The Lens of Civic Identity: A Developmental Model for Undergraduate Education

Abstract

For democracy to thrive, citizens must be engaged participants. Higher education must foster the growth of citizens through experience. This will enable undergraduates to develop their individual Civic Identities, whereby they see themselves as “active participants in society with a strong commitment and responsibility to work with others towards public purposes,” as defined by the AAC&U.; In A Framework for Understanding Student Engagement and Outcomes, Schnaubelt et al. ask whether it’s important to have a definition of civic identity, and what that definition might be. These questions are similar to questions our campus has been discussing for many years. The answer we have found is that, paradoxically, while a clear definition is important, the specific term (i.e. “civic identity”) does not need to be explicitly in that definition. Herein, we describe the multi-year, democratic process of creating and supporting an across-campus movement to centralize civic identity development into a higher education curriculum. The work was framed through a new model that provided specific developmental stages for students. Through this model, students and campus educators better understood and embraced college-wide civic learning outcomes that embrace the Building Blocks One and Two described by Schnaubelt: Capacity to engage constructively across differences and Democratic knowledge and skills. This ongoing work has been successful precisely because we engaged constructively in a democratic process of generating buy-in across campus. For example, we found that the term “civic identity” did not resonate on our campus as an outcome per se. Instead, it became a lens to focus discussion: What does civic identity mean in the context of our ethos? At our institution, it means “fostering a just, equitable, and sustainable world.” Our work gave rise to an update to the college’s Mission Statement, revisions to General Education requirements, and a common writing prompt across First-Year Seminars. We have also begun using our model for assessment: How do we measure a student’s capacity to engage across differences, and their development of democratic knowledge, habit, and skills? With foundational pieces built into First-Year Seminars, all incoming students engaged with civic learning in their first semester, and the common writing prompt became a useful tool for assessment. Annual retreats dedicated to evaluation of the student responses to this prompt became an ongoing opportunity to discuss and maintain buy-in, as well as a place to understand how students are developing their civic identities; we present data collected over four years of this work. This article provides a map as well as lessons learned to support other colleges’ work to live into the call from A Crucible Moment (2012) to make civic learning an integral part of a college education.