Keynote Recording: A Civics of Interdependence

At the 2021 Weber State University Engaged Faculty Retreat, Eric Hartman presented the keynote address, "Civics Beyond Dichotomies: In and of Campus & Community Local and Global Interdependence." The description is available immediately below, along with the recording and slides. 

Description: We are interdependent. Institutional inclusivity, equity, and justice work take place within hundreds of years of structural racism and systemic injustice. How campuses mitigate COVID risks has local community effects interactive with the global pandemic. The truths of interdependence are undermined through the language of community-campus partnership, which suggests a tidy divide between the two, and through most forms of civic education, which frequently emphasize local, national, and/or global citizenship as separate spaces of action and inquiry. Acknowledging and acting upon ethical interdependence requires shifting conceptual lenses, language, and institutional and cultural policies and practices.

Drawing on twenty years of scholarship and practice that emphasizes opportunities for critical inquiry and consequential action in communities all around the world, Dr. Eric Hartman will offer a civics of interdependence as an emergent space of opportunity. He will share specific examples of how curricula have developed through interaction with a growing toolkit for teaching about interdependence, and he will offer examples of institutional recalibration and reimagination that take steps beyond pedagogy: meeting educators and students where they are, and recognizing their insights. Participants will gain specific tools for their own classrooms, along with examples of institutional changes that more deeply invest in community-based knowledge keepers and students wherever they are.

View the slides and watch the presentation.

Links to content referenced in the keynote include: 

Global Solidarity and Local Actions Toolkit Website 

• La Paperson's A Third University is Possible  

• The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance by Robin Wall Kimmerer 

• The Collaborative   

  • invites individuals   and institutions to join The Collaborative Commitments or become a member 

  • encourages folks to stay connected through our website and join an upcoming event

  • is on Twitter at @CBGLCollab 

  • hosts a private group on FB 

• Community-based Global Learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad   (Hartman, Kiely, Boettcher, & Friedrichs)