The Civic Learning Network strives to support the GVSU faculty and staff who provide resources for the development of ethically and effectively engaged citizens in a democratic society.

Civic Change Agent Undergraduate Badge

• The Civic Change Agent Undergraduate Badge aims to inspire students to align democratic ideals and civic commitment with deep knowledge of context, history, and policy. It teaches students the values and practices required to sustain democracy through formal curricula, project learning, and co-curricular activities. A badge is a digital record of achievement that recognizes completion of a coherent and meaningful academic experience. Students can link your digital badges to online résumés and portfolios, career websites, or social media. This gives them a way to share experiences, competencies, or knowledge with current and future employers, professional and community organizations, recruiters, and graduate programs.

Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center

• The Pew FTLC offers support for faculty interested in community based teaching and scholarship, with faculty learning communities around the topic, grant funding opportunities for community-based teaching projects, individual or departmental consultations around CBL course development, project integration and mutuality, and on-demand workshops.  
• Learn more about the GVSU Civic Engagement Student Learning Outcomes.
• Activate online modules are available on Blackboard to help prepare students for civic engagement and understand the difference between volunteerism and engaging in meaningful, service-oriented, community-facing work.

Office of Student Life-Civic Engagement

• Visit the Office of Student Life-Civic Engagement website to find educational resources for civic engagement.

Office of Civic Learning and Community Engagement

• GVSU's Office of Civic Learning and Community Engagement provides valuable resources to students, faculty/staff, and community members in the areas of civic learning and community engagement. Check out the site for more information.

The Haustein Center for Presidential Studies

• The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies strives to prepare a new generation of leaders to deal effectively with diverse ideas and cultures through it’s Common Ground Initiative, a program unique in higher education. All conferences and events are free and open to the public. Find out more by visiting their site.

Padnos/Sarosik Civic Discourse Program

• GVSU’s Padnos/Sarosik Civil Discourse Program prepares students to be agents of social change who practice and model civil discourse. The program also provides helpful resources for engaging in civil discourse. 

Association of American Colleges and Universities

• Check out Civic Prompts- Designed to help build faculty capacity to incorporate civic learning in major courses and programs, this publication provides a process, or set of prompts, faculty can use to define and explore the public purposes and civic inquiries embedded in their disciplines.
• Learn more about the AACU's political learning and democratic engagement model, Learn-Engage-Vote
• Find out how you can incorporate Civic Learning into your unique discipline by reading the article "Civic Learning in the Major by Design".

Campus Compact

• This white paper provides compelling evidence that college students who participate in civic engagement and service-learning activities as part of the curriculum, earn higher grade point averages and have a better chance of staying in college and earning degrees. 

Bringing Theory to Practice

• Bringing Theory to Practice has published seven books and partnered on special issues of two journals. You can access all but one of them for free, along with a sampler of essays selected from our publications.

Center for Civic Education

• The Michigan Center for Civic Education offers opportunities for professional development and concepts to be applied in the classroom and beyond to support civic education..
• The Center for Civic Education develops high-quality curricular materials, provides exceptional professional development for teachers, and advocates for stronger civic education in the United States and emerging democracies.

Looking for more resources?  Check out our General Resources webpage for even more good stuff!

 General Resources Listing