Learning from the work of others, both good and bad

Just a couple days ago I came across what looked strikingly similar to Wikipedia. However, it's got something different going on. Participedia, the idea of Archon Fung at the Kennedy School at Harvard is one of the individuals behind this initiative. Participedia's website says, 


"Participedia is a tool for strengthening democracy. Based on a wiki platform, its main content consists of user-generated articles which describe and assess participatory governance throughout the world. For instance, there will be articles on the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly of 2004, consensus conferences in Denmark, participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and other cities, local school council governance in Chicago, municipal evaluation meetings in China, and the People’s Campaign for Democratic Decentralization (under the Panchayati Raj reforms) in Kerala, India. In addition, there will be articles on participatory methods, such as deliberative polling, citizens' assemblies, and participatory budgeting, as well as articles about the organizations that sponsor, implement, and study participatory governance. Over time, we hope Participedia will garner hundreds and perhaps thousands of such articles.

There are three main kinds of articles in Participedia:

• Articles about cases, or experiences, of participatory or deliberative governance (e.g. British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly of 2004).
• Articles about specific methods of public deliberation, participation, or collaborative governance (e.g. Participatory Budgeting).
• Articles about organizations that design, execute, or support public participation, deliberation, or collaborative public action (e.g. Everyday Democracy).

So, log on, take a look around, and maybe even offer your own story as to how participatory and deliberative engagement is being used. The hope is to have both stories that demonstrated what worked while also including those accounts which show what doesn't work sometimes, given a particular contextual setting, etc. 

Regardless, it is another tool for those interested in these topics to learn from others. It remains to be seen to what degree something like this will be used to lager numbers of practitioners. Hopefully, it will be more than we're thinking. 

When the university can't speak differently

This article from The Chronicle shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but it reminds me of the reality facing public institutions, especially when we begin to raise questions about the status quo and those in positions that enable them to influence decisions.

The case of the Leopold Center at Iowa State University is important because it demonstrates the politics of public universities, whether it is admitted or not.

Read more about it here.

Wendell Berry and the question of what a land-grant university should be

Wendell Berry has raised an important question about what a land-grant university is and how some universities are losing sight of their purposes, especially today. The desire to be elite research institutions, especially in the STEM fields, raises concerns about what universities are focusing on today. This is true especially in a time when there is considerable need on the part of communities outside of the realm of the hard sciences.

This issue with Berry and his desire to reconsider his relationship with the University of Kentucky should raise serious flags for the university, but also for others who only focus on STEM.

To quote the Lexington Herald Leader, "Berry, 75, said UK's push to become a "Top 20" research university has caused it to stray from its land-grant university obligation to address Kentucky's problems.

"The coal business came up, and that for me was just the last straw," Berry said Tuesday. "I don't think the University of Kentucky can be so ostentatiously friendly to the coal industry ... and still be a friend to me and the interests for which I have stood for the last 45 years. ... If they love the coal industry that much, I have to cancel my friendship."


Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/06/23/1319383/wendell-berry-pulling-his-personal.html#ixzz0rm6pw3uT

Cornell West and the Desire for Deep Democracy

Nevada Considering Closing the College of Agriculture

If one doesn't think that the current economic climate isn't impacting the state of land-grant universities, then one must only look to the University of Nevada, Reno and the possibility that the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources might be gone in 18 months. The article is worth a read and you can find it here. Also, there is a video explaining the potential cuts and you can watch this brief clip. 

Reshaping Extension

In a new article from The Chronicle of Higher Education on the issue of the economy and its impact on land-grant universities exposes the dramatic changes (cuts) being made to this arm of university outreach and engagement.

I don't have much to say about it except one should read this article.

When People Speak

Jim Fishkin has become famous in deliberative democracy circles for his approach to engaging citizens in a way that blends traditional polling with more deliberative practices. His angle--deliberative polling--has been used in many settings to measure what role deliberation plays in shaping and reshaping the minds of citizens.  

Here's a piece on Fishkin's new book as well as a project he's doing in Michigan.

There are many who have issues with this approach, but there are many things that deliberative polling does that we have difficulty doing otherwise; few others have figured out how to engage such large populations in a way that allows citizens to have a voice rather than simply answering poll questions that are structured in such a way that impedes one from actually representing what one thinks.

The challenge, from the critical perspective of deliberative polling, is that it still only draws from those who are able and confident enough to engage in such deliberations. These are serious concerns, especially when one is using deliberative practices to engage those who are marginalized by the politcal process.

Dismantling Extension in Michigan

Dismantling Extension. It's hard to believe that the institution that served as one of the models for what would become the land-grant colleges and universities of the United States would find itself on the brink of non-existence. What this says about the current economy is that aspects of society that we have come to expect are now being called into question when budgets must be cut. But more than that, Extension has been pulled in different directions and thus wore many hats. Additionally, there has always been tension about what Extension was and should be. We can see that in the rich history of land grant universities. Scott Peters, in his introduction to Catalyzing Change, notes that Extension is more than simply the dissemination of information. 

What, I would argue, is the most important work of Extension has been marginalized and sidelined. If Extension is cut, I think an important player in democracy will be ushered off the stage for good.

So here's an article from Michigan quoting Frank Fear. He asks about the results of closing Extension and the impact on rural America. I think this is a very legitimate concern, but there is cause for concern about what this means for America when citizens lose resources that are vital to living in community with one another.

I can hope that these cuts don't occur to Michigan State University Extension, but it seems something will happen. I wonder what other states might follow down this path.