A grant from the Teagle Foundation will allow Cornell faculty and staff to launch a new civic education program for high school students, opening pathways to higher education.
A pilot of the program will be run this summer with students in the Cornell Upward Bound program. Students from six local high schools will visit campus for two weeks of classes in classic texts of political thought and have ongoing mentorship from Cornell students as part of the Knowledge for Freedom program, organized by Alexander Livingston, associate professor of government in the College of Arts & Sciences, and Liz Millhollen, associate director of pre-college opportunity programs in the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.
“We were thinking about what role the university could better serve in promoting civic education in this moment of democratic crisis and backsliding, which is both an American crisis and a global one,” Livingston said. “We want to help equip a new generation of scholars to think about the meaning of democracy and how to more fully become engaged citizens in public life.”
A highlight of the program is the summer residential experience. The course will examine foundational questions of citizenship and democracy through the humanistic study of political thought from Plato and Aristotle to Gandhi and Baldwin. The programs also prepares undergraduates to serve as mentors and teaching assistants.
The KFF program seeks to offer learning experiences to students around these classic and modern texts of political thought to “open them up to them and welcome them in,” Livingston said. Knowledge for Freedom programs are run by 33 colleges and universities across the U.S., but this is the first time Cornell has received a Teagle grant for one.
“The Teagle Foundation is delighted to support the Einhorn Center in offering local high school students the chance to reflect on enduring human questions while living amid the beauty of the Cornell campus,” said Andrew Delbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation. “We believe this foretaste of the college experience can be life-changing —not only for the students but also for the teachers and mentors who take time and care in working with them.”
In similar courses with Cornell undergrads, Livingston said he begins by asking students to consider this: the systems in our country and the lives they are living reflect previous generations’ answers to major questions of political life, questions such as the nature of democracy, the meaning of justice and the duties of citizenship.
“Going back to these classic texts is a way to think about those questions, understand the history of those answers and invite students to ask themselves whether those are the right answers for them today,” Livingston said, “or whether they want to recraft the way we think about our political language, our political institutions.”
Students will also engage with guest lecturers, the Cornell library system, local civic leaders and organizations and will be connected to Cornell undergrads, including students in the Humanities Scholars Program, who will act as teaching assistants and mentors.
Livingston taught a short class over winter break with current Upward Bound students to get a feel for the group he’ll be working with this summer. “When students are given the time and space to engage deeply with big ideas, they are more than ready for it,” Millhollen said. “In this short workshop, they demonstrated real skill and critical thinking through their questions and responses.”
In the fall after the summer course, high school students will continue to be mentored by Cornell undergrads and university staff, who will help them with applications, essays and other resources related to the college application process, Millhollen said.
Livingston and Millhollen plan to expand the program in future summers, opening it to other local high school juniors throughout the region.
“This is an opportunity for Cornell to live out its mission by sharing what we do best with our neighboring communities,” Livingston said, “and to affirm the university’s role as a public good that belongs to them as well.”
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