Raise Your Voice in your state

CALIFORNIA Campaign Activities

2003-2004:

Regional Centers
One of our most successful ventures during our initial years has been opportunities to bring students together to reflect on the nature of our work, increase student understanding of methods of promoting student engagement and help students connect with students on other campuses. To promote more such opportunities, California Campus Compact has created four Regional Centers for the Study, Promotion and Documentation of Student Civic Engagement.

• San Diego (University of San Diego - February 28 – CASE Conference)
• Los Angeles (University of California Los Angeles – Spring TBA))
• Central California (California State University Fresno - November 7-8 -Central California Regional Gathering and Leadership Development Conference)
• Northern California (Humboldt State University - The Whiskeytown Retreat October 24-25 – Whiskeytown Environmental Education Camp, Redding, CA)

The Apathy Project
The Apathy Project is designed to take a look at label “apathy” and try to understand what it means for California’s student population.

Continuums of Service Conference – Student Track
The Western Regional Continuums of Service Conference to be held in San Diego, CA March 10 – 12 will feature a strong student track with sessions, plenaries, speakers and workshops designed specifically for students by students. (www.wacampuscompact.org/events.html#cos2004)

A Month of Action
CalSAC, along with the National Raise Your Voice campaign is promoting a focus on student civic actions during the month between February 15-March 20, 2004. We encourage all campuses to promote special events and highlight and publicize both these activities and on-going civic activities of students. Special efforts are being made through our regional centers for collaborative activities during the month including probably two regional gatherings and the Continuums of Service Conference. See 2004 Month of Action events in California.

The Face of Civic Engagement:
A Photography Contest for California Students
What does "civic engagement" look like on campus? Is it the face of students tutoring and involved in beach clean-ups, students registering voters and supporting candidates or students organizing protest rallies against tuition hikes? We are inviting students to submit photographs and brief narrative texts that attempt to capture the dynamic nature of the commitment of California's college and university campuses toward a more just and equitable society.

Curricular Efforts
California Students for Action is working through California Campus Compact to encourage the development of “civic curriculum”. Curricular min-grants are being established that will be offered to faculty members who wish to create courses that address some of the issues and challenges that have been identified though on-campus dialogues such as the development of civic skills.

Student Leadership Programs
CalSAC is exploring the connection between on-campus leadership development programs, the issues of campus leaders as they engage fellow students in on and off campus activities and the broader civic engagement issues. One regional center is focusing on this activity and increasingly it is the subject of on-campus dialogues.

2002-2003:

Statement of Purpose: We are extremely proud of the tens of thousands of California students who actively participate in work that promotes the well being of our state and nation. The California Student Action for Change (CalSAC) Campaign wishes to advance, strengthen and deepen the work of these students through efforts to:

• Publicize their contribution to the campus, neighborhood, state and nation;
• Build networks on campus and between campuses that facilitate the exchange of information, and strategies and that build toward a larger vision of a just society;
• Help students and student groups work together across traditional lines of political, race, class, gender and ethnicity differences to promote democratic action in a diverse society;
• Identify critical issues on campus that lend themselves to student action but that are not yet being addressed by students;
• Draw additional students to the work and
• Engage students, faculty, staff and the general public and public leaders in reflection and dialogues to better understand connections between student work and a more just, inclusive and equitable society and world and the strengthening of our democracy.

Each campus that is officially participating in the campaign recommends a student to be the official student representative from the campus. In most cases, these student scholar/advocates work with a small group of students on their home campus to move along the work. Small awards are available to campuses that are engaged in the campaign.

Initially we are using two primary tools in our work –

• "Mapping" - analyzing civic engagement opportunities, strategies, obstacles etc. We are engaged in both formal and informal efforts to size up student voice on campuses. Some campuses have also begun to try to unpack the term "apathy" as a part of this work, attempting to understand what appears to be disengagement by students. (see the Raise Your Voice Mapping Resource Guide)

• Dialogues - conversations with students that allow students to speak out on a variety of topics, to suggest where a student body might want to place some efforts to make a difference on their campus, in their community or in the world. We are emphasizing her importance of both moderately sized, formal dialogues and smaller, more informal dialogues as mans for tapping student voice. (see the Raise Your Voice Dialogue Resource Guide)

On some campuses, the information gathered through analysis and dialogues has led to the creation of student campaigns on campus such as the “Who Cares” campaign at the University of San Diego designed to engage more students in advocacy and public policy formation.

See 2003 Week of Action Events in California.

Photos:

Press:

• The Stanford Daily, February 18, 2003: "Engaging in national issues" and "SPECIAL TO THE DAILY: Civic week on campus"

• San Francisco State University Campus Memo, February 17, 2003: Discussing diversity, campus, communtiy

ALSO: Check out the Raise Your Voice page on the Humboldt State University website.

For more information, contact:

Dick Cone
1600 Holloway Ave.
Lakeview Center 135
San Francisco, CA 94132-4042
626.282.8581
cone@usc.edu

or Elaine Ikeda
415.338.3987
ekikeda@sfsu.edu