portland

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
www.pdx.edu

Background
Current Institutional Involvement and Commitment to Civic Learning
Proposed Activities to be Funded as Part of the Cluster
Project Themes
Expected Student Learning and Institutional Outcomes
Leadership Team

Background

Portland State University is a comprehensive university offering a range of liberal arts and professional programs at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels. An urban campus with a student body of approximately 15,200, the University has been deeply engaged over the past seven years in institutional transformation focused upon improving the learning of its students. Explicitly included in this transformation process is a focus upon civic learning, which the University defines as "social responsibility." The University's commitment to civic learning has received national attention including recognition by the John Templeton Foundation.

A major focus of Portland State University's institutional transformation has been a comprehensive reform of its approach to general education. This has resulted in establishing its University Studies Program, through which a focus on social responsibility or civic learning is explicit and which has involved an increasing number of faculty, staff, and students. The University indicates, however, that success in establishing this program does not mean that the transformation process is complete or that the institutional outcomes are clearly understood and defined. Rather, the institution has identified that it has entered into an intentional process with a set of goals and that the process might not ever be "finished."
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Current Institutional Involvement and Commitment to Civic Learning

Portland State University's commitment to civic learning is present in the University Studies Program, a curriculum required of all undergraduate students. This commitment also guides its expectations for student learning and informs the missions statements of Schools and Colleges within the University. Among the defining purposes of the University Studies Program is to assist students to acquire the capacity and the propensity to "appreciate the responsibilities of persons to themselves, to each other and to the community." One of the four student learning goals of the programs is: "To develop and employ an informed sense of critical ethical choice and concerned community involvement." Every course or cluster of courses within the University Studies curriculum from the Freshman Inquiry courses to Senior Capstones must demonstrate how it will achieve this goal.

Among the examples of the University's deeply embedded commitment to civic learning are the Graduate School of Education's guiding principles, which include the promotion of "social justice, especially for historically disenfranchised groups;" and the understanding of "relationships among culture, curriculum and practice and the long-term implication for ecological sustainability." Additionally, the University reports that more than 30 faculty from across the institution are participating in regular discussions of recent scholarship related to civic learning.
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Proposed Activities to be Funded as Part of the Cluster

Portland State University is proposing a series of activities designed to continue and expand existing initiatives related to civic learning and to work toward the following goals:

§ To extend faculty engagement with civic learning in both research and teaching.

§ To enhance the intentional focus on civic learning throughout the curriculum and the co-curriculum.

§ To integrate the curricular and co-curricular aspects of civic learning.

§ To extend the intentional focus on civic learning to graduate and professional education.

§ To expand existing partnerships in order to extend the intentional focus on civic learning to the K-12 and community college arenas.

§ To clarify and assess expected student learning, community, and institutional outcomes related to civic learning.

Each of these goals is included within the overall transformation process at Portland State University. That is, this project does not move the University into assuming new priorities or goals. Rather, it will enable the institution to engage in activities that have the promise of assisting the institution to accomplish its goals in a more timely manner and with broader engagement from the campus community.
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Project Themes

To accomplish the above long-range goals, the initiatives for the first phase of the Civic Learning Cluster project will be organized around four major themes:

§ Intellectual engagement of faculty and staff. This initiative is intended to place before faculty and staff the approaches of multiple disciplines toward issues of civic learning and civic engagement. The goal is to engage increasing numbers of faculty from multiple disciplines in the discourse around civic learning. The University's experience suggests that many faculty not only find this to be an intellectually intriguing area of inquiry, but also that their disciplines and research interests touch upon issues of social and civic responsibility. The University is clear that no project intended to contribute toward institutional transformation can fully succeed without the engagement of the faculty.

§ Embedding Civic Learning in the Curriculum. Student Learning is accomplished through the intentional goals of faculty as they develop their course curricula. This initiative will not only emphasize PSU's established practices of capstone courses and community-based learning courses, but will look to disciplinary as well as University Studies courses to make civic learning a conscious component of student learning across the curriculum. A significant component of this theme will be the extension of civic learning to graduate and professional education.

§ Integration of the co-curricular experiences of students with learning outcomes from the curriculum. PSU has for several years worked toward integration of student services with the University Studies curriculum. This initiative will build from this experience and work toward integrating the classroom experience with the civic learning of students through their participation in the co-curriculum. This acknowledges the reality that much student learning occurs outside the classroom and that to fully achieve institutional goals for civic learning those experiences need to be intentionally focused upon civic learning and integrated with the curriculum.

§ Work with current K-12 and community college partners to extend an intentional focus on civic learning into those arenas. The University currently has partnerships with two high schools and one community college. These partnerships are based upon the University Studies curriculum and the participation of student service professionals. The purpose of these partnerships is to better prepare students for entry into PSU as either freshmen or transfer students. By enhancing the focus upon civic learning within these curricular partnerships, students would be positioned well to participate in an institution that is committed to the civic education of its students.
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Expected Student Learning and Institutional Outcomes

The University indicates that participation in the Civic Learning Cluster will provide an opportunity to interact with and learn from colleagues at other institutions and will be an important step in its continuing institutional transformation process. Among the several advantages of participation in the Cluster will be the sharing of data about the consequences of efforts to improve the civic learning of students. PSU has learned throughout its transformation process that assessment data documenting its own initiatives and those of other institutions are powerful points of validation lending support to institutional transformation.

University Studies is committed to portfolio-based assessment of student learning, based on the guiding value that assessment should contribute to the learning of students. The faculty of Freshman Inquiry has devised a rubric for assessing student learning in the area of social responsibility. The Civic Learning Cluster project will assist the University to more rapidly extend this process to other components of the University Studies curriculum. The use of portfolios may also provide the means to include co-curricular activities within the overall assessment and evaluation process.

The University also has a series of standing student surveys that include items related to aspects of civic learning. This is extended to surveys of recent graduates. Identification of these data and strategies for completing any missing measures would be an immediate point of discussion, once the project is underway.
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Leadership Team

Project Director: Dr. Leslie McBride, Associate Professor of Community Health

Team Members:

Dr. Janine Allen, Professor of Education and Vice-Provost and Dean for Enrollment and Student Services
Dr. Sheril Gelmon, Associate Professor of Public Health; Project Evaluator
Dr. Joan Strouse, Professor of Education
Dr. Charles R. White, Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean for University Studies
Dr. Dilafruz Williams, Director of Community-University Partnerships

Core Participants

Dr. Sy Adler, Professor and Director of Urban Studies and Planning
Dr. Susan Agre-Kippenham, Associate Professor of Art and Capstone Faculty Center
Dr. Margaret Banyon, Assistant Director of Student Development
Dr. Christine Cress, Assistant Professor of Education
Dr. Michael Flower, Associate Professor of Honors and Science Education
Dr. Charles Heynig, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
Dr. Susan Hopp, Associate Vice Provost and Director of Student Development
Dr. David Johnson, Professor of History
Dr. Marvin Kaiser, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Science
Dr. Seanna Kerrigan, Capstone Coordinator
Dr. Regina Lawrence, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Dr. Judy Patton, Professor of University Studies, Program Director
Dr. Barbara Sestak, Professor of Architecture
Dr. Patricia Schechter, Assistant Professor of History
Dr. Michele Toppe, Coordinator of New Student Orientation
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