational opportunities, it is a student initiative, designed to be by and for students. But campuses are complex places and most students have a fairly narrow view of the institution based on limited experience. Staff/faculty members can serve as institutional guides who can: (click on an item below to go to another section of this toolkit)
• Help Student Leaders Assess How and Where to Start
• Assist with Mapping Activities
• Support Student Dialogues
• Promote Student Voice
• Providing Incentives to Student Leaders
• Mentor Student Leaders
• Encourage Collaboration On and Off Campus
• Deepen Student Engagement
• Address Sensitive Issues
• Reflect on Lessons Learned
• Sustain Civic Engagement
What are the challenges you might expect from the campaign?
The challenges a staff or faculty member connected to the campaign might encounter stem largely from the open-ended nature of this initiative. They can best be summarized as:
• Getting started – It may well take time for students to map a campus, decide how their action can bring added value and organize an initiative. This calls for patience, a willingness to entertain changing directions, and being available to offer wise council. See Getting Started.
• Keeping the administration informed of the campaign – A campaign entitled Raise Your Voice may make more than a few administrators nervous. You can provide valuable suggestions to students about how they can keep the President and others informed of their efforts. See Communicating with Administration.
• Leadership – This initiative calls for collaborative models of leadership (see www.greenleaf.org/leadership/servant-leadership/What-is-Servant-Leadership.html or www.frostburg.edu/clife/lanec/leadership/7values.html).
Students, accustomed to entrepreneurial models of leadership, may need help in understanding the difference.
• Connecting to the work of others – Students working on the Raise Your Voice campaign will be most likely to bring added value to the campus if they work “with” rather than “counter to” service-learning efforts, student programs sponsored through student affairs and programs initiated by other students. You can help students identify these efforts and connect to them. See Collaboration.
• Addressing sensitive issues – Students may elect to become involved in issues that irritate campus administrators. Students exploring campus hiring policies, the investment of campus funds, or the purchase of goods produced by sweatshop labor may create problems for officials. For some thoughts on this issue, see Addressing Sensitive Issues.
What tools do I need?
There is no blueprint for civic engagement. We have no recipe book but are rather asking students to experiment to see what things excite other students and motivate other students to care. The most important tools you bring to this are:
• Knowledge of your institution and a willingness to help students better understand it,
• Good listening/counseling skills,
• A willingness to mentor, and
• Patience
Campus Compact will attempt to keep you in the know about things that are happening at the national, regional and state level through the national Raise Your Voice staff and through regional and state program coordinators. Information is being up-dated on a frequent basis on the Raise Your Voice website. We encourage questions of all sorts. Our view is that we are all learners in this effort, seeking answers to challenging and vital questions.
How did I get involved in this and what’s in it for me?
Chances are you got pulled into this because you have established a reputation for being student centered. Still, if you are like most of those who are involved in this initiative, you are already very busy. So why get involved?
The initial response of staff and faculty members who have been asked for advice or who have been working with our first group of students in the field has been over-whelmingly positive. There is a level of excitement around this work that is hard to explain. We suspect the following to be true:
• Many staff and faculty savor the opportunities to mentor and work with student leaders on new initiatives, particularly ones that address some of the problems with the current educational paradigm.
• Staff and faculty nominated students selected for this initiative. Generally they have an existing and warm relationship with the students selected to represent their campus.
• Staff and faculty may welcome the opportunity to spend more time with students and partnering on possible projects focused on stepping back and looking at their own institutions.
• Staff and faculty supportive of this initiative are often very committed to the democratic ideals of participation and deliberation.
• Staff and faculty interested in focusing attention on the public purposes of their disciplinary knowledge and campus organizing find the campaign enhances their teaching.
• Staff and faculty have the opportunity to collaborate with students acting as co-facilitators in the reflection and community partnerships that are essential elements of service-learning courses.
• Some people just have not learned to say “no” to good ideas.
We believe that this new initiative is part of a new movement on college and university campuses focused on the public purposes of higher education. We anticipate that there will be many opportunities to speak, publish and otherwise examine the trajectory of this work by staff, faculty and students.
Whatever the reason or the possible benefits, we appreciate your support and welcome your comments and criticisms. This is a journey into unchartered territory and we all have much to learn.
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