The segment also featured program director Dennis Donovan. “There are a lot of issues in the world, and we need people to come together and solve these problems,” he said. “Having young people participate in public achievement gives them a skill-set and process that normally they would not have.”

Watch and read on the KARE 11 site.

The post Dennis Donovan discusses cookbook created by Public Achievement students in KARE 11 segment appeared first on News and Media.

Seeing democracy as more than just a way of electing leaders, Boyte examines the Civilian Conservation Corps as a model for infusing Americans’ work lives with a purpose greater than materialism. He states that, “as work has come to be seen only as a means to the good life and not of value in itself, the public dimensions of work and recognition of the importance of workers have sharply declined.”

Read: on the Huffington Post site.

The post Huffington Post publishes Harry Boyte column on The Fight for America’s Soul appeared first on News and Media.

Moving beyond public processes that merely pay lip service to community inclusion takes time, according to Christiansen. The MinnPost article quotes him as saying, “The community organizing approach to public engagement [that I prefer] takes a lot longer. Like any other community organizing, it involves trust building, relationship building, and lengthy listening. It’s really aiming for co-creation.”

In the article, Christiansen stresses that one important aspect of processes that successfully engage the public in city planning projects is timing. The earlier that planners can involve the public and establish communication with them about a project, the more likely it is that their involvement and communication will see a project through to completion. “The holy grail is the notion of inclusion. How do you do it for the whole duration of the project?” Christiansen says in the article.

Read:  on the MinnPost site.

The post MinnPost interviews Lars Christiansen on city planning appeared first on News and Media.

By Harry C. Boyte

Today, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday, I’ve been thinking about the March on Washington and how much its citizenship message is relevant.

In the summer of 1963, my father, Harry George Boyte, went on staff of King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. At his urging I hitchhiked across the country, arriving in Washington the day before, August 27, 1963, on my way to Duke as a freshman in the fall. I lay in a sleeping bag on the floor of his hotel room. Early in the morning, I heard King’s booming voice in a nearby room, practicing “I Have a Dream.”

It was an electric moment. The message took on added depth and power as the day unfolded. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred,” King thundered. The march’s program notes, issued in the name of March leaders but most likely written by organizer Bayard Rustin, conveyed a similar message, calling people to rise to a larger citizenship despite whatever justifiable anger many might feel. “In a neighborhood dispute there may be stunts, rough words, and even hot insults. But when a whole people speaks to its government, the dialogue and the action must be on a level reflecting the worth of that people and the responsibility of that government.”

As Charles Euchner describes in Nobody Turn Me Around, subtitled a “people’s history of the 1963 March on Washington,” the March’s citizenship message channeled a movement culture which had incubated for years in local “schools of citizenship” on college campuses and in beauty parlors, church basements and nonviolent training workshops. There, people developed the sobriety of citizens, the ability to put aside immediate impulses for the larger work, to “keep our eyes on the prize” in the words of the freedom song. I saw this process again and again as I worked in the Citizenship Education Program of SCLC over the next two years. All this added up to a vast process of citizenship education, which helped to wake up the nation after the somnolent, consumerist, privatized 1950s.

Today, we need a similar re-awakening. Private pursuits have taken the place of public ones. What one owns is too often the measure of one’s value. Our citizenship declines while we are entertained as spectators, pacified as clients, and pandered to as customers. We need again to call forth America’s democratic genius of a self-reliant, productive, future-oriented citizenry. And once again we need citizenship schools, for the new century.

Harry C. Boyte, Director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, is coordination of the American Commonwealth Partnership, which supports “democracy colleges for the 21st century” as schools for citizenship.

– Learn about the vision and mission of the American Commonwealth project through its

– “Like” DemocracyU on Facebook at .

– Sign up for DemocracyU email alerts at .

The post Practicing "I have a dream" and schools of citizenship appeared first on News and Media.

Harry C. Boyte is the co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on organizing theory and practice at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and is in demand as a keynote speaker with faculty, students, and professionals.

Americans this election season are in an angry, anxious mood that defies easy labels. As Joel Klein describes in a Time cover story based on conversations across the country, “People told personal stories and made complicated arguments that didn’t fit neatly into their assigned political categories.” 

While people worried that the country may be moving toward a “European style of Big Government,” they also felt strongly that the unfettered market is no solution. “The disgraceful behavior of the financial community…was the issue that raised the most passion.” The financial crisis has led “more than a few people to question their own values and those of their neighbors.” Frank Rich echoed this insight on October 24 in the New York Times. “So many know that the loftiest perpetrators of this national devastation got get-out-of fail free cards [and] that the too-big-to-fail banks have grown bigger.”

It is worth recalling that in 2008, we elected a president whose message was “Yes we can,” based on the idea that large changes require a process of civic action far beyond what government alone can accomplish. He had learned a philosophy of civic agency—that we all must become agents of change—from his days as a community organizer. “I’m asking you not only to believe in my ability to make change; I’m asking you to believe in yours,” read the campaign website. Civic agency infused the campaign. As Tim Dickinson put it in Rolling Stone, “The goal is not to put supporters to work but to enable them to put themselves to work without having to depend on the campaign for constant guidance.”

This message resembles the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the People” establish government as the instrument of our work, “to form a more perfect Union, establish justice…promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty…” Citizens sensed then—and perhaps we all know even better now—that it will require a Preamble movement if we are to revitalize a strong sense of citizenship and ourselves as citizens, not complainers or customers of government. Only citizens can recall that government is “us,” not an alien “other,” the resource and meeting ground for our common work.

The post A Preamble Movement appeared first on News and Media.

This is the ninth annual series incorporating long-standing endowed and special programs of Augsburg College. The first convocation of the year is the Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium with lectures on October 6 and 7. The speaker is Martha E. Stortz, author and professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary/The Graduate Theological Union. Stortz will speak on “Costly Discipleship: Forgiveness as a Practice” and “Costly Citizenship: Regarding the Other in a Culture of Fear.”

Stortz holds a BA from Carleton College and completed her MA and PhD at the University of Chicago. She serves on leadership team for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Institutional Review Board and the Augsburg Fortress Board, as well as the editorial boards for Dialog, Word and World, and the online journal for Lutheran ethics. She is also the author of “The Beatitudes: Compass for Christian Discipleship,” a nine-month series in Lutheran Woman Today starting in September, 2008.

The Christensen Symposium is the first event in the series and was established by an endowment in 1990 honoring former Augsburg president Bernhard M. Christensen. The symposium reflects and reinforces his commitment to academic integrity, the Christian Gospel, and a mutually supportive relationship with the church community. The five lessons we learn from Bernhard M. Christensen include:

• Christian faith liberates minds and lives
• Diversity strengthens vital communities
• Interfaith friendships enrich learning
• The love of Christ draws us to God
• We are called to service in the world

The 2008 Bernard M. Christensen Symposium

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

October 6, 7:30 p.m.

“Costly Discipleship: Forgiveness as a Practice”

October 7, 11 a.m.

“Costly Citizenship: Regarding the Other in a Culture of Fear”

Class Schedule

Tuesday, October 7

1st Period 8:00-9:20

2nd Period 9:30-10:50

Convocation 11:00-12:00

3rd Period 12:10-1:20

Remaining classes follow regular schedule. See the Registrar’s website for the complete .

The post Christensen Symposium focuses on citizenship and discipleship appeared first on News and Media.