SHEEO today joined forces with dozens of higher education and student success organizations to announce a “Shared Commitment” to make “Democracy Learning a Top Priority for Postsecondary Education.”

Democracy faces monumental challenges in the U.S. and world-wide. And in this pivotal era, “Shared Commitment’ calls on the higher education community to take concerted action to help build Americans’ readiness to tackle urgent public problems, together.

Urging “equity-committed civic learning,” the “Shared Commitment” signatories call for civic inquiry, practice in civil discourse, and collaborative work on real-world public problems to be part of each postsecondary student’s educational pathway. 

“We celebrate the state systems—Maryland, Massachusetts, and Virginia—that already are making civic learning a higher education priority, said Robert Anderson, SHEEO’s President. “But in the spirit of the nation’s founders, all educators need to advance civic learning as an indispensable asset to a creative democracy.” 

The Shared Commitment pledge was organized by the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement (CLDE). Founded by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), Complete College America (CCA) and College Promise, CLDE is working in partnership with civic learning organizations and initiatives across the U.S. 

CLDE builds from the revival of civic learning already spreading across K-12 and hundreds of postsecondary institutions, spurred by the work of many educational organizations that endorsed the Shared Commitment statement.

“These efforts are a strong beginning, but much more is needed to make democracy learning expected, rather than possible, for postsecondary students,” said leaders of the organizations that joined the “Shared Commitment“ pledge.

The problem, say CLDE leaders, is that students from underserved communities are often the least likely to take part in programs and courses that help engage them with urgent public problems. 

CLDE seeks to expand the national debate from its insufficient focus on skills and short-term training to a larger concern with all college students’ civic, historical, global, and intercultural knowledge, and students’ active work on pressing public problems.

“Shared Commitment” signatories include the Higher Learning Commission which, in 2020, made civic engagement a criterion for the 967 institutions it accredits. Further, three signatory state systems recently launched comprehensive initiatives to advance civic learning for all students in their public community colleges and universities. 

Other signatories are working in private higher education, in public and private consortia, and in active and ongoing partnerships between universities and community-based organizations, local governments, and philanthropies.

The CLDE coalition will work on four goals to engage college students with democracy’s future:  

• Quality and Equity: Build commitment and capacity—across postsecondary education—to make civic learning and democracy engagement an expected part of a quality college education for all college students, with equitable participation by students from underserved communities a top priority.

• Democracy Engagement: Engage students with democracy’s history, present and future in a diverse United States, in U.S. communities still struggling to reverse inherited disparities, and in a globally interdependent world where authoritarianism is on the rise.

• Collaborative Problem-Solving: Prepare each postsecondary student, through creative combinations of general education, arts and sciences studies, and career-related studies, to work directly on selected public problems that society needs to solve—e.g., problems in racial healing, health, education, housing, climate, digital access, human rights, justice systems, interfaith cooperation, and more.  

• Policy Commitment: Secure policy support for and robust public investment in the goals listed above.

To sign the Shared Commitment statement, join the CLDE movement, and share your own work toward the CLDE goals, visit www.CollegeCivicLearning.org

“The House Education and Labor Committee has put forward bold, historic legislation to make college more affordable for millions of students, invest in proven college completion strategies, and help address longstanding inequities in higher education. The Build Back Better Act is a significant first step toward building a federal-state financing partnership resulting in more affordable college opportunities and increased student success. SHEEO is particularly pleased to see funding for states to implement evidence-based practices to help more students complete college. Other notable investments in the proposal, including teacher preparation, minority-serving institutions, and Pell Grants, will benefit students, institutions, and communities while aiding state efforts to achieve educational attainment goals. SHEEO looks forward to working with House and Senate leaders to build on this proposal in the weeks ahead.”

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) welcomes Sarah T. Zipf, Ph.D., as a communications intern.

At SHEEO, Sarah will focus on extending our social media presence, marketing and communication projects, and building public relations. Sarah served as the associate director of compliance and financial aid for outreach and online education and oversaw the financial aid office and scholarship portfolio for the Penn State World Campus. In addition to working at SHEEO, Sarah is a member of several research teams, investigating the form, function, and policy implications of online program management (OPMs) and the diversity and equity language used at U.S.-based international campus locations. She earned her Ph.D. in higher education from Pennsylvania State University in August 2021. Her dissertation researched the experiences of racialization in online undergraduate classrooms. Sarah’s research interests include online and distance education, educational equity, and federal and state policy. She is experienced with mixed-methods and survey administration.

ABOUT THE STATE HIGHER EDUCATION EXECUTIVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) serves the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs. Founded in 1954, SHEEO promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership. For more information, visit https://sheeo.org.

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) welcomes Kelsey Kunkle as a policy analyst.

Kelsey will be located at SHEEO’s Boulder, Colorado, office, where she will assist with the collection of higher education finance data, provide quality controls and quantitative analysis, contribute to writing the state higher education finance (SHEF) report and related issue briefs, and support efforts to improve and expand the report in new directions.

Prior to serving as a policy analyst at SHEEO, Kelsey spent the summer of 2021 as a state policy intern where she focused on the SHEF project and contributed to the development of issue briefs related to public higher education finance. Prior to joining SHEEO, Kelsey served in multiple student and academic affairs roles at the University of North Texas. In these positions, she primarily supported the academic transitions of community college transfer and returning adult students. Kelsey holds a B.A. in communication from the University of Maryland and an M.Ed. in college student personnel from Western Carolina University. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in higher education at the University of North Texas, where she most recently served as a graduate research assistant.

ABOUT THE STATE HIGHER EDUCATION EXECUTIVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) serves the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs. Founded in 1954, SHEEO promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership. For more information, visit https://sheeo.org.