Government is a resource of the people, but not the only one.

Government is a resource of the people, but not the only one. Public work illuminates a broader range of citizen talents, whether teens who told Jennifer O’Donoghue how important it was to create things of lasting value or IDASA’s approach that teaches local officials to shift focus from what government and health workers should do about HIV/AIDS to what the citizenry in communities do. Another of Dewey’s contributions was his sustained focus on schools and educative processes in general.

Benson, Harkavy, and Puckett add practicality to his concerns, with an inspiring track record of “making real” Dewey’s idea of schools as centers of community life, connected to community problems. Yet many settings, not simply schools, need to be conceived as civic learning environments - families, cultural groups, libraries, congregations and small businesses, neighborhood organizations and art projects, to mention a few.

Moreover, while academics have much to contribute, they have more to learn from groups outside of higher education.

Finally, to transform the cultural dynamics and concentrations of wealth and power that threaten communal and democratic values will require civic learning and populist organizing in a myriad of locations, beyond schools - religious denominations and unions, professional associations and shop floors, courtrooms and jailhouses, dot com companies and farming communities, environmental groups and government agencies, legislatures and Congress.

Higher education has interactive ties to all of these and more. A populist movement integrates democratic practices and sites with a conception of public agency that sees the citizen as co-creator, “We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for.” This is the “citizen at the center” stance, the title of Ström’s and Gibson’s pieces. Higher education takes on many roles in a populist movement.

Our institutions are potentially key “agents and architects” of democracy, as Elizabeth Hollander and I put it in The Wingspread Declaration on the civic mission of research universities. They are not simply its researchers, critics, service providers, or the educators of its future leaders. Scholars’ work is not only to analyze and critique but also to stimulate conversations, to expand the sense of the possible, and to help activate civic and political energies.

Redefining higher education’s role in these terms is crucial in the early 21st century.