​The Mellon Foundation made a $500,000 commitment to Project Pericles to support a Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL)™ Program in the Humanities.

Periclean Student Delegates Inspire at the 2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ National Conference  

​Read the full Spring 2019 Newsletter.

​Our article “Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement: Five Approaches to Institutionalizing Civic Engagement,” by Garret S. Batten, Adrienne Falcon, Jan R. Liss, and Arielle del Rosario appears in the eJournal of Public Affairs - Volume 8 Issue 1, Exemplary Scholarship from the 2018 CLDE Meeting: Innovative Civic Engagement Pedagogy.  

Project Pericles is pleased to announce that we have selected the third cohort of faculty members for the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™. 

​Project Pericles is saddened to share the news that  Harris L. Wofford passed away on January 21 at the age of 92 (read his Washington Post obituary here).  Harris was a longtime supporter of Project Pericles and an advocate for civil rights and civic engagement more broadly. He served as a member of the board until 2018 and as a judge at the D4D Legislative Hearings from 2008 to 2013. 

National Office News
To the Polls - Student Teams Rally Their Classmates
Comprised of student-led task forces on our member campuses, Student Choices-Student Voices (SCSV) encourages civic participation by hosting an array of events and activities about national issues for students and community members. Leading up to the November elections, many campuses ran active voter registration and get out the vote drives. Below are updates from Macalester College, Wagner College, Hendrix College, and Bates College.
 
Mac the Vote!
By Ryan Perez ('20)
 
Leading up to election day, our Campaign Involvement Lunch, Elections Trivia Night, Mac the Vote Rally, and general publicity/communications made information about the elections unavoidable.
 
I asked one student if he knew about the election (the week before), and his response was "How could I not? It's literally everywhere!"
 
Our culminating event was a campus-wide "Mac the Vote!" rally to build student power in the upcoming elections, featuring organizers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina (COPAL), National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), Planned Parenthood Action, OutFront MN, Sunrise Movement, and Students Demand Action MN.
​ 
On election day, we had an election day party in our campus center and three parades. Despite bad weather, these events were well attended.  Rough data/estimates from political parties indicate that our election day turnout was on-par with presidential election years! This corresponds to a nationwide trend. I can't wait for the next Tufts report [National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement] to know specifically just how well we did.
 
Ryan Perez is one of the leaders behind the Macalester College SCSV team.
 
The Wagner Student Choices-Student Voices Team Rolls Out the Vote
By Bernadette Ludwig, Wagner College
 
This semester Wagner College participated in Project Pericles' Student Choices-Student Voices (SCSV) program to increase voter turnout among college students. We offered many ways for students to register to vote including registration stations during first-year orientation, in-class registrations, and information sharing on social media.
 
Our team of students, faculty, and staff from the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement used creative strategies to connect with students prior to and on Election Day. We partnered with Staten Island's Swing Left chapter to register New York residents (regardless of their political affiliation) to vote. The team posted flyers around campus and on social media, including one, developed by Andrew Kolar ('22), with a QR code that took students directly to information about absentee ballots.

SCSV Get Out the Vote - Wagner College
Election Day, we had shuttles to drive students to and from the local polling place. In addition to signs around campus to encourage voting, volunteers (students, staff, and faculty) walked or drove in a golf cart ( Seth Jolles '22 who got "van certified" just for this) to either remind students to vote or "reward" those who had voted with stickers, Mardi Gras beads, and candy.
Dario Anderson ('19) said this outreach to students was, "a wonderful [and] exhilarating experience." Connie Campbell ('22), echoed this saying "it felt really good to hear all the students saying that they voted."
 
The day ended with an Election Watch Party with pizza and a raffle.
 
Bernadette Ludwig is Associate Professor, Sociology; Director of Civic Engagement Minor; and Project Pericles Program Director, Wagner College.
 
Hendrix SCSV Encourages Conway Community to "Know Your Ballot"
By Jay Barth, Hendrix College
 
The Hendrix College SCSV Task Force organized a "Know Your Ballot" event on Monday, October 29th. This event was advertised to the broader Conway community through a newspaper advertisement and press releases. We also worked with the Faulkner County League of Women Voters in outreach efforts. Approximately 75-80 folks attended the event, including a number of off-campus community members.
 
During the event, Drew Coker '19 provided an overview of the voting process (what students should expect, what ID they needed, etc.) Dr. Jay Barth then provided an overview of the ballot measures on the Arkansas ballot. Local candidates (state legislature, county, and city officials) then each spoke briefly. A reception was held after the event. On Election Day night, a watch party was held on campus and approximately 50 community members watched the results.
 
Jay Barth is the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics, Director of Civic Engagement Projects, and Project Pericles Program Director, Hendrix College.
 
Bobcats VOTE! Bates Students Lead the Way
By Peggy Rotundo, Bates College
Throughout the day on Election Day, Bates student leaders guided groups of their peers from the Dining Commons to the polling place, just a short walk from campus. President Clayton Spencer led the group at noon, and some athletic teams went together as a team to vote. For those who might have been anxious about voting for the first time, Patrick Sheils'19 and Tyler Baum'19 created a short video featuring the presidents of the Bates Republicans and Bates Democrats, who provided a virtual tour of the polling place and explained how things would work. Students roamed through Ladd Library and other parts of campus reminding people to vote. They even chalked the campus with messages such as "Voting is Sexy."

Bates President Clayton Spencer and Students from the Electoral Engagement Task Force
While many students were passionate about particular candidates and issues, the Get Out the Vote effort was non-partisan and entirely student driven , with support from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. The message shared with the student body was, "We don't care where you vote or who you vote for; we just want you to vote!" Encouraging students to develop habits of electoral participation not only aligns with the Bates mission to "cultivate informed civic action," but it is also an essential  building block of a thriving democracy.

With an eye toward inspiring widespread electoral engagement in the midterm election, strategizing began in September. Student leaders, including Community Liaisons from student clubs and athletic teams, met with staff from Student Affairs and the Harward Center to talk about putting together acampus wide, non-partisan effort to get students to vote. Voter registration training was offered to interested students, who then went back to their teams and  student organizations to register others. Registration opportunities were offered during lunchtime every day in Commons. There was even a registration table at one of the football games, with the announcer reminding everyone that "Bobcats vote!" There were requests from many faculty members as well to have students come into their classes to pass out registration cards.

Throughout the fall semester, the Politics and Rhetoric Departments and the Environmental Studies program offered programming that considered different aspects of the election and issues that were on the ballot. Local, state, and federal candidates for office came to campus to meet students. In a show of bipartisan cooperation, which marked this election cycle on campus, the Bates Democrats and Republicans jointly sponsored the campus visit of U.S. Senator  Angus King (I-ME). Many students were actively involved in working on campaigns, particularly with two Bates grads on the ballot, State Senator
Nate Libby (D-Lewiston) and Congressman-elect  Jared Golden (D-2 ).  Once again, a campus highlight was professor  Stephanie Kelley-Romano 's course, Presidential Campaign Rhetoric, which engaged students in a semester-long mock election.

Bates also participated in many national non-partisan efforts this fall, including National Voter Registration Day, the ALL IN Challenge, and Tufts University's National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement. While we are proud of all the election activity on campus this fall, the high participation rate of our students in the electoral process, and being named to the Washington Monthly's list of Best Colleges for Student Voting, we are still waiting for the official tallies of voter participation.

A key component of the Bates experience is cultivating lifelong civic responsibility that is realized in many ways across time. Voting is a critical piece of this, and Harward Center staff enjoyed helping to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to participate fully in the electoral season, including considerations of where and how to register to vote, how to access non-partisan information in order to make informed decisions, and how to have civil and respectful conversations about political differences.

Peggy Rotundo is the Director, Strategic and Policy Initiatives, at the Harward Center, Bates College. She is also a former State Senator and member of the Maine House of Representatives.

Updates from a D4D Letters to an Elected Official Student Team
 
Pace D4D Team Fights Gun Violence
By Laurianne Gutierrez '21, Pace University
 
This fall, David Lê ('19) and I organized an anti-gun violence coalition at Pace University. We are focusing our efforts on overturning the Dickey Amendment, which prohibits the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from funding most research on gun violence.
 
After forming "Pace Against Gun Violence," or "PAGV," we spent the month of November spreading the word about our initiative and gathering petition signatures. Through frequent email correspondence with members of PAGV, I emphasized that it is crucial that we direct our efforts at connecting with fellow Pace students.
 
It was quite moving to see the level of enthusiasm that my fellow students expressed when signing our petition urging the repeal of the Dickey Amendment and addressed to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY-10).
 
I met with members of PAGV toward the end of November to discuss their experiences with obtaining petition signatures and to inquire about any difficulties. Many of them reported that the students they spoke with were impassioned and eager to see a future in which gun violence ceases to exist.
 
We recently held a tabling event in collaboration with the Center for Community Action & Research at Pace. Hundreds of students expressed their interest in our anti-gun violence initiative. After learning about the Dickey Amendment and its restrictions on gun violence research, they eagerly signed our petition.
 
David Lê and Laurianne Gutierrez wrote their Letter to an Elected Official to Senator Schumer urging the repeal of the Dickey Amendment.
 
About: The Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ Letters to an Elected Official
The competition engages students around public policy issues, the political process, and with their elected officials. The five winning teams receive awards to help them move their issue forward. The 2019 letters are due to Project Pericles Program Directors on January 30. Since this program began in 2008, we have received outstanding submissions from hundreds of student teams at our Periclean colleges and universities. Writing letters that clearly ask an elected official to take specific action is an effective way to assert civic power. In 2017, The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) released a report, Citizen-Centric Advocacy: The Untapped Power of Constituent Engagement. One of their major findings, based on nearly 1,200 responses from congressional staff, is that mass email campaigns are largely ineffective. With the rise of social media and mass email campaigns, congressional staffers are inundated with duplicate messages. A personalized, specific letter (or email) is far more powerful. For more information and to download the report, click here.

The 2019 D4D National Conference March 28 and 29
 
The Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ National Conference will take place on Thursday, March 28 and Friday, March 29, 2019 at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts. A highlight of the conference is the D4D Legislative Hearing , in which students present and defend their "Letter to an Elected Official" and the issues it discusses to a panel of judges including current and former government officials. On the second day, students will have an opportunity to visit a non-profit organization and meet with its senior leadership. Seventy student leaders from our member Periclean colleges and universities will be joined by college presidents, provosts, foundation, government, and community leaders for a two-day agenda of workshops and panel discussions.
 
The conference will feature Christopher Kush, CEO of Soapbox Consulting, who will facilitate an interactive workshop for students as part of the National Conference. Soapbox trains citizens to effectively communicate their issues to Congress, and to state and local officials. The workshop will provide an opportunity for students to practice skills and techniques for engaging elected officials and other decision-makers around issues the students are passionate about. Christopher led the D4D on the Road workshops for Project Pericles in 2008-2009 and 2012-2013 and presented a workshop at the 2017 D4D National Conference.
 
AAC&U Presentation Accepted
Our panel presentation "Creating Curricular Coherence: Three Examples of Institutional Change" has been accepted for AAC&U's 2019 Annual Meeting to be held January 23-26, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia.
 
Presenting with Jan Liss, Executive Director, Project Pericles will be Frederick Knight, Chair, History Department; Director, General Education Department, Morehouse College; Paul Schadewald, Associate Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; Karin Trail-Johnson, Associate Dean, Institute for Global Citizenship; Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; and James (Jim) E. Vike, Professor of Political Science; MPA Program, Director, Widener University.
 
Higher education faces the challenge of creating efficient and cohesive educational experiences for students that integrate academic learning, civic engagement, and preparation for life after college. Project Pericles and three Periclean institutions are exploring distinct approaches to designing streamlined and integrative curricular pathways within majors, interdepartmental initiatives, and college-wide general education requirements.

• Macalester College is creating pathways within the Geography and History departments with plans to add additional departments in the final years of the grant [Environmental Studies will be next]. This involves streamlining and working to make a more efficient and coherent program.
   
• Morehouse College approved and is implementing an entirely revised and streamlined set of general education requirements that reduced learning outcomes from 11 to 6 and required general education credit hours from 53-59 to 32-46.
   
• Widener University created a sustainability pathway by revising existing courses and eliminating others. This approach is highly replicable and the College of Arts & Sciences is considering using this pathways approach for other themes.

Creating Curricular Coherence is part of The Teagle Foundation's Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence initiative and is also supported by the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
 
Project Pericles to Present Multi-Campus Research Study on Well-Being with BTtoP at AAC&U
 
Jay Barth from Hendrix College will be presenting work from a Project Pericles study as part of a Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtoP) panel, "The Well-Being Bridge: Connecting the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum through Holistic High-Impact Practices."
 
He will discuss insights from our multi-campus research project that looked at the ways in which incorporating civic engagement in the curricula influences the well-being of college students. We examined several high-impact practices including community-based learning and first-year seminars across four campuses (Bates College, Goucher College, Hendrix College, and Pitzer College).
 
This panel was organized by Ashley Finley, Senior Advisor to the President, AAC&U (formerly with BTtoP).
            
Reed College Hosts Fall Program Directors' Conference
The Project Pericles Program Directors' Conference was held October 23-24 at Reed College. Project Pericles is grateful to Acting President Hugh Porter, Dean of Faculty Nigel Nicholson, Dean for Institutional Diversity Mary James, Vice President for Student Services Mike Brody, Project Pericles Program Director Tara Sonali Miller, and the entire Reed College community for hosting a wonderful and very productive meeting. Program Directors from almost all of our member campuses attended.
 
At our Fall 2017 Program Directors' Conference at Chatham University, participants expressed interest in conducting a review of Project Pericles' programs. At Reed, The Program Directors' Working Group that was formed at the 2017 meeting discussed their findings from a survey and a series of interviews with fellow Program Directors. The Program Directors reported on an analysis of all of our programs...what to keep, what to add, and what to change. In addition to our programs, we discussed 1) culture, structure, collaboration, and values; and 2) special programs (practice and research); and ideas for the future. In addition, we had fascinating tours focusing on engaged work in the Portland Community and the Reed canyon, a 28-acre watershed and wildlife refuge in the heart of the campus.
 
We thank the members of the Working Group: Cass Freedland, Goucher College; Darby K. Ray, Bates College; Christian Rice, Ursinus College; Paul Schadewald, Macalester College; and Wilbur (Monty) Whitney, Morehouse College for all of their important work.

Pericleans in the News      
Congressman-Elect Max Rose (D-NY-11) accepts students' invitation
By Bernadette Ludwig and Paul Norden ('21), Wagner College
 
Students in Professor Jessica Clark's Introduction to Social Welfare Practice all design a Social Action Project. This assignment consists of several parts, including writing a letter to an elected official to be considered for submission to the 2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ Letters to an Elected Official Competition, and a concrete action to be carried out by students.
 
One group of students (Jacqueline Kaminsky '19, Laura Kyvik '19, Mikaela Pritchett'19, Paul Norden '21, Emil Matti '21) wrote their letter to a congressman who had voted against the "Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act" that was proposed in Congress in June. The students outlined how the epidemic has affected our country and, especially, the borough of Staten Island.
 
For the "action" part of the assignment, students invited Congressman-Elect Max Rose (D-NY) to speak at Wagner to raise awareness about this topic in Staten Island. The issue was an important part of his campaign.
 
The students used their social networks to set up Rose's visit to Wagner on November 20th. The event was very well attended. A highlight of Rose's talk was the excitement he generated among the students from Staten Island, who were thrilled to meet someone for whom they had actually voted.
 
Elon Periclean Scholars Class of 2019 and Sarvodaya: Together Moving Forward
By The Elon Periclean Scholars
 
Throughout the semester, the Periclean Class of 2019 has been steadily working to complete various components of its project to facilitate economic empowerment for local craftswomen in Sri Lanka. This fall the Class created and updated portions of the Sarvodaya (the Class' community-based NGO partner) website; developed content related to ethical community tourism, cultural competency, and a newly established internship position with Sarvodaya; and updated Sarvodaya's marketing materials. In addition, they developed an assessment tool for community tourism experiences hosted by Sarvodaya that they will use during their winter-term trip to Sri Lanka.
 
In preparation for the winter trip, Dr. Mat Gendle, the Mentor of the Periclean Class of 2019 and Project Pericles Program Director, and three Scholars from the Class of 2019 traveled to Sri Lanka during the summer of 2018. The goals of the trip were to deepen the Class's relationships with Sarvodaya to become more familiar with the communities that the Class has visited in the past, and to determine the mechanisms through which the Class will enact its project of facilitating economic empowerment for local craftswomen.
 
About the Elon University Periclean Scholars Program
Students inducted into the Periclean Scholars program take a series of academic courses culminating in a Class project of global social change. The project is designed and carried out by the cohort of students from each year's Class under the direction of their faculty mentor.
Potential projects are globally oriented, with the specific project chosen by each cohort [excerpt from Periclean Scholars website].
 
Drew Launches Changebuilders Program to Increase Engagement
Over the years, student involvement in service opportunities has increased in the Drew community. Beginning with the Civic Scholars program in 2009, Drew has taken the responsibility of organizing and integrating civic engagement into the curriculum. To honor the commitment to service, the university has launched the Changebuilders program in collaboration with the New Jersey Campus Compact (NJCC).
 
Like that of Project Pericles, its mission is to increase Drew's participation in community service and civic responsibility. The Changebuilders program requires students to complete 40-100 hours of service each year. The program will result in 10,000 to 50,000 high-quality volunteer hours dedicated to organizations in New Jersey for the next five years. This not only creates another cohort of student volunteers but encourages and spreads the importance of civic duty and social responsibility. Students will tackle social issues of inequality through community-based learning classes, off-campus experiences, and campaigns for nonprofit organizations.
 
The goal of the Changebuilders Program is to increase engagement within New Jersey. The executive director of NJCC and director of the Changebuilders program, Saul Petersen, comments that, "Graduates in the 21st century must be able to adapt to different experiences, to understand different perspectives, and to be innovative. These are some of the qualities that strengthen communities and nurture a thriving workplace." The alignment of the Changebuilders initiative with the goals of Project Pericles demonstrates how higher education consortia can create synergies supporting civic engagement at their member institutions.
 
To support the Changebuilders Program Drew University has received a full-time AmeriCorps member, Kendra Polk ('18), to connect the students to new opportunities. Her mission on campus is to increase the number of service opportunities offered for students through volunteering, internships and alternative spring breaks.

Please make a donation today to Project Pericles so that we can continue to prepare student leaders for lives of engaged citizenship. Donations can be made directly through our website www.projectpericles.org by clicking donate in the upper right corner. 
The Periclean Progress is also available on the Project Pericles website. 
 
To subscribe or to submit Periclean-related information for publication,
email garret.batten@projectpericles.org .
 
Periclean Colleges & Universities
Allegheny College * Bates College * Berea College     
Bethune-Cookman University * Carleton College * Chatham University 
Dillard University * Drew University * Elon University  
The Evergreen State College * Goucher College * Hampshire College
Hendrix College * Macalester College * Morehouse College 
New England College * The New School * Occidental College * Pace University 
Pitzer College * Reed College * Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
Rhodes College * St. Mary's College of Maryland * Skidmore College  
Swarthmore College * Ursinus College * Wagner College 
Whitman College * Widener University * The College of Wooster
National Office
 Executive Director: Jan R. Liss
Assistant Director: Garret S. Batten
Program Manager: Arielle del Rosario

Board of Directors
Founder and Chair Emeritus: Eugene M. Lang (1919-2017)
Chair: Neil R. Grabois
Vice-Chair: Richard Ekman
Treasurer: David A. Caputo 
Janet S. Dickerson
Richard Guarasci
Helen Lang Suskin 

Jan R. Liss*
Louis A. Martarano
Michael S. McPherson
James H. Mullen, Jr.*
Vincent M. Ponzo
Lyle D. Roelofs
Lourdes M. Rosado
* ex officio

Presidents' Council
Chair: Lyle D. Roelofs, Berea College   
Vice-Chair: Steven G. Poskanzer, Carleton College 
National Board of Advisors
Co-Chairs: Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker & Hon. Kurt L. Schmoke
David Baltimore * John Baugh * J. Herman Blake
Roger W. Bowen * Harry C. Boyte * Sen. Bill Bradley * Paul Brest
Russell L. Carson * Raymond G. Chambers * Jerome A. Chazen
Nadinne Cruz * Richard A. Detweiler * Christopher F. Edley, Jr.
Thomas Ehrlich * Jonathan F. Fanton * Nicholas H. Farnham
Ellen V. Futter * Llewellyn P. Haden, Jr. * Samuel L. Hayes III
Antonia Hernandez * Amb. James C. Hormel * Helene L. Kaplan
Gov. Thomas H. Kean * Arthur E. Levine * Reuben Mark
Elizabeth McCormack * Mary Patterson McPherson
  Robert D. Putnam * Judith A. Ramaley * David M. Scobey
Allen P. Splete * Mark A. Vander Ploeg * Harris L. Wofford
 
The title "Project Pericles®" and its embodiment in the Logo are registered service marks of Project Pericles, Inc.  All rights are reserved.

The Periclean Progress E-Newsletter 
 Volume 15, Fall  2018

"An educated citizenry is the essential instrument for promoting
responsible social action and community well-being." - Eugene M. Lang

To view the Newsletter with photos: Fall 2018 Newsletter.

National Office News
Project Pericles Announces New Round of the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™ 
 
Project Pericles is pleased to announce the third round of the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™. With the support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, we are now able to offer this signature program on an ongoing basis.
 
This faculty leadership and course development program is dedicated to incorporating civil dialogue, civic engagement, and social responsibility across the undergraduate curriculum. Our nation's future depends on ensuring that our student leaders have the dispositions, habits, and skills to apply academic knowledge to real-world problems in ways that are meaningful, thoughtful, and that they can sustain over their lifetimes
 
The Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) create new courses that incorporate civic engagement; promote civil dialogue locally through lectures, town hall meetings, and public events; and advance public scholarship nationally and internationally through publications and conference presentations. Each PFL is paired with a colleague from another campus throughout their tenure.
 
Demonstrating that civic engagement and community-based work can be incorporated intoany discipline, our second cohort (2017-2018) included a diverse group of professors from a wide range of disciplines including Archaeology and Classical Studies, Business Law, Computer Science, Dance, English, Environmental Studies, History, Mathematics and Statistics, Psychology, Sociology, Theatre, and Urban Studies.
 
Praise for the 2017-2018 PFL Program:
 
This program has changed the way that I think about citizenship, civic engagement, and community through first-hand experiences and thought-provoking course material. I have no doubt that this program has better prepared me for my future in law and the rigorous academic challenges that face me moving forward.- Student, "Inventing the Citizen: The History of Political Action and its Limits" taught by Ulrike Krotscheck, Member of the Faculty in Archaeology and Classical Studies (Course Lead) and Bradley Proctor, Member of the Faculty in History, The Evergreen State College
   
 ...YES, [Dr. Phong Le, PFL 2017-2018] and this course have been spectacular. I can't say enough good things about this."- José Antonio Bowen, President, Goucher College
 
 Through courses and other campus and community-based activities, Periclean Faculty Leaders reach thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members. By developing and linking activities in the classroom, campus, and community, the PFL program promotes and reinforces social responsibility and participatory citizenship as essential elements of the educational experience. PFLs' Civic Engagement Course Syllabi are available online.  
 
We look forward to working with our future PFLs on this exciting and important program which aligns so clearly with the mission of Project Pericles and all our Periclean Colleges and Universities.  Each Periclean institution is invited to nominate one or two eligible faculty members from different disciplines to be Periclean Faculty Leaders. Faculty in disciplines in which civic engagement is not traditionally a focus should be encouraged to apply. Applications are due by  Monday, December 17, 2018. Please see your Project Pericles Program Director for detail. Award announcements will be made in March 2019 for courses to be taught in Fall 2019. 
 
The 2018-2019 PFL Program is made possible through the generous support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation. Previous support was provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and The Teagle Foundation. (See Periclean in the News for an Article by Two PFLs).
 
Student Choices-Student Voices (SCSV) Influencing Young Leaders
 
Comprised of student-led task forces on our member campuses, SCSV efforts encourage civic participation by hosting an array of events and activities about national issues for students and community members. Pericleans have successfully registered thousands of voters and distributed important information about candidates and issues.
 
Ryan Perez ('20) of Macalester College and a leader of its SCSV Task Force recently wrote to Project Pericles to tell us about the impact Periclean programs have had on him.
 
I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to Project Pericles. The D4D Letters to an Elected Official Competition, the D4D National Conference, the D4D on the Road workshop, and Student Choices - Student Voices have given me valuable skills and shaped my career interests in ways I would not have imagined at the beginning of my first year in college. I am currently interning for a state senator, and I plan on being involved in elections and voter engagement. Civic engagement related to our democracy has truly become one of my greatest passions.  
 
Thanks to Ryan, Avik Herur-Raman '20, and others, the Macalester College SCSV Task Force has been doing great work throughout 2018, hosting multiple voter registration tabling sessions and a discussion with a "March for Our Lives" student organizer (founded by students from Parkland and focused on ending gun violence). They also distributed valuable information on voting to members of their community. Avik and Ryan organized a "Campaign Involvement Lunch," an event designed to promote involvement in a variety of campaigns leading up to the November elections. Representatives from organizations including the Minnesota Youth Collective, Outfront MN, Faith in MN, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund came and discussed opportunities for involvement. More than 40 students attended the event and many signed up to get involved with the campaigns.
 
The SCSV Task Force at Skidmore College, led by Hannah Fishman '19, held a National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) event (September 25) in collaboration with the Skidmore Student Government Association and the Saratoga Springs League of Women Voters. This campus-wide event encourages students to register to vote. Earlier, in September they held a training session for newly recruited student volunteers teaching them how to register students in preparation for NVRD. They have also been sending e-mail blasts to registered student voters informing them about relevant voter information such as polling places (there is a location on campus) and absentee ballots.
 
As part of National Voter Registration Day, Project Pericles supplied voter pledge cards to several campuses after receiving requests. We continue to support our campus-based Task Forces on their voter engagement projects.
 
Through SCSV, we facilitate information and strategy sharing between task forces on different campuses allowing students to collaborate with their peers and organize similar activities on their own campuses. We share tools including TurboVote, which assesses voter engagement, and Text, Talk, Vote, which helps motivate political dialogue and awareness, with our campuses. Our partnerships include Civic Nation; Democracy Works; National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE); Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV); and YVote, among other organizations, to exchange ideas on how to increase student participation in voting and other civically engaged activities.
 
Our Program Manager, Arielle del Rosario, is in regular contact with the student Task Force leaders. Small grants, of up to $200, are available to support innovative work.
 
Chatham University Hosts First Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ 2018-2019 D4D on the Road™ Workshop
 
Over 30 Chatham University students and Allegheny College students turned out for the first 2018-2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D) workshop. Hosted by Chatham, the workshop received high marks from those in attendance.
 
A Chatham University student noted that the workshop made her realize that "I have influence as long as I take the time to look at who has power." While another student commented, "Just because something is not winnable now, it may be later."
 
Using case studies on Immigration Reform, LGBTQ Rights, Race and Inequality, the workshop uses a systematic framework to help participants identify solutions to problems they are concerned with and then build winning strategies to make change. Through small group exercises and role playing, with trainer feedback, the daylong session takes students from researching a problem to analyzing solutions, developing strategies, and meeting effectively with decision-makers. Participants leave with concrete tools, which they can put to use in a wide variety of public policy settings and efforts.
 
Pericleans will host a total of eight workshops with an additional seven Pericleans sending students to participate. Other issues addressed in case studies this year include Education Access, Mass Incarceration, and Voting Rights. For the second year in a row, we are partnering with Midwest Academy. They received excellent reviews from students and community members for the 2017-2018 workshops. All of their trainers have experience working as organizers on issue-based or political campaigns and we are pleased to work with them again.
 
2018-2019 D4D on the Road Workshop Schedule 
Friday, September 28 - Chatham University (Pittsburgh, PA) (Allegheny College visiting)
   
Saturday, October 6 - Rhodes College (Memphis, TN) (Hendrix College visiting) 
 
Friday, November 16 - Pitzer College (Claremont, CA)
 
Saturday, December 1- Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY) (RPI visiting) 
 
Saturday, February 2 - Carleton College (Northfield, MN) (Macalester College visiting)
 
Saturday, February 9 - Bates College (Lewiston, ME) (New England College visiting)  
 
Saturday, February 23 - Ursinus College (Collegeville, PA) (Swarthmore College and Widener University visiting)
 
Friday, March 1- Goucher College (Baltimore, MD)  
 
Project Pericles to Present Panel at AAC&U in Atlanta, Georgia
 
We are delighted to share the news that Project Pericles' panel presentation "Creating Curricular Coherence: Three Examples of Institutional Change" has been accepted for AAC&U's 2019 Annual Meeting to be held January 23-26, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia.
 
Higher education faces the challenge of creating efficient and cohesive educational experiences for students that integrate academic learning, civic engagement, and preparation for life after college. Project Pericles and three Periclean institutions (Macalester College, Morehouse College, and Widener University) are exploring distinct approaches to designing streamlined and integrative curricular pathways within majors, interdepartmental initiatives, and college-wide general education requirements. This panel will share insights, strategies, and resources to inform and inspire curricular coherence and pathways at other institutions. The three-year project is part of The Teagle Foundation's Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence initiative and is also made possible through the support of the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
 
Macalester will discuss the creation of civic engagement pathways within two academic departments (Geography and History), as models for other departments and as a foundation for broader institutional change. The project supports the development of sequenced course offerings paired with increasingly advanced community-based opportunities and highlights the public purposes of disciplinary learning. By focusing on change within departments rather than individual courses, the project creates more effective and efficient pedagogy and allows students to design more coherent academic careers. Macalester will share the process of working with faculty members to map and assess learning goals, create pathways, and discuss replication at other institutions.
 
Morehouse will discuss transforming a large, fragmented, and costly general education program. Their redesigned "general education integrative learning experience" focuses on the African Diaspora and five other learning outcomes. Morehouse has significantly reduced required general education credits and combined student learning outcomes. They will discuss the challenging process of gaining approval for this large-scale undertaking and the effort to redesign courses to meet the new requirements.
 
Widener will discuss its new Sustainability and Civic Engagement pathway with links to general education requirements and courses in a variety of majors. The pathway introduces more coherent curricular options within Widener's existing general education distribution system and thus, a more cohesive experience for students. The pathway model supports an interdisciplinary, inquiry-based approach employing multiple high-impact practices. The pathway network of courses features a freshman seminar, multiple approved pathway courses across nine academic departments and an option for an interdisciplinary capstone experience. Widener will share the process and challenges involved in developing this thematic pathway and how this approach can be replicated.
 
Presenting will be: Jan Risë Liss, Executive Director, Project Pericles; Frederick Knight, Chair, History Department; Director, General Education Department, Morehouse College; Paul Schadewald, Associate Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; Karin Trail-Johnson, Associate Dean, Institute for Global Citizenship; Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; and James (Jim) E. Vike, Professor of Political Science; MPA Program, Director, Widener University.
 
2019 Debating for Democracy (D4D) National Conference
 
The 2019 D4D National Conference at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts will once again feature the D4D Legislative Hearing, in which students present and defend their "Letter to an Elected Official" and the issues it discusses to a panel of judges including current and former government officials. On the second day, students will have an opportunity to visit a non-profit organization and meet with its senior leadership. Seventy student leaders from our member Periclean colleges and universities will be joined by college presidents, provosts, foundation, government, and community leaders for a two-day agenda of workshops and panel discussions.
 
Christopher Kush, CEO of Soapbox Consulting, will facilitate an interactive workshop for students as part of the National Conference. Soapbox trains citizens to effectively communicate their issues to Congress, and to state and local officials. The workshop will provide an opportunity for students to practice skills and techniques for engaging elected officials and other decision-makers around issues the students are passionate about. Christopher led the D4D on the Road workshops for Project Pericles in 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, and also presented a workshop at the 2017 D4D National Conference.
 
Project Pericles will cover the costs of transportation and lodging for the two student delegates from each campus, as well as for the ten students selected as finalists for the D4D Legislative Hearings. Two student delegates are selected to attend the conference by their Program Director based on their leadership and contribution to civic engagement activities on their campus.
 
About Letters to an Elected Official
The D4D Letter to an Elected Official Competition engages teams of students around public policy issues, the political process, and the roles of their elected officials. Every year, a panel of judges with significant legislative experience select the five winning letters written by teams of students from Periclean campuses. Winning teams are selected based on their letters and their advocacy proposals. Since 2008, hundreds of teams from all Periclean colleges and universities have participated in this competition.
 
Letters have proposed innovative solutions on a wide variety of issues including climate change and environmental protection, education reform, financial literacy, gun control, immigration, prison reform and reducing recidivism, sexual violence, and negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program.
 
Project Pericles Continues Work on Voting Module
 
The Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition and Young Invincibles (YI)approached Project Pericles to design a classroom module on voting. For use by faculty, the curriculum will illustrate why voting matters, why students should care, and will provide an overview of the registration and voting process. Designed to fit into a single class period, it will include sections on deliberative dialogue that can be customized for courses in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
 
Over the Summer and continuing into the Fall, we reached out to our Periclean Faculty Leaders and Periclean Program Directors, in a range of disciplines, for advice on the development of this module. We are pleased to report tremendously positive responses from both groups. Domenick Scudera, Professor of Theater, Periclean Faculty Leader (PFL) 2010-2012, Ursinus College commented, "...This is a critical time for our democracy, so please let me know what I can do to help with this initiative." Input from faculty members is critical to the success of this project. We have had conversations with more than 30 colleagues that has been very illuminating. They provided feedback based on our questionnaire and have been eager to assist in the project. If you would like to provide input, please reach out to Jan Liss at Jan.Liss@ProjectPericles.org.
 
We appreciate the support of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition and Young Invincibles. This work is also made possible by the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
 
Fall Program Directors' Conference at Reed College
Our Program Directors' Conference will be held October 23-24 at Reed College. Program Directors from almost all of our member campuses will attend. At our Fall 2017 Program Directors' Conference at Chatham University, participants expressed interest in conducting a review of Project Pericles' programs (D4D National Conference, D4D on the Road™, Letters to an Elected Official, Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™, Program Directors' Conference, and SCSV). The Program Directors Working Group that was formed at the 2017 meeting will discuss their findings from a survey and a series of interviews with fellow Program Directors. In addition to our programs, they will discuss 1) culture, structure, collaboration, and values; and 2) special programs (practice and research.). We look forward to discussing their findings and much, much more.
 
Pericleans in the News   
Peer Review: What We Learned from Each Other as Periclean Faculty Leader Peers
 
By Jessica A. Magaldi, Assistant Professor, Legal Studies and Taxation, Pace University; and Casey Schreiber, Assistant Professor, Urban Studies, Dillard University
 
We were selected as Periclean Faculty Leaders in academic year 2017-2018 and paired up as PFL peers, to offer support to one another as we embarked on our individual Project Pericles journeys. Although our grant year has concluded, we remain Periclean Faculty Leaders into the future and our commitment to Project Pericles and to civic engagement in our classrooms and on our campuses continues.
 
It is in that spirit that we reflect back on what we learned from each other over that first year and how it might inform the civic engagement activities we undertake in the future. It was a great pleasure getting to know one another through our portfolios and our conversations and we have stayed in touch, as a resource to one another, to offer support for each other, and to continue to share ideas.
 
Professor Magaldi taught "Business Law - Civic Engagement." Professor Schreiber taught "Housing Policy."
 
Jessica Magaldi on Casey Schreiber:
 
It was inspiring to get to know Casey Schreiber through her portfolio and our conversations about our courses and philosophies. Her portfolio demonstrated what a significant impact her project had in promoting the civic engagement of her students. I found the variety of projects her students undertook so interesting, including direct services work such as volunteering with UNITY of Greater New Orleans and homebuilding with SBP (formerly St. Bernard Project), as well as the campus awareness-raising work, and participation in the social sciences symposium "Civic Engagement: Action-Oriented Research," and the Housing, Health, and Community Resource Fair. What tremendous opportunities she offered her students to understand - and to have some direct impact on - the issues around the housing crisis in New Orleans and its effect on vulnerable populations. I feel certain that Casey's efforts and the efforts of her students have laid a strong foundation to continue collaboration between Dillard University and their community services partners for years to come.
  

Dillard Students Plant University's First Community Garden on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.
 
As different as our courses and our institutions are, both of our campuses share a spirit of civic engagement and volunteerism. I appreciate that we each designed our courses to harness that spirit with our relevant pedagogies to build courses that promote civic engagement in connection with our particular subject matter. We took very different approaches toward the same goal - to inspire civic dialogue on important topics and to inspire our students to action.
   
I particularly want to thank Casey for inspiring me to think more broadly about the type of projects that students can engage in and with over the semester - and I want to credit her with a change I will be implementing the next time I teach this course. Since my course was in legal studies, I had sought out or created opportunities where students were directly involved in legal services activities. After reviewing her portfolio and learning about the variety of projects her students participated in and speaking with Casey about the ways in which law and policy classes are similar, I gained an expanded notion of what activities would be appropriate for my class. I am already planning to offer my students a wider variety of community service placements, which will provide more opportunities to my students without losing the valuable connection to our coursework.
 
Casey Schreiber on Jessica Magaldi:
 
I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing Jessica Magaldi's portfolio and seeing how another Periclean Faculty Leader chose to enact the civic engagement mission of Project Pericles. Being able to have conversations with her about our civic engagement courses and overall participation in the PFL Program was both insightful and helpful for my work.
 
Her portfolio documented the ways in which she infused civic engagement into her coursework. Including reflections, from both herself and her students, provided an additional layer of analysis to her overall project that I found to be really valuable. The service learning component gave students a chance to get involved in different issues such as stop and frisk policies, civil forfeitures, and mortgage foreclosure. The variety of community service placements allowed students to perform specific community work that was meaningful to them.
 
I was interested in the way that she packaged current news topics for her students as a way to connect legal studies with questions of fairness and equity. In many of the policy classes I teach, students are required to complete an oral brief of a current news article and classroom discussions often center around prominent news topics each semester. Based on her approach, I am reconsidering how to best package and deliver news content as part of a civic engagement framework.
 
I particularly liked the way that Jessica talked about social justice and how infusing lessons about social justice is in itself an act of civic engagement. Prior to speaking with Jessica, I placed more emphasis on hands-on projects or acts of community service as a measure of student involvement. Jessica helped me see how the lessons and conversations about social justice can be a mechanism to achieve increased levels of civic engagement that lie at the intersections of classroom discourse and service work. While social justice feels like a natural extension of my field of Urban Studies and Public Policy, I was excited to see how she incorporated this into a class in the School of Business. From both her portfolio and our conversations, I can tell that Jessica is going to incorporate civic engagement into future courses and offer civic engagement opportunities for the great benefit of her students.
 
We thank The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation for their support of the 2017-2018 PFL Program.
Bates' Student Partners with Community Group to Promote Prisoner Re-entry Program
 
Rachel (Raye) Chappell (Bates College '18) Discusses Her Video Project.
 
Thanks to Rachel (Raye) Chappell ('18) of Bates College, a local prisoner re-entry program can tell its story far and wide. Working as part of the college's Short TermAction/Research Team last spring, Raye created a video that highlights the work of REPAIR, a program that provides supportive services for men and women re-entering communities from prison or jail. Based on extensive shadowing and interviews with REPAIR staff, volunteers, and participants, Raye's video offers an intimate account of the compelling needs REPAIR meets and the positive outcomes and community benefit of its services. The re-entry specialists at REPAIR of Maine now have an engaging and informative promotional video for use as they make presentations to churches, clubs, and organizations in search of volunteers, donors, and other forms of support.

A Sociology/African-American Studies major at Bates and a four-year leader at the college's Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Raye was able to put her significant filming, editing, and storytelling talents to work in the production of a video that left REPAIR Chairperson, Eric Terrio, speechless. Raye's video captures the essence of REPAIR's mission and history while helping to ensure that this dynamic, community-changing organization can continue its work in the future. Check out the video for yourself:
 
Click here to watch the REPAIR of Maine Video 
 
In the words of Bruce Noddin, director of the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network, "This project is a prime example of how community partnerships can benefit organizations, missions, individuals, relationships, and our neighborhoods and communities."
 
Project Pericles Program Director Appointed to BTtoP Advisory Board
 
We are pleased to announce that in August Tessa Hicks Peterson, Project Pericles Program Director at Pitzer College and member of the Project Pericles research team examining civic engagement and well-being, was appointed to the BTtoP Advisory Board. Tessa Hicks Peterson is an Associate Professor, Urban Studies; and Director, Community Engagement Center, Pitzer College.
  
Please make a donation today to Project Pericles so that we can continue to prepare student leaders for lives of engaged citizenship. Donations can be made directly through our website www.projectpericles.org by clicking donate in the upper right corner. 
 
To subscribe or to submit Periclean-related information for publication,
email garret.batten@projectpericles.org.
 
Periclean Colleges & Universities
Allegheny College * Bates College * Berea College     
Bethune-Cookman University * Carleton College * Chatham University
Dillard University * Drew University * Elon University  
The Evergreen State College * Goucher College * Hampshire College
Hendrix College * Macalester College * Morehouse College
New England College * The New School * Occidental College * Pace University
Pitzer College * Reed College * Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
Rhodes College * St. Mary's College of Maryland * Skidmore College 
Swarthmore College * Ursinus College * Wagner College
Whitman College * Widener University * The College of Wooster
National Office
 Executive Director: Jan R. Liss
Assistant Director: Garret S. Batten
Program Manager: Arielle del Rosario

Board of Directors
Founder and Chair Emeritus: Eugene M. Lang (1919-2017)
Chair: Neil R. Grabois
Vice-Chair: Richard Ekman
Treasurer: David A. Caputo 
Janet S. Dickerson
Richard Guarasci
Helen Lang Suskin

Jan R. Liss*
Louis A. Martarano
Michael S. McPherson
James H. Mullen, Jr.*
Vincent M. Ponzo
Lyle D. Roelofs
Lourdes M. Rosado
Harris L. Wofford
*ex officio

Presidents' Council
Chair: Lyle D. Roelofs, Berea College   
Vice-Chair: Steven G. Poskanzer, Carleton College 
National Board of Advisors
Co-Chairs: Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker & Hon. Kurt L. Schmoke
David Baltimore * John Baugh * J. Herman Blake
Roger W. Bowen * Harry C. Boyte * Sen. Bill Bradley * Paul Brest
Russell L. Carson * Raymond G. Chambers * Jerome A. Chazen
Nadinne Cruz * Richard A. Detweiler * Christopher F. Edley, Jr.
Thomas Ehrlich * Jonathan F. Fanton * Nicholas H. Farnham
Ellen V. Futter * Llewellyn P. Haden, Jr. * Samuel L. Hayes III
Antonia Hernandez * Amb. James C. Hormel * Helene L. Kaplan
Gov. Thomas H. Kean * Arthur E. Levine * Reuben Mark
Elizabeth McCormack * Mary Patterson McPherson
  Robert D. Putnam * Judith A. Ramaley * David M. Scobey
Allen P. Splete * Mark A. Vander Ploeg
 
The title "Project Pericles®" and its embodiment in the Logo are registered service marks of Project Pericles, Inc.  All rights are reserved.
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Highlight from the issue include:

• Project Pericles Launches New Initiative on Student Voter Registration and Engagement 
• Periclean Faculty Leaders Finish Great Year of Engagement
• Pitzer's D4D Team in the Spotlight - Advocating for the Formerly Incarcerated

To view the Newsletter with photos Summer 2018 Newsletter.

Highlight articles in this issue:

• Five Teams Win Letters to an Elected Official Competition
• Periclean Faculty Leaders Changing the Discourse on Campus
• Countering Hopelessness in the Classroom-A Periclean Faculty Leader Reflects By Nurcan Atalan-Helicke, Skidmore College

The Periclean Progress E-Newsletter   
Volume 14, February 2018   
"An educated citizenry is the essential instrument for promoting
responsible social action and community well-being." - Eugene M. Lang

To view the Newsletter with photos: Winter 2018 Newsletter

Featured Article:
Pitzer Takes D4D Letter to an Elected Official Competition to "Inside-Out Prison Exchange" Classes
By Tessa Hicks Peterson, Pitzer College
 
"This letter writing personally motivated me to voice my opinion and to get others to voice theirs in order to push legislative agendas that are important to us as inmates... because mass incarceration is out of control and legislation can make a difference. It's important to try to push things forward with these assemblymen and try to make a difference. I plan on getting involved with policy organizations and giving back when I get out." (MJ, inside student)
 
During the Fall 2017 semester, Pitzer College decided to introduce a new twist to our usual participation in the Project Pericles "Letter to an Elected Official" national letter writing competition. The letters would be written in prison, by prisoners, about prison (continued at the end).  
 
National Office News:
Debating for Democracy (D4D) Students Protect the Hudson River from Oil Tankers -

Rowan Lanning ('18) and Christina Thomas ('19), Pace University, won the 2017 D4D Letters to an Elected Official competition for their letter seeking to halt the use of the Hudson River as an anchorage for oil tankers, a practice the Coast Guard had proposed without consultation with local communities or developing an environmental impact study. In collaboration with Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the Pace University D4D team ran a successful campaign to protect the Hudson River from the threat of oil spills. Thanks to the work of Christina, Rowan, and many others, the Coast Guard withdrew its proposal to permit anchorages for oil tankers. The Coast Guard appointed the students as official observers for its Port and Waterway Safety Assessment meetings held in November.

"In light of these recent and exciting developments [the withdrawal of the Coast Guard's proposal], we are left in the unexpected position of ... being able to declare victory.... We are thrilled to continue on [with] this exciting experience and appreciate your [Project Pericles'] ... support."-Rowan Lanning, Pace University ('18) 

The Reed College Team Met with Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Oregon State Senator Kathleen Taylor (D-21) as part of their work on Federal and State Legislation to protect students from sexual assault. Leilani Ganser ('19) spoke with Senator Merkley about the health care needs of sexual assault survivors and is working with Senator Merkley's office to introduce a bill that amends FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) to classify sexual assault as a public health issue that must be included on transcripts (the bill proposed in their letter). The team is also working with Oregon State Senator Kathleen Taylor and a representative from Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum's office to lower the state standard of evidence in Title IX investigations to a "Preponderance of the Evidence" standard.

For the D4D Letter to an Elected Official Competition Leilani Ganser ('19) and Sonya Morud ('19) wrote "A Letter in Support of the Safe Transfer Act" (would require post-secondary institutions to disclose sex offenses on students' transcripts) to Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).
 
About D4D - The Debating for Democracy National Conference features a Legislative Hearing in which teams of students compete for $5,000 in prize money by presenting in front of a panel of former government officials. The teams use the awards to develop advocacy and educational campaigns focused on their issues. In 2017, a panel of three judges- Constance Berry Newman, Martha Kanter, and Ruth Messinger-selected Pace University as the winner of the D4D Letters to an Elected Official Competition. The winning team received $3,000 to move their issue forward and the finalist teams each will receive $500. In this issue, we provide updates on the Pace University and Reed College teams. Berea College, Carleton College, and Swarthmore College were the other 2017 finalists. We provided updates on Berea and Carleton in the Fall 2017 Newsletter and will highlight Swarthmore in the future.
 
Project Pericles Highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education

In his recent Chronicle of Higher Education overview of civic engagement, Michael Anftdiscussed the work of Project Pericles. For the piece, Anft interviewed Project Pericles Executive Director Jan R. Liss as well as Project Pericles Program Directors from Goucher College and Pitzer College.

"Project Pericles encourages colleges to map out their civic offerings and to find gaps by measuring them against those of other member institutions. 'We're getting more and more inquiries from colleges asking, 'How do we get this started?'' says Ms. Liss. 'We're really starting to get some serious traction on this.'"

"The goal isn't limited to campus activism, community work, or courses, she says. It's to tie them all together into a cohesive strategy geared to each campus."

We are pleased that The Chronicle is focusing on civic engagement. In collaboration with all of our member colleges and universities, we look forward to having a strong voice in the evolving national discussion about the critical role of civic engagement in safeguarding our democracy. The article is available online and appeared in the January 12 print edition. 

D4D on the Road™ Prepares Student Leaders for Activism

The 2017-2018 Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ workshops resumed on January 20 at Macalester College with Carleton College visiting and on January 27 at Hendrix College with the University of Central Arkansas visiting. We are pleased to partner with Midwest Academy for 2017-2018. D4D workshops provide both novice and seasoned activists with the skills they need to develop advocacy and education campaigns through effective messaging to policymakers, community leaders, and the public. Workshops are open to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members. During the D4D on the Road™ workshops, seasoned organizers and activists walk participants through the critical steps in running successful campaigns to win on important issues.

From the evaluations and surveys from the 2016-2017 D4D on the Road workshops, we know that our students are concerned with Climate Change, Education Access, Immigration Reform, LGBTQ Rights, Mass Incarceration, and Race and Inequality. We are using these topics to teach students tools to enable them to become more active citizen and effective advocates on issues of concern.
 
Following the January 20 workshop at Macalester, The Mac Weekly featured front page coverage of the workshop. "People care about lots of issues, and I think you hear [it] at the walk-in, etc.," [Macalester College Civic Engagement Center (CEC) Outreach Coordinator Derek] Johnson [said], "but how do you continue to work on these things? This is giving [students] a toolbox, a framework, and some skills."
 
For Hannah Whipple [Macalester College] '21, [the trainer Jhatayn] Travis' experience as an activist was a major highlight of the training.
 
"I think my favorite part of it was seeing her real-life examples," Whipple said. "After she told us about all these strategies, she walked us through a specific campaign that she went through and then she showed us a video to succinctly wrap it up. I really appreciated that."
 
New Project Pericles Board Members, Lou Martarano and Jim Mullen
 
Please join me in welcoming Louis (Lou) A. Martarano and James (Jim) H. Mullen Jr.as Project Pericles' newest board members - Lou and Jim were elected to the Project Pericles Board of Directors at our December meeting. With their expertise, insight, and wisdom, we are very pleased to have both of them join the board. Jim, President of Allegheny College, will serve in an ex officio capacity as a representative of the Project Pericles Presidents' Council. Biographies for Lou and Jim can be found at the end. 
 
Periclean Faculty Leaders - Changing the Civil Discourse on Campus
 
This fall, we launched a second round of the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™ on 13 campuses. The PFL Program is a leadership and course development program dedicated to incorporating civil discourse, civic engagement, and social responsibility across the undergraduate curriculum.
 
The Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™ encourages faculty members in a wide range of disciplines to create and teach courses that address issues of social concern, enrich the curriculum, and enhance student engagement. Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) from the first cohort are serving as mentors to the 2017-2018 PFL cohort. The PFL Program is supported by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
 
16 Periclean Faculty Leaders taught courses from a wide range of disciplines: Archaeology and Classical Studies, Business Law, Computer Science, Dance, English, Environmental Studies, History, Mathematics and Statistics, Psychology, Sociology, Theatre, and Urban Studies. Their syllabi have joined the 100 other courses incorporating civic engagement on our website.
  
Periclean Faculty Leaders Wow at AAC&U Annual Meeting in DC
 
At AAC&U, PFL Phong Le discusses a student mapping project using 911 data. 
Photo by Jennifer Magee.

On January 25, four Periclean Faculty Leaders presented, "From Curriculum To Community: Encouraging Faculty and Students To Change The World" as part of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) 2018 Annual Meeting. Joining Jan R. Liss, Project Pericles Executive Director, on stage to talk about their experiences were Periclean Faculty Leaders from Goucher College, New England College, Skidmore College, and Swarthmore College.
 
Phong Le, Assistant Professor of Mathematics in the Center for Data, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Goucher College and Lynne Steuerle Schofield, Associate Professor of Statistics, Swarthmore College, spoke about the benefits for their students of incorporating civic engagement into their math and statistics courses. Lynne also provided data on how courses with civic engagement components are attracting students who might not otherwise take math or statistics classes.
 
Alex Picard, Associate Professor of Theatre, New England College talked about what a powerful experience writing and producing an original play on current social issues had been for her students and the entire New England College community. Students used the course to channel their concerns with the current political climate by working for positive change. Picard described her course as fundamentally changing the civil discourse on campus. After class, discussions continued in the dining and residence halls.
 
Finally, Nurcan Atalan-Helicke, Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies and Sciences, Skidmore College discussed her students' work to measure the college's scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, with a focus on emissions generated by study abroad programs, and developing plans to mitigate the campus's environmental impact.
 
AAC&U and CIC - Project Pericles at National Meetings
 
Project Pericles presented at AAC&U as part of their Pre-Meeting Symposium, "The Power of Civic Engagement-Across Campus, Within Communities, Beyond Borders". Our panel was one of the "sessions highlighting our [AAC&U's] key partners." We were pleased to be a co-sponsor along with Campus Compact and Imagining America.

For our panel, "Incorporating Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility in the Classroom, on Campus, and in the Community," Project Pericles Program Directors discussed how we collaborate across the consortium and advance civic engagement. They each highlighted one of our programs, Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement, Creating Curricular Coherence, Debating for Democracy (D4D)™, and the Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program™. Presenting with Jan R. Liss, Executive Director, Project Pericles were Darby K. Ray, Director, Harward Center for Community Partnerships and Donald W. & Ann M. Harward Professor of Civic Engagement, Bates College; Karin Trail-Johnson, Associate Dean, Institute for Global Citizenship and Director, Civic Engagement Center, Macalester College; Ella Turenne, Assistant Dean for Community Engagement, Occidental College; ; and Christian Rice, Assistant Dean for Civic Engagement and Director, Bonner Leader Program and UCARE, Ursinus College.

The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) invited Project Pericles to present at their 2017 Institute for Chief Academic and Chief Student Affairs Officers in San Antonio, Texas. We discussed our work as part of Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement, the three-year initiative that spurred member institutions to inventory, map, and strengthen civic engagement across the curriculum. Joining Jan R. Liss on the panel were Chad Berry, Academic Vice President and Dean of the Faculty, Berea College; Yolanda Williams Page, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dillard University; and Jenna Templeton, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Chatham University. The session was chaired by Mark Schneider, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean, Ursinus College.

Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement was a project to reconceptualize the organization and integration of programming for civic engagement and social responsibility on 26 Periclean campuses. With support from the Eugene M. Lang Foundation and The Teagle Foundation, member colleges and universities inventoried, mapped, strengthened, and developed more cohesive and integrated civic engagement programs to enable students in all disciplines to incorporate civic engagement into their courses of study. In our 2017 White Paper Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement: Five Approaches to Institutionalizing Civic Engagement by Garret S. Batten, Project Pericles; Adrienne Falcón, Carleton College; and Jan R. Liss, Project Pericles we discuss insights from this multi-campus project.

Campus Pursue Greater Institutionalization of Civic Engagement Through Collaboration
 
Representatives of the three campuses (Macalester College, Morehouse College, and Widener University) participating in Creating Curricular Coherence through Inquiry-Based and Thematic Pathways (2017-2020) and Project Pericles met in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with AAC&U's 2018 Annual Meeting. All three teams reported making considerable progress on their projects which are exploring different but allied approaches to creating greater coherence in the undergraduate curriculum.
 
Macalester College has held a series of meetings and workshops with the History and Geography departments, including a "Deep Dive" where the departments met together, as they work to further integrate civic engagement and community-based learning into the departments' approaches to instruction using a pathway or scaffolded approach.
 
Morehouse recently passed significant changes to its general education requirements. As part of Creating Curricular Coherence, Morehouse held a series of faculty development workshops to assist faculty as they redesign courses.
 
Widener solicited proposals for redesigned courses that will be included in its new, inter-disciplinary sustainability pathway and made 14 mini-grants to support faculty course development.  
 
Creating Curricular Coherence is a faculty-led initiative that involves comprehensive reviews of the curriculum. These are ambitious undertakings that will redefine undergraduate education at each institution for years to come. Funded by a $225,000 grant from The Teagle Foundation and with support from the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, three institutions are streamlining their curricula using civic engagement and community-based learning as catalysts in their efforts. Macalester is piloting pathways in Geography and History with plans to expand their efforts. Morehouse and Widener are redesigning their curriculum with an emphasis on inquiry-based learning. Morehouse is using questions about the African diaspora to help shape its work while Widener is focusing on sustainability. In 2019, all Periclean campuses will be invited to a convening where we will discuss insights and best practices on curricular organization, streamlining, and institutional change.
 
Building Campus-based Student Task Forces
 
Comprised of student-led task forces on our member campuses, Student Choices - Student Voices (SCSV) encourages civic participation by hosting an array of events and activities about national issues for students and community members.
 
SCSV activities on campus are in full swing. Wagner College held a political film screening and voter registration event featuring films exclusively produced by Wagner students. Each film included a Q&A with the audience and filmmakers which initiated valuable conversations about current events. At Ursinus College, a student moderated an election panel on campus and reported "a great turnout and the students were very engaged." Macalester College students assisted with voter registration at the Civic Engagement Center and are now collaborating with BallotReady to collect information to support the 2018 election.
 
This fall, we released a SCSV guidebook and regular newsletter for student task forces working on voter registration and political engagement.
 
Project Pericles would like to extend a warm welcome to our new Pericleans Presidents and Provosts.
 
Presidents
Hubert L. Grimes, Interim President, Bethune-Cookman University
David A. Thomas, President, Morehouse College
 
Provosts
Scott Sibley, Interim Provost, Goucher College
Crystal Dea Moore, Interim Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic
Affairs, Skidmore College
Fred Akl, Provost, Widener University
 
New Members of the Project Pericles Presidents' Council Executive Committee
Please join us in congratulating the following on their recent appointment:
President José Antonio Bowen, Goucher College
President Valerie Smith, Swarthmore College
Pericleans in the News

Whitman College Receives Large Grant from Mellon Foundation for Community-Based Teaching

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Whitman College an $800,000 grant to support ongoing and new initiatives related to community-based teaching and research, with a special emphasis upon increasing diversity and inclusion across campus. The grant will support, among other things, a faculty director position to guide and support community-based learning efforts across campus, faculty support for CBL pedagogy, community outreach, and new initiatives to develop themed curricular clusters based in experiential learning and community engagement. 

Whitman has made significant progress to deepen relationships with the Native American groups living in the region. In May, the college signed a historic memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the nearby Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR). The MOU lays out a plan for streamlining communication between Whitman and the Tribes and will be the platform for various types of community engagement activities, including an anticipated "Semester on the Reservation" program.

Noah Leavitt (Director of Whitman's Student Engagement Center) and Jason Pribilsky(Prof. of Anthropology and Chair of the Social Sciences and Project Pericles Program Director) hosted an event for tribal stakeholders and Whitman faculty and staff called "Realizing the MOU." The event served as a knowledge exchange between the institutions. Over a day of programming, both groups shared key initiatives, ending with a brainstorming session to identify potential future collaborations between CTUIR and Whitman faculty and students. 

Project Pericles Board Member Biographies (continued from National Office News)

Louis (Lou) A. Martarano has significant financial, managerial, educational, and board experience. He led groups in the United States and Europe in the financial services industry and is involved in higher education. He is the Director overseeing Penn State's prestigious Science BS/MBA accelerated joint degree program. For the Yale University Alumni Non-Profit Alliance (YANA), he is a board member, Vice President, and serves on the Executive Committee. He has served as Board of Trustees member (2002 to 2011) and Chair (2011 to 2013) for Marymount Manhattan College.

Lou came to know Theresa Lang and Gene Lang through his service at Marymount. He attended our 2017 D4D National Conference to see the five finalist teams present at the legislative hearing.

Starting his financial services career at Kidder Peabody & Co. in 1981, he was a specialist in the energy, environmental and infrastructure industries managing transactions to successful completion. Lou was recruited in 1992 by Merrill Lynch to take a leading role in its project finance business, eventually establishing and managing its London Project Finance Group in 1997. 

Lou received a Master's Degree in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry with honors from The Pennsylvania State University, where he serves as Chair of the Dean's Advisory Board and on its Development Committee. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of Penn State's Palmer Art Museum, which he has also chaired.
James (Jim) H. Mullen, Jr. became the 21st president of Allegheny College in 2008. With more than 30 years of experience in leadership roles in higher education, and a keen appreciation for Allegheny's history and traditions, he is continuing the work of earlier presidents in building community while at the same time enhancing the College's reputation as one of the nation's preeminent colleges of the liberal arts and sciences.

Dr. Mullen's tenure, Allegheny celebrated its bicentennial and also publicly launched the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in College history, both in 2015. In addition, one of his key initiatives has been the establishment of the national Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life, which was created in 2011 to annually recognize two political figures, one liberal and one conservative, who argue passionately but with civility for their beliefs. In 2017, the Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life in Pennsylvania was awarded at the state level for the first time.

Dr. Mullen has served as chair of the board of directors of the American Council on Education (ACE), the nation's most visible and influential higher education association with a base of more than 1,800 member institutions. He continues to serve ACE as a representative of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), which represents more than 1,000 private nonprofit institutions of higher learning on higher education policy issues with federal and state governments. Dr. Mullen also serves as chair of the board of directors of the Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) and as vice president of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC).

Dr. Mullen also serves on boards for the Pennsylvania Economy League of Greater Pittsburgh and the Meadville Medical Center.

In addition to his leadership roles in higher education and civic organizations, Dr. Mullen has been a sought-after lecturer in public policy and civility in public discourse, where his work focuses on the American presidency, as well as history and political science. Dr. Mullen is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He holds a master of public policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a doctorate in higher education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.


Pitzer Takes D4D Letter to an Elected Official Competition to "Inside-Out Prison Exchange" Classes (continued from Featured Article).
By Tessa Hicks Peterson, Pitzer College
 
To explain, let me provide a bit more information about Pitzer College and the unusual kind of community engagement it practices that has led it to partner with prisons. Pitzer was founded in 1963 as an experimental liberal arts college influenced by social reform movements with deep roots in American progressivism and a commitment to the founding ideas of participation and community. Given its mission and values, it is unsurprising to find that many of its faculty, staff, and students are deeply invested in one of the greatest social justice issues of our time: the devastating impacts that result from mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline and the collateral damages people face while attempting people to re-enter and find success in "free" society after serving prison time. Given that 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States (which is five times higher than most of the countries in the world), this is an issue that impacts not just some of us, but all of us (if not by personal experience or that of our immediate community, then by the fact that all American taxpayers are complicit in upholding our current criminal justice procedures and correctional facilities by way of the industry's $26 billion annual charge to taxpayers).
 
In an attempt to address the need for higher education in prison and to use our engagement there to educate students about the vast injustices borne of the criminal justice system, Pitzer has been teaching a number of "inside-out prison exchange" classes in at the California Rehabilitation Center (a local men's prison) since 2014. The "Inside-Out Prison Education program" is a nationwide effort aimed at connecting "outside" students from colleges and universities with "inside" students, who are incarcerated in local prisons, for the mutual benefit of each. While this practice has been gaining steady popularity and become established at colleges and universities across the country for the last 20 years, there are fewer examples of it on the West coast. Pitzer is spearheading a trend in California to offer semester-long, dual credit-bearing shared courses by providing nine of these courses in the last three years and securing a commitment by the entire Claremont College Consortium to teach eight of these classes annually, from an array of disciplines, into the future.
 
Having had the opportunity to oversee this development at the Claremont Colleges and teach annually in this program since the first pilot year, I have come to see what a profound experience this form of community engagement creates, both for inside and outside students, as well as their teachers. The array of perspectives and life experiences in the classroom infuse class discussions and theoretical analysis with a new energy and purpose. The breaking down of barriers, assumptions, fears, and biases (from all sides) is deep and on-going. Furthermore, the critical pedagogy approach that is embedded in this model and the willingness of participants to try new things as part of this learning adventure means that innovative, interactive learning occurs daily inside the most unlikely of places. Thus, the stage that was perfectly set for introducing the "Letter to an Elected Official" national letter writing competition.
 
The assignment was also perfectly aligned with my current course, Critical Community Studies, which explores current movements, theories, and narratives centered around critical issues in our local communities, namely education and incarceration. As such, the students needed to pull on what had sparked their interests in the readings we had done about mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, and pedagogies of education aiming at social change and liberation, and link these topics to current legislation. They researched local and federal legislation and found some fascinating bills surrounding incarceration and education that allowed them to connect the theoretical models they had studied to practical solutions, advocating passionately for the issues that directly impacted at least half our class. They discussed together what issues they wanted to pursue, what legislation best aligned with their interests, the additional research they'd need to do in order to substantiate their arguments, and what kind of compelling personal narratives they might include to make their letters persuasive and engaging. They worked together over seemingly insurmountable divides (based on their differing life experiences, academic levels, and the obvious distance between them that forbade any contact outside of class). Despite these challenges, they collaboratively wrote some of the most thoughtful, well-researched and impassioned letters than I have seen in my 10 years overseeing this competition. They wrote to elected officials about a range of bills concerning prison reform, bail reform and aims to reduce the recidivism rate of formerly incarcerated people as well as bills related to education, nonviolence, and peacebuilding. Through their letters, they advanced not only their own respective civic engagement abilities and interests but also used the assignment as a way to advance prison education and social change.
 
On the last day of class, they discussed the incredibly meaningful impact the collaborative letter-writing assignment had on them. I end with examples of this impact, as articulated in their own words:
 
"I consider myself a politically involved person but I had never written a letter to an elected official before. Ever. It had never been a part of my school curriculum, either. This assignment was a great example of how to teach civic engagement." (SK, outside student)
 
"What we are writing about are bi-partisan issues-nobody wants recidivism! There is power in somebody reading a narrative they aren't familiar with and seeing how policies are impacting people's lives. Even if it doesn't mean huge change in laws right away, it can change people's minds." (SH, outside student)
 
"It's one thing to have people speak for you. It's another to have your voice heard." (SA, inside student)
 
"This was a very cool exercise in hope. It's hard to stay hopeful in the midst of current events. This was a cool way to incorporate abstract solutions into something that is concrete-a bill that could actually be passed." (OK, outside student)
 
"When you come to prison, a lot of your own voice and choice is gone. Someone always tells you when, where and how. This assignment gave us an opportunity to come together and discuss what is an actual problem we are facing that we want to bring up and give voice to." (XX, inside student)

About The Debating for Democracy (D4D)™ Letter to an Elected Official Competition: The competition engages students around public policy issues, the political process, and with their elected officials. Since 2008, hundreds of teams from all Periclean colleges and universities have participated in this competition. Every year, a panel of judges with significant legislative experience selects the five winning letters written by teams of students from Periclean campuses. Winning teams are selected based on their letters and their advocacy proposals. Letters have proposed innovative solutions on a wide variety of issues including the DREAM Act, nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Iran, a national food waste management systems, the student debt crisis, and K-12 education reform. Letters are sent to elected officials throughout the United States.
 
About the Author
Tessa Hicks Peterson is Assistant Vice President for Community Engagement, Project Pericles Program Director, and Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Pitzer College, USA and also the author of the newly released book,  Student Development and Social Justice: Critical Learning, Radical Healing, and Community Engagement.
 
 Project Pericles Needs Your Support!
Protect our democracy! Please make a donation today to Project Pericles so that we can continue to prepare student leaders for lives of engaged citizenship. Donations can be made directly through our website www.projectpericles.org by clicking donate in the upper right corner. 
 
To subscribe or to submit Periclean-related information for publication,
email garret.batten@projectpericles.org.
 
Periclean Colleges & Universities
Allegheny College * Bates College * Berea College     
Bethune-Cookman University * Carleton College * Chatham University
Dillard University * Drew University * Elon University  
The Evergreen State College * Goucher College * Hampshire College
Hendrix College * Macalester College * Morehouse College
New England College * The New School * Occidental College * Pace University
Pitzer College * Reed College * Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
Rhodes College * St. Mary's College of Maryland * Skidmore College 
Swarthmore College * Ursinus College * Wagner College
Whitman College * Widener University * The College of Wooster
National Office
 Executive Director: Jan R. Liss
Assistant Director: Garret S. Batten
Program Associate: Arielle del Rosario

Board of Directors
Founder and Chair Emeritus: Eugene M. Lang (1919-2017)
Chair: Neil R. Grabois
Vice-Chair: Richard Ekman
Treasurer: David A. Caputo 
Janet S. Dickerson
Richard Guarasci
Helen Lang Suskin
Arthur E. Levine
Jan R. Liss*
Louis A. Martarano
Michael S. McPherson
James H. Mullen, Jr.*
Harris L. Wofford
*ex officio

Presidents' Council
Chair: Richard Guarasci, Wagner College
Vice-Chair: Steven G. Poskanzer, Carleton College
National Board of Advisors
 Co-Chairs: Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker & Hon. Kurt L. Schmoke
The title "Project Pericles®" and its embodiment in the Logo are registered service marks of Project Pericles, Inc.  All rights are reserved.