Student Committee on Public Engagement (SCOPE)
Prof. James Farr in the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota teaches a Practicum that challenges students to get civically engaged. This year much student effort has been devoted to developing the Student Committee on Public Engagement, or SCOPE. Here is a report by Nicolas Allyn, one of the Practicum Students, on the beginnings of SCOPE.
The Student Committee on Public Engagement has had a successful first full semester. The organization has hosted two productive conferences and presented itself as a legitimate stakeholder on the University of Minnesota (the University) campus. Members of S.C.O.P.E, now known as Scopers, have made many important personal relationships with people on campus and in the organization itself. Since the workgroup’s inception there have been obstacles internally and externally that have been overcome and have overcome us. The most pressing obstacles facing SCOPE now is deciding what direction we will take in the future and the internal structure of the group. SCOPE has a blurred vision of what we want, and where we want to be, but no definitive strategy to get us there.
My current personal operational vision for S.C.O.P.E. is a three tiered approach. The first tier is providing support and connection to civically engaged organizations and people at the U of M, and in the community. The second tier is outreach and recruitment of non-civically engaged individuals in the University community. The third tier is integrating S.C.O.P.E. into the University community. Short term strategy is comprised of actions that can be made that would achieve the tiers of the operational vision. Some of the possible action items will be explored later in the report. In order to accomplish this vision and strategic actions S.C.O.P.E. needs to make internal changes to become more efficient and structured without losing sight of its origins. The organization also needs to think about expansion and how that will happen.
The first tier of supporting and connecting those engaged organizations and individuals on campus and in the community was a large component of Civic Summit on March 31st, and the Capstone Conference on April 29th. The conferences have connected many good people in various communities. We always figured that even if the conferences flopped at least the people invited will create something constructive. Having students, faculty, staff and administration on the same level was refreshing and useful. The ideas that were expressed by the participants were from a variety of perspectives.
Information that was gathered really needs methodical analysis that will be compiled into some sort of summation document. This document should be sent out by mid summer. The document should have the main values, endangerments to those values and actions that were discussed at the Civic Summit. Also in the document should be the thoughts on the five action items that were discussed at the Capstone Conference. Most importantly a list of all people who attended the conferences should be included. The list ought to include their organization and contact information. This will hopefully facilitate communication and collaboration between the participants. The newsletter could be an E-newsletter or a traditional newsletter but it needs to get out sooner than later. If it comes in the summer it will keep people thinking about S.C.O.P.E. and how we can help them and how they can help us.
For S.C.O.P.E. to be successful at connecting the stakeholders that need to be connected we need to know about them. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to know about every individual and organization and what they are doing, but we need an organized database to locate this information. This project would be a very powerful tool and could be worked on over time. The only immediate need is infrastructure that would enable the organization to build this contact database. Also, a search of existing contact lists needs to be made.
The second tier of outreach to the un-engaged University Community members needs to be done on a few different levels. This requires specifically reaching out to students, faculty and staff that are not currently engaged but have shown interest or promise. For students a broad and possibly influential strategy could incorporate civic values and experiences into the first year experience. This could start at orientation and making freshman seminars that would be focused on public work. Faculty outreach could be a top down approach of a requirement for departments to implement more service learning classes, but the best way would be by making personal relationships with faculty. Scopers need to talk to professors and instructors during their normal, daily interaction to get them interested in teaching public work. Also, some type of collaboration with Student Activities Office would be productive.
The Free Spaces Initiative is also a tangible action that would contribute to outreach and both connecting those currently engaged and integration into the University Community. The initiative has many facets from the “Conversation Bracelets”, the “Front Porch Project”, or finding existing free spaces to utilize. This initiative would be a public action that S.C.O.P.E. would be behind. The project has the potential to reach many and get them to become interested in what is going on. Catching and holding individual’s attention long enough to put this in their mind is difficult but because the features of this initiative are original they will take notice.
The “Conversation Bracelets” project is an idea from the University of Maryland Baltimore County that uses popular silicon bracelets to indicate individuals who are open to having a conversation with new people. If a person is standing in line at the coffee shop and sees a person with a bracelet then they could feel free to start a conversation with them. The purpose of the project is to open up dialogue between students and others on the U of M campus. If this is successful the trend of declining person to person contact and technological isolation could be turned around. The “Conversation Bracelets” is a project that needs quick action so that the implementation can happen next fall. The search for funds and logistics needs to happen over the summer so we can make this happen.
The “Front Porch Project” is my personal favorite of all the slated projects. Building a permanent front porch on the future student services building would be a legacy for S.C.O.P.E. and a possible home for the organization. This project stems from the front porch meetings that have been held by Harry Boyte and others and Amir Pinnix’s speech at the Civic Summit about the southern tradition of front porch conversations. The front porch could be a place where the University President could have community meetings once a month and people could voice their concerns or questions. It would be strongly suggested that technology like iPods and cell phones are kept off the porch and only person to person conversations are held on the porch. The first step in getting the front porch would be getting on the planning committee and presenting the plan.
My dream is to have the S.C.O.P.E. office right off the porch so those with great ideas for change could come to the organization for support. The need for an office is something that cannot wait five or six years but needs to be secured very soon. Ideally, we would have a space by this fall so we have somewhere to store things and a place where people can find the organization. There are rumors that there might be space in the old Newman Center and this lead needs to be followed up. If that does not come to fruition space in Coffman or elsewhere is needed.
The office is a physical manifestation of the third tier of integration into the University community. The organization has made good progress on this front with the relationships built with administration and other stakeholders in the community. Also, getting on the Student Engagement Initiative and other gatherings of stakeholders has been crucial. Scopers need to continue this work and connect with more people at different levels. We have to strategically find our niche in the University. This must be done without crowding people’s turf and if we do, we need to do it carefully. This integration also concerns keeping the organization legitimate in the eyes of students, faculty and the administration. The most pressing concern with integration is not being co-opted by the administration. We must find a balance between being a force of change for the institution and being just another part of the institution. The organization needs to stay flexible and organic, while still being able to work within the system.
S.C.O.P.E.’s history has been filled with internal conflict and change. Personalities have clashed, ideas have conflicted and this has hindered progress, while providing perspective. Even with these internal conflicts S.C.O.P.E. has made good progress with the two conferences and the personal connections made. However, in order to accomplish the above stated projects, the organization needs a more efficient internal structure. The structure needs to be efficient while still allowing members the current ability to express their ideas in an open atmosphere. If the mistake is made and the organic nature of the group is lost we have lost one core objective of our group.
One possible internal structure for S.C.O.P.E. would be too have an executive board, a support committee, an outreach committee, and an integration committee. The committees then would have sub-committees that would handle individual projects. The executive board would handle the money, day-to-day operations, long-range strategy, and expansion. The board would be elected or possibly have a rotation of members. The executive board members would also be part of a work committee and work on individual projects but have no greater authority than other members. None of the committees would have hierarchy within them and they would be run like a normal S.C.O.P.E. meeting. The three work committees would be in charge of coming up with projects and dividing themselves into sub committees. Members would be able to be in multiple committees and sub-committees if they have the time and energy.
This above structure is far from complete and is missing many details that need to be addressed if the organization chooses this structure. The proposed structure would work well if the organization grows in numbers because there are many possible committees. Also, if the organization is going to be taking on multiple projects there needs to be a division of labor. If we have the same decision making process we have now it will take too long to move on one project, much less three simultaneously.
S.C.O.P.E needs to have a discussion about the organization’s direction and structure before it considers expansion into other schools. Once we have made these decisions we can then make concise documents that will aid us in presenting the S.C.O.P.E model to other people. Concise documents will be useful for both expansion and explaining S.C.O.P.E to interested parties. For the immediate future we can piggyback the expansion on Public Achievement and the contacts of Dennis Donovan and others. In the future people will possibly come to us once we get larger and better known.
The most pressing concern for the future of S.C.O.P.E is figuring out the internal structure for the organization. Other projects that need work done soon are finding an office, the “Conversation Bracelets,” and the contact database. These projects do not need to be finished by the end of the summer but having some of the legwork done will help make fall semester more productive. The projects discussed are an ambitious amount and realistically many will not be worked on but this is ok. If a fraction of the proposed actions are accomplished the organization is still doing well. The future of S.C.O.P.E is bright with opportunities to create a strong culture of civic engagement at the University of Minnesota and beyond.