Higher Education Engagement News is a periodic newsletter edited by Harry C. Boyte, Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy at Augsburg College, which responds to requests for updates and information about initiatives associated with the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP). ACP was a coalition to strengthen the public purposes of higher education organized for the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act establishing land grant colleges in 2012, on invitation by the White House Office of Public Engagement.
This issue discusses the new climate encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si as a resource for the democracy movement in higher education.
Laudato Si
Pope Francis’ contributions to higher education
Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si, is a challenge to business as usual. “It is time to acknowledge that light-hearted superficiality has done no good,” Francis wrote. “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”
But one might not automatically think of the pope’s encyclical as a resource for the democracy movement in higher education. In fact it provides two enormously important resources. Continue reading “HE Engagement News #18 June 2015”