Civic Innovations, a strategic initiative, addresses needs of disadvantaged youth and is a collaboration between Wagner College and youth serving agencies on Staten Island. The model transforms college and community by implementing institutional and curricular changes that integrate service-learning pedagogy and civic engagement values, while utilizing college student and faculty expertise to enhance lives of disadvantaged youth. The model coordinates services and provides a means for community-based organizations to share resources and collaborate.
Under the Civic Innovations program (2006-2009), created to deepen the undergraduate General Education Wagner Plan, individual academic departments (Community-Connected Departments, or CCDs)partner exclusively with specific community organizations (Department-connected Agencies, or DCAs)to co-develop courses and projects that engage Wagner students and address the academic, social and emotional needs of disadvantaged youth on Staten Island. Wagner students serve as mentors and tutors, facilitate health education programs, and collect data that informs policy development. Students are also tasked with reflecting on these experiences to understand how the theory taught in the classroom translates into practice at their community partnership.
In the first three years of the CCD model, six academic departments revised courses addressing needs of partnering organizations and disadvantaged youth. CCD courses are developed and syllabi co-constructed with community youth-serving organizations. Courses are developmentally sequenced from the Freshman through Senior years, with experiential projects increasing in complexity as the student matures within the program.
Civic Innovations is generously supported through funding from The Corporation for National and Community Service’s Learn & Serve America Program.