: Dean vs. Gephardt…In the spirit of liberty…
Thomas Ehrlich, a senior scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, says we need a bigger dose of civics and the spirit of liberty on college campuses, because
There is substantial evidence that the overall decline in civic and political participation is especially pronounced among young adults–they vote less often than their elders and show lower levels of social trust and knowledge of politics.
I am especially interested in this topic. My dissertation offers one answer for this problem. The title will give you an indication: Understand and Act: Classical Rhetoric, Speech-Acts, and the Teaching of Critical Democratic Participation.
Rhetoric is the ancient discipline of civic engagement. I teach classical models, and encourage students to engage the public (I tell them my class is a site in the public sphere, not a room in the Ivory Tower), for the purpose of creating better citizens as well as better communicators.
Nels Lindahl, a graduate student in political science at the University of Kansas, has a new web site dedicated to encouraging civic participation among students. It’s called Civic Honors.
