Two Civic Engagement Projects Recognized for Excellence

Date: 4/10/07
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Sociology Professor Richard Sullivan’s “Political Sociology: Power, Culture, and Change” course at Illinois State University is the recipient of the 2007 Excellence in Civic Engagement Award work on the “Increasing Student Power in the Local Community” project. The award was established in March 2006 to annually recognize an exemplary and ongoing group curricular or co-curricular civic engagement project that promotes intellectual and experiential student learning and understanding of civic engagement.

Students in Sullivan’s course complete a group project with the goal of increasing student power in the local community. The projects are not confined to the limits of a single academic term; they are intended to be on-going, augmented and improved upon by students in subsequent classes.

Examples of past projects include: designing practical, but creative strategies to increase student power in the local community such as establishing districts for the Town Council that would ensure at least one student representative and educating fellow students about their potential political power as a voting block by increasing the number of students registered to vote in McLean County. Subsequent iterations of this course and group projects will build on these initial successes.

Mennonite College of Nursing and the “School Physicals for Disadvantaged Children” project, housed in the Mennonite College of Nursing, received honorable mention. Since 2002, faculty and graduate students from Mennonite College of Nursing have provided free school physicals to disadvantaged students at Irving and Sheridan elementary schools. Without this service, children would be forced to stop-out of school until their families could afford to obtain a physical elsewhere. Participation in the experience forms the foundation for future civic activities by the graduate students and positively impacts the lives of the elementary students. Denise Wilson of Mennonite College of Nursing is the contact person for the project.

Both of these projects will be recognized at the American Democracy Project’s Civic Engagement Celebration at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 11, in the Prairie Room of Bone Student Center.