Examples of Good Practice from Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship & Public Service, Tufts University

Faculty Fellows Program

The Faculty Fellows Program, a two-year fellowship, engages Tufts faculty members as peer leaders in building active citizenship as a defining strength of Tufts. Faculty Fellows develop new curricula that integrate civic skills into their regular course materials and/or conduct research that is civically engaged or builds knowledge about civic engagement. The program demonstrates the relevance of active citizenship in the full spectrum of disciplines across the University and builds a community of civic engagement scholars.

Citizenship & Public Service Scholars Program

The Citizenship & Public Service Scholars Program, an innovative multi-year leadership program, develops core civic skills so that students can be leaders for civic engagement and catalysts for change. Students start by taking a course that builds knowledge and skills to understand community assets, identify root causes of an issue, enter communities as an outsider and manage projects. In collaboration with local organizations, Scholars work to create positive change, engage University resources and build capacity in Tufts’ partner communities and beyond. The program is developmental, consciously building new levels of knowledge, skills and behaviors year-by-year. About 80 students participate in the program per year.

Community Partnering Capacity Development

The Lincoln Filene Center of Tisch College at Tufts actively supports students and faculty members to work with partner communities and address community-identified needs. These positive citizenship activities can take many forms: academic research, fora and conferences, coursework, internships, volunteer work and more. We developed a wiki to provide community partners, university faculty and students with templates and guidelines to prepare for effective university-community partnerships. The wiki includes tools for asset mapping, identifying needs and interests, documenting expectations and evaluating the results of work.

This page is part of a series of Examples of Good Practice.