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Through readings, discussion, deliberation, listening, and individual as well as collaborative action, this course will give you the opportunity to learn about and practice theories and habits of civic and community engagement and public scholarship with the goal of helping to sustain participatory democracy. This course emphasizes the people’s role in shared governance while providing a foundation for understanding how a wide range of other individual and collective practices have an equally important role to play in building and sustaining community.
Among the core concepts we’ll discuss are the role of students and other citizens in sustaining and transforming their communities, the historical and contemporary mission of Land Grant universities, the centrality of rhetoric to collaborative judgment, and the relationship among media, cultures, and politics as they affect civic and community engagement. You will also learn together about the range of ways that citizens do, can, and might participate in democratic decision-making and will observe and practice these forms in several communication media and across a range of differences. Finally, you will learn about models of and opportunities for engaging other citizens across and beyond Penn State, including in global environments.
