PEMBROKE–Scott Hicks, PhD, professor of English, was welcomed into Cohort 2 of a national effort to create open-source instructional materials for civics education that are ready-to-deploy, cross-curricular and pro-democracy for use on college campuses across the country.
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by James Burns, PhD, of Clemson University and Bridget G. Trogden, PhD, of American University, the Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholars program unites faculty across the country to work together and create classroom teaching materials that support a thriving American democracy.
The program for Cohort 2 began in June, when Hicks attended its kick-off summer institute at Clemson. During the two-day institute, Hicks explored ideas related to civic learning, strategies for transformative teaching and curriculum development, and challenges to democracy posed by disinformation and artificial intelligence. During 2024-2025, Hicks will create open resource educational materials for improving civic and voter rights education: three active learning in-class activities, two assignments, and one course syllabus. He will be supported by a mentor and meet twice monthly with a smaller group of cohort members. Following peer review of his work and revision, his teaching materials will be published by Clemson University Libraries’ digital institutional repository, TigerPrints.
Hicks plans to focus on integrating civic learning into the composition and literature courses he teaches, such as using service-learning in partnership with a local school to role-play registering to vote and casting a ballot in composition classes and incorporating archival and literary texts focused on voting in literature classes.
“I’m grateful to have been selected for this program,” Hicks said. “It’s a wonderful way for me to make my classes more meaningful and relevant to my students, to connect what I do in the humanities with the world that exists outside campus, and I’m excited to help students see the powerful role they play as citizens who have responsibilities for leadership.”
Many college students are unable to make the connection between their coursework and civic outcomes from the past, present and future, said Trogden, dean of Undergraduate Education and professor in the School of Education at American and an expert in undergraduate general education curricula and pedagogical design.
“We all love to see the lightbulb moments that occur when our students make a connection to how events of the past and present impact them now and in their futures,” she said. “But education has become increasingly compartmentalized, which is a problem when teaching for civic engagement and democracy. Course-embedded teaching materials are a key part of civics education that our students have been missing.”
The program aims to give faculty the support they need to create materials that connect their coursework to real-world issues while broadening students’ engagement with civic learning beyond history and political science courses, said Burns, director of the Humanities Hub and professor of history at Clemson.
“These exercises fit neatly into history and civics courses, but unfortunately not every college student takes those courses,” Burns said. “This program will look for touchpoints to embed civic engagement across the curriculum, particularly in literature, rhetoric, art history, ethnic studies, women’s studies, interdisciplinary studies, and other allied humanities and arts fields.”
For more information about the Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholars program, visit: https://www.clemson.edu/cah/sites/civic-education/index.html .
Contact: Scott Hicks, PhD, Professor, Department of English, Theatre & World Languages (scott.hicks@uncp.edu)
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.