Partners

Featured Partners

• FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, is a non-partisan "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the amount of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of major U.S. political players' TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.

• The National Constitution Center, a non-partisan, non-profit institution located on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, uses multimedia exhibitions, public events, and other educational programs to illuminate the continuing importance of the U.S. Constitution in American life.

• The Jury and Democracy Project studies the positive civic impact that jury service has on citizens. An international collaboration of researchers, The Jury and Democracy Project has produced multiple studies and collected its research into a recent manuscript, The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation (Oxford UP, 2010).

• The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, a network containing more than 1,600 members, serves as a hub of information, resource center, news source, and facilitative leader for the dialogue and deliberation community.

Penn State Partners

• Penn State’s program in English includes both a Graduate emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition and Undergraduate Rhetoric Minor.

• The homepage of Penn State’s Communication Arts and Sciences Department offers information on its graduate and undergraduate programs and upcoming events.

• The Center for Excellence in Writing at Penn State offers programs and resources to foster excellence in writing, including Graduate and Undergraduate Writing Centers, a Writing Across the Curriculum Program, and a Public Writing Initiative for upper-level undergraduates.

• The Institute for the Arts and Humanities supports innovative, interdisciplinary work in the arts and humanities at Penn State through grants, residencies, and other initiatives.

• The Africana Research Center strives to promote research and scholarship that will advance the historical and contemporary understanding and enhancement of the lives of Africans across the Diaspora and to serve as a catalyst for promoting an enabling environment where cultural production and discourse on diversity can be nurtured.

• The Rock Ethics Institute promotes ethical awareness and inquiry in the University and in the public and professional sectors by supporting curricular innovations designed to improve moral literacy, building collaborative research projects around ethically-based initiatives, and encouraging public dialogue on ethical issues.

• The Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy serves as a catalyst for teaching research and civic engagement designed to build democratic capacity, exploring and modeling ethical habits and practices of citizenship, encouraging discovery and creativity that contributes to an understanding of democracy’s 21st century challenges, and initiating university collaborations founded on a recognition of the public value of scholarship and contribution through the arts, sciences, and professions.

• The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council, the student council of the College of Liberal Arts which strives to improve academic excellence, establish unique programs, and represent the diverse body of Liberal Arts students.

Centers and Institutes

• The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation, University of Texas at Austin, seeks to conduct cutting-edge research on the ways in which civic participation and community understanding are undermined or sustained and to develop new programs for increasing democratic understanding among citizens.

• The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy, Kansas State University, works to enhance democratization locally, nationally, and internationally through improved community deliberation, facilitation, and evaluation practices, development of a certified facilitator training program, and interdisciplinary research on models of civic discourse.

• The Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership, University of Maryland, unites research, education, and public engagement to foster democratic communication by a diverse people.

• The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington, is dedicated to research, the creation of citizen resources, and student-designed learning experiences that develop new areas of positive citizen involvement in politics and social life, with a particular focus on understanding how new information technologies can supplement more traditional forms of communication to facilitate civic engagement.

• The Center for Public Deliberation, Colorado State University, focuses on the process rather then the product of deliberation, working to enhance the local civic culture, expand collaborative decision-making, and improve civic pedagogy.

• The Democracy Imperative, sponsored by the University of New Hampshire, is a national network of multidisciplinary scholars, campus leaders, and civic leaders in the fields of democratic dialogue, public deliberation, and democracy building, working to strengthen public life and advance deliberative democracy in and through higher education.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, Drexel University, seeks to promote the ideals of social responsibility and public service by facilitating community based experiential learning for students, faculty, and staff.

• The Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, University of Richmond, provides intellectual, experiential, and physical space for the coordination of community-based learning efforts in the Greater Richmond community. Through a rich array of programs the CCE aims to work together to understand the factors that contribute to local, national, and global social and civic problems.

• The Center for Leadership and Civic Education, Florida State, works to support the integration of community service into the academic curriculum by working very closely with faculty and students.

• The Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California, investigates the civic role of religion and collaborates with congregations, scholars, funders, and faith-based organizations.

• The Center for Community Literacy, Colorado State, works to create alternative literacy opportunities that work to educate and empower underserved populations.

• The Civic Engagement Center, Central Washington University, coordinates purposeful and productive service experiences which benefit local and global communities, preserve the environment and utilize higher education to remediate community challenges.

• The Center for Civic Engagement and Nonprofit Development, Northern Kentucky University, strives to deepen classroom learning, strengthen ethics of civic engagement, and use campus resources to positively impact real community problems.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, Oglethorpe University, strives to integrate the Oglethorpe educational experience with the city of Atlanta, enhancing student life through service learning, volunteer projects, student internships and leadership development.

• The Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, Michigan State University, focuses on linking students and faculty to the community.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, University of Texas at El Paso, works to engage faculty and students in the community through community-based teaching and learning in order to enhance student learning, promote civic engagement and actively improve the El Paso-Cd. Juarez Region.

• The Civic Engagement Center, Princeton University, connects individuals and groups through opportunities to thoughtfully address civic problems and aims to positively impact the community through activities such as academic work, volunteer service, extracurricular projects, public service internships and fellowships, civic action break trips, and professional opportunities.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, University of Texas Brownville/Texas Southmost College, strives to create an engaged campus that connects faculty, staff, students, and external partners in ways that help revitalize the community.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, West Virginia University, consistently embraces a long tradition of commitment to community involvement through volunteerism, service learning, and outreach efforts.

• The Center for Civic Engagement, Washington State University, works to promote civic responsibility, community knowledge, and self awareness of students through education and action.

• The Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University, is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling.

Civic and Educational Organizations

• The National Issues Forum is a network of civic, educational, and other organizations who promote public deliberation by drawing together a wide range of participants to discuss critical public issues.

• The Deliberative Democracy Consortium works to strengthen the field of deliberative democracy by developing new tools for practitioners, researchers, and public officials, assembling new networks for federal officials, researchers, and practitioners, and assisting federal agencies in their public involvement work.

• Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge aims through various education programs to teach young people about the link between rights and the responsibilities of citizens in society.