April 4, 2007
John Saltmarsh asserts that the original purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates for a life of involved and active citizenship, and he believes that community-based teaching and learning can best bring about such "civic learning." He outlines three domains of knowledge: foundational, professional, and socially responsive, and shows how civic learning can bring about socially responsive knowledge and behaviors. He will discuss the importance of civic learning and methods to incorporate civic learning outcomes in individual courses. Sample course objectives and syllabi that demonstrate outcomes of knowledge, skills and values will be used in this session. To help us plan food purchases, please register for this event.
John is the Director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston as well as a faculty member in the Department of Leadership in Education in the Graduate College of Education. From 1998 through 2005, he directed the Project on Integrating Service with Academic Study at Campus Compact. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from Boston University and taught for over a decade at Northeastern University and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Feinstein Institute for Public Service at Providence College. He is the author of numerous book chapters and articles on civic engagement, service-learning, and experiential education. His writings have appeared in Liberal Education, the Michigan Journal for Community Service Learning, Academe: The Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, the Journal of Experiential Education, the National Society for Experiential Education Quarterly and the Journal of Cooperative Education. He has served as the guest editor for a special issue on service-learning and civic engagement of the Journal of Public Affairs and serves on the editorial board of the Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning and the board of the AACU Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement.