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Moving Through Dialogue: Campus, Community, and the Local Economy

Learn how the University of Maine at Augusta promotes civic engagement through the use of deliberative forums and community events centered around economic values. Discover how they integrate these discussions into their annual colloquium and engage various constituents.

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Moving Through Dialogue: Campus, Community, and the Local Economy

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  1. Moving Through Dialogue: Campus, Community, and the Local Economy AASCU 2010, Providence, RI Kathleen King Robert Kellerman University of Maine at Augusta

  2. ADP Initiative: Stanford University (2008) trained for the deliberative polling process. • We adapted our process to be more general, open to the public at large, and easier to organize – Our goal: education for campus and community.

  3. Deliberative Forum • Forum that brings participants together for conversation about a given issue in order to develop more informed citizens. Participants gather to discuss issue, ask questions of experts, and become more informed on an issue. • It is not a debate. Participants all have equal contributions. There are no “experts” in the discussion. • Moderator, time keeper, note taker. • Introductions, timed topic discussion, notes, review.

  4. UMA’s Annual Colloquium We tie our forum to our annual colloquium theme This year - “Economic Values.” UMA’s colloquium brings together faculty and staff to choose a text that’s integrated into as many courses as possible: this year, James Eggert’sMeadowlark Economics.

  5. UMA’s Annual Colloquium • This theme also provides the theme for our fall convocation and its speaker (this year, Tom Chappell of Tom’s of Maine), the spring forum that we organize, and other events that faculty or staff create.

  6. “Making Ends Meet: Innovation and Sustainability in Maine • We tied the event to a keynote address by Edgar Cahn, founder of TimeBanking USA, a system of institutionalized bartering that creates an alternative, non-monetary based local economy.

  7. The afternoon panel discussion was moderated by Kit St. John, Director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy.

  8. Our expert panel included • Angus King III, First Wind – Windpower: The future Energy Opportunity for Maine • Pat Sirois, Maine Sustainable Forestry Initiative: A New Vision for Maine’s Forests and Wood Harvesting • Matthew Polstein, New England Outdoor Center: Maine Tourism in a New Light

  9. Useful Sources National Issues Forum: provides potential topics and moderator questions. Best place to start if you’re interested in doing a project like that of UMA. American Democracy Project, part of the AASCU website, covers the basics of a deliberative forum. Good place to get an overview. America Speaks is a “town hall” e-meeting that links participants nationwide via the Net to discuss a topic. Though not a deliberative forum per se, this is another excellent resource for a campus event promoting citizens’ involvement in direct democracy.

  10. How to Organize and Hold a Forum—Some Suggestions Use the resources that we’ve mentioned. They are excellent, and you won’t have to invent the wheel. Organizing the forum is a fair amount of work, at least the first time, and these resources save you a lot of time. Bring faculty and staff together to organize the forum. There are several advantages to this kind of partnership. Faculty can help get buy-in from other faculty via their college and department meetings, which will help guarantee an audience. Staff can do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, and there is a fair amount of it, at least the first time. Seek out various constituents to participate in the forum. The more constituents involved, the bigger your turnout and the more successful the forum will be. We involved students, UMA’s Senior College, members of the local time bank and chamber of commerce, alumni, and local interested citizens. Tie the forum to larger campus events if you are able. Connecting it to our annual colloquium has provided us with a theme and an audience. We have also added a keynote address to the day’s events, and that has brought in even more participants.

  11. How to Organize and Hold a Forum—Some Suggestions Get dates and topic out early to instructors, certainly before the beginning of the term for which you’re planning the forum. That way the event can be integrated into their curriculum and their syllabi. This will help build your audience. Identify appropriate media outlets beyond those to which your PR office normally sends press releases. There are many outlets appropriate to your topic that won’t be covered by the usual newspaper and television stations: in our case, these included business guilds, local chambers of commerce, the local time banking organization, and so on. Sell the event to students as a résumé builder. Students should participate in the event as much as possible. They can serve as moderators, timekeepers, session summarizers, and so on. These leadership positions and skills are excellent workplace training and should be presented as such. Look for funds in a variety of places. Student government, student programming, Provost office, Committees of various sorts, business organizations, private donors. And don’t forget, it doesn’t have to cost too much….

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