In the United States, many higher education institutions were founded with the intention of preparing their students both as workers and as active participants in American democracy.¹ Today, community colleges are particularly well placed to carry out this mission because of their broad reach and diverse student populations as well as the critical roles they play in their neighborhoods. 

More than 6.4 million students—approximately 40 percent of the nation’s undergraduates—attend 1,100 American community colleges.² These schools reflect a substantial and diverse slice of the higher education population. Large numbers of enrollees come from working-class, first-generation, immigrant, and racially diverse backgrounds—many populations that have historically been marginalized in the American political system.³ About 30 percent of students at two-year institutions are 25 or older, compared with nearly 19 percent of students at four-year schools.⁴ A large portion of enrollees hold full-time jobs and manage caregiving responsibilities on top of their course loads while commuting to class instead of living on campus.⁵ 

Whether enrollees plan to transfer to four-year institutions, complete apprenticeships and workforce certifications, or earn continuing education credits, community colleges can improve students’ economic mobility and opportunity. Because a large majority of community college students stay close by after graduation,⁶ these educational institutions also play a key role in strengthening economic development in their regions at large. 

However, these institutions also provide other vital but often under-recognized benefits to their broader neighborhoods. For example, community colleges can help support greater health and well-being by combating loneliness and promoting feelings of belonging at a time when about half of Americans between 18 and 34 report “rarely” or “never” spending time with community members in person.⁷ Community colleges can also directly reduce disease prevalence by training local health care workers. Open-access schools act as pillars of civic life and resilience, reducing crime through increased employment or improving local infrastructure such as housing and transportation.⁸Community colleges can also act as a meeting ground or “third space” where residents may access free Wi-Fi, regularly attend lectures or documentary screenings, take low-cost art classes, or bring their children for affordable extracurricular activities. While many four-year institutions offer similar benefits, the barriers to access—both culturally and financially—are often much higher. 

In these ways, community colleges are connected to the daily fabric of their neighborhoods. Lena Jones, a faculty member in the political science department at Minneapolis College, said, “It’s not like we’re this island of people from someplace else and are disconnected from the surrounding area. We’re part of the community.”⁹ Natalie Furlett—the vice president of member and student engagement at Campus Compact, a nonprofit focused on civic engagement in higher education—echoed this idea. As she put it, “A [student’s] professor might be their neighbor,” and there’s a unique “synergy” that happens in these schools, where most people are not “coming in from the outside” but are “of the community.”¹⁰ Elgin Community College history Professor Antonio Ramirez mentioned that every time he and his fellow faculty members interact with the medical system in their town, they are almost always treated by someone who trained at their community college.¹¹

Perhaps because of the strength of these personal ties as well as the broad benefits and educational opportunities that community colleges offer their regions, these schools are often seen very positively by the public. At a time when most of America’s civic institutions face low levels of trust, nearly half of Americans have “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence” in community colleges, compared with just 33 percent who feel that way about four-year universities.¹² Ramirez mentioned that these schools don’t feel like “distant bastions of elitism.” They’re places where someone might say, “I know those people, I’ve relied on them for services. My kid goes there, and my parents went there, too.”¹³

Given their strong public image, local benefits, diverse student body, and foundational civic missions, community colleges hold a vital position in American democracy. These institutions can act as trusted, nonpartisan sites for engagement and participatory renewal at a time when public trust in government is at historically low levels, and 78 percent of Americans polled said they see “serious threats to the future of democracy.”¹⁴ On campus and in classrooms, students and residents can expand their knowledge of government and politics, practice advocating for themselves and others, hone their leadership capacity, and participate in civic discourse by engaging with ideas and perspectives different from their own. Many community college students already are deeply connected and involved in their neighborhoods.¹⁵ Through their education, inside and outside the classroom, enrollees can gain new tools and skills that allow them to deepen their contributions as local leaders, volunteers, and civic constituents. 

Many community colleges have invested in their capacity to offer this kind of democratic education, hosting initiatives like voter registration drives, opening centers dedicated to volunteering and community engagement, and providing service-learning opportunities through which students apply classroom-based lessons to real-world volunteering or internship positions. However, in recent years, community colleges have also faced significant barriers to implementing civic programming—in part due to the limited capacity of professors and students, decreasing resources, and an increase in political polarization. 

Despite these challenges, many higher education leaders are committed to supporting civic education and engagement. This was evident in our discussions with more than 30 experts, organizers, faculty members, and administrators during a convening hosted by New America’s Political Reform program in June 2025, as well as in several individual qualitative, semi-structured interviews. Faculty members and administrators spoke in their own capacity—not on behalf of their institutions—and expressed interest in growing civic spaces and experimenting with innovative engagement models such as civic assemblies on campuses. Several experts and practitioners shared their beliefs that these efforts are essential for students’ development, the health of their communities, and the strength of our broader democracy. As Yolanda Watson Spiva, the president of the national nonprofit Complete College America, put it in a separate report, “We cannot be a stratified nation in which some college students prepare for civic leadership while others get the implicit message that democracy will not require either their time or their talent.”¹⁶

This report examines how leaders can best accomplish these goals and realize the civic mission and civic opportunities embedded in community colleges. It outlines the current state of engagement at community colleges, explores existing obstacles, and makes recommendations on how leaders can build nonpartisan programming, foster innovative experimentation, and build even stronger institutions of American democracy. 

Ultimately, these suggestions are aimed at helping community colleges become ​​Participatory Campuses—places where students and residents not only develop a civic education and skill set but also learn how to apply that training to create concrete change in their own neighborhoods and institutions.

Broadly, civic efforts at community colleges fall into two categories: civic education and civic engagement. The former often prioritizes improving students’ knowledge about politics, governing, the democratic process, or elections, including through government courses, nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, or public panels focused on local policy issues. In contrast, civic engagement efforts encourage students to become active in their communities through volunteering, participating in campus clubs, or organizing initiatives. This programming can also include what’s known as service learning or community-based learning, in which students apply classroom lessons to real-world scenarios, such as a history student volunteering at a local museum. 

A 2024 study by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges and Mississippi State University, which surveyed 128 institutions in 38 states, found that a substantial number of community colleges support civic efforts in their institutions. Of those surveyed, 77 percent had incorporated civic engagement priorities into their strategic plans, more than 50 percent had a designated center or office that guides civic engagement, and 60 percent supported civic efforts with some degree of funding.¹⁷ However, the authors noted that there was a “notable bifurcation” between schools with minimal, occasional programming and those with institutionalized robust engagement. For example, 44 percent of all colleges offered at least one service-learning course, but only 7 percent had integrated service learning into more than 21 courses. Similarly, while 78 percent engaged in voter registration or education activities, the frequency of these and other comparable events varied greatly. 

Additionally, there is often a large gap between institutional civic goals and resources available for implementation. For example, although a recent survey found that 92 percent of institutions offer community-based projects in their curricula, only 32 percent offer professional development programs that train faculty in how to carry out this work. ¹⁸ It may not be surprising, then, that a separate study found that 74 percent of students have never taken part in such activities.¹⁹

When higher education institutions do offer and implement civic opportunities, enrollees benefit. College students who took part in civic engagement learning activities were found to have higher grade point averages and retention rates as well as improved critical thinking skills, communication abilities, academic knowledge, and leadership capabilities.²⁰ For community college students in particular, voting has been associated with a greater likelihood of attaining a bachelor’s degree.²¹ Their schools’ intentionality toward civic engagement was connected to increased civic agency, behavior, and capacity.²² In his work running the Elgin Community College Center for Civic Engagement, Ramirez has also noticed that civic programming creates space for students to make friends, have fun together, and build strong social ties.

Engagement on campus can be indirectly powerful as well. Ramirez said that because of the community college’s place in its society, “when something happens at our college, it’s important, it’s got legitimacy.” That means if a school creates platforms for collaborative decision making and centers community voices who are often not heard, it can be a “transformational experience”—a rare example that shows that a balance in power is possible.²³

Even when administrations prioritize and institutionalize civic education and engagement, community colleges face persistent obstacles to implementing these opportunities. 

One challenge is the high level of demand on both students and staff. Because most enrollees live off campus and juggle jobs, caregiving, and other competing responsibilities, students often have less time and access to in-person and extracurricular activities than those at four-year institutions. Faculty members spoke of a student government leader who worked multiple jobs on top of his course load and mothers who balanced on-campus engagement, full-time positions, and caring for young children or relatives with disabilities.²⁴ Similarly, faculty members often have bigger course loads than their peers at four-year colleges and universities. Part-time adjunct professors—who typically divide their time across multiple institutions—may have even less capacity to take on additional roles, limited access to personal meeting space like offices, and less knowledge of available resources.²⁵

Community colleges have also historically operated within resource-scarce environments, and a lack of funding is a major obstacle to civic initiatives.²⁶ These trends have only intensified in recent years. As of 2020, community colleges received $8,800 less in educational revenue per student than four-year institutions, translating into a resource gap of $78 billion.²⁷ The COVID-19 pandemic put additional strain on community colleges and their students. As more enrollees faced urgent economic challenges (like food insecurity) some administrations focused their resources on providing vital support (such as opening food pantries on campus). Although the pandemic has stabilized in recent years, many students are still facing mental health challenges and operating in what one professor called “survival mode” due to external pressures like the rising costs of living and an unstable job market.²⁸ Though college administrations have continued to prioritize student assistance, they’ve also grappled with cuts to federal grants and social services in the second Trump Administration, which will translate into less funding for community colleges.²⁹ 

The cultural environment around civic engagement has also shifted in recent years. 

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, safety concerns, intense pressure on faculty and community partners, and staff resignations and retirements contributed to a decrease in civic opportunities. Additionally, the shift to virtual classes frayed cultures of in-person, on-campus engagement.³⁰ By 2025, some institutions still reported lower levels of student participation or were only beginning to observe a rise in engagement.³¹

At the same time, political polarization has made civic activities more complex. In 2024, ideological polarization among Americans who identified as Republicans or Democrats reached historic levels.³² As of April 2025, states had introduced more than 30 bills and executive orders limiting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on public college campuses, often including restrictions on teaching supposedly “progressive” or “liberal” topics in class. Already, this legislation has been passed in 14 states, from Utah and Wyoming to Arkansas and Florida.³³ In this environment, some community college leaders reported that even nonpartisan engagements can be viewed as partisan if they mention the word “democracy.”³⁴ At one school, an ethics investigation was opened into a professor who had a local elected official speak to a class even though the discussion was strictly focused on how city government functioned.³⁵ Another professor heard from a peer who had been criticized for using the word civic while talking about civic engagement on the grounds that the term was too political.³⁶

Finally, some professors have also observed that many of their students feel significant exhaustion, cynicism, and disillusionment about politics, particularly at the national level.³⁷ This anecdotal evidence aligns with research studies that have found a “pervasive fatalism” among younger voters due to the failure of governments to address critical issues like climate change, health care, and the costs of education.³⁸

Despite this broader political environment, young people remain eager to participate as members of a democracy. Of voters between 18 and 29, 47 percent cast ballots in the 2024 election, compared with only 39 percent in 2016.³⁹ Additionally, college students from across the political spectrum still overwhelmingly support constructive discourse on campus. A 2023 study found that 94 percent of liberal, moderate, and conservative students agree that “we should listen to others with an open mind, including those with whom we disagree.” Ninety percent agreed that “no matter how different we are, we can understand each other’s experiences by listening and empathizing.”

Similarly, many community college administrators and staff members are still committed to realizing their institutions’ democratic potential. The widespread adoption of civic initiatives is one key indicator.⁴⁰ Another is the degree of innovation, integration, and experimentation that academic leaders are dedicating toward these efforts. 

Today, some of the most promising civic models at community colleges often fall into three main categories: investing in institutional capacity, supporting civic learning, and partnering with students.

Given the lack of civic infrastructure at many higher education institutions, many vital initiatives are focused on establishing, growing, and strengthening civic initiatives on campuses across the country. 

Some of the largest efforts in the United States are led by the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which is focused on encouraging nonpartisan student democratic engagement at more than 1,000 partner campuses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The organization guides community colleges—as well as four-year colleges and universities—through programs that offer “incentives, structures, and accountability” for administrators and students working to expand civic education, political participation, and voter engagement. Participating schools can develop and submit “action plans” for increasing voter participation during specific election cycles, for example, or join “communities of practice” in which they can consult with other campus leaders working toward shared goals. In recognition of schools’ efforts, ALL IN offers awards, including titles like “Highly Engaged Campuses.”

The organization’s ultimate aims are to shift culture around engagement and increase strategic capacity; they hope that administrative leaders will be able to use a wide range of resources, from budgets to personnel, to “institutionalize nonpartisan democratic engagement.”⁴¹ According to ALL IN’s 2024 annual impact report, 86 percent of participating campuses said they “promote civic learning…to a moderate or great extent,” and 74 percent said they support “nonpartisan political engagement.” ALL IN community colleges see consistently higher voter turnout during elections compared with peer institutions that do not participate in the program, with increases ranging from 2 to 3 percentage points.⁴² This track record suggests that external programs and coalition-building initiatives can be powerful tools for expanding civic opportunities on campus.

Holistic forms of civic learning focus not only on strengthening students’ understanding of democratic institutions but also on bolstering their participatory skills.⁴³ Here, the goal is for students to graduate with improved knowledge of democratic levers for change, heightened bridge-building and problem-solving capacity, experience collaborating in real-world environments, and an understanding of civics and ethical topics that relate to their professional field.⁴⁴ And, ideally, this education should be available to all community college enrollees, not only those entering civics-adjacent fields like law enforcement. 

Allegany College of Maryland (ACM)—a rural-serving, two-year public college in Appalachia—follows this broad, integrated approach to civic education and engagement and works to embed it in the culture of the organization.⁴⁵ ACM’s administration, faculty, and staff aim to provide every student with an education in civic learning and democratic engagement.⁴⁶ One of their general-education learning goals is a college-wide outcome that focuses on personal and civic responsibility, culminating in a community project and reflection exercise in which students “identify the civic issues encountered and personal insights gained.”⁴⁷

The school also has a Civic and Community Engagement Committee (CCEC)—made up of faculty, administrators, program directors, employees, and students—that leads the institution’s civic engagement work. The committee facilitates skill-building curricula, dialogues, college workshops and events, and faculty training, and it develops classroom exercises. To tie these lessons to real-world practice, the CCEC promotes voter registration on campus and connects students to local volunteer opportunities. Through these activities, ACM offers civic opportunities to students, from one-time engagement activities to long-term placements that underscore students’ community-building passions and future career interests. In 2022, ACM had the highest percentage of student voters of all two-year institutions in Maryland.⁴⁸ In 2026, ACM was recertified under the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement Classification in recognition of its “extraordinary commitment to community engagement, partnerships, and public service.”⁴⁹

Other institutions focus on preparing students to be civic leaders by prioritizing long-term engagement opportunities, training programs, and hands-on experiences that emphasize students’ sustained participation, skill-building, and ownership. Typically, these activities take place outside the classroom and, as a result, are often most accessible to students who can dedicate time to extracurricular activities. In these environments, students gain concrete skills, leadership abilities, and mentorship thanks to staff leaders who can guide them through engagement projects and broader questions about their lives and careers.⁵⁰ At Elgin Community College’s Center for Civic Engagement, Ramirez said he watches students change through these experiences: They gain a sense of their own power and can suddenly “see all these other possibilities… That is something you can’t really put back in the bottle.”⁵¹

Like Elgin, Austin Community College (ACC) exemplifies this approach. Located in one of the biggest cities in Texas, ACC enrolls more than 70,000 students every year online and across 12 campuses.⁵² The school’s Center for Government and Civic Service (CGCS) has a mission of “training and empowering students to be impactful civic leaders” and carries out its work “by, with, and through ACC students.” Enrollees can participate in a wide range of initiatives, such as organizing a summit on climate resilience with nonprofits, advocates, and policymakers or acting as a monitoring body to report on the City of Austin’s implementation of its open-governance goals.⁵³ Through their participation, students can also earn free badges and micro-credentials that are verified by ACC in topics like technology and society.⁵⁴ Every CGCS program emphasizes direct student leadership—encouraging students to pitch project ideas and relying on student interns to play key staffing roles in the organization.

These three common models of engagement reflect the current spectrum of opportunities on community college campuses. 

Each category of engagement is equally important and critical in its own right. Civic education initiatives create a vital foundation, providing essential information for students to understand and practice American democracy. Skill-building opportunities allow students to sharpen key participatory competencies. Civic leadership initiatives are characterized by student empowerment and ownership; they help rising generations of community leaders learn to identify public challenges, design solutions, and implement their ideas, all while building lifelong networks of activists, nonprofit executives, and government officials. Because this final category demands intensive resources and long-term commitments, these opportunities are much less common and less accessible for many institutions.

Across these categories of engagement, one consistency is the focus of participation: Engagement opportunities are often focused externally, encouraging students to respond to critical community needs or participate in elections. It is much less common for schools to give broad groups of enrollees any decision-making power inside their institutions, such as in making recommendations for a college’s strategic plan. Traditionally, these opportunities are available to a few students through organizations like the student government or limited advisory seats on administrative committees. They do not normally provide channels for larger numbers of enrollees or representative samples to weigh in on decisions that will affect them.

As a result, there are several areas of untapped potential where community colleges could expand their students’ civic development by focusing on partnership and empowerment—even in today’s politically complicated and resource-restricted environment.

A “Participatory Campus” is one where democratic education and engagement are defined by close collaboration between students and staff, who focus on addressing concrete local challenges.

This method requires combining all three models of existing civics opportunities—investing in institutional capacity, supporting civic learning in the curriculum and beyond, and partnering with students as civic leaders. At the same time, the Participatory Campus approach seeks to expand on traditional civics models at community colleges by prioritizing four principles.

First, organizers should follow best practices when designing engagement projects, paying particular attention to the subject of engagement (the “what”), the tools and methods of engagement (the “how”), the purpose of engagement (the “why”), and the participating constituents (the “who”). It is essential that these elements complement each other, whether the engagement project is part of a classroom assignment or an off-campus initiative.

Second, administrations should ensure accessibility by developing a broad spectrum of civic opportunities, ranging from low to high levels of involvement, that all receive some form of compensation. For example, students can complete a civically focused exercise during established class hours that counts toward their final grade and course credit. Students who can and want to get more involved could hold a paid role organizing engagement projects at a center for civics. 

Third, student leadership and decision-making should be incorporated into initiative planning and implementation. With this principle, civic education and engagement efforts would emphasize active, concrete, and ongoing democratic development rather than stand-alone participation opportunities. Taking this approach inside a classroom might look like asking students to develop proposals for addressing a community challenge and then inviting government staff to visit class for student-led presentations. Students could also partner with community organizations or officials to create a civic programming series that tackles a local need in place of a single-day, campus-wide volunteering event. 

Finally, schools can apply democratic ideals within their own institutional structures in addition to externally focused engagement. Kelly Siegel-Stechler, a former associate director of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, has argued for this broader shift. In a 2024 interview with the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, she encouraged administrators to ask, “What avenues do students have to use their voices and advocate for change? And when they do, how are their efforts received by faculty, staff, and administrators?” According to Stechler, these dynamics are especially important at public institutions, where students’ “experiences will set a precedent about what to expect from institutional and civic engagement throughout their lives.” To her, “civic learning is happening all the time, whether we are paying attention or not.”⁵⁶

Incorporating students’ perspectives in internal decision-making may also help improve administrations’ efficiency and efficacy. Here, higher education institutions could again learn from broader political science literature and public policy best practices, including an approach called collaborative governance. Also known as co-governance, this style of civic engagement brings constituents into the decision-making process through models like participatory budgeting and civic assemblies. Officials identify a specific decision, such as how to allocate part of the municipal budget or rezone a public plot of land. Representative groups of residents are then able to weigh in and offer recommendations to government officials. This approach reflects a shift of power and trust allowing officials and constituents to treat each other not as adversaries but as colleagues in democratic decision-making.⁵⁷ When governments incorporate this kind of civic engagement into the policymaking process, the outcomes are more likely to be successful. Officials are more likely to secure their constituents’ buy-in, bolster public trust in government, and accurately identify community priorities.⁵⁸ 

Higher education institutions might see similar benefits if they brought these kinds of engagement structures—particularly civic assemblies—to their campuses. Doing so would require adopting the standard model to fit these institutions’ resources, settings, and constraints—as broken down in the New America report Civic Assemblies: A Framework for Community Colleges. Ultimately, though, such initiatives would offer significant advantages to both students and institutions as a whole. As Ramirez put it, “Students and the community members have information and experiences that can really teach faculty and administrators and the institution about how it can better serve them.” In this way, “it’s not just about being fair, it’s about actually getting to the best solution.”⁵⁹

For example, a president could institute a civic assembly—made up of administrators, faculty, and students—to create a new code of ethics guiding the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms (see Figure 1). An academic department could set up an assembly to determine how to use limited programming funds, combining faculty and student input through a collaborative process. Assemblies like these would help administrators weigh complicated trade-offs, strengthen relationships across campus, and identify the best solutions for their community members. Students, in turn, would develop a deeper understanding of institutional issues and decision-making, practice advocating for themselves and others, gain leadership experience, and help shape policies that will directly affect their lives.

Within the Participatory Campus Framework, these principles could all be implemented to varying degrees, translating to different levels of student participation, institutional partnership, and power.

In this framework, each level of engagement includes some of the activities from the prior category (see Figure 2). The boundaries between levels are not rigid. Schools and stakeholders may move between categories during different periods of time and under different administrations. Similarly, schools may combine aspects of one category with the characteristics of another depending on their specific circumstances. 

Therefore, this framework is not intended to impose labels or to be used as a diagnostic tool but rather to help schools map their current activities and consider how they might work toward other categories of engagement in sustained, regimented ways. 

Today, a majority of civic opportunities at community colleges are focused on the levels of “Institutional Foundation” and “Civic Education and Skill-Building.” Some schools work within the “Civic Leadership” tier. (See Tables 1, 2, and 3, respectively, for corresponding definitions and activities.) The “Participatory Campus” builds on and is sustained by all three of these approaches (see Table 4).

Any of these approaches to engagement may be the best fit for some institutions based on their resources, their political climates, and the needs of their students and broader community. 

However, if students, faculty, or administrators are interested in broadening their civic offerings into other segments of the engagement spectrum, they can do so in manageable, tailored ways.

This work will look markedly different for every institution. There is no one-size-fits-all model. Whether schools are expanding existing civic capacity or looking to take small steps to grow their civic programming at a time of intense financial or political pressure, the recommendations below might help students, staff, and administrators think through courses of action. Here, funders will also find recommendations on where their resources might be particularly helpful for furthering stronger civic opportunities on community college campuses. (See Table 5 for a summary of these recommendations.) 

In an interview, Professor Mathew Oakes of Rock Valley College offered guiding questions for how he thinks about this work on his campus: What will help? What can I get done that is meaningfully connected to what we’re already doing? And what will actually make some change?⁶⁰ This simple framing can act as a clarifying launching point from which to outline and prioritize civic efforts.

As campus leaders work on the specific decision points of their own initiatives, they might keep the following few additional best practices in mind.

For many institutions, the most important place to start might be investing in their foundational capacity. As the cost of living continues to rise, job growth slows, and artificial intelligence reshapes the workforce, more students may feel additional financial pressure. Some must work additional jobs, cut back on their course load, or forgo higher education altogether. At the same time, skilled trades programs may see increased enrollment as people seek to enter blue‑collar fields that are unlikely to be automated in the near future. Institutional leaders navigating these complex forces—while also adjusting to a new funding landscape—may need to focus on their campuses’ strength and stability first.

Still, responding to these urgent challenges does not require abandoning civic efforts. Helping enrollees meet basic needs through on-campus food pantries, for example, can also tackle a common barrier that may limit some students’ ability to participate in civic initiatives.⁶¹ Similarly, providing food, class credit, or paid stipends to students who participate in civic programming may encourage engagement while also supporting those facing economic hardship.

Funders may choose to respond to this moment by providing bridging support to schools grappling with funding cuts. Here too, offering essential resources to keep institutions functioning should be a top priority, but this grant-making can also be done in a way that encourages or protects civic programming.

Student success and retention are chief concerns for everyone in the community college ecosystem, from students to administrators. A senior research associate at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, Susan Bickerstaff, emphasized the importance of tying civic initiatives to strategic plans and learning outcomes so that early programming can gain traction. One way to do this is to emphasize the soft skills that students will gain as well as the connection between engagement and graduation rates.⁶²

Connecting civics to concrete, actionable experiences that relate to students’ professions will be even more helpful—both for ensuring program longevity and for encouraging enrollees to prioritize civic opportunities. Imagine, as one example, that a student is pursuing an electrician certification. If her professor brings city officials from the local department of buildings to meet with the class as they learn about the permitting process, that student will gain skills useful to both her career and her lifelong role as a democratic constituent. 

In recent years, administrators may have also tied civic opportunities to federally supported grants or programming, such as those focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. While school leaders adapt to a new political environment, Oakes stressed the importance of embracing the federalized elements of the education system. State laws or accreditation mandates might still require equity considerations, for example. As he put it, “If we don’t [keep our] accreditation, we can’t do anything…The Trump Administration is like an 800-pound gorilla, but there are also 200-pound gorillas…[And] it doesn’t matter if it’s the 800-pound or the 200-pound gorilla that takes us out.”⁶³ So in places where there are discrepancies between federal and state requirements, administrators can balance competing mandates to bolster civic initiatives.

Once an institution has decided to invest in its civic mission, there are many different approaches that it can take. Administrators can decide to “dig deep,” focusing on building a well-established program with staff and infrastructure, such as by codifying civic requirements into curricula or creating a designated civic engagement center. Alternatively, institutions might find that “going wide” is a better strategy, in which they seed small civic initiatives in as many parts of the college as possible, knowing that they might not all survive but that some may eventually take root.

The first approach will likely work best for schools with clear mandates and significant resources. While a large number of schools have already incorporated civic engagement into some form of their mission, learning outcomes, or strategic goals, administrators might decide to build more specific civic components into their degree or certificate programs. In this process, leaders should avoid creating too many requirements: Furlett has found that if students have a negative experience with a mandated civic exercise, it might make them less likely to pursue those opportunities in the future.⁶⁴ Additionally, centers can offer powerful homes for civic initiatives, especially if they are connected to the president’s cabinet or another high-level component of the administration, receive direct funding, and emphasize student leadership.⁶⁵ Oakes emphasized, though, that these centers are most effective when they’re tied to solid civic commitments. He said he often finds himself wondering, “Are [centers] indicators of a deeply held institutional value? Or are they substitutes for that deeply held institutional value?”⁶⁶

For schools that don’t have the necessary funding or high-level buy-in to invest in concrete civic infrastructure, staff may choose to “go wide” and grow smaller civic engagement initiatives across campus. Oakes summed up this grassroots strategy as developing an environment where “there’s just so many of them, it’s hard to pull them all up.”⁶⁷ This approach still prioritizes meaningful engagement over superficial initiatives, but it aims to encourage local stakeholders to build as many discipline-specific opportunities as possible within existing campus frameworks and infrastructure. One tactic might be incorporating more student engagement into existing events: When a school in the Midwest hosted a forum for mayoral candidates, it allowed students to decide on the moderator’s questions, with a political science class leading the survey and data-cleaning process.⁶⁸ This approach turned a low-participation event into one in which students had a concrete role, guiding and shaping the outcomes. 

Oakes and Bickerstaff also highlighted the power of creating a “coalition of the willing”—with as few as three to five faculty members—and establishing a clear proof of concept. Bickerstaff has found that when faculty members lead these kinds of initiatives, they become the most credible source for recruiting and convincing other faculty members, especially when they can point to clear outcomes.⁶⁹

In either case, administrators play a critical role in supporting these efforts and elevating the faculty, staff, and students who carry them out.

One consistent theme in interviews and our convening was a wariness of top-down efforts and a recognition of initiative fatigue that is persistent across many community college campuses. Still, without high-level commitment and support, civic initiatives are unlikely to succeed. 

To find the right balance, Bickerstaff encouraged administrators to “find faculty who are already doing this work, make them superstars, and ask them what they need to bring other faculty on board.” Administrators should also be steadfast in their support of faculty and students who participate in engagement work.⁷⁰ That requires providing the training that organizers need to carry out civic initiatives well. Making civic initiatives a clear part of a staff or faculty member’s job, or providing compensation, is essential. As one professor put it in an interview, initiatives with a lot of interest often fizzle because it always “comes down to, ‘OK, who’s actually going to do the work?’ ”⁷¹ While supporting civic efforts, administrators should be sure to incorporate adjunct faculty, who are more likely to be left out of institutional processes.

Identifying and elevating staff champions in this way can contribute to initiative longevity. If only one faculty member is organizing civic initiatives as a passion project and leaves for another institution, the program will suffer. Staff champions can also help civic initiatives overcome what Jones called “the tyranny of the semester.” Because community college students are often on campus for shorter periods of time than their peers at four-year institutions, she observed that “the slate is constantly getting wiped clean” as semesters start and end.⁷² The institutional memory and guidance that faculty and staff members can provide are therefore essential and should be prioritized by college leadership. 

Finally, in today’s political climate, leaders should be willing to provide public statements that clarify and defend civic engagement efforts on their campuses. For example, if an appropriate, nonpartisan event triggers unreasonable public pushback—such as an outcry over a professor inviting an elected official to speak to a class about how local government works—administrators can make statements pushing back against disinformation, putting the details into context, and stressing that the event fits into the school’s commitment to civic study. Ultimately, one professor said that what he needs most from institutional leaders is “money and chutzpah.”⁷³

When putting civic initiatives into practice, experts consistently mentioned the importance of drawing on existing opportunities and resources from a wide range of partners on and off campus.⁷⁴

Doing so may require taking what Furlett called an “expansive view of how we look at community engagement, how we define community engagement, and how we bring people to the table.”

For example, student life and public affairs offices might act as natural homes for new civic initiatives because these teams often provide a front door to the university that is accessible to both students and outside community partners. Given this position, staff members can merge the needs of students and the broader neighborhood and identify cross-cutting opportunities.⁷⁵ Campus libraries play similar roles—given their work with students, municipal library systems, and members of the public—but they are often underutilized in civic programming.⁷⁶ Additionally, faculty and staff unions can provide deep knowledge and expertise in civic engagement and political work.⁷⁷

Other untapped resources are the connections that individual students, alumni, and staff members have with local businesses and organizations.⁷⁸ An enrollee might serve on a local nonprofit board, or a faculty member might have a side project consulting with a small business. A school might start by conducting a voluntary inventory process and coordinating with the career services center to get a broader picture of what connections already exist within the college network.

Building partnerships with external organizations can be mutually beneficial. If a four-year institution has the capacity to invite community college students to join civic initiatives on its campus, that both expands access to civic opportunities and opens up new recruitment channels for potential transfer students. One professor has encouraged community organizations to host events on campus in partnership with a class or student club by highlighting the fact that doing so means he can waive the space rental fee.⁷⁹

Another area of widespread agreement was on the importance of building civic initiatives into class time and coursework, leveraging the scheduling and work commitments that students and faculty have already made. Since the emergence of COVID-19, Jones has found that “the most effective way to engage students is in the classroom.” So she brought a get-out-the-vote event to her class. That way, students didn’t have to find time in their schedules to register to vote.⁸⁰ As Bickerstaff put it, “if something is not happening inside the context of a credit-bearing course, it’s just a harder sell [for everyone].”⁸¹

However, classroom-based experiences are often siloed in humanities courses. To help civics content expand to other disciplines, Oakes recommended that professors adopt a systematic framing—for example, educating biology students on how the Environmental Protection Agency works so they can better understand the broader structure of the field they hope to enter. Additionally, he suggested cross-listed courses as a potentially promising model, in which a class is taught by two faculty members from different departments. With this format, the professors can share their expertise and divide the work of adding civic components to the course. 

Though civic education concepts offer a vital foundation for long-term engagement, several experts also stressed the importance of moving beyond theoretical concepts and embracing experiential learning. Ramirez believes in inverting the standard education model, in which professors impart wisdom to students who then apply those concepts to the “real world.” Instead, he tries to embrace the application process and support hands-on opportunities that go beyond the kind of one-time volunteering projects that often characterize service learning. To him, that work is important, but he also believes in “setting up programs where students’ actual views and experiences can provide real value to the community.”⁸² This might involve students serving on a commission or conducting research that informs a local organization’s programming.

In this way, experiential learning opportunities should employ a wide definition of civic engagement to recognize and amplify what students are already doing in their communities. One person might take care of an elderly parent and regularly share what he’s learned with his neighbors facing similar situations. Another might run a support group for families affected by addiction on top of her day job. Furlett said that these forms of engagement are often overlooked by institutions because they are informal but that schools have an opportunity to give students class credit for their contributions. Practically, this could involve assigning a reflection paper, for example, in which students can deepen their understanding of the roles they can play to change their communities for the better.⁸³

Because there is no one right way to bring a Participatory Campus approach to a community college, students, staff, and administrators should experiment. With their diverse student bodies and broad networks of local ties, these schools can offer promising homes for bold civic engagement experiments, like adapting civic assemblies to inform administrative decision-making. On a smaller scale, students or faculty members may have new ideas they want to bring to their clubs or classrooms. To Furlett, the process is more important than the outcome. In an interview, she said, “Not all experiments work”; that shouldn’t be the expectation. The question is, “How do we learn from what happened and keep building on it?”⁸⁴

To make these initiatives possible, civic leaders need financial, logistical, and social support. Administrators, faculty mentors, department heads, foundation officers, and nonprofit leaders can all play different roles in providing this kind of assistance. For example, Campus Compact, in partnership with program funders, has been able to offer small grants of $2,000 to $5,000 for higher education students, staff, and faculty who want to build projects on their campuses. Foundations could also provide small stipends to cover the costs of students earning class credit through extended service learning. That way, students aren’t being charged tuition for the opportunity to provide free labor. 

One professor mentioned that this kind of funding would have made it possible for his institution to create a community-based learning program. The school proposed a partnership with a local organization that would host students completing semester-long internships. In exchange for their work, the students would each earn one credit, but there was still a concern that this program would effectively require students to pay tuition to become interns. However, the organization couldn’t afford to pay the students directly or cover the approximately $1,500 that their class credits would have cost. The partnership did not move forward.⁸⁵

Mentor or peer support networks can also help students and faculty members who are carrying out the difficult work of civic experimentation. In addition to providing seed funding, Campus Compact creates communities of practice, bringing together students from different schools who can brainstorm and share lessons learned as they grapple with similar challenges. Administrations or foundations could play a similar role, bringing together civic champions or coordinating joint efforts. Within individual campuses, faculty, staff, or union representatives can play a similar role in guiding and encouraging civic leaders. At Elgin Community College’s Center for Civic Engagement, Ramirez sees his role, in part, as supporting students through the trial-and-error process. He helps them set real and attainable goals, push beyond their comfort zones, and build on their success. As he put it in an interview, he approaches this work thinking, “Let’s try this, even though chances are really strong that it won’t work the way we want it to…If it doesn’t, we’ll expect that, reflect on it, and then make adjustments.”⁸⁶

Community colleges have always been more than institutions of learning. They are neighborhood anchors, economic engines, and—at their best—places where democracy can be both studied and practiced. Today, that civic role has become more difficult because of funding cuts and political polarization; it is also more important than ever. 

Whether community colleges are striving to protect their civic fundamentals or aiming to become innovative leaders in participation, adopting a broader definition of their civic role can provide an effective guiding framework. In this case, becoming a Participatory Campus means viewing civic education and engagement as core parts of the curricula—and an essential piece of how schools govern themselves. This vision blends a wide spectrum of civic practice, including everything from get-out-the-vote campaigns to experimental adoptions of models like civic assemblies. 

The Participatory Campus Framework is broad in nature because at its core, this approach is about customization, offering pathways for how students and staff can harness the democratic process in ways that are effective and appropriate for their institutions and their broader communities. 

If more schools are able to implement these strategies, their students, staff, and neighbors would benefit greatly, as would our nation. To invest in the civic potential of community colleges is to invest in American democracy at large—to commit to the never-ending work of realizing and perfecting the idea of a country powered by its people.