I read with interest The Daily Free Press’s Dec. 4 editorial concerning the Project Citizen course at Boston University (“Experience Spreads Civic Virtue,” p.4). It identified important ideas, and I’d like to offer some clarification about the goals of the course and of Project Citizen.
The editorial board wonders whether the course will go beyond just observing and understanding public policy. The online description of the course reads, in part, “Students apply a model of citizen action (Project Citizen) to analyze and influence a current public policy of their choice.” What is this model? Here’s the description of Project Citizen on the Center for Civic Education’s website: “Entire classes of students or members of youth or adult organizations work cooperatively to identify a public policy problem in their community. They then research the problem, evaluate alternative solutions, develop their own solution in the form of a public policy and create a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy. Participants develop a portfolio of their work and present their project in a public hearing . . . before a panel of civic-minded community members.” Students ought to observe and understand public policy – but the course also requires that they apply their understanding to a particular public policy issue of their choice and grapple with finding and promoting a solution.
We have a great deal of experience with Project Citizen at the pre-college level, both here in the United States and in numerous countries overseas. Only recently has Project Citizen been applied to the college level, including at the University of Jordan in Amman, where students use the model to fulfill their community service requirement. What Project Citizen will evolve into at BU is an open question. We view the two-credit course as a starting point, not as an end. Students who enroll in the course will have a role in shaping Project Citizen and helping us think through how best to adapt the model to the BU community (and, in turn, to serve as a model for other universities). So far, most of the students in the spring course are from CAS, along with one from COM and one from SED. We like that. We are committed to the principle that whatever Project Citizen becomes at BU, it remains open to the entire student body across colleges and disciplines. We’re all in this together. So join us in SED ED 225 in the spring and get in on the ground floor!
Charles White
Director, Projects in Civic Engagement School of Education
