From Campus to Community: Civic Engagement and the Future of Higher Ed

What happens when higher education reclaims its civic purpose at a time when the public questions its value? By engaging deeply with their communities, institutions can rebuild trust, demonstrate relevance, and strengthen student belonging in ways that go beyond enrollment numbers. 

In this episode of Innovating Enrollment Success, Andrew Seligsohn, president of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research and engagement organization focused on strengthening democracy and expanding opportunities for civic participation, shares how institutions can align civic purpose with student success. 

From building community partnerships to modeling institutional values, Seligsohn shares what it takes to make engagement central to both learning and leadership. 

What you’ll learn 

·       Civic engagement builds learning and belonging. When students connect coursework to real communities, they form deeper ties to their institution. 

·       Partnerships make institutions trusted and relevant. Collaborating locally shows your brand’s value beyond campus walls. 

·       Leaders must live their values. Authentic action from leadership reinforces mission and builds audience trust. 

·       Listening creates connection and understanding. Dialogue across differences strengthens both campus culture and brand perception. 

·       Every voice strengthens the institution. Inclusion fuels belonging, engagement, and advocacy among students and staff. 

·       Meaning drives student success and loyalty. When students see purpose in their education, they stay, succeed, and champion your story. 

Transcript

Cathy Donovan [00:00:00]:
 
Hello and welcome to the Innovating Enrollment Success Podcast, where we explore the strategies and shifts shaping how colleges and universities connect with students and communities. Today we're going to step beyond enrollment tactics to look at what role civic engagement plays in higher education's mission. And how does it connect to student belonging and institutional success? 

I'm Cathy Donovan, agency marketing director at Paskill, a higher education enrollment marketing firm that helps institutions across the country align strategy with student needs and community expectations. I'm joined today by Andrew Seligson, president of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research and public engagement organization dedicated to strengthening democracy and expanding opportunities for civic participation. 

Before joining Public Agenda, Andrew served as president of Campus Compact, leading a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. Earlier at Rutgers University—Camden, he was associate chancellor for civic engagement and strategic planning, building university community partnerships that connected students directly with the Camden community.

He previously directed Civic Engagement Learning at Princeton University's Pace Center and was a tenured associate professor of political Science at Hartwick College. He holds a PhD in political Science from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Williams College. 

Andrew, welcome. It's so good to reconnect.

Andrew Seligsohn: 

Well, it is very nice to be with you, Cathy. Thanks for having me. 

Cathy Donovan:

Fantastic. Well, let's get started. I'd like to start with Rutgers-Camden. That's how I know you. So tell me about how civic engagement looked like when you first began, and how did you approach integrating it into the university's mission?

Andrew Seligsohn: 

When I arrived at Rutgers-Camden, there were many people doing many things that connected with the community, students, faculty. There wasn't though any kind of coherent approach for that that said, this is who we are as a university. This is how we engage outwards and the chancellor, you know, Wendell Pritchett, a real visionary in this way. He thought that was really important, that we play a role in the community that was visible, that was understandable to students, to faculty, and to members of the community more broadly. So we started thinking about how can we build a coherent approach that achieves the various goals we have?

And so part of that was articulating the goals, and they were really three. One was to enhance student learning through civic engagement. The second was to provide opportunities for faculty to contribute through research that spoke to community interests and needs and goals. The third was to have real impact in the community so that the lives of Camden residents got better and goals for the city were being achieved.

And so we thought about three things, creating pathways for students, both inside and outside the curriculum, and what would make that work for them? What would attract them and speak to things that matter to students? How could we prepare faculty to be effective both in the classroom and in their research as people who were asking questions about what mattered to the community in informed ways and engaging as good partners with members of the community?

Then the third piece was how do we build partnerships with organizations and neighborhoods and communities that could be the foundation for shared work where the university was not driving, but was alongside community members and institutions seeking to achieve goals together using the resources of the university as a part of the puzzle.

We kind of built different programs and projects, but they fit in those kind of categories. And we ensured, and when I say we, I had lots of faculty partners that I was working with, others in leadership in the institution, a staff that we started building in the Office of Civic Engagement. And then a really strong set of community advisors who we connected with as well to make sure that these things were kind of all moving in sync.

Cathy Donovan:
 
So why do you think higher ed is uniquely positioned to be a driver of civic life in communities? 

Andrew Seligsohn:

There are a number of reasons why I think that's the case. I mean, one straightforward one is in many communities across the United States, an institution of higher education is the most well-resourced entity around. They’re often large. They employ lots of people. They have significant physical plants. They have capacity for arts programming and athletics, and all sorts of intellectual and academic inquiry. So part of it is just like that's a real resource. How's it going to be used for the good of the community?

Another part of it is that so many people's aspirations go through higher education. So many people, when they think about how am I going to better my family's life, the life of my community? How are we going to take advantage of the opportunities that the United States provides? Higher education is a part of that story and so thinking about how can you be most useful to enabling that is one of the things universities can do.

I also just think universities have big voices. Not only the leadership, but also faculty can be heard on the issues they know about. So who is in their ear, whether they are listening to members of communities outside the campus, neighbors to the campus, that really matters in what they decide to focus on and, and how they speak about it.

So I think that the whole combination of things means that if you have a university or a college in a small community, it can be especially true. But even in big cities with coalitions of universities, if they're focused on how can we best contribute to making this a thriving place where prosperity is widely shared, that makes a big difference in what really happens.

Cathy Donovan: 

So let's talk a little bit about how civic engagement shapes the student experience. If you could just discuss how perhaps for students civic engagement is not just about academics, it also helps with belonging. 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

I would say it's about both those things, and I also think those things connect to each other. On the one hand, the way I started down this path was that in my own teaching in political science, I just started to discover through some experimentation that students learned best when what we were studying in the classroom mattered to them personally. And that often meant when we were doing something that got them out in the world where they had a real experience that they could then reflect on in the classroom, working on a political campaign, always of their own choosing never with any partisan direction or, you know, interviewing members of the community about an issue to understand their perspective on it. 

Interning with a public official or at a nonprofit organization, these experiences were real to them. They mattered to them. And all of a sudden the material in the classroom didn't seem so abstract, but they could see how it linked to something that was connected to their own values, their own aspirations, their own future careers.

The other thing about civic engagement work is you never do it alone. It is impossible, right? There's no meaningful civic engagement that it's not about being with other people, other students, faculty members, staff members, community members, students from other institutions. In some cases, you're always in a position of being together, working in common purpose.

And it means that for students who are increasingly isolated, because they're learning mostly online or because they're just drawn into their phones and away from connection with others. It's a powerful way to shake that up. And you know, I've seen it reverberate for students that it starts to become a basis of really positive relationships that are just different from what you might have otherwise.

I think especially for students who have experienced the pandemic and the kind of deep dislocation that we've gone through in recent years. Having things that are just ways of joining together with others positively, it's incredibly important and it binds them to the educational experience in a way that is really powerful.

Cathy Donovan: 

So in your experience, what happens when students see their institution truly invested in the community around it? 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

It's interesting, I've written some about this because there's actually some really powerful research that speaks to something that we all know to be true, but we kind of forget, which is that when we think about what drives young people's behavior, we know that it's not what people tell them to do, it's what they see people in positions of authority actually doing.

Right? Every parent understands this at some point or another. And the evidence shows this is true of leaders of higher education institutions, that when students see that the leaders of the institution are actually acting on the values that they are telling the students they should embrace, the students are a lot more likely to actually embrace those values.

When institutions are genuinely out there engaging as a partner, showing respect to the communities where they're located, listening to others working together, students are influenced by that in positive ways. And the reverse is true if they think that you're telling us to do this stuff, but actually you as an institution are just out there in the world.

Trying to get what you can get and not worrying about how it affects others, then they'll be quite cynical and much less likely to be oriented toward these shared values. And so I think there’s enormous value in laying out for students to say what the values are because it's part of the learning process to really have some clarity about why do we do what we do.

But then it also has to be backed up with action or it's really not going to take. 

Cathy Donovan: 

So you now lead Public Agenda, which is all about connecting people's voices to decision-making. What lessons from higher ed do you think bring to your current work? 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

Oh many. I think one thing that is interesting about higher education institutions and is a lot like the country more broadly, is that if you want to get anything done, it has to be by building shared will. There's a lot of important constituencies on campuses, but two of them are students and faculty, and for the most part, they don't have to do anything that they don't want to do. 

And so if really big things are going to happen, it requires understanding the values, the priorities, the aspirations of those groups. Also staff as well. Alumni can be very important in this way. All of these groups, to get them to come together around something requires listening, requires identifying shared values. Requires building plans that are connected to those values and then articulating them back to people to show, hey, here is a pathway that aligns with who you just told me you are. Let's go down that pathway together. 

I think that is a skillset that has been on decline in the United States recently. And I think it is a, a thing that we can relearn from higher education and certainly in, in my own work, uh, understanding what that has looked like in those institutions has been very useful to me in thinking about where things are going right and where they're going wrong in various kinds of settings beyond the campus.

Cathy Donovan: 

Just a quick follow-up on that, if you're willing. If institutions aren't listening maybe in the same way, what are they listening to more of? 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

And when you say that, you mean institutions beyond higher ed institutions? 

Cathy Donovan: 

I think when you're mentioning a decline in a kind of listening, what are those values we are listening to? What's happening if that's not happening anymore? 

Andrew Seligsohn:
 
Yeah, I mean I think it's both. Big question. I think it's both institutions not kind of learning to listen well, but it's also people having trouble listening to each other in these ways. And I think this is part of the story of where we are right now in the United States.

And I think a lot of it has to do with there have been many forces in the last 50 years that have been pulling us apart from people who are not like us, so we're more geographically sorted. People tend to live near people who have the same income levels, very similar backgrounds, much more than was true 50, 75 years ago.

We are much less likely to live near people who we disagree with politically than was true in previous decades. And so we just aren't really in the habit of being civil and friendly and listening to people who are unlike us, whose experiences are unlike us, who have different levels of education.

It was a routine part of American life. It isn't so much anymore, and I think it brings with it a set of skills and dispositions. And like anything else, when you don't kind of practice them, they wane. I think as a consequence, institutions, elected bodies, et cetera, they represent the people who are in front of them.

The things that are happening for those groups tend to get reproduced in those bodies. And so I think we have a lot that is a real loss. In other words, there's many things about the present where a lot of things have gotten better. It’s complicated to talk about the past, but I do think we can be realistic about some things. That maybe are not as widespread as they once were in the United States. And I do think that experience of like, hey, we disagree about a lot of things, but we all want this little league to run. Well, that's a thing we used to have. And now mostly the people showing up at the little league are kind of similar to each other because each town has its pretty clear political orientation of the residents, those kinds of things.

I think, again, one of the things that higher education has the opportunity to do, because it pulls in large numbers of students from different places. Because sometimes the communities where institutions are situated do not mirror the campus community. It does create opportunities for bringing together people with different perspectives, backgrounds, experiences. And again, I think we need more of that, especially when it's done with a focus on saying, hey, what do we all have in common that we care about? Even if we have differences, let's work together. And that experience of working with people with whom you didn't already agree, that can be a powerful way of reconnecting with people's humanity. 

Cathy Donovan:
 
Well, that is very reaffirming, and I appreciate hearing that.

So we talked a little bit about where students and their roles, learning and civic engagement. How about how students engage with their campuses? And the similarities with how citizens engage with democracy? I think you talked a little about that here, but if there's maybe more of a parallel that you'd like to share, I'd appreciate it.

Andrew Seligsohn: 

Yeah, we've been doing some research at Public Agenda on institutions that are particularly effective as levers of economic mobility for low-income students. We've really been asking the question, what are these places doing that's different from what we see at other institutions that explains these strong outcomes? Serving lots of low-income students, doing it in a way where down the road those students have strong earnings relative to peers.

I think one of the things we've seen is that institutions where students feel like they matter, where students feel like somebody cares what my perspective is on things and actually the same about kind of frontline employees who connect directly with students. We really saw a pattern that if you talk to an academic advisor at one of these kinds of institutions, they're very likely to say this suggestion I made about how to improve something for students, it was heard and acted on. I think in a lot of institutions of higher education people working directly with students feel like nobody really cares what I have to say. Nobody's listening. 

We heard something very different at these institutions where the notion was, if you are a person who knows something about what's a barrier to student achievement, we'd better hear about it in the senior leadership because that's what we need to understand. And so I think institutions that are open, where students, where frontline employees feel like my voice matters and people will respond to the real circumstances facing students. 

Those institutions tend to thrive. And again, that's a democratic spirit, right? In this with a small D democracy, it's that is the idea of like the voices of all of us should matter, and in the best case, the institutions that are going to affect what our lives look like should be driven in large part by the perspectives of the ordinary people who show up to them or, or need to be served by them. 

Cathy Donovan: 

Absolutely. That's why I got involved in higher education in the first place because seeing that kind of activity firsthand is very inspiring. You definitely want to give folks around you the opportunity to improve their own lives and improve the lives for all of us. 

If you were talking directly to presidents and enrollment leaders today, presidents of institutions, what's one step they could take to authentically connect civic engagement to their enrollment and retention goals? I know that's a big thing, but it's an important thing for sure. 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

Absolutely. I think I would refer again to the research we've been doing on these institutions, effectively serving low-income students. One of the things we've seen is really deep partnerships. With local schools, with local youth serving organizations, with churches, with other community-based organizations focused on ensuring that every student in that community has the opportunity to pursue whatever post-secondary option is best for them from their own perspective.

Making sure that every student in the community is ready for college, that every student understands the processes for being ready for financial aid and all those things in a timely way, making that a part of the institution's responsibility, not something they do on their own, but something they do in partnership with others.

I think that has a hugely positive impact on just how your neighbors think about your enrollment. Because students, if you're part of the story of how they're getting ready for college, you're going to be the first institution they think of when it's time for college. And it really makes for a region that starts to thrive in ways that will inevitably benefit the institution.

I think every institution, if they could choose, would be in a region where the economy was growing and people were attracted to it. Connect to whether there is an increasingly educated population that also creates an increasingly educated workforce for employers. All those things, kind of an upward drift. That idea of saying, let's be part of ensuring that college is a real option for every student, I think that is a form of civic engagement because that requires a kind of all hands on deck approach that makes a huge impact for attracting students and also retaining students who can get a real sense of meaning and purpose out of enabling those coming up behind them to have the same opportunity that they're having.

Cathy Donovan:

And that takes time, of course, right?  To feel like college could be an option for you and for your family, that you can see yourself there and be supported. It takes a long time to build that rapport. 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

Absolutely. These are relationships. I mean I can think of some specific examples, but organizations that have now been around 10 or 15, 20 years, where universities have sat down at the table with these other partners and said, how do we build a regional approach, a community approach, whatever the right unit is, that is going to ensure that yes, this community is a place where more and more people have the opportunity for higher education?

And again not only have the opportunity but are seeing their local university or college as an exemplar of that kind of inclusive and opportunity-oriented spirit. That again, I think like most people who immigrated to the United States, that's why they came here and it's what most people still want for their own kids.

Cathy Donovan: 

So what are some risks if institutions kind of ignore this dimension of their mission? 

Andrew Seligsohn:

I think some of the risk is hard to think about as an individual institution because it's widely shared. That is to say the downside, and I think it's some of what we're seeing right now, which is the more people think of higher education institutions in purely instrumental terms, like, will it help me get a better job, which is clearly part of the story. But if that's the only thing they think about, then when people are disappointed with what's happening more broadly in the country, they may blame higher education. 

And I think that is one part of where we are right now. You know the real evidence shows that, yeah, higher education still has huge value for anybody who wants to earn a good living. But more and more people believe that it's, it's not worth it. And part of that I think is because they have not felt. The positive presence of higher education institutions in their communities. They've thought of them as these transactional entities, and I think higher education, to some extent, has walked into that by really being focused on a very narrow way of talking about return on investment.

So I think the risk is to some extent we're seeing the downside risk. And I think the opportunity now is to step up and, you know, the good news about people's lowered expectations is you have a good chance to exceed them. And I think right now, higher education institutions that show up in positive ways make visible to members of their communities that they are a partner with them in trying to achieve their goals. 

I think those institutions are likely to be very well received. People I think still have better impressions of the institutions they actually know than they do of higher ed generally. But I think really doubling down on that and saying, you're going to see us at the table in the places that matter to you. So that we can kind of turn around that impression of higher education. 

Cathy Donovan: 

The closing question for you. I guess it's like the strongest piece of advice that you could offer higher ed leaders. What can they do differently to weave this civic engagement into the student journey? What would that be? 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

The first thing I would say about that is that part of it is how do you think about what civic engagement is and what it's for. I think at this stage different times call for different approaches, different focus areas.

At this point in our history, I think focusing on what are the ways that students can have experiences of connecting across differences in experience and background and perspective, and have those be meaningful and positive and kind of building blocks for the way students look at the world. And so I think there may have been a time where the way to think about that was just, hey, let's get students off campus, connecting with people who are not in college. 

That may be part of the story, but I also think about how can you frame these things in ways where you are explicitly inviting in students who may have different kinds of political perspectives or views and helping them see that working together again with others in partnership, in community is an option. And also that when you do it, it actually feels pretty great and leads to maybe some opportunities for further action together that you would never have thought possible. 

We often think of colleges and universities as being places where kind of everybody shares political views or something really isn't true. When you do surveys of students, they may lean one way, but there's still a lot of diversity of opinion on many, many issues. And that's especially true at large public universities, but it's true everywhere. And so I think remembering that and thinking about ensuring that students don't think that you already have to think some set of things in order to be invited in that's a really important part of the story. 

Cathy Donovan:
 
Well, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me. Your work reminds us that enrollment success isn't just about numbers, it's also about creating institutions that feel indispensable to both students and communities. So thank you so much for being here. 

Andrew Seligsohn: 

It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks very much.  

Cathy Donovan: 

For more about Andrew and his work, see our show notes or visit Public Agenda, and if you'd like to explore how Paskill helps institutions with enrollment strategy, including ways student engagement and belonging can be stronger in your brand story, reach out anytime.