Education for American Civic Life initiative

Overview

The mission of the Teagle Foundation is “to support and strengthen liberal arts education, which we see as fundamental to meaningful work, effective citizenship, and a fulfilling life.” 

Through Education for American Civic Life, the Foundation seeks to elevate the civic objectives of liberal arts education by partnering with institutions offering bold and coherent initiatives that endow students with the content, skills, and sensibility to participate in a political system designed for self-governance. While progress has been made at many institutions of higher education to promote civic action and various forms of community service as part of the undergraduate experience, the Foundation is especially concerned with grounding such action and service in comprehensive civic knowledge through teaching, reading, debate, and discussion centered in the curriculum.

The Teagle Foundation welcomes the participation of a diverse array of institutions—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive and research universities—in this initiative. 

Specific Areas of Interest
The Education for American Civic Life Initiative is focused on funding in two particular areas: (1) anchoring significant questions in democratic thought in local history and community and (2) strengthening preparation for public service.

• Anchor Significant Civic Questions of Democracy in Local History: Projects are anchored by a significant question concerning the past and present challenges of democracy in the community in which the college or university is located—whether this is a metropolitan center such as Newark, New Jersey, with a long history of successive migrations into and out of the city, or rural Virginia, site of a major Civil War campaign and the struggle over segregation and civil rights. Some of our partner institutions design first-year core curricula while others work within divisions such as an honors college or a pre-professional program. In both cases, faculty design a series of courses to ensure that students are prepared to be informed and engaged civic participants in their local and national communities. These programs explicitly help students grasp the lived experience—past and present—of their neighbors outside the campus gates as a valuable aspect of a civic education that builds on their education in areas like governance, history, literature, and law.
• Strengthen Preparation for Public Service: The Foundation is committed to giving students the education they need to participate in public service, whether by formal post-college employment in the public sector or as public-minded participants in civic life. In addition to valuable curricular interventions, the Foundation supports programs that explicitly offer students a supported pathway to public service. Typically, Teagle-funded programs offer foundational courses in civic education followed by opportunities to learn about and work in public service. Strong initiatives have taken students through rigorous humanities seminars in democratic theory followed by opportunities to solve significant civic challenges and participate in public service internships.

Required Attributes

• Invest in Faculty Leadership and Learning
• Focus on Undergraduate Education
• Sustainability
• Assessment
• Dissemination

Requests for grant support will be considered following our two-stage application process. First, we ask that prospective grantees share brief (3-5 page) concept papers. After review of the concept papers, a limited number of applicants will then be invited to submit full proposals.

Concept papers for this initiative will be reviewed three times per year with submissions due by December 1, March 1, and August 1.

All concept papers should be submitted electronically at [email protected]. If invited, full proposals will be submitted through the Foundation’s online application system.

Project duration: 24-36 month period