• The Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC)

  http://www.deliberative-democracy.net/
  TThe DDC is a network of researchers and practitioners working together to strengthen the field of deliberative democracy. DDC members support research activities and advance practice at all levels of government, in North America and around the world. The DDC is currently working on several priorities: connecting leading academics and practitioners for joint research efforts; developing the Democracy Helpline, an online technical assistance tool; convening public administration professors to advance the teaching of democratic governance; and organizing learning exchanges for public officials, school administrators, and other civic innovators.

• Difficult Dialogues initiative

  http://difficultdialogues.org/
  Last year, the Ford Foundation selected 27 campuses (from an applicant pool of more than 700) to receive grants of $100,000 each for projects that promote campus environments where sensitive subjects can be discussed in a spirit of open scholarly inquiry, academic freedom and with respect for different viewpoints. An additional 15 campuses received $10,000 stipends to allow them to participate in the initiative. Difficult Dialogues was created in response to reports of growing intolerance and efforts to curb academic freedom at colleges and universities. The goal is to help institutions address this challenge through academic and campus programs that enrich learning, encourage new scholarship and engage students and faculty in constructive dialogue about contentious political, religious, racial and cultural issues. It is being operated by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia. The Difficult Dialogues web site has links to the specific campuses.

• Everyday Democracy (Previously the Study Circles Resource Center)

  http://www.everyday-democracy.org
  Everyday Democracy helps communities develop their own capacity to solve problems by promoting ways for diverse groups of people to talk and work together toward long-term change. They work to support "strong local democracies" to sustain public dialogue and problem solving. They also work to help citizens connect with public officials and policy makers to affect public policy.

  Nearly half of the work of Everyday Democracy is on race. Everyday Democracy believes that racism is rooted in American history and is embedded in its culture. Racism remains one of the greatest barriers to solving public problems and to fulfilling the promise of our democracy. They help communities address race and diversity throughout their work, on any issue, to create community dialogue and change.

• The Forum for Youth Investment: Moving Ideas to Impact

  http://tinyurl.com/2jrp98
  The Forum for Youth Investment is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are Ready by 21™: ready for college, work and life. This goal requires that young people have the supports, opportunities and services needed to prosper and contribute where they live, learn, work, play and make a difference. The Forum provides youth and adult leaders with the information, technical assistance, training, network support and partnership opportunities needed to increase the quality and quantity of youth investment and youth involvement. They have published this work of interest: Core Principles for Engaging Young People in Community Change.

  Young people are disproportionately involved in and affected by the problems that beset communities and states. Recent research studies suggest that young people are not doing well because communities are not doing well by young people. Young people are not only at the center of many problems, they are the source of many solutions. And studies show that young people want to be engaged as change makers. However, the true engagement of young people in change processes requires a fundamental shift in how decisions are made. Engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range issues. The principles described in this paper by Karen Pittman, Shanetta Martin and Anderson Williams emerged from the commingling of research and practice that occurred when the Forum for Youth Investment merged with Community IMPACT! USA. They are important but simple principles for putting the idea of youth engagement into practice. They can be implemented in a wide range of organizations, including schools, youth organizations or community centers that want to strengthen their commitment to youth leadership, or community-change focused organizations or coalitions that want to strengthen their commitment to youth involvement.

  Please contact the Forum for Youth Investment and Impact Strategies, Inc. at:
  The Cady-Lee House,
  7064 Eastern Ave, NW
  Washington, D.C. 20012-2031
  T: 202.207.3333, F: 202.207.3329
  E-mail: youth@forumfyi.org for information about reprinting this publication and information about other publications.

• International Institute of Sustained Dialogue

  http://www.sustaineddialogue.org/
  The International Institute for Sustained Dialogue (IISD) helps citizens around the world to transform their conflictual relationships and to design and implement sustainable change processes.

  Although there are some things that only governments can do—like negotiate peace agreements--there are some things only citizens outside government can do--such as transform human relationships, change political cultures, and modify human behavior. The capacities and energies of these citizens are the world's greatest untapped resources in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. Effective democracy and economic development depend of building effective relationships. Sustained Dialogue makes them happen.

  The five-stage process of Sustained Dialogue is carefully designed for use with groups that must deal with deeply divisive relational animosities before they can find enough common ground to work together in resolving problems that affect their interests. Sustained dialogue provides a space for developing the capacities, practices, and relationships essential to political and economic democracy.

  IISD currently supports work in international, community, corporate, and campus settings. SD is being conducted in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. The Sustained Dialogue Campus Network (SDCN) is a project of IISD--a network of Sustained Dialogue practitioners on 16 college and high-school campuses across the country. Student-driven and student-run, SDCN programs focus on issues of race, inequality, and social injustice.

• National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD)

  www.thataway.org
  NCDD – and the dialogue and deliberation community in general – have experienced rapid growth in the last few years. Formed in 2002 after the first National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, NCDD is a vibrant network of over 700 organizations and individuals who, collectively, regularly engage and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people around today's critical issues. NCDD's website offers a comprehensive library of over 2100 tools, best practices and links related to participatory democracy, public engagement, collaborative action, and conflict resolution at all levels, and we keep in touch monthly with over 10,000 people who do this work.

  Many of NCDD's members are affiliated with colleges and universities – whether as administrators, staff, faculty or students – and NCDD hosts a listserv (email discussion list) for our Higher Ed members to encourage them to network with one another, share their learnings, and get questions answered quickly. We also keep track of what’s happening in higher ed as it relates to dialogue and deliberation at http://thataway.org/index.php/?cat=27.

  NCDD has held three biennial national conferences – in Alexandria, Virginia; Denver, Colorado; and San Francisco, California – attended by nearly 1,000 people from 18 countries, and our fourth conference is set for Austin, Texas in October 2008. Although we have members in dozens of countries, NCDD is also helping similar organizations form outside of the U.S., including the Canadian Community on Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2), which is currently planning its second national conference, and the newly formed African Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation (ACDD).

• National Issue Forums

  www.nifi.org
  "National Issue Forums (NIF) is a network of civic, educational, and other organizations, and individuals, whose common interest is to promote public deliberation in America. It has grown to include thousands of civic clubs, religious organizations, libraries, schools, and many other groups that meet to discuss critical public issues."

  Organizations, including over 30 colleges and universities, host issue framing workshops and workshops on convening and moderating an issue forum. For up-coming events, see http://nifi.org/network/index.aspx.

• Public Conversations Project

  www.publicconversations.org
  The Public Conversations Project is a Boston-based nonprofit that facilitates conversations and fosters relationships between people on opposing sides of divisive public issues. PCP's dialogue process encourages the curiosity, full speaking and genuine listening necessary for mutual understanding. Deep, mutual understanding leads to respect and opens the possibility of joint action. The organization also supports people who are having or facilitating conversations about conflicts through consultation, workshops and customized trainings.

  PCP is committed to making its practices and principles--including two recently published dialogue guides-- accessible to others via its Website. Among the things that distinguish PCP is its collaborative process, which involves dialogue participants in preparing for, planning, and determining the goals of their conversation with one another. Recent project work includes consultation, training and facilitation for schools, colleges and universities.

• The Taos Institute

  http://www.taosinstitute.net/
  The Taos Institute is a community of scholars and practitioners concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value. We are committed to exploring, developing and disseminating ideas and practices that promote creative, appreciative and collaborative processes in families, communities and organizations around the world. We achieve our educational ends through conferences, workshops, publications, a PhD program, a distance-learning program, newsletters, and web-based offerings. We work at the interface between the scholarly community and societal practitioners from communities of mental health, social work, counseling, organizational change, education, community building, gerontology and medicine. We develop and explore the ways in which scholarly research can enrich professional practices, and practices can stimulate scholarly inquiry.

• Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU)

  www.aacu.org
  The mission of the Association of American Colleges and Universities is to make the aims of liberal learning a vigorous and constant influence on institutional purpose and educational practice in higher education.

  Program Areas: Education and Institutional Renewal, Diversity Equity, and Global Initiatives, and Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment

  Current relevant programs include: Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP); Inclusive Excellence: Diversity, Inclusion, and Institutional Renewal; Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility; Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement; Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility, and; various campus diversity initiatives.

  In addition, the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement sponsors an ongoing democratically-focused transnational project with the Council of Europe and the U.S. Steering Committee of the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy. (http://www.aacu.org/civic_engagement/CouncilofEurope.cfm).

  AAC&U also sponsors Diversity Web (www.diversityweb.org) and Diversity Digest, which profile campus diversity initiatives linked to AAC&U programs.

  AAC&U also produces an online publication, On Campus With Women (http://www.aacu.org/ocww/index.cfm), which highlights issues and trends involving women in higher education.

• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

  www.carnegiefoundation.org
  The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with a primary mission "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education."

  Carnegie Senior Scholars Tom Ehrlich and Anne Colby have been prolific on the subjects of civic education and learning, service learning, social responsibility, and ethics. Their most recent publication, a consensus report by 22 scholars, jointly organized by Carnegie and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), explores the civic effects of attending college and the benefits of various approaches to civic learning in higher education. It emphasizes that colleges and universities have a civic purpose and outlines an agenda for further research. Download the report at: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/dynamic/publications/elibrary_pdf_633.pdf.

• Network for Higher Education and Democratic Culture

  http://dc.ecml.at/
  During the Global Forum in Strasbourg in June 2006, the Declaration on the Responsibility of Higher Education for a Democratic Culture: Citizenship, Human Rights and Sustainability (http://dc.ecml.at/index.asp?Page=Declaration) was adopted to "promote a democratic culture and sustainable societies through higher education". In addition to this Declaration, the Council of Europe's Commission on Higher Education and Democratic Culture developed a website to serve as the online home to the Declaration and basis for the creation of a global Network of institutions who are committed to these principles. To become a member of the Network, an institution must affirm its commitment by signing the Declaration (http://dc.ecml.at/join_network.asp) and posting at least one activity that promotes democratic culture, human rights and global citizenship.

  While this work is being led by the Council of Europe (representing forty-six nations), the primary contact in the United States is the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy housed at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Community Partnerships and co-chaired by the Center's Director, Ira Harkavy.

Note: Many organizations reference Tom Ehrlich's definition of "civic engagement" from Civic Responsibility and Higher Education (Oryx Press, 2000): Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes (Preface, p.vi)

• American Associations of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
  American Democracy Project

  www.aascu.org/programs/adp.
  The American Democracy Project (ADP) is an initiative of 224 AASCU campuses that seeks to create an intellectual and experiential understanding of civic engagement for undergraduates enrolled at institutions that are members of AASCU. The goal of the project is to produce graduates who understand and are committed to engaging in meaningful actions as citizens in a democracy. ADP's current interests include stewardship of public lands, juries, voting, civic skills, and political engagement.

• Campus Compact

  www.compact.org
  Campus Compact's mission is to advance the public purposes of colleges and universities by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility.

  Campus Compact envisions colleges and universities as vital agents and architects of a diverse democracy, committed to educating students for responsible citizenship in ways that both deepen their learning and improve the quality of community life. We challenge all of higher education to make civic and community engagement an institutional priority.

  Campus Compact was started 20 years ago with a focus on student volunteerism. It grew into the national clearinghouse for service learning, political engagement, and civic engagement. Campus Compact's membership consists of college and university presidents who appoint campus liaison's to Campus Compact. Currently, 1100 campuses belong, and 31 states have Campus Compact networks.

  Campus Compact led the work to create the Presidents' Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education, http://www.compact.org/resources/declaration/.

  For an excellent glossary of terms, see http://www.compact.org/help/glossary.

• Higher Education Network for Civic Engagement (HENCE)

  http://www.henceonline.org/
  HENCE is a new network (2006) of associations and organizations in higher education that came together to "deepen, consolidate, and advance the literature, research, practice, policy, and advocacy for community engagement as a core element of higher education’s role in society. Increasingly, higher education institutions are intentionally connecting academic work to public purposes through extensive partnerships that involve faculty and students in active collaboration with communities. This idea of "community engagement" is renewing the civic mission of higher education and transforming academic culture in ways that are both exciting and challenging.

  "HENCE represents a new, high level of commitment to cooperation across diverse engagement-related organizations to provide support for the next phase of growth and improvement. On February 24, 2006, at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, individuals representing several national organizations agreed on the following network objectives:

  • Create a national network coordinated across leadership organizations
  • Develop a coordinated approach to providing resources and data
  • Encourage local, state, regional, and national meetings (formal and informal)
  • Implement a coordinated agenda for advocacy
  • Create an agenda for professional development and recognition
  • Celebrate institutional differences

  HENCE organizations committed to meeting these objectives by forming workgroups on these related tasks:

  • Organize resources for and meetings among higher education lobbyists for advocacy at state and national levels
  • Provide publications, web resources, training, and events for promoting community engagement at regional and national levels
  • Collaborate on common data measures and dissemination of promising practices
  • Develop models and provide support for quality scholarship of engagement
  • Provide professional development opportunities for higher education leaders

• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (part of the Corporation for National and Community Service and Learn and Serve America)

  www.servicelearning.org
  The National Service Learning Clearinghouse operates a comprehensive web site supporting service learning in schools, universities, and communities. It has the largest and most up-to-date library of service learning information. It also operates a listserv.

• November Fifth Coalition

  www.novemberfifth.org
  This coalition was founded in May 2007 to introduce civic themes in the 2008 campaign season by developing position papers, organizing events, and drawing attention to civic work.

  The November Fifth Coalition (www.novemberfifth.org) is a diverse coalition that has come together around a common commitment to change the sadly predictable script of national political campaigns. Today candidates present themselves as the solutions to our problems, blame our difficulties on rival politicians; in which reporters treat the campaign as a horse race; and in which voters pretend to believe all this -- accepting the fiction that we can vote someone in who will fix our problems, rather than acknowledging our collective responsibility for addressing public challenges and taking care of the commonwealth. Despite the flawed national political system, a new generation of citizen-centered work has arisen, rebuilding an ethos and practice of collective responsibility for our common fate. These include a great range of efforts, from watershed restoration to inner city citizen projects to build affordable housing and create safe neighborhoods, from middle class organizing in suburbs to tame the forces like overscheduling and hypercompetitive birthday parties that undermine family life, to citizen-led education reform efforts. There are many new forms of discussion and action involving large numbers of citizens working with government, community-focused "wikis" and social networking websites, and many other efforts that engage citizens directly in solving public problems. All kinds of leaders are initiating these efforts, from mayors, police chiefs, and school superintendents to community organizers and youth activists. Because of this explosion of civic experiments and innovation, we know more than ever before about how to create effective citizen government interactions, and how to begin to rebuild local civic cultures in which engagement becomes part of the "DNA" of community life. Citizen-centered work is robust, diverse, and sophisticated. It is addressing increasingly large-scale issues, from global warming to the reconstruction of the Gulf. And it is a subterranean movement that is renewing the sense of democracy as the work of us all. The November Fifth Coalition will draw public attention to this movement during the campaign season, propose policies that will support civic work, promote discussion of political reforms, and create better opportunities for citizens to interact with campaigns.

• Project Pericles

  www.projectpericles.org
  Project Pericles' mission is "to encourage and facilitate commitments by colleges and universities to include preparation for social responsibility and participatory citizenship as an essential part of their educational programs, in the classroom, on the campus and in the community." It is a multi-institutional network of 22 campuses that agree to adopt specific "policies" in five areas:

  • Institutional commitment
  • Program
  • Constituency Involvement
  • Central Administration
  • Cooperation and Collaboration

  The organization is not prescriptive: campuses do not need to pursue the same approaches or activities. Campuses collaborate to enhance their work (e.g., many of the campuses have centers for civic engagement; the member institutions' program directors meet to share ideas). Project Pericles is developing a co-curricular program, Debating for Democracy (D4D), in which Periclean students research, develop their own opinions and advocate their positions on current issues of public import.

• Office of University Partnerships (in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development) (rumored to be discontinued soon)

  www.oup.org
  Office of University Partnerships (OUP) facilitates the formation of campus-community partnerships through sharing information about community partnership development, in general, and about OUP's various funded programs (COPC grants). OUP’s web site provides many helpful resources, including funding, research, news, events, technical assistance, and highlights of campus-community activities nationwide.

  OUP is committed to helping colleges and universities join with their neighbors to address urban problems—partnerships that enable students, faculty, and neighborhood organizations to work together to revitalize the economy, generate jobs, and rebuild healthy communities.

• Public Agenda

  www.publicagenda.org/aboutpa/aboutpa.cfm
  For over a quarter of a century, Public Agenda has been providing unbiased and unparalleled research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues ranging from education to foreign policy to immigration to religion and civility in American life. Nonpartisan and nonprofit, Public Agenda was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. Public Agenda's two-fold mission is to help:

  • American leaders better understand the public's point of view.
  • Citizens know more about critical policy issues so they can make thoughtful, informed decisions.

  Public Agenda is an objective explorer of public opinion and a scrupulously fair minded producer of citizen education materials. Public Agenda's unique research explains and clarifies public attitudes about complex policy issues. Public Agenda's work shows that when presented with accurate information and meaningful choices, Americans can and do make thoughtful decisions. PA has a listserv that distributes the results from their extensive polling efforts. To receive these fascinating updates, click here: http://www.publicagenda.org/register.cfm

• Collaborative Democracy Network (Sacramento State University)

  http://www.csus.edu/ccp/cdn/
  A network of over 100 interdisciplinary and international scholars has been established to focus on the need to enhance the role of deliberative and collaborative methods in democratic governance. The goal of the network is to collaborate on research and theory building to strengthen the capacity of democratic governance institutions to produce better public policy. The scholars are interested in research and practice in public policy, public administration, political science, and planning.

• Center for Community Partnerships (University of Pennsylvania)

  www.upenn.edu/ccp
  Since its founding in 1992, the Center for Community Partnerships (CCP) has been engaged in an effort to connect the academic mission of the University of Pennsylvania with the aspirations of the community in which it resides. The Center serves as the University’s primary vehicle for engaging with the community in mutually-beneficial, democratic partnerships, based on a belief that the future of the University and its community (West Philadelphia/Philadelphia) are intertwined. Through CCP, the University currently engages in three types of activities: academically based community service, direct traditional service, and community development. CCP draws on the perspectives of multiple disciplines and professions to address the enormously complex real-world problems of urban life. CCP primary focus areas include education, health and community development. The Center for Community Partnerships serves as a model for civic engagement and university-assisted community schools both nationally and internationally.

• Center for Democracy and Citizenship (Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota)

  www.publicwork.org; www.publicachievement.org
  The Center develops concepts, practices, and methods to deepen civic agency, the collective power and wisdom of people to address common challenges and to build flourishing democratic societies. Its core framework is called "public work," understood as the sustained, visible efforts of a diverse mix of people to create things, material or cultural, of lasting civic value. Public Achievement, the civic education initiative based on these ideas, has spread to more than a dozen countries, including South Africa, Northern Ireland, Turkey, Poland, Palestine and Israel (www.paunite.org; www.publicachievement.com). The Jane Addams School for Democracy is a public work initiative that brings together immigrant families with college students and other community members to engage in dialogue, public work, and democratic education http://www.publicwork.org/jas/ and http://www.westsidelearning.org/).

• Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) (University of Maryland's School of Public Policy)

  www.civicyouth.org
  CIRCLE promotes research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25. Although CIRCLE conducts and funds research rather than practice, its projects have practical implications for increasing young people’s engagement in politics and civic life. CIRCLE is also a clearinghouse for relevant information and scholarship. CIRCLE's website contains more than 100 working papers and fact sheets on various aspects of civic education, youth service, and civic engagement

• Civic Practices Network (Brandeis University)

  www.cpn.org
  The Civic Practices Network (CPN) is a collaborative and nonpartisan project that connects a broad organizations and perspectives in the civic renewal movement. The group includes community organizers, civic leaders, teachers, university centers, health care professionals, librarians, youth organizers – anyone who is interested helping to "empower families and develop community capacities for solving problems in a diverse and complex society undergoing rapid change." CPN is primarily an on-line initiative and its "collaborators" are encouraged to use CPN web space to "share tools" and "tell their stories." The information on the web site is open source and provides all who access it with opportunities to learn from each other.

• Fielding Graduate University

  http://www.fielding.edu/hod/ce/dialog/index.html
  Fielding Graduate University offers doctoral degrees in human and organizational development and in clinical psychology as well as a Masters degree in educational leadership. In addition, it offers a continuing education course in "Dialogue, Deliberation, and Public Engagement." This program is for mid-career professionals and practitioners who need additional skills and knowledge about ways of engaging that are more constructive. Public participation practitioners, organization development consultants, public policy consultation and communication officials, individuals working with communities, groups and organizations to create more constructive conversation and collaborative action all will benefit from this program.

• Imagining America (formerly at the University of Michigan, moving to Syracuse University)

  www.ia.umich.edu
  Imagining America: Arts and Scholars in Public Life, is a national consortium of colleges and universities committed to public engagement and public scholarship in the arts, humanities and design. Consortium members commit to

  • Scholarly, creative, and educational work jointly planned and carried out by university and community partners;
  • Artistic, critical, and historic work that contributes to public
  • Efforts to integrate public engagement, public scholarship, and community-based teaching in higher education
  • Integrating the research, teaching, service, and public engagement missions of higher education

• Intergroup Dialogue

  http://www.umich.edu/~igrc/
  Nearly 20 universities now have institutional programs to sponsor Intergroup Dialogues, Intergroup dialogues are defined as facilitated, face-to-face meetings between students from two or more social identity groups that have a history of conflict or potential conflict. This approach was initially developed at the University of Michigan and has subsequently been implemented, with thousands of students participating each year, at Arizona State University, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Washington, Seattle, among others.

• The New England Resource Center for Higher Education(NERCHE) (University of Massachusetts Boston)

  www.nerche.org
  The New England Resource Center for Higher Education is a center for inquiry, research, and policy. NERCHE supports administrators, faculty, and staff across the region in becoming more effective practitioners and leaders as they navigate the complexities of institutional innovation and change.

  NERCHE focuses on higher education institutions as complex workplaces. We provide resources for practitioners who are exploring innovative ways to shape higher education and create opportunities for learning and applying their collective knowledge and experience.

  NERCHE's research projects, programs, and activities draw upon the practitioner perspective to improve practice and to inform and influence policy, moving from the local to regional and national levels.

  NERCHE's work is informed by a grassroots approach to developing collaborative leadership, oriented to building diverse and inclusive communities. Committed to higher education's responsibility to the public realm, it values the principle of equal respect for the wisdom and experience of everyone involved in discovering new knowledge, improving practice, and providing leadership for institutional change.

  NERCHE strives for the widest possible inclusion of diverse voices—from underrepresented individuals, across role and position, and across institutional types—to foster authentic learning.

  Since 1988, NERCHE has sponsored an annual series of Think Tanks, forums that allow college and university leaders to engage in cross-institutional, in-depth dialogues on pressing issues in the academy. Think Tanks offer venues for exchanging information and resources, and for translating theory into practice as members consider policy implications from their discussions.

• National Center for the Study of University Engagement (Michigan State University)

  www.csue.msu.edu
  The National Center for the Study of University Engagement (NCSUE) seeks a greater understanding of how university engagement enhances faculty scholarship and community progress. How do scholars engage most effectively with their communities, and how, in turn, does such engagement enhance their scholarship?

  The Center convenes scholars and community fellows to explore ways of creating institutional support for building truly collaborative arrangements. NCSUE supports research studies and dissemination through publications, a speaker series, conferences, presentations, and workshops.
  Its ongoing activities include:

  • Developing measurement and benchmarking criteria for outreach and engagement locally, nationally, and internationally
  • Defining outreach and engagement and seeking national alignment on the meaning and scope of the nomenclature and typologies
  • Assessing faculty perceptions of their outreach and engagement work and how this work enhances their scholarship
  • Examining faculty reward policies and procedures and the effectiveness of revising promotion and tenure guidelines
  • Investigating policies and practices that enable institutions to weave engagement into their culture
  • Providing incentives for faculty to evaluate their work as engaged scholars
  • Evaluating graduate and undergraduate learning outcomes related to engagement involvement
  • Studying processes and impacts of university-community collaborations
  • Analyzing community contributions to engagement and scholarship

• National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good (University of Michigan)

  www.thenationalforum.org
  The mission of the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good is to significantly increase awareness, understanding, commitment, and action relative to the public service role of higher education in the United States. The National Forum seeks to bring together higher education professionals, legislators/policy makers, and the public, and engage them through deliberative dialogues, conferences, research publications, presentations, and policy briefs.

  The National Forum has conducted projects both nationally and at the state level in Michigan. Specific focuses of the work of the organization have been: access to higher education, immigration and higher education, diversity issues and civic engagement on college campuses, leadership at Minority Serving Institutions, the scholarship surrounding the public role of higher education, and deliberative dialogue as a method for change.

• Public Policy Research Institute (University of Montana)

  www.umtpri.org
  The Public Policy Research Institute is designed to bridge the gap between two common types of centers affiliated with universities: those that focus on natural resources and environmental law and policy, and those that focus on dispute resolution and consensus building. Our mission - to promote sustainable communities and landscapes through collaboration and conflict resolution - compels us to embrace the best of both worlds. We help citizens and officials solve tough public policy issues by creating forums that bring together the right people with the best available information. We help participants understand the issues, examine the options, and seek solutions that integrate as many interests as possible. We also inform and invigorate public policy by conducting applied research, and train future leaders through our Natural Resources Conflict Resolution Program.

• Pew Partnership for Civic Change (University of Richmond)

  www.pew-partnership.org
  The Pew Partnership for Civic Change is a civic research organization that provides consulting and program support to communities, governments, foundations, and nonprofit agencies. We help clients identify and implement solutions and strategies crucial to making communities stronger.

  The Pew Partnership for Civic Change was established in 1992 as a civic research organization with primary funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2004 the Partnership moved from an intermediary organization for the Trusts to a stand-alone nonprofit consulting firm as an administrative unit of the University of Richmond.

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