Civic Engagement Site to Launch Soon

Faculty and staff are working on a Civic Engagement website that will be launched the week of December 14. If your department, student organization or office sponsors any type of civic engagement opportunity, send the information to civiceng@westga.edu, and it will be added to the website.

Erin Brannon

The Civic Engagement website is a collaborative initiative between the Office of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Department of Political Science and Planning, and the EXCEL Center.

Through the development of the website, a centralized information database for faculty, staff and students will be available. The campus community will be able to retrieve information on any civic engagement program or project in which departments, organizations and clubs are involved.

Here is a note from acting VPAA Dr. Sandra Stone on this collaborative effort:

UWG has been a participant in the American Democracy Project since its beginning in 2003. Sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and The New York Times, the goal of the Democracy Project is to promote civic engagement, and this academic year faculty and staff are working to revitalize this initiative on campus.

A first step in this new initiative is to bring together individuals and groups involved in some type of civic engagement and identify areas of shared interest and potential collaboration to maximize impact.

Dr. Robert Schaefer, chair of the Department of Political Science and Planning, agreed to take the lead in establishing a Civic Engagement website after meeting with faculty and staff involved in civic activities on campus.

The website will offer a dynamic resource for activities on campus and will provide descriptions of the many and diverse approaches to civic engagement currently operating at the university. The site will also link to additional websites and other related resources.

Civic engagement helps students understand the importance of responsible citizenship in the sustainability of democracy, without which, higher education as we know it would not exist. Civic engagement also helps in building and maintaining healthy, productive communities on and off campus.

It is our hope that this website will prove to be of value to individuals and groups on campus interested in some aspect of civic engagement. We also hope that it will serve as a means of bringing diverse interests together and as a means of defining a more cohesive campus-wide civic engagement strategy or strategies.

We encourage everyone to take a look at the site when it is launched in December and give us feedback on how we might communicate better about the civic engagement initiative. We especially encourage everyone to find something of interest and get involved. By working together we can make a substantial difference on campus and beyond.

Schaefer, Liz Williams, a Masters in Public Administration graduate student, and Erin Brannon, administrative associate at the EXCEL Center, are working with the VPAA on the Civic Engagement website.

Send your projects, ideas and opinions to civiceng@westga.edu and to chronicl@westga.edu.

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