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Dennis Donovan discusses cookbook created by Public Achievement students in KARE 11 segment

kare 11 - logoKARE 11 television recently interviewed a group of 5th graders who created a multicultural cookbook as a way to promote diversity and tolerance. The students are part Public Achievement, an Augsburg College program designed to teach democracy and citizenship through service projects.

The segment also featured program director Dennis Donovan. “There are a lot of issues in the world, and we need people to come together and solve these problems,” he said. “Having young people participate in public achievement gives them a skill-set and process that normally they would not have.”

Watch and read Students create cookbook to promote diversity on the KARE 11 site.

Harry Boyte writes for Education Week

Education Week - logoHarry Boyte, senior fellow at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently published an article for Education Week about democracy in education. The article is part of a conversational series between Boyte and Deborah Meier, senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.

Boyte argues that we should view democracy as “an empowering way of life,” and not merely a decision-making process. “We need to combine the ‘head,’ which makes decisions, the ‘heart,’ moral imagination and emotion, and the ‘hand,’ civic muscles that power action in the world,” he writes.

In regards to education, Boyte offers an antidote to a culture that separates the hard sciences, the arts and the professional or vocational fields, parallels to the “head”, “heart” and “hand” metaphor. He argues in favor of Cooperative Education, “a method that combines academic study and classroom learning with practical work experience for which students can receive academic credit.”

Read the article, which also was published on the Huffington Post Education site.

Harry Boyte remembers Martin Olav Sabo ’59 in Huffington Post article

Huffington-Post - logoHarry Boyte, senior scholar in public work philosophy for the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, shared in a recent Huffington Post article his experiences working with the Center’s namesake: the late Martin Olav Sabo ’59. Prior to the 2009 merging of the Sabo Center and Augsburg College’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Boyte had met Sabo while working for the Reinventing Citizenship initiative in 1993.

Boyte writes of Sabo’s reputation as a respectful, bipartisan advocate for democracy. He states that Sabo exemplified the values of Augsburg College “in extraordinary ways, believing in the positive role of government and also the need for a much bigger environment of civic interaction.” He further notes that “Martin was enthusiastic about our work to… create public discussions on the purpose and future of colleges and universities that can reframe what is now often a polarized and narrow debate.”

Read Martin Olav Sabo and the Spirit of Democracy on the Huffington Post site.

Harry Boyte writes on free spaces for Education Week

Education Week - logoAs part of an ongoing conversation about democracy in education, Harry Boyte, senior scholar in public work philosophy for Augsburg’s Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently contributed an article to Education Week in which he argued in favor of free spaces–“places where people find it easy and enjoyable to swap stories, plan adventures, and discuss and argue politics.”

In the article, Boyte draws on his experiences with Sabo Center colleague Dennis Donovan, national organizer for Public Achievement, to articulate the importance of providing places for challenging yet compassionate dialog.

Read: Free Spaces in Democracy Schools on the Education Weekly site.

Huffington Post publishes Harry Boyte column on The Fight for America’s Soul

Huffington-Post - logoThe Huffington Post recently published an article by Harry Boyte, senior fellow in the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, in which Boyte argues that the current political climate in the U.S. has undervalued the community-building and participatory aspects of democracy. The essay centers around conflicting accounts of the “American Dream;” one version focusing on American superiority and the other on the value of “cooperative endeavor” and social justice.

Seeing democracy as more than just a way of electing leaders, Boyte examines the Civilian Conservation Corps as a model for infusing Americans’ work lives with a purpose greater than materialism. He states that, “as work has come to be seen only as a means to the good life and not of value in itself, the public dimensions of work and recognition of the importance of workers have sharply declined.”

Read: The Fight for America’s Soul on the Huffington Post site.

Harry Boyte discusses higher education’s role in expanding democracy

Huffington-PostIn his latest Huffington Post article, Harry Boyte, Augsburg’s Sabo Senior Fellow, discusses the ways in which higher education can help people develop the skills of a democratic way of life. Boyte’s article used examples from the Augsburg College community to show how programming can prepare students to serve as “citizen professionals” and change agents.

Visit The Huffington Post website to read, “Regrowing Democracy — The Role of Higher Education.”

 

World leaders meet March 6-8 in Minneapolis for
Nobel Peace Prize Forum

Global leaders, top U.N. experts to address inclusive, sustainable peace building

2015 NPPF (MINNEAPOLIS) – The 27th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum will explore the world’s most pressing peacemaking issues faced by people across the globe. The March 6-8 event, at the Radisson Blu Downtown, will explore different aspects of peace building including human rights and democracy, disarmament, sustainability and inclusivity. Speaker highlights include:

  • March 6 – Human Rights and Democracy
    • Honored Laureate U.S. President Jimmy Carter in a moderated discussion, “Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.”
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland, Deputy Chair of The Elders and Former Prime Minister of Norway, will discuss human rights and democracy.
    • Monica McWilliams, former Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and signatory to the Good Friday Agreement.
  • March 7 Disarmament and Sustainability
    • Honored Laureate the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons represented by Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü will discuss disarmament and peace.
    • Adama Dieng, the United Nation’s special adviser on prevention of genocide, will discuss the murder, torture, looting, and destruction of property that likely is a war crime and ethnic cleansing.
    • Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye of Kaduna, Nigeria, work to resolve conflicts between warring religious youth militias, but a decade ago the two men were mortal enemies.
    • Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of our Nature, will talk about four human motivations that can turn us away from violence and toward cooperation and altruism.

Continue reading “World leaders meet March 6-8 in Minneapolis for
Nobel Peace Prize Forum”