December 2005 newsletter

The Periclean Progress E-Newsletter
Volume 2, Issue 5 -- December 2005

Project Pericles ® Announcements

Congratulations: Congratulations to Hendrix College for receiving a $150,000 grant from The Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation to support student engaged learning projects under the college's new curricular program, The Hendrix Odyssey. More.
Macalester College is one of 26 institutions to receive $100,000 from the Ford Foundation for its Difficult Dialogues Initiative. Difficult Dialogues supports scholarship, teaching, and civil dialogue about challenging political, religious, racial, and cultural issues in undergraduate education in the United States. Macalester's project, "Beyond Impasse to Dialogue: A Teaching and Learning Initiative on the Middle East Conflict," is housed in Macalester's Institute for Global Citizenship. More.

Strategies to Increase Youth Voter Registration:The Pew Charitable Trusts are sponsoring a competition to support innovative, replicable strategies for registering young people ages 18-29. Designed to build on the young voter turnout success of 2004 and 2005, promote new, creative approaches to get young people to register to vote, and keep the spotlight on the youth vote in 2006, the effort is coordinated by George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM). GSPM will award grants to eight to ten organizations working with different subsets of the youth population and employing diverse, but nonpartisan, registration methods. Winners will receive grants ranging from $50,000 - $250,000.
More. Applications must be received by 5:00 pm on January 13th, 2006. Questions can be directed to Heather Smith at (202) 994-5052 or [email protected].

Grant Opportunity:The Alexia Foundation for World Peace is accepting applications for partial scholarships for graduate and undergraduate students to study photojournalism at Syracuse University in London. Cash grants will enable student photographers to produce picture stories that further world peace and cultural understanding. The deadline is February 1, 2006. More.

Call for Nominations: Nominations are being accepted for the Coming Up Taller Awards, which recognize and reward outstanding after-school and out-of-school arts and humanities programs for underserved children and youth. Award recipients receive $10,000 and an invitation to attend the annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference. Programs initiated by universities, colleges, community service organizations, and schools, among others, are encouraged to participate. The deadline is January 30, 2006. More.

Periclean People

Dr. Arthur E. Levine, member of Project Pericles' Board of Directors and current President of Teachers College at Columbia University, will succeed Dr. Robert Weisbuch as President of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation next summer. Dr. Weisbuch has become President of Drew University in New Jersey.

Advocates in ActionFollowing a surge in student activism for workers' rights on campus, Widener University has created Free Speech Zones and designated "Model Free Speech" as the topic of this year's Honors program and reception. At the event, eight to ten people will address what free speech means, with time for audience participation. President James T. Harris, III has led and fostered discussions at Widener on free speech, specifically addressing the role of civility in dissent.
Do you have examples of Periclean-initiated actions that address issues of local, national, or international concern? Email us at
[email protected].

Notable Program Activities: Campus, Classroom, Community

Campus: War News Radio, Swarthmore College's student-produced weekly radio show that seeks to broaden understanding of the Iraq war and its impact on Americans and Iraqis, was recently featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education and can be listened to online. To read the Chronicle article, click here.

Pace University celebrated the opening of The Helene and Grant Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship on November 28th with a reception at Pace's Midtown Center. Pace President and Chair of Project Pericles' Presidents' Council, David A. Caputo, Provost Joseph C. Morreale, and Wilson Center Executive Director Rob Johnston spoke at the event; Program Director Dr. Mary Ann Murphy and Sangeeta Rao of Project Pericles at Pace and Executive Director Jan R. Liss and Heather C. Ohaneson of the national office of Project Pericles were in attendance.

Classroom: George Padgett, professor of Journalism and Communications at Elon University, has taken his new global course on the First Amendment, Five Freedoms Under Attack, to 105 local elementary students. Through their time with Elon students, the fifth graders were exposed to the first amendment for the first time and were challenged to memorize the five freedoms as a way of building up their civic knowledge. More.

Occidental College sponsored "Bridging the Gap," a collaborative effort between a class taught by Dr. Katie Mills, adjunct assistant professor of English Writing, Eagle Rock High School teacher Russell Copley, and Sam Robinson, artist-in-residence at the Highland Park Senior Citizen Center. Mills' students helped plan the event as part of Occidental's program for developing student leaders, based on the Public Achievement program of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota. Senior citizens and middle school, high school, and college students celebrated the power of the spoken word to cross the generational divide. "The idea is to bring together not only people from different generations but from different backgrounds and life experiences," said Jasmine Wade '08. For more information, contact Occidental Project Pericles Program Director, Maria Avila.

Elon University students in a freshman-level seminar course, General Studies 110 (The Global Experience), completed service learning projects in November that raised about 2,500 pounds of food for local needy families. As a part of their projects, students designed, carried out, and critiqued different methods for providing food assistance and explored issues such as poverty, food pricing, nutrition, and food distribution. They also examined food-related problems and potential solutions in other countries including Nigeria, Sudan, North Korea, Haiti, Egypt, and Brazil. More.

Community: Swarthmore College students have entered into a partnership with Periclean Dillard University to help provide Dillard with rebuilding funds. Swarthmore students already raised more than $3,500 through the sale of "Katrina Relief" t-shirts. Plans are underway to raise more than $5,000 by the end of the semester, with all proceeds benefiting Dillard. Students are planning a trip to New Orleans to help Dillard with relief efforts during the coming semester. More.

Through the Kresge Vision Validator endowed fund, Bethune-Cookman College has established scholarships to support its TKR Reading Adventure Program, a biweekly event that encourages reading among community youth and motivates them to seek a college education. Bethune-Cookman views its commitment to providing educational opportunities to young children in the community as an extension of founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune's legacy. For more information on the TKR Reading Adventure Program contact Dr. Claudette McFadden, Bethune-Cookman Project Pericles Program Director and Dean of the Institute for Civic Participation and Social Responsibility. Pictures.

Elon University's Project Pericles, in conjunction with a variety of campus and community organizations, is producing "Testing Positive," a 30-minute film about the realities of being tested for HIV and physical and emotional abuse in romantic relationships. The film, based on a short story by Elon senior and Periclean Scholar Rebecca Doane, uses the talents of faculty and students from a variety of academic departments including performing arts and communications. Net proceeds from the film's premiere will benefit local agencies that deal with the issues portrayed in the film. The film will be made available as a resource to schools, nonprofits, and other community organizations. More.

Allegheny College Environmental Sciences professor Dr. Eric Pallant, director of the Center for Economic and Environmental Development (CEED), was a keynote speaker at the Environmental Consortium's November Conference: "Civic Engagement and Service Learning for the Environment: The Challenge for Higher Education" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Pace University is also a member of the Environmental Consortium, a group of 42 institutions of higher education in the Hudson Valley region. More.

Rosa Parks Commemorations: Last month, Bethune-Cookman College announced an initiative for commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Rosa Parks' act of civil disobedience in Montgomery, Alabama, and invited other Pericleans to hold similar events. There were many positive responses; of particular note:

• Chatham College's commemoration took the form of a silent tribute and distribution of advocacy information. Every student was provided with action steps she could take to "Continue the Legacy" of Rosa Parks, as well as information on the Voting Rights Act.
• Ursinus College held a narration and reenactment of Rosa Parks' saga, inviting community members to symbolize their participation in the ongoing fight against injustice.
• The theme of Wagner College's second annual Project Pericles Art, Poetry and Prose Contest is "What is an Engaged Citizen? A Tribute to Rosa Parks." The contest asks the Wagner community--students, staff, alumni, and Staten Island neighbors--to represent in art, poetry, or prose: 1) their everyday heroes who perform great or simple acts that move democracy forward and 2) how Wagner's mission to promote "citizenship and leadership" encourages civic engagement and social justice locally, nationally, and globally. To learn more about the contest, contact Lori Weintrob, Project Pericles Program Director and Professor of History.

Innovative Initiatives

How do you involve alumni in Periclean activities? For the past five years Macalester College has reached out to graduates through the program "Alumni Month of Service," which encourages alumni chapters to organize community service projects in April. Last year, 18 cities and 150 individuals participated. Macalester has made both community involvement and a lasting impact on the community criteria for several of its annual alumni awards, including the "Distinguished Citizen Award." This event provides an opportunity for Macalester alumni to work together on local projects in the spirit of Macalester's community engagement, while connecting with other alumni. More.

Resources

Looking for non-commercial, non-material gift ideas this holiday season? Consider visiting whatgoesaround.org, a website that allows you to give -- and get -- gifts to and from your favorite charitable organizations. Partner with this exciting nonprofit organization and create your "givelist" today!