President Roth reports on his blog that the faculty has approved a new certificate in Civic Engagement—“the culmination of more than a year’s effort to bring together service learning, community research and other courses at Wesleyan that link work on campus to participation in the public sphere.” The certificate will be open to the classes of 2013 and below. Here’s the proposal, as submitted to the Educational Policy Committee:
Civic engagement encompasses a wide range of activities in which individuals work to strengthen their communities, to realize common goods, to enhance the capacities and dispositions necessary for democratic self-rule, and in general to deliberately shape their common life…The Certificate is structured to provide an understanding of what civic engagement involves. …During their sophomore through senior years, CEC students will complete a series of structured academic and co-curricular activities including courses, volunteering, practicums and opportunities for reflection that will enable them to develop a broad understanding of the varied components of civic engagement.
“Wesleyan has long been known as a politically engaged institution,” adds Roth. “I am delighted that we have formally connected that reputation to interdisciplinary academic work.”
Roth’s full post is available here. For more information on the certificate itself, check out this Argus article from last February: New Certificate to Encourage Civic Engagement Among Students.
I think the idea of promoting more interaction with community for students is a great idea. Does anyone know how requirements for volunteering and internships will affect work study students? For example, many of the tutoring programs are paid for work study for students and volunteer for others. In addition, Wesleyan makes the Summer Experience Grants available for work study students who don’t have the luxury of being able to afford spending the whole not summer without getting paid. Will these options be available, or will work not count as volunteer work? Otherwise I could foresee this being most available to wealthier students able to consistently balance a lot of volunteer work on top of schoolwork without having to work during the semester as well.
Yeah, you have to love how Roth is creating all of these “certificates” and interdisciplinary programs. It’s like you’re creating new departments, but without actually hiring any new staff.
Not that Roth is to blame for this (mostly started under Bennett) but I’d sure love to know about all the classes I could be taking if we hadn’t broken the bank on a bunch of piss-poor, badly designed, and generally unnecessary physical plant improvements.
ewww, certificate of “civic engagement?”
this post reeks of bougey liberal arts blahblah