utexas

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS at EL PASO
www.utep.edu

Background
Current Institutional Involvement and Commitment to Civic Learning
Proposed Activities to be Funded as Part of the Cluster
Expected Student Learning and Institutional Outcomes
Ability to Provide Leadership for Additional Civic Learning
Leadership Team

Background

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a comprehensive institution offering to its approximately 15,000 students a range of liberal arts and professional degrees at the bachelor's and masters levels, as well as some doctoral level programs. As part of the University of Texas System, the University indicates that its mission focuses on service to the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands region, an international area comprising very distinct demographics. A major challenge to UTEP in its commitment to providing student-centered civic education is to develop effective approaches to serving the needs of El Paso, a city of 700,000 with a high rate of poverty, low per capita income, and a significant level of what the University calls "civic drain": that is, a large number of young and ambitious El Pasoans who leave the region.

In approaching the challenge of civic education, UTEP defines its goal as providing a large number of students with knowledge about their community and with the skills to exercise leadership in addressing the needs of the community. The University envisions that accomplishing this goal potentially will have an impact not only regionally but at the state and national levels as well. An increased civic capacity of UTEP's students, for example, provides an opportunity to strengthen the Hispanic population nationally, since approximately two-third's of the University's students are Hispanic.
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Current Institutional Involvement and Commitment to Civic Learning:

UTEP currently has a variety of programs which support civic learning. These programs have grown out of the University's decade-long efforts to forge strong connections with the regional community and support faculty-student applied research and service. Among the University's programmatic commitments to civic learning are: the Civic Education Program, which links faculty and students to community-wide initiatives including workshops for middle and high school teachers; the Center for Environmental Resource Management, which addresses energy and environmental issues in the bi-national U.S.-Mexico border region; and the Border Law Institute.

With support from the Kellogg Foundation, UTEP received two 'community partnerships' grants. The first involved the College of Nursing and Texas Tech Medical School in their efforts to take learning into community clinics. Now in its second year, the other involves the Colleges of Liberal Arts and of Business in their efforts to connect courses to community organizations and to public schools with the expectation of both deepening students' learning and responding to regional needs.

The Praxis Program provides service learning opportunities in approximately 45 nonprofit organizations to students through enrollment in designated courses. The Student Affairs area of the University offers student leadership programs and outreach to area middle and high schools through Upward Bound, Gear Up, and Talent Search programs.

The College of Education trains most of the teachers for the region. Student teachers work in partnership schools while enrolled in blocks of teacher preparation courses. Teacher trainees must complete the Schools in Communities course, which offers training, readings, and experience in service learning.

UTEP's Strategic Plan emphasizes commitment to the region. The University has identified a need, however, to better coordinate and evaluate its existing programs in coherent ways. With these promising programs and efforts, UTEP indicates that it is at a critical juncture for institutionalizing civic learning in academic and student affairs and making it a regional and national model.
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Proposed Activities to be Funded as Part of the Cluster

The University of Texas at El Paso proposes to create a model of civic-centered learning that begins on campus with a broad range of courses, student leadership programs, and procedural transformation strategies. Subsequent developments will include connections with area high school faculty, civic leaders, and community-based organizations. To implement UTEP's Civic Learning Initiative, the institution proposes to develop a cross-campus academic and student affairs team. The Team will work with a graduate student serving as project coordinator and with four undergraduate Civic Assistants to do a variety of activities to support key parts of the Team's vision:

Pilot test and support additional civic learning courses.
Conduct liaison work with area high school faculty.
Prepare reports on the models and civic materials for classes.
Establish civic 'shadowing' experiences with community organizations and public officials.
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Expected Student Learning and Institutional Outcomes

The University has not yet developed an institution-wide approach to assessment of student learning from civic initiatives. The Leadership Team plans to address the need for a coherent approach to assessment as an initial step in implementing the Civic Learning Initiative. The Team will work with the University's evaluation office to add adaptations of questions on service and life commitments from the UCLA survey.

The proposed activities involve transformative institutional change that would highlight civic learning in degree requirements and offer credits and capstone experiences. Quantitative data on students' course experiences with community organizations and public officials will result from this initiative.

The pilot activities, connections with high school government classes, and shadowing experiences will provide innovative experiences which will be evaluated in focus groups, narratives, documents, and reports. This range of approaches should provide comprehensive data to evaluate civic learning and make it visible as an institutional priority.
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Ability to Provide Leadership for Additional Civic Learning:

UTEP is involved in relationships with other institutions through such affiliations as the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities as well as with various Texas institutions. In addition, the University is involved with the National Civics Coalition, the first meeting of which occurred at the Brookings Institution in November, 1999. UTEP's Civic Education Program is one of a select number in the American Political Science Association's network to be featured in a special issue of the disciplinary journal this year. UTEP has been invited to the annual LINKS conferences. Various UTEP leaders and faculty are involved in the National Network of Educational Renewal which has a strong democracy in education agenda.

Just recently, UTEP was invited to become one of sixteen institutions involved in an NSF-supported international (North America and Europe) effort, "International Consortium on Higher Education, Civic Responsibility, and Democracy," composed of the American Council on Education, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, AAHE, Campus Compact in the U.S. and the Council of Europe.
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Leadership Team

Project Director: Kathleen Staudt, Civic Education Director, Professor of Political Science

Team Members:
Sally Andrade, Director, Center for Institutional Evaluation, Research and Planning
Sandra Braham, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs for Outreach
Carla Cardoza, Assistant Director, Institute for Community-Based Teaching and Learning
Ernesto Chavez, History Faculty
Karen Coleman, Psychology Faculty
Robert de Villar, Teacher Education Chair
Gary Edens, New Student Orientation
Tricia Gabany-Guerreo, Assistant Director, Inter-American and Border Studies
Mimi Gladstein, Associate Dean for the Humanities
Felicia Hopkins, Director, Praxis Program
Frank Lopex, Border Law Institute
Gregory Ramos, Theater Faculty
Ellen Ryan, Social Work Faculty
William Shafer, Dean of Students
Barbara Washburn, Biology Faculty
Dorothy Ward, Entering Student's Program Director, Office of the Provost
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