Rethinking the "Apprenticeship of Liberty": The Case for Academic Programs in Community Engagement in Higher Education (original) (raw)

2012, Journal of College and Character

This article articulates a model for the "engaged campus" through academic programs focused on community engagement, broadly construed. Such academic programs-usually coalesced in certificate programs, minors, and majors-provide a complementary vision for the deep institutionalization of civic and community engagement in the academy that can revitalize an "apprenticeship of liberty" for students, faculty, and academic staff. B enjamin Barber (1985, 1992) has long argued for the critical place that individuals as engaged citizens hold in the democratic process. Picking up on de Tocqueville's eloquent phrase that "the apprenticeship of liberty is never easy," Barber (2004, 2012) has argued that, without a true citizenry, we are beholden to the vagaries of structural forces and political calculus. His is not an isolated voice; the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) has argued for many years now that it is imperative for our colleges and universities to provide the knowledge, skills and dispositions that reinforce what it means to be a critical thinker and engaged citizen (AAC&U, 2007; see also Dalton & Crosby, 2011; Hoy & Meisel, 2008). Yet I want to suggest that our current practices, our dedicated and passionate attemptsembodied in such practices as community service, service-learning, and experiential education more broadly-are not enough. It is not that such initiatives are misguided or lacking substance or vision. Rather, they are not enough for two distinct reasons: They are not sustainable in their current form and practice and, by underplaying the difficulties of such an "apprenticeship of liberty," they actually undermine the hard work-by faculty, students, administrators, and community partnersto truly fashion and create meaningful and long-lasting change both in our institutions and in our communities. The first reason is embodied by a shallow institutionalization that has reached what I call an "engagement ceiling." The second reason is characterized by an ever-increasing gap between the rhetoric and reality of what civic and community engagement is meant to be and to do. This article is thus an attempt to articulate a model for the "engaged campus" through academic programs focused on community engagement, broadly construed. Such academic programsusually coalesced in certificate programs, minors, and majors-provide a complementary vision for the deep institutionalization of civic and community engagement in the academy; one that, I suggest, can-in parallel with ongoing practices, policies, and programs-revitalize this apprenticeship of liberty for our students, faculty, and academic staff.