Building Civic Capacity on Campus Through a Radically Inclusive Teaching and Learning Initiative
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Building Civic Capacity on Campus Through a Radically Inclusive Teaching and Learning Initiative Alice Lesnick & Alison Cook-Sather
Published online: 6 October 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract In this article we explore the definition and development of civic capacity at a liberal arts college through a specific teaching and learning initiative. This initiative encourages faculty, staff, and students to share the roles of teacher, learner, and colleague as they gain educational opportunities and foster these for others. Through a description of two programs and analysis of participants’ reflections, we identify four stages of change that foster civic capacity. We suggest that this initiative invites a re-interpretation of the institution as a site of educational opportunities and raises questions about how to broaden access to these opportunities. Key words civic capacity . collaboration . change The civic spaces of a residential college campus—buildings, walkways and greens, and online contexts—are occupied and crisscrossed daily by the citizens of the college. Whom do we see in these spaces, and what is their work? With whom do we interact and to what ends? What do these images and interactions tell us about the nature and possible development of civic capacity on the college campus? At Bryn Mawr College our answers to these questions have changed dramatically over the last 3 years as we have developed programs under the umbrella of the Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI). We have found that relationships change when campus community members who have differing Alice Lesnick is Senior Lecturer in Education at Bryn Mawr College, Director of the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program, and Coordinator of Staff/Student Partnerships. She earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Liberal Education from St. John’s College. Her research interests include collaboration and collaborative learning and connections between language, thinking, and embodied knowledge. Alison Cook-Sather is Professor of Education and Coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Initiative at Bryn Mawr College. She earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in English Education from Stanford University. Her main research interests are metaphors for education and the role of students in educational practice, critique, and reform. A. Lesnick (*) : A. Cook-Sather (*) Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] e-mail:[email protected]
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Innov High Educ (2010) 35:3–17
institutional roles (faculty, staff, and students) engage the educational mission of the College as teachers and learners, and so does their understanding of the College’s central mission of fostering learning. In the following descriptive analysis of our work through the Teaching and Learning Initiative, we tell the story of how the initiative developed and evolved; and we share the experiences of community members who have participated in the TLI to illuminate
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