Civic Engagement Initiative Promotes Connection, Comprehension, Cohesion
By Lisa Tedrick Prejean
“Tell me more.”
These three words convey a willingness to understand positions that run counter to our own.
In a society with escalating conflict and declining compromise, these words can provide connection, comprehension, and cohesion.
Yet, how often are they voiced?
As Mercersburg students come of age at a time that is increasingly divided and partisan, the goal of preparing them to lead and serve the world is challenged by a public that has struggled to hear and understand differing thoughts and opinions.
“There used to be a lot more discourse, dialogue, and willingness to hear ideas that were different than the ones we hold,” said Head of School Quentin McDowell P ’25, ’27. “We’re all so busy wanting to talk, no one is actually listening.”
In response to this growing concern, the school has launched a civic engagement initiative.
“We’re observing what the world needs right now,” McDowell said. “We are feeling obligated to respond to it.”
The initiative examines the framework of interaction throughout campus, from classrooms to athletic fields, said faculty member Allison Stephens P ’11, ’13, whom McDowell tapped to chair the civic engagement task force, which was formed in the fall of 2022 and is deliberately composed of people with varying ages, political and social viewpoints, and roles at the school.
“Everything that we do with students surrounding character-building and communitybuilding has to do with civics because that is about the community we’re creating,” said Stephens, who is head of the history department. “This is really going to be an initiative that defines life at school as we know it–not necessarily in a way that changes everything but one that brings our work into alignment with real goals and intention around the idea of community responsibility and belonging.”
Mercersburg defines civics as the study and cultivation of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential to participate as a well-informed, engaged member within a community, a nation, and the world.
While civic knowledge is embedded in much of the history curriculum, the initiative will expand that to areas throughout campus.
“It’s not just teaching American government and democracy in the classroom,” said Assistant Director of Library Services Nicole Brown, civic engagement task force project manager. “It is a way of life. It’s teaching students how to engage with their community, and how to be a member of a community. It’s teaching them about what institutions and practices support a healthy, thriving community that’s good for all members.”
The initiative is about halfway through a projected three-year rollout period. So far, much of the work has been foundational.
The task force used the Educating for American Democracy Report to build civics standards that were tailored specifically for the composition and needs of the Mercersburg community. They have identified existing opportunities for civic engagement, as well as the need for growth.
“How might we leverage what we’re already doing?” McDowell said. “How might we deepen the intentionality of what we’re doing? What’s missing?”
The task force has worked with the Institute for Citizens & Scholars to align the work being implemented through campus programs with civics opportunities and competencies.
Last fall, Mercersburg welcomed Rajiv Vinnakota, president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation), as keynote speaker for Family Weekend.
“We’ve reached out to leaders in different parts of our school community to look at the ways in which our school and its programs are meeting what we’re calling our core competencies for students,” Stephens said. “That’s been really rewarding because we are recognizing the ways in which so much of this work is already happening.”
For example, practices used by the Office of Student Life to train student leaders align with several of the competency categories. Programs to acclimate new students to the Mercersburg community during Inbound also meet the competencies that have been outlined by the task force.
“We met with Betsy Cunningham, who runs our peer mentor programs,” Brown said. “We asked her, ‘Where do you see these [civic competencies] aligning with your work?’ She said, ‘You know, we’re doing a lot of these already.’”
In the school’s Peer Group and Mentor Leadership programs, students learn who they are in relation to others, said Cunningham, a member of the science department.
“Peer Group is a national program where we model with the leaders different activities that are intentionally designed to help students consider multiple points of view, including their own, and how those perspectives mesh in a small community,” Cunningham said. “The key is the conversation at the end. Talking (and listening) through the activity is really what allows students to grow in their own worldview.”
As a Peer Group leader, a Mentor Leadership group leader, and a member of the civic engagement student advisory board, Dylan Stiffler ’24 said a better understanding of the concept of civics has allowed him to be a more thoughtful leader and helped him connect his roles at Mercersburg to his future.
“I have learned how to be a more engaged community member of my school but also of the world,” said Stiffler, who was captain of the soccer team and has committed to play soccer at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. “It is something I will take with me to college.”
To prepare for college and their careers, it’s important for students to hear and understand the positions of others, said John Jones III ’73, a former federal judge who is president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.
“We’re going to head for a really dark place if we don’t figure out how to have the kind of public debate that turns into progress,” Jones said. “And we seem too often to have lost the capacity to do that. You can’t really understand how to proceed and make changes unless you understand divergent viewpoints.”
At times, initial impressions need to be abandoned so that informed and valued choices can be made, said Shawn Meyers ’86, president judge of Pennsylvania’s 39th Judicial District Court, who noted that judges wait until they hear all the evidence and arguments before making decisions.
“That’s the idea behind the adversarial process and the judiciary,” Meyers said. “The idea is that hopefully out of dispute will come the ability to determine the truth.”
The goal for the school’s initiative is to assure that all voices are included and appreciated, as they come from different backgrounds, different identities, different perceptions, and different thoughts, McDowell said.
“The magic is when you’re able to get all those things in the room together and have dialogue where the goal is learning and growing and understanding while also maintaining the intellectual autonomy of every student. We shouldn’t be afraid to have open and honest dialogue and discourse, which is often easier said than done.”
The task force is examining four elements of school culture:
- Connection – civic identity, inclusion/empathy, and community building
- Belief – agency/student opportunity for leadership, shared civic values, along with trust and hope
- Participation – public decision-making, collaborative problem-solving, improving how we govern
- Understanding – critical thinking, interpreting history, how government and political systems work
“We talk about the community being the strongest element of Mercersburg Academy, and I don’t disagree with that, but there are certainly some gaps and ways in which we can build that with greater intention,” Stephens said. “We’ve recognized over the years that we have a community that is very nice to each other but doesn’t really grapple with some of the serious discussions that need to be taking place, that many colleges are having trouble with and that we are having trouble with. That is part of the kind of dialogue we hope to build with each other that is brave and honest and hard.”
Putting Theory into Practice
The next step in the process is evaluating civic readiness–the knowledge and habits needed to take advantage of opportunities.
“We’re starting to make a road map for implementation that has what would be a curricular component and will start with students in the 9th grade,” Stephens said. “By that, I mean the academic curricular component, but also a component that starts to infuse these skills and habits into our larger community body.
“We’ve changed a lot in terms of the identity of Mercersburg, in some of those same ways that the country has, and how do we realize that growth and also realize how it might be challenging to some people who are in the community already?”
A democratic society is built on the fundamental need for conflict and compromise, noted McDowell, adding that through compromise, most people will have their needs met.
“The world needs people who can talk across differences, who can listen with the intention of learning, instead of just listening with only the desire to respond,” McDowell said.
The importance of active listening is being promoted through school programming.
The student advisory board hosted a primary watch party in April, during which they provided information about the electoral process.
Preparing for the watch party, especially the educational flyers and information desk planning, enabled Tristan Paulette ’27 to share his civic interests with his peers.
“I have learned how to effectively apply my civic knowledge to different events and activities to spread awareness and to reinforce a stable, inclusive, and thoughtful civically minded community,” said Paulette, noting that a new, robust Model UN team and debate club have had numerous successes. “Mercersburg is doing a lot more than other schools to prepare our students to be active participants in our political process. I hope we can expand our operations while also welcoming new ideas in the future.”
Other programs on campus initiated by the civic engagement task force have included inhouse training and workshops with organizations that focus on civic discourse.
An active listening discussion encouraged participants to practice hearing others’ perspectives.
Braver Angels, a nonpartisan, national organization that works to bridge the partisan divide, provided a depolarization workshop to teach people how to listen to understand rather than listen to respond.
Participants were encouraged to consider how (and to what extent) they use the four agents of polarization: stereotyping, dismissing, ridiculing, and contempt.
To counteract these agents, participants were instructed to use LAPP (Listen, Acknowledge, Pivot, and Perspective) skills. The school hopes to continue working with Braver Angels.
Leveraging the Long Blue Line
As part of their work with the school’s task force, students on the civic engagement student advisory board traveled to Washington, D.C., for a retreat, where they met with Mercersburg alumni working in the city to hear firsthand about the struggles, successes, and compromises involved in making democracy work.
One of the alums, Gabriella Bucci ’15, said she “was thoroughly impressed with the natural curiosity and insightful nature of questions that students asked regarding my role in politics and how my experiences might help them in their shaping of civil discourse at Mercersburg Academy.”
Bucci, vice president of communications at AxAdvocacy, said it’s important for students to research what is happening in the world and to consider differentiating opinions and participate in respectful debate.
Student task force members also met with Reed Widdoes ’15, who is attending law school at American University Washington College of Law.
“Mercersburg continues to impress upon students the importance of thinking meaningfully about how we interact with the communities to which we belong,” Widdoes said, issuing a challenge to students: “Engage with the communities around you and think about the reasons they are structured the waythat they are. It’s important to ask why!”
Collin Jin ’25 saw value in visiting with alumni during the trip.
“I realized the collective power of Mercersburg alumni, and talking to them about their jobs and their time at Mercersburg was both fun and inspiring,” said Jin, who is a member of the civic engagement student advisory board.
Madeline Chu ’27 said being part of the advisory board has taught her useful discussion skills and how to form and present opinions respectfully.
“I have not only learned more facts about topics such as the election process but also have become more open-minded,” Chu said. “I can now give better advice to my friends and also more confidently take on conversations with others with strongly contrasting views.”
Stephens wants students to see the idea of civic engagement as a means to empowerment. “I hope that they will come to feel like they can make a difference in the world,” Stephens said. “It’s fascinating to me that some of our most engaged students are international students coming from places where they don’t have a civic voice.”
Attorney Josh Bratter ’91, who specializes in international law, presented a virtual session for international students to discuss the stakes they have in the election outcomes here. Even though they are not citizens with the privilege to vote, if they want to attend college or work in the United States or become a citizen one day, they need to pay attention to the election process and how best to plan for the future, he said.
The foundational work is far from complete, but much ground has been covered.
“I hope that people can be patient and understand that our first goal is to look at what we’re doing well, and to really align our vision with what we’re doing well, and of course, to start addressing the gaps in our programming and thinking about where can we be better, where can we improve? That just takes time,” said Brown, task force project manager. “It has tentacles that touch literally every single part of our life on campus and off this campus.”
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