02/16/18 

HAYS, Kan. – The Leadership Studies Department at Fort Hays State University is among 22 academic departments from colleges and universities around the nation to be recognized for integrating civic responsibility and service into the major field of study.

Fort Hays State and 11 others are featured on the website of the Association of American Colleges & Universities, an organization of more than 1,400 public and private institutions. FHSU’s Department of Leadership Studies is among 12 recognized as models of how to make civic responsibility an integral part of a major course of study.

The departments recognized include departments of communication, humanities, social work, public health and others.

“The recognition is for how the department integrates civic responsibility into the major,” said Dr. Jill Arensdorf, chair of FHSU’s Department of Leadership Studies.

A hallmark at FHSU is the LDRS 310 class, Field Work in Leadership Studies. Students in this class have been conducting civic projects in the Hays community and the area for years now.

Projects for the on-campus classes in the fall 2017 semester, for instance, included among others Dingers for Diabetes, a project with Step It Up For A Cure to help those who are affected by Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes through education, fundraising, and raising awareness; Feed the Shelter to assist the Humane Society of the High Plains with supplies and funds for medical care; and Leaders in Health Ed, to help educate about and create healthier lifestyles for people with intellectual disabilities in Ellis County.

A project team at Sias International University, Zinzheng (pronounced shinJUNG), China, last fall created an AIDS awareness and education campaign, said Arensdorf.

“That class is delivered in multiple modalities,” she said. “The on-campus students perform their service work in Hays and the surrounding area. Our virtual majors, who take the class online, work in their home communities all over the nation and world.”

Another innovation in the Hays program is the China partnership universities, in which students take the class, taught by FHSU instructors, and learn about civic responsibility on the campuses of partner institutions in China and then also work their community service projects in their campus communities.

Nine other departments were featured with case studies in the January issue of Peer Review, the quarterly journal of the AAC&U. The issue was titled “Civic Learning in the Major by Design.”

The AAC&U’s project to find and recognize the 22 institutions was supported by a grant from the Endeavor Foundation. The intent, said the AAC&U, is to introduce civic learning into the areas of academic study where considerations of citizenship are rarest – the coursework of the disciplines in which students are majoring.

The project was the AAC&U’s response to a challenge presented by “A Crucible Moment: Civic Learning and Democracy’s Future,” a 2012 report form the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. “The report,” said a summary on the AAC&U’s website, “pushes back against a prevailing national dialogue that limits the mission of higher education to workforce preparation and training while marginalizing disciplines basic to democracy.”

The AAC&U’s summary of the civic engagement model at Fort Hays State highlighted the 310 class and 640, Principles of Civic Leadership.

Principles examines leadership “in the context of community and society” in the classroom. However, in Field Work, LDRS 310, students design and conduct a service learning project over the course of the semester. Students all over the world have conducted projects in their communities during their courses of study in this class, both in person and online.

“Community life is translated into professional life,” said Arender. “Being civically responsible and confronting problems collaboratively is the skillset they are learning. These are skills that can be transferred to multiple contexts.”

Links to the case studies and the featured departments can be found at
www.aacu.org/case-studies-civic-learning-major-design.