There's Power in Numbers
Join the movement of campus leaders shaping a new agenda to advance higher education’s vital role in preparing students to engage in a vibrant and diverse society.
College Presidents for Civic Preparedness is a coalition of over 100 campus leaders from diverse ideologies and institutions nationwide, united in preparing students for active civic engagement in today’s complex and divided country.
General Membership
The consortium is free to join and offers credibility, support, and opportunities to engage alongside peer presidents. Benefits of membership include:
- Opportunities to share insights and gain inspiration from fellow member presidents.
- Accountability, support, and idea sharing to navigate complex, public-facing issues.
- A forward-thinking framework for action on civic learning and democracy created by, with, and for college presidents.
- Tangible initiatives for faculty, students, and presidents to work across divides toward empathetic dialogue, free expression, and civic learning.
- A collective of leaders working to restore higher education’s central role in developing the next generation of engaged citizens.
Interested in joining College Presidents for Civic Preparedness? Express interest using the form below.
Preparing Students To Be Effective Citizens
Presidents are united by a shared set of Civic Commitments, which offer a fresh framework for free expression, civil discourse, and civic preparedness, and share their action agenda to advance higher education’s role in our democracy:
- Educating for democracy is central to our mission.
- We will prepare our students for a vibrant, diverse, and contentious society.
- We will protect and defend free inquiry.
In American civic life, polarization has become the predominant practice, if not a point of pride. We must offer an alternative to the politics of labeling people as categories. We want our graduates focused less on winning arguments and more on learning from each other. We have too much important and exciting public work to do not to benefit from the insights and experiences that others offer. We tackle problems bigger than ourselves by rejecting easy preconceptions and building better solutions.
Douglas Hicks
President, Davidson College
Inculcating an environment in which students have the opportunity to freely debate and discuss ideas, concepts, and issues to prepare them for the world beyond the campus is vitally important in developing engaged, thoughtful, and committed future leaders with a deep understanding of and commitment to the democratic ideals of our country.
James Limbaugh
President, West Los Angeles College
The purpose of a liberal education is to prepare students to be engaged citizens and leaders who advance the practices that are necessary for democratic societies to flourish. History reminds us that democracy is always in peril, and it is incumbent on each generation of educators to rededicate themselves to this purpose. Our campuses should be communities that make room for both true disagreement and true connection—communities that practice the kind of recognition and robust negotiation that the everyday life of democracy requires, and places that explicitly prepare our students to work for the greater good.
Michael Elliott
President, Amherst College
Bennington College was established in 1932 as a beacon of progressive, liberal arts education with a dedication to instilling in students a commitment to being active citizens in our democracy. Today, Bennington carries this legacy forward, committing to a pedagogy that not only enriches students academically but also empowers them with the civic knowledge and skills vital for safeguarding and nurturing democratic ideals in an ever-evolving global landscape.
Laura Walker
President, Bennington College
Hamilton College’s mission is to prepare students for lives of meaning, purpose, and active citizenship so that they can effect positive change in the world. The College Presidents for Civic Preparedness initiative invites further conversation and commitments to challenge us and optimize the values and behaviors that are at the core of a Hamilton education, a liberal arts education, and, importantly, the needs of society.
Steven Tepper
President-elect, Hamilton College
As we continue to live in an era of extreme political polarization, increasing social instability, and declining faith in the nation’s institutions, I am more committed than ever to working with university presidents to prepare students to be engaged and educated citizens. Together, with our students, we will explore how we can preserve our freedoms while being respectful and open-minded, intellectually honest and curious, and civil, decent, and understanding of one another.
Jonathan Holloway
President, Rutgers University
Education helps to solidify ideas and notions. It's to foster creativity and critical thinking and engagement and collaboration. And I think if we let go of that…we have cost ourselves something. We have ceded the moral high ground on what education was designed to do.
Roslyn Clark Artis
President, Benedict College
College Presidents for Civic Preparedness is a great community for presidents, faculty, and institutions to share promising practices and ideas with each other. That’s what we need to be doing in higher education. We don’t all have to reinvent the wheel.
Jonathan Alger
President, American University
The work of College Presidents for Civic Preparedness allows us to look at scale, consistency and intersectionality with optimism. We are institutions of different ilks, but we share a core passion and mission and a commitment to best practices. The engagement with the Institute for Citizens & Scholars is key — it’s the spine from which we are all able to do better.
Joan Gabel
Chancellor, University of Pittsburgh
In line with our liberal arts mission, Skidmore cherishes freedom of speech, thought, and expression. Diverse opinions, perspectives, and ideas provide opportunities for us to reflect, learn, and grow individually and as an institution. The College fully supports the constitutional rights of assembly and freedom of expression as bulwarks of our democratic process that protect us all.
Marc Conner
President, Skidmore College
We must seize this moment to galvanize learning through political participation. By defending democracy, we will deepen learning; by deepening learning, we will defend democracy. Both will make our educational institutions more effective, and this will create a virtuous circle of civic preparedness for the country as a whole.
Michael Roth
President, Wesleyan University
Deepen your engagement with faculty, student, and peer learning initiatives.
In addition to General Membership benefits, there are optional fee-based products and services for those who need support in bringing the Civic Commitments to life.
Faculty Institute
Equips faculty to create courses and incorporate free expression and civil discourse in the classroom.
Confidential Forums for Presidents
Openly discuss emerging challenges and engage with each other around urgent topics.
Student Module
Interactive module that ensures students are ready to engage in dialogue across differences in various campus settings.
