Civic Reflection News Update — November 2007

New Seed Grants

In October the Project on Civic Reflection awarded two new seed grants, described below.

Chicago Immigrant Rights Group to Use Civic Reflection for Board Development

Officers and members of AFIRE, the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, will hold six monthly civic reflection sessions to discuss the immigration experience of Filipinos within the context of active civic participation. Using fiction and poetry by Pablo Neruda, Toni Cade Bambara and other writers, participants will explore the meaning of giving, service, and leadership in the pursuit of social justice. Civic reflection will support AFIRE in its organizational development and become an integral part of its training curriculum. The mission of AFIRE's partner organization, Pintig Cultural Group, is to give voice to the Filipino-American community by celebrating its rich artistic and cultural heritage.

Civic Reflection at Boston College Center on Wealth & Philanthropy

The Center on Wealth & Philanthropy at Boston College will use civic reflection to help a group of wealth-holders in the greater Boston area to begin a conversation about the achievement of wealth and its personal and public consequences. Using texts by Ovid, Tocqueville, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie, among others, participants will ponder such issues as how and why people live in and through their possessions; what it really means to save, to earn and to spend; and what the relationship is between wealth and civic goods.

Click here for a complete list of Project on Civic Reflection seed grant recipients.

New on Our Website

New Spanish Translations

In response to growing interest in civic reflection among non-native speakers of English, we've added four popular readings to our website in Spanish translation. Check them out on our Sample Materials page.

New in the Resource Library

The Resource Library is an extensive collection of questions and readings designed to spur reflection on civic activity. Following are recent additions to the library along with a few questions they raise.

"What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie

• Is money a good gift?
• What duties or obligations do I have toward my family?
• What is the relation between justice and law?

"Good-Bye World" by Suketu Mehta

• Can people of faith be wealthy in a world that faces poverty?
• What does it mean to love humanity?
• What is our responsibility to the natural world?

"Concerning Christian Liberty" by Martin Luther

• What are our motives for giving to or serving others? Does it matter what our motives are?
• What is my duty to my neighbor? What, if anything, releases me from that duty?
• What is the relation between giving or serving and freedom?

New in the Facilitators' Forum

The Facilitators' Forum provides an opportunity for leaders of civic reflection conversations to share their experiences and insights. Recent submissions include:

"Reveries of the Solitary Walker" by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau's ambivalent reflections on giving inspire a group of VISTA volunteers to discuss how giving is related to power, to civic engagement, and to their own work in urban high schools.

"The Lovers of the Poor" by Gwendolyn Brooks. A group of university students, professors, staff members and community partners in a service-learning program use Brooks' poem to explore what it means to be a giver and receiver of service.

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin. LeGuin's story about an imprisoned child prompts AmeriCorps members to reflect on questions of sacrifice, suffering, and injustice.

Program Spotlight

Retirees and Teens Discuss Service

The Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Akron, Ohio, recipient of a 2007 Project on Civic Reflection seed grant, has been holding a series of civic reflection programs at local assisted living facilities and the Akron Women's Club since May. Using readings from The Civically Engaged Reader by Robert Frost, Toni Cade Bambara, Bertolt Brecht and others, participants have explored the meanings and motivations of their service. Participants in the current series, taking place weekly through November, include both retired volunteers and students from a Catholic girls' high school.



Says Inese Alvarez, RSVP project director and the series organizer, "I hope [the November series] will be a springboard for more contact between youth and seniors and more inter-generational service." She is planning a service activity that would allow the two groups to work as well as talk together. Tivoli Smith, who facilitated the October series, commented on the racial diversity of participants and the enthusiasm of their evaluations. Wrote one, "It made me more aware of the importance of civic activity and the impact a volunteer can make in a positive way," and another, "I feel that I now will begin to avail myself of more opportunities to serve."

Civic Reflection News & Notes

2007 National Humanities Conference

Civic Reflection was on the agenda at the 2007 National Humanities Conference, held in Williamsburg, Virginia on November 2-4, 2007. Leaders of state humanities councils participated in several sessions that used short readings to help the councils tackle tough questions about their work. Jamila Owens of the Georgia Humanities Council facilitated a conversation about grant-making using the French story "The Eleventh" as a starting point. Tonya Matthews of Maryland joined Project on Civic Reflection director Elizabeth Lynn in leading a conversation about Frost's "Mending Wall" and Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa", in which council leaders explored the ways in which their work builds, mends or breaks down walls between different groups in American society.

Participants noted both how effective and how appropriate it was to use readings in the humanities to think and talk more deeply about the work of state humanities councils.

Civic Reflection with Mennonite Giving Circle

A giving circle comprised of staff members of Mennonite Mutual Aid, the stewardship aid society of the Mennonite Church, gathered over lunch in Goshen, Indiana on October 25th for an introduction to civic reflection. Elizabeth Lynn led the group in discussing the Four Traditions of Philanthropy as these traditions relate to the work and theology of the Mennonite Church. The rich conversation that followed suggests that civic reflection may be a valuable resource for giving circles in faith-based and other communities.

2007 Meaning of Service Conference

The Meaning of Service, the national program bringing civic reflection to AmeriCorps members, held its third annual conference in Chicago on October 18-19. The two-day event, described by a participant as "fertile ground for both formal and informal learning," brought together over 30 facilitators, AmeriCorps program staff, and humanities council staff from 13 states in a "best practices" workshop. In addition to doing civic reflection—using readings by George Orwell, O. Henry, and Mikhail Naimy—participants focused on the key elements of successful programs and laid groundwork for future Meaning of Service initiatives.

Civic Reflection and the Community Investment Network

Civic reflection was on the agenda at the 2007 Community Investment Network conference, "Civic Responsibility: Re-connecting People to their Communities," held in Durham, North Carolina from October 5-7. A group of about 40 conference participants engaged in a reflective conversation on the civic web that connects individual citizens and on the relationship between philanthropy and social change.

Among the Community Investment Network's goals are to demystify institutional philanthropy and to foster new philanthropic leadership in communities of color. Featured speakers at the conference were Dr. Emmett D. Carson, President and C.E.O. of Silicon Valley Community Foundation; Reverend Romal Tune, C.E.O. and President of Clergy Strategic Alliances; and Ms. Margaret Rose Murray, community philanthropist and Co-Founder of Vital Link School.

Civic Reflection with Ohio AmeriCorps

Over 60 directors of AmeriCorps Ohio programs attended a staff meeting in Columbus on August 29, at which Project director Elizabeth Lynn gave a presentation on civic reflection and led a model discussion. In the coming year the directors will facilitate civic reflection series of up to 14 sessions with all of the nearly 1,000 AmeriCorps members serving organizations throughout the state. Said a participant afterward: "Powerful! I am excited to implement this with members and also see the value on a much larger scale."

For further information on Project on Civic Reflection facilitation training workshops, or if you are interested in bringing civic reflection to your own state or organization, please contact our staff at (219) 464-6767, or at civic.reflection@valpo.edu.