Islands of Engagement: Higher Education and Democracy

A meaningful college education is more than a collection of courses, an assembly of skills, and a few letters after one’s name. College educated signifies a level of intellectual and personal maturity, the possibility of real agency, and substantive worth. For some, college educated also carries with it responsibilities of citizenship and civic engagement. Many institutions of higher education have incorporated these goals in their missions, and when looked at nation-wide, at colleges, universities and community colleges, substantive and meaningful work is taking place.

Creating Space for Democracy: A Primer on Dialogue and Deliberation in Higher Education is a compendium of issues, practices, needs, visions and blueprints on the topic. Professor Nicholas Longo at Providence College and Professor Timothy Shaffer at Kansas State University jointly edited the volume. They called it a primer because they want educators to use it to democratize their institutions and communities. They envisioned the short chapters as tools for faculty, administrators, community affairs professionals, and other educational stakeholders interested in facilitating deliberation, dialogue, and civic engagement. Creating Space is all about finding ways for higher education to create more democratic and participatory cultures and practice.

The book is organized into six broad areas, each with multiple short chapters from different authors. Part one provides an overview of civic education. The Kettering Foundation’s Derek W.M. Barker figures largely here through an exploration of deliberative civic engagement, a concept that recurs throughout the volume. How different thinkers, practitioners and institutions have taken these ideas and made them happen is the core of part two. The range of programs, models, themes and efforts across institutions illustrates creativity and innovation. There are infinite ways to facilitate dialogue and engagement if an institution, or leader, truly cares.

Part three dives more deeply into ways that civic engagement and deliberative democratic practices are embedded in college curricula and programs. For example, very interesting and successful work is taking place at such institutions as Colorado State University, Simon Fraser University, the University of North Carolina, and University Maryland, Baltimore Campus.

The opportunities and constraints of a college’s physical space are discussed next, with attention to what helps with engagement and dialogue. IUPUI’s Democracy Plaza is a fascinating example of an institution’s physical investment in civic engagement. The chapters includes looks at what can happen in college libraries and residence halls. College in the community – what it means and what it might do – is the focus of part five, and networks of dialogue and deliberation are in part six. The conclusion pulls the examples together, summarizing how higher education can re-instill faith and energy in democratic processes. The book is as much encyclopedic as it is a primer.

The relevance and importance of the work outlined in Creating Space for Democracy resonated all the more to me when I re-read Benjamin Barber’s A Place for Us: How To Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong. Barber, who passed away in 2017, is still perhaps one of America’s most influential voices on the necessity of strong democracy to our country’s health. This slim book was published in 1998. A few years after it came out, I referenced it while teaching American history classes. It is accessible, thought-provoking, and makes a compelling argument that civil society can exist in the space between government and the market, between libertarian individualism and communitarianism. The civic spaces, institutional and in our minds, are critical, Barber writes, if we are to have a shared understanding of “you and me.”

While A Place for Us is a good book, it is not Barber’s strongest. He speculates about the future, advances ideas without systemic follow up, and asks more concepts than offers answers. His guesses about what might be happening down the road are all over the map, as is true of most projections about the future . What the book does provide are many ideas and observations that can be great in the classroom to provoke conversation and deliberative dialogue. Barber’s more conversational tone in this work, too, is effective and engaging.

Barber, I think, is fundamentally right about the importance of civic spaces separate from the government and market. His insights about the value of how people can talk with each other, listen to each other, and work together is powerful. Barber is strong, too, on how these different kinds of spaces and interactions can provide meaning and value to everyday life. All that said, it is very interesting: Barber does not call out higher education as a place where this kind of work should happen. There is no call for academic to take us the charge of greater civic engagement. I believe that he would be greatly encouraged by the efforts encapsulated in Creating Space for Democracy.

Higher education has come far in elevating civic engagement as a component in our collective mission. Not only is it possible – it’s happening every semester at all manner of colleges and universities. I am optimistic that we will see even more of this important work in the coming years. Many students I see are hungry for it. As we advance civic engagement and dialogue, I do not anticipate that we will not be seeing consensus. By its very definition, things will be messy. However, it’s a healthy kind of messiness – we will all be stronger, more engaged, and more caring because of it.

David Potash