2017 was a milestone year for North Carolina Campus Compact: we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our network, gained new member campuses, partnered to bring the Gulf South Summit to NC, and led Compact Nation in the number of campuses completing a Civic Action Plan. Our Year in Review shares these highlights and more.
Video celebrates NC Campus Compact’s 15th Anniversary
Our 15th anniversary video featured President Leo Lambert, the founding president of our Compact, along with current and former students sharing why civic and community engagement matters to them.
Special Events: NC Presidents Forum, Social Change Forum, and Gulf South Summit
The NC Presidents Forum (February 8) was hosted by Chancellor Harold Martin, Sr. of NC A&T State University. With a keynote by Lumina Foundaton President & CEO Jamie Merisotis and remarks by Dr. Alicia Dowd of Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education, the forum was a space for campus leaders to consider new ideas about talent development and equity.
Our Social Change Forum (February 14), held in collaboration with Duke University’s Office of Civic Engagement, Office of Service-Learning, and the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative, brought together campus leaders from the fields of community engagement and social entrepreneurship to explore what the University of Michigan’s Dr. David Scobey called their “common ground and creative tensions.”
Participants discusses their views of community engagement and social innovation at the Social Change Forum.
NC Campus Compact was also a partner in the Gulf South Summit, hosted by UNC Greensboro (March 22-24). Gulf South is one of the Southeast’s longest-running independent conferences on service-learning. More than 350 faculty and staff members attended and several individuals from NC were recognized with Summit awards.
In addition to these special events, the Compact coordinated its annual events: a Community Engagement Administrators Conference focusing on alternative breaks (June 7); our annual CSNAP Student Conference (November 17-18) hosted by Winston-Salem State University, the first HBCU to host CSNAP; and of course our January and August network meetings.
Special Announcement: HPU and Qubein offer challenge gift to create a Compact endowment
During the 2017 NC Presidents Forum, High Point University President Nido R. Qubein made a surprise announcement: High Point University would make a challenge gift of $200,000 to North Carolina Campus Compact! The gift will go toward creating an endowment to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the network. Look for our one-time fundraising appeal coming in 2018!
Joining our network: Elizabeth City State University and Wayne Community College
In 2017 our network grew to 37 campuses with the addition of Wayne Community College and Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). Wayne Community College (Goldsboro, NC) joined under the leadership of President Thomas A. Walker, Jr., who assumed the top post at Wayne CC in September 2016 after serving as the president of the Grand Island campus of Central Community College in Nebraska. ECSU joined the under the leadership of Chancellor Thomas E.H. Conway, Jr., who formerly served as vice chancellor and chief of staff at Fayetteville State before coming to ECSU in January 2016.
Recognizing Civic and Community Engagement Champions!
Each year the Compact honors outstanding individuals whose commitment to civic and community engagement make a difference on campuses and in communities.
(L-R): HPU President Nido Qubein, Duke’s Dr. David Malone, Durham Tech President William Ingram, Elon’s Dr. Smith Jackson, Compact ED Leslie Garvin
In 2017, we honored Dr. William Ingram, President of Durham Technical Community College, with the Leo M. Lambert Engaged Leader Award; Dr. David Malone of Duke University, with the Robert L. Sigmon Service-Learning Award; and Dr. Smith Jackson, Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students at Elon University, with the Civic Engagement Professional of the Year Award. All were honored at the NC Presidents Forum.
We also selected two faculty members to serve as our 2017-2018 Engaged Faculty Scholars: Dr. Jacquelyn Lee (above, at left), an assistant professor of social work at UNC Wilmington, and Dr. Elizabeth Wall-Bassett (above, at right), an associate professor of nutrition and dietetics at Western Carolina University. Lee and Wall-Bassett are the third cohort of NC faculty members to fill the Engaged Scholars role.
This fall, we honored outstanding students, including Brian Wuertz, a senior at Warren Wilson College, who received the 2017 John H. Barnhill Civic Trailblazer Award (at left, pictured with John Barnhill). We also recognized twenty-three impressive student leaders, who were selected by their campuses to receive our Community Impact Award.
Seventeen Community Impact Award recipients were recognized at the CSNAP Student Conference.
Building partnerships with the NC Afterschool Corps
This year marked the first year of our re-designed AmeriCorps VISTA program focusing on serving children and families in the afterschool space by strengthening campus-community partnerships. The NC Afterschool Corps currently includes 11 members, including our VISTA Leader, who are working with a variety of campus and community-based programs. In addition to building afterschool program capacity through volunteer mobilization and resource development, Corps members are enriching programming by integrating Design for Change lessons.
Growing voter engagement and strengthening democracy
Dr. Nancy Thomas of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education delivered keynote remarks at the 2017 NC College Voter Summit.
We sought to maintain the momentum of our 2016 voter engagement work by continuing to support campus efforts to strengthen democratic engagement. We shared relevant resources, including information about the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (which your campus should join if it hasn’t already!). We also hosted our second annual NC College Voter Summit, which brought state and national experts to Elon for a full day of learning, with a special emphasis on local elections.
NC answers national call to Civic Action
In 2016, national Campus Compact asked member presidents and chancellors to renew their commitments to the Compact’s founding principles by signing on to the 30th Anniversary Action Statement. To date, 29 NC presidents and chancellors (nearly 80% of our North Carolina network!) have signed on to the statement, committing their institutions to creating a Civic Action Plan that puts those principles into practice. In 2017, eleven campuses submitted a plan, more than any other state in the national Campus Compact network!
New Mission and Strategic Planning Process
Led by executive director Leslie Garvin, our North Carolina network completed a strategic planning process to refine our mission and guide future programming. We owe a debt of thanks to the twenty-five members of our Strategic Plan Advisory Committee who gave their time and best thinking to this effort. We will share the plan with the broader network in 2018.
Looking Ahead….
In 2018, we will continue to support our member campuses as they deepen their civic and community engagement. Our NC Presidents Forum (invitation only, hosted by President Jo Allen of Meredith College, February 9) features an exciting agenda that includes Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); and Dr. Matthew Hartley, co-author of Knowledge for Social Change: Bacon, Dewey, and the Revolutionary Transformation of Research Universities in the Twenty-First Century. Plus, presidents will discuss the role campuses must play in promoting free speech and civility.
Our 2018 Civic Engagement Institute (for member campuses only, February 13 at Elon University) will explore strategies for “Promoting Civility and Problem Solving through Deliberative Pedagogy.” Our annual PACE Conference (register now, February 14 at Elon University), will feature a slate of workshops led by faculty and staff experts from the region, plus keynote remarks by Dr. Nick Longo, co-author of notable works in the community engagement field, including Publicly Engaged Scholars (2016) and Students as Colleagues (2006).
This summer, we will have a special Civic Engagement Administrators Conference (June 12). Assessment guru Anne Weiss of Indiana Campus Compact will help us focus on: “Planning for Data Collection on Civic and Community Engagement Activities.”
We are look forward to new and improved monthly digest newsletter, website, and social media efforts; another NC College Voter Summit next fall; the 2018 CSNAP Student Conference (location coming soon!), and more.
Happy New Year!