{"id":800,"date":"2019-11-21T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/?p=800"},"modified":"2019-11-20T15:34:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T15:34:47","slug":"how-to-construct-a-campus-civic-action-plan-learning-from-the-university-of-illinois-at-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/2019\/11\/21\/how-to-construct-a-campus-civic-action-plan-learning-from-the-university-of-illinois-at-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Construct a Campus Civic Action Plan: Learning from the University of Illinois at Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dick Simpson, author and co-author of a number of books on political action, ethics, and politics, is a guest contributor for the RAISE the Vote Campaign<\/a>. The views expressed in the posts and articles featured in the RAISE the Vote campaign are those of the authors and contributors alone and do not represent the views of APSA.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is a relatively young university that was relocated to the current campus in 1965. It is a diverse urban campus but the lessons from our civic engagement efforts guided by a Civic Action Plan<\/a> can be used on any campus.<\/p>\n

Three steps<\/span> need to be in place before constructing an effective civic action plan.<\/h3>\n

First, you need university administration support grounded in the college mission statement and backing from the university president, chancellor, or provost.\u00a0 Second, a civic engagement core group should coordinate efforts. Its members include faculty, administrators, and student leaders so that resources from departments, centers, student groups, and administrative units are multiplied.\u00a0 Third, the group needs to draw up a civic engagement calendar to share throughout the university. \u00a0UIC had all of these in place before its 2019-2020 civic action plan.<\/p>\n

A plan has to have specific targets so that progress can be measured.\u00a0 For the 2020 elections, we utilized data from the last presidential election cycle as the baseline. Our goals are:<\/p>\n