Civic Reflection News Update — May 2008

News & Notes

Upcoming Facilitation Training

The Project on Civic Reflection's next facilitation training workshop will be held Thursday, September 18th through Friday, September 19th in Chicago. Please contact us if you are interested in signing up for this workshop.

Justice Talks: AmeriCorps Survey Results

We recently received exciting new survey data from Justice Talks, a civic reflection program for AmeriCorps members in Rhode Island. The data show a strong correlation between participation in civic reflection and a positive AmeriCorps experience.

Statistics:

• 69% of respondents said that Justice Talks had improved their AmeriCorps experience.
• 79% said that Justice Talks had improved their relationships with other AmeriCorps members.
• 36% said that they were more likely to sign on for another year with AmeriCorps because of Justice Talks.

Participant comments:

• This program opened my eyes to the beliefs and values of others.
• Justice Talks has reinforced my drive and passion for public service.
• It has made me put myself in the shoes of those I am serving and made me want to continue to serve my community throughout my life.
• [The conversations] have allowed me to connect my service experience to the issues facing the community everyday.
• I have really enjoyed these talks and am sad that they are coming to an end… This has been a GREAT experience!

Justice Talks is co-sponsored by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Rhode Island Service Alliance, and the Feinstein Institute for Public Service at Providence College, with support from The Meaning of Service, an Illinois Humanities Council program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Civic Reflection with Chicago's Logan Square Neighborhood Association

In partnership with the Project on Civic Reflection, the Illinois Humanities Council has been conducting a civic reflection program, Reflecting on Justice, with Chicago's Logan Square Neighborhood Association since June 2007. A nonprofit, multi-issue, grassroots community organization serving the multi-ethnic communities of the Logan Square and the Lathrop/Hamlin area, Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) develops local leadership to identify, strategize, and organize around community issues that affect residents' lives. Among them are affordable housing, school reform, living-wage jobs, land-use and zoning, economic development, health care, and neighborhood safety.

According to LSNA staff, Reflecting on Justice has given them a chance to reflect on these complex issues in a way that they otherwise might not. Readings are chosen to relate to challenges that staff members face in their work and to help them approach familiar questions in fresh ways. Among the readings the group has discussed so far are "The Nobodies" by Eduardo Galeano, Billy Collins's "The History Teacher" and "They'll Say 'She Must Be from Another Country'" by Imtiaz Dharker. An LSNA staff member has been trained to facilitate future conversations.

National Service-Learning Conference

The 19th Annual National Service-Learning Conference, the largest gathering of youths and practitioners in the service-learning movement, was held in Minneapolis April 9-12. The conference drew 3,000 participants from all 50 states and 19 other countries. The agenda included more than 200 workshops, more than 900 youth attendees, showcases of regional service-learning projects, and keynote speeches from internationally recognized experts.

Beth Marco, the Project's coordinator of programs in service and volunteerism, was a co-exhibitor of resources on civic reflection with Jason Smith of the Great Books Foundation. She reports that many visitors to the exhibit were looking specifically for resources to do reflection. Conference participants bought copies of The Civically Engaged Reader both for service learning and for other college courses. Participants also picked up the Project's Talking Service booklet, which will appear in a revised second edition from the Great Books Foundation this summer.

Civic Reflection and Nevada Humanities

Nevada Humanities invited Project on Civic Reflection executive director Elizabeth Lynn to make a half-day presentation on civic reflection programs to its board on May 4. Lynn introduced the concept of civic reflection, facilitated a discussion of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," and reviewed programs by other state humanities councils—including the councils of Illinois, Maine, Maryland and New Hampshire—using the civic reflection model.

Lynn also presented an exploratory session on civic reflection, sponsored by Nevada Humanities and the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, to about two dozen executive directors and board members from cultural organizations in Nevada. Participants were introduced to civic reflection as a board development program. Using two texts, Franz Kafka's "Fellowship" and Pablo Neruda's "The Lamb and the Pinecone", Lynn led participants in reflecting on the challenges they face as nonprofit boards, their motivations for doing the work they do, and their obligations to others in their communities.

These nonprofit leaders commented afterward that they hope to use civic reflection in a variety of ways, including at board orientations, at annual retreats, and as a regular part of the board meeting agenda. They expect civic reflection to improve communication within their boards and to "bring out passion and commitment" among members.

Retirement Community Staff Discuss Giving

The Geneva Programs Committee of Presbyterian Homes in Evanston, Illinois, included civic reflection in their first annual committee retreat on May 16. The session was attended by committee members and staff of Presbyterian Homes, including the CEO. Susie Quern Pratt, the Project's coordinator of programs in philanthropy, facilitated an opening discussion of "Four Traditions of Philanthropy". Participants used the framework of the article to think through the evolution of the charitable programs of Presbyterian Homes.

Book Review

Shanti Elliott, an English teacher at Francis Parker School in Chicago, reviews The Civically Engaged Reader in the current issue of Schools: Studies in Education, published by the University of Chicago Press. Here is an excerpt from the review:

"There is something about real democratic engagement. . . that emerges from sources deeper than political philosophy and more mysterious than planned structures for grassroots social projects. It has a ritual energy that books have a hard time summoning forth; this ritual energy comes from people being together in their ideals, their suffering and their delight.

The real accomplishment of The Civically Engaged Reader is that it taps into this energy with the stories, questions and dilemmas that are most human. Bringing together the perspectives of writers as diverse as Kafka, Maimonides, and Lincoln, the anthology highlights and mediates relationship more effectively than any other book I know."

Read more…

Program Spotlight

Advocacy Group Uses Civic Reflection for Organizational Development

A recently formed Chicago advocacy group for immigrant rights, the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE), supports comprehensive immigration reform and more just treatment of undocumented immigrants. Since late last year, AFIRE has been using conversation about readings by Pablo Neruda, Franz Kafka, Toni Cade Bambara and others to develop its organizational structure and mission.

Discussions have been facilitated by AFIRE directors Jerry Clarito and Arnold de Villa, who both attended a facilitation training workshop co-sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council and the Project on Civic Reflection last summer. Clarito reports that members' interest in the series has been strong: "Word got around that civic reflection not only helps the organization but helps participants personally with what they are doing." He adds that "the longer the series went on, the deeper and broader the sharing of experiences." Clarito believes that participants' willingness to commit to the whole series is key to a quality civic reflection experience. He notes that civic reflection provided important support to AFIRE's organizational development and has become part of AFIRE's culture.

Through the AFIRE series, civic reflection has been spreading to other Chicago organizations. Clarito is preparing to launch a series with staff at the daycare center where he works, and he has introduced civic reflection to the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA). Yoly T. Tubalinal, a member of NaFFAA and the editor-publisher of the Fil-Am Weekly Megascene, recently published a column about civic reflection as a way for organizations to combat burnout among their members. She included this comment by Jelly Carandang, regional secretary of NaFFAA's Midwest region:

To be honest, I read the topic and the article several times before our meeting, but did not see the connection, until each of us had shared our own understanding and interpretation. I left last night with a renewed and improved perspective. I can feel that the civic reflections are now turning into personal reflections that I am sure will help in all facets of my daily life.

Read Tubalinal's column here.

New on Our Website

… in the Facilitators' Forum

More and more, civic reflection is being used by colleges and universities as they work to build civic engagement on campus and in their communities. Here are a few recent submissions from facilitators working with college and university groups.

• "A Visit of Charity" by Eudora Welty. University faculty and staff in diverse fields, from art to business to chemistry, gather to share their service-learning projects and to discuss the deep questions about service raised by Welty's story.

• "Healing" by Wendell Berry. Health and Human Services faculty and staff use Berry's poem to explore what sustains them in service.

• "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes. Hughes' poem provides an opening exercise for a faculty and staff workshop on diversity.

Have you led a civic reflection discussion lately? Please share your experiences with us!

…in the Resource Library

"The Fallacy of Success" by G.K. Chesterton

• What is success?
• What is and is not in our power?
• Does money automatically give us power? If so, how should we use that power?

"Mercy" by Richard Selzer

• Does it take guilt to make us give or serve?
• What makes it hard for us to help each other?
• Are we accountable to anyone or anything? Who? What?

"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde

• Does true giving require sacrifice?
• Can we be too generous with our gifts?
• How does a person learn compassion?