MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Six Middle Tennessee State University students presented poster research at the national Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement meeting, the annual conference of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities this year held in Detroit, Michigan.

Honors students Dante Buttrey, Hannah Ferreira, Victoria Grigsby, and R.J. Ware were joined by Experiential Learning student Marcus Rosario and Graduate Studies student Nancy Prescott in collaborating on the project titled “Know Your Ballot 2024: MTSU Students Educate Fellow Students About Our Legislators.” The project presented Rutherford County legislators’ voting records graphically, with a QR link to the wording of each piece of legislation that was voted for or against.

Buttrey, Ferreira, Grigsby and Ware are Department of Political and Global Studies majors, while Rosario is a major in the School of Journalism and Strategic Media and Prescott is a candidate for the master’s in public history in the Department of History. 

Ferreira and Rosario are also Andrew Goodman Foundation ambassadors, all six students are members and officers of the American Democracy Project student organization at MTSU.

Additionally, several faculty members presented at the conference.

Susan Myers-Shirk, Amy Sayward and Jennifer Pettit presented a panel titled “Civic Learning as a General Education Outcome” on MTSU’s new True Blue Core civic learning outcome. Myers-Shirk is director of MTSU’s True Blue Core. Sayward is on the university’s General Education, now True Blue Core, Committee. 

All three are members of the Department of History and all teach civic learning courses. The True Blue Core officially commences at MTSU in fall 2024. Any undergraduate General Education course may apply for Civic Learning designation as a secondary outcome.

Mary Evins, Honors professor and director of MTSU’s American Democracy Project, organized a panel presentation titled “Still Grappling with Institutionally Articulating the Higher Purpose: Framing Civic Learning and Community Engagement — Where are We in 2024?” with co-presenters Lesley Graybeal, University of Central Arkansas; David Hoffman, University of Maryland-Baltimore County; and Sandy Jacobs, University of North Carolina-Pembroke.

Evins represented the University Honors College as a member of the MTSU Faculty Working Group on Engaged Scholarship, which was chaired by Janet McCormick, communication studies professor and director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, or MALA, program. 

Its additional members included Mohammed Albakry, English professor; Priya Ananth, professor of Japanese; Sally Ann Cruikshank, associate journalism professor; Ronda Henderson, associate marketing professor; Katy Hosbein, assistant chemistry professor; Rachel Kirk, professor, Walker Library; Dianna Rust, university studies professor; Everett Singleton, associate education professor; Zhen Wang, political science professor; and Bethany Wrye, associate professor of public health. 

Studying universities across the country, the working group members researched, wrote, and presented the April 2024 white paper titled “Civic Vision for the University: Community Engaged Scholarship.”

A parallel academic year 2023-24 working group was the MTSU Faculty Working Group on Engaged Pedagogy chaired by Rebekka King, religious studies professor. Its year-end products were community-engaged syllabi in disciplines in every MTSU college. 

The working groups seek community engagement to become embedded in MTSU tenure and promotion requirements for scholarship and teaching, not only service. The groups were asked by Monica Smith, assistant to the president on Community Engagement and Inclusion, to evaluate the issue nationally and present their findings.

— Robin E. Lee (Robin.E.Lee@mtsu.edu)