Civic Engagement Academy
Mission: The mission of the Civic Engagement Academy is to create a campus community linked together by our interest in being informed, active, and skilled citizens who are committed to serve the public good. The Civic Engagement Academy accomplishes this mission through curricular and co-curricular activities that create opportunities for students to find an influential role in their university, local, national, and global communities. As citizens of an urban public university, we support UB’s commitment to be an active and contributing community partner.
Do you believe you have a responsibility to think about the role you play in your community? Are you involved with any groups that have organized to improve the quality of life or the functioning of your community? Are you drawn to “making a difference?” Are you interested in exploring ways in which your education, employment, and role in your community can make a positive and measurable difference?
If you believe “What we do MATTERS,” welcome to the Civic Engagement Academy—a community of students and faculty linked together by our interest in being engaged citizens and empowering our communities.
Definition of Civic Engagement: Civic Engagement (CE) has many meanings. Today, CE includes “community service,” “service learning,” or social action, but is larger in scope. Essentially, CE is “being involved” in the life of a community. CE can take the form of serving or responding to an issue as an individual, with others in the community, or through interactions with community agencies or institutions. The goal of CE is to make practical contributions to a community’s development, growth, and functioning, and to serve the “public good.”
The Civic Engagement Academy promotes and encourages you to become an active, reflective, and critically thinking citizen within your community. You will learn about how civic engagement impacts communities. Under the direction of Academic Director, Peter Sobota, Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work, you will:
- Link coursework to practical, concrete experiences which improves your community (making learning “real”)
- Develop a personal philosophy of civic engagement and leadership through critical thinking about social issues, reflection and practice
- Analyze different modes of leadership
- Understand how relationships and power, related to class, race and gender, shape perspectives and strategies within agencies and organizations
- Embrace opportunities and methods for self-reflection
- Improve your ability to work with diverse groups and individuals
- Understand how research universities contribute to community improvement
Seminar Courses
The Undergraduate Academies offer an Introductory Academies seminar—UE 130—in the fall semester. This seminar allows students to explore interesting topics through the perspective of all three academies (Civic Engagement, Global Perspectives, and Research Exploration). Faculty will rotate through the three sections of the course helping expose students to a wider range of views. On a regular basis The Academies will offer academy-wide experiences to help students integrate the various perspectives and to bond as a community.
Through in and out of class experiences, students will:
- develop an awareness of the three academy focus areas,
- begin to appreciate how further study in these areas might be applied to study of important contemporary issues and how this might shape academic endeavors at UB,
- experience and meaningfully contribute to a community of faculty, staff, and fellow students eager to engage around common interests
Students are then encouraged to continue their Academies experience in the spring semester with an Academy specific seminar.
The Civic Engagement (CE) Academy offers a theme based seminar in the spring semester. This seminar is open to all undergraduate students.
- Explore how individuals and communities make change, and empower themselves to do so
- Provide theoretical, conceptual, and ethical frameworks for assessing, intervening, and evaluating outcomes in communities
- Explore what the roles and responsibilities of individual citizens as members and leaders of communities should be in the change process
- Discuss and analyze public policy at the grassroots level, the relationship between funding and social change, communication and coalition-building, and leadership development