Some of our students arrive on campus with activist mindsets and practices—feeling a call to serve, advocate, and engage with their communities. For others, this facet of their identity blossoms during their collegiate journey, as their institutions intentionally encourage both vocational discernment and informed and active citizenship. This workshop invites participants to consider the curricular and co-curricular spaces that nurture students who are discerning a call to advocacy (including sparking that call in others). Panelists will discuss student-led activism on their campuses, the promise of deliberation as a tool for teaching how to disagree with civility in order to build consensus, and the potential of community-based pedagogies as an empathy-building enterprise—allowing students time to attend to their own inner worlds, as well as to the lives of those they serve.
Jonathan Golden, Director of the Center on Religion, Culture, and Conflict, Drew University (NJ)
James Proszek, Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Wabash College (IN)
David Timmerman, Provost, Chief Academic Officer, and Professor of Rhetoric, Carthage College(WI)
Lori Walters, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Monmouth College (IL)