Iowa and Minnesota Campus Compact are excited to announce the session for the 2019 Civic Action Academy! Students from across the Midwest are invited to attend this two-day conference focused on civic and community engagement. Register today!

The Academy is on November 8 – 9, 2019 in Cedar Falls, Iowa at the University of Northern Iowa. Registration is $75, but students from Campus Compact member institutions can receive a $50 discount by using the code CONFERENCE.

Friday, November 8, 2019, 1:30 PM

Civic Engagement through College/Community Collaboration

Hailey Schmitz, Maddie Fletcher, Nicholas Kennicker, Nathan Trabue, Mitchell Boxwell, Warburg College

The purpose of the session is to explore how, through collaboration, college students can contribute to their own development as civically engaged citizens while making substantive contributions to the different communities of which they are a part.

From Classroom to Community Engagement

Caleb Gipple, University of Northern Iowa

This session will educate, engage, and empower young leaders to take initiative to give back to their communities and rethink what that looks like as a young professional.

Local Government as an Agent for Change

Angelina Ramirez, Coe College

County governments are often overlooked as agents of change. Through role-playing as government agencies, participants will be encouraged to examine local government authority and how they can work with their community to enact crucial change.

Friday, November 8, 2019, 2:45 PM

Phoenix Rising:  The Role of Truth-telling in Developing a Transformative Imagination Critical to Community Uplift

Abraham Funchess, Waterloo Commission on Human Rights

Confronting power structures in community over issues related to class, gender, race and status can prove to be a daunting task when approached on the individual level.  But history demonstrates that groups can be successful in bringing about transformational change.  This section examines thought from a few critical thinkers like Tisby (The Color of Compromise); Diangelo (White Fragility); Kendi (Stamped From the Beginning); and, Engler & Engler (This is An Uprising) to show how transformative imagination can help change the status quo.

Paths to Social Change

Stacy Van Gorp, See What I Mean

Today’s college students volunteer more and are more socially engaged then previous generations.  You are a generation of change makers. This session will help you identify the kind of difference you want to make in the world.  We’ll move beyond a discussion of issue areas, into an assessment of your personal social change style.  Understanding your social change style will help you make choices about how and where to share your gifts.

Maximizing networks as powerful tools for change

Jordan Vernoy, Feeding America

Networks are powerful tools of social change but are often not used in the most effective ways. The default vision networks often: take the network mission out of the design, puts local entities in the weakest position in a hierarchy of control, places a single organization’s’ well-being over the collective strength of the network. We have witnessed real change when leaders recognize and challenge these default settings, and begin to reimagine a network that cultivates: trust before control, the mission before organization, and distributed leadership before the hierarchy. In this session we will use an example of change the Feeding America network is working on today, and think about how that could be modeled in developing the network you need to affect the social change you want to make.

Effective ways to recruit and manage volunteers

Lauren Finke, Volunteer Center of the Cedar Valley

Ever wonder why volunteer programs sometime seem like a revolving door of new faces? Having effective volunteer management practices and a strong volunteer engagement organizational culture are key to partnering with volunteers and keeping them! This session will provide useful tips and techniques about developing and implementing targeted recruitment strategies; crafting volunteer recruitment messages; and interviewing, screening, and matching techniques.

Fossil fuels to clean energy: Moving from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance

Matt Russell, Interfaith Power and Light

The fossil fuel era was built on a vision of the world through the lens of scarcity, people either had fossil fuels or they didn’t. The future must be build on abundance with clean energy depending on human ingenuity working with nature. For example, we will never run out of the sun. We will look at this transformation currently underway from a values based framework, especially in values shared by many of the worlds’ faith traditions.

Saturday, November 9, 2019, 9:00 AM

Civic Agency

Sinda Nichols, Monique Ellefson, Iowa and Minnesota Campus Compact

Nonprofit Myth Busting: Careers in the Nonprofit Sector

Julianne Gassman, University of Northern Iowa

When some people think about the nonprofit sector they think about volunteering, giving back, civic duties and donating money, however it is possible to have a career in the nonprofit sector, earn a decent wage and have a rewarding career. This session will allow you to wash away the guilt of wanting to be rich (various interpretations do apply) and have a career in the nonprofit sector. As the fastest growing sector, jobs in nonprofit organizations often offer more leadership and advancement opportunities than in business or the government. Learn about opportunities that align with your major, and discover how you can realize your career aspirations and contribute to improving lives, communities, and regions – maybe even the world.

Working with Media

Zack Kucharski, Gazette

Even in the age of social media and viral fame, successful social change efforts often rely on media outlets to tell their story and help gain traction. In this session, Cedar Rapids Gazette Executive Editor Zack Kucharski will offer insight into the newsmaking process. He will share tips for telling great stories and capturing public attention and ideas for how to successfully navigated garnering attention and responding to media requests. Students will get new ideas and increased confidence in their ability to build successful media partnerships for social change.

Saturday, November 9, 2019, 10:15 AM

Baldwin Leadership Fellows: The Opportunity to Create Change

Hailey Schmitz, Jared Feigenbaum, Britt Avery, Wartburg College

The Baldwin Leadership Fellows, look to make change in their community though community service projects. This session will enable others to take action through their own experiences to benefit the communities around them.

Menstrual Inequity

Dechen Khangkyil, Grinnell College

Raise awareness about menstrual inequity. Mobilize people to put pressure on their state legislatures to make period products more accessible in schools, prisons and homeless shelters.

Facing impossible Odds: Using a growth mindset to combat demoralization and preserve motivation

Maximilian Hill, Rick Johsnon, Grinnell College

The Grinnell College Football team will share their story of perseverance through four spectacularly unsuccessful seasons illustrating their values of comradery and devotion with the hope of inspiring participants to examine their own purpose.

About the Civic Action Academy

This unique professional development opportunity for students interested in learning new ways of making a difference and building skills through civic and community engagement.

The event will be held on November 8 and 9, 2019 at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Students from across the Midwest and beyond (undergraduate and graduate) are invited to learn from professionals across sectors. Sessions will offer skill-building in civic action including philanthropy, leadership, dialogue, advocacy and more. Students will also have a chance to learn what others are doing on other campuses and network with peers.

Registration is now open. The full conference rate is $75, but students, staff, and faculty from Campus Compact member institutions can register at a discounted rate of $25.

Attendees may also register for the Civic Leadership Workshop (pre-conference) and Networking Dinners (Friday night) for an additional fee. Space is limited to both!

November 8 – 9, 2019

The University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa