Citizen Scholars
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Civic Engagement Badge
Back to Citizen ScholarsCivic engagement includes practices, habits, and attitudes supportive of commitments to and involvement in the local, regional, national, and global communities that impact our lives and the lives of others. Providing students with the training, experiences, and skills to advocate for and contribute to positive social transformation is an overarching goal of the Citizen Scholars program, and Civic Engagement is the primary site where those aims are realized. We ask students to participate in community service throughout the program by volunteering at a local or regional non-profit organization, and/or by engaging in projects that connect students and scholars to their communities. We also ask students to attend events focused on policy discussion and formation, either in political contexts, non-profit contexts, or contexts relating to social transformation, so that they come to understand how policy is determined, how challenges to current policy or future policy directions are mobilized, and how policy shapes practices in the social, political, and economic realms. This badge links to the other badges by fostering awareness of local, regional, and global issues and problems, by increasing students' network of community contacts, their awareness of resources and opportunities, and potentially their capacity to become a policy leader through research and/or creative work in response to policy, conditions, and service opportunities.