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The Washington Center Invites Nominations for the 2012 Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards

Since 2009, The Washington Center has presented the Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards each year to a small number of institutions that have made civic engagement central to their work. Awardees have constituted a cross-section of U.S. higher education in terms of their control (public or private), size, mission, region, and resources.

The 2012 Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards are sponsored by the New York Life Foundation. Recipient institutions will be provided with $20,000 in scholarships that will help their students to access The Washington Center internship programs in the nation's capital during the following year.

Award Profile

Through the Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards, TWC recognizes institutions that are achieving breadth and depth of civic engagement though sustained and mutually transformative partnerships that define and address issues of public concern at any level from the local to the global. As a group, the selected institutions serve as examples of the ways that colleges and universities strengthen and contribute to their communities while enriching student learning.

The Washington Center and the selection committee, chaired by TWC Board of Directors member Geri Mannion of Carnegie Corporation, will consider in particular the following criteria:

1. Leadership in defining issues of public concern. We construe leadership broadly as including, but not necessarily being limited to: creativity in approach; ability to leverage institutional relationships, expertise or resources; and/or a deepening understanding of environmental or other factors that impact the issue of public concern.
2. Commitment to sustainable and transformational partnerships as a critical method to problem solving.
3. Depth of institutional commitment towards addressing issues of public concern and effecting systemic change.

If you are interested in nominating your college or university for the 2012 Higher Education Civic Engagement Awards, please complete an online nomination form. You will need to attach to this form a two-page description of your institution's civic engagement efforts, as well as a scanned copy of a signed presidential signature form. The deadline for submissions is May 18, 2012.

When your nomination is received, we will send you an email acknowledging its arrival within approximately four days. Please contact Sara Clement at sara.clement@twc.edu or 202-238-7970 if you have not received this message post-submission or if you have any questions.

Decisions will be made around late June or early July, and all nominees will be notified at that time.