Tufts Lands Major Youth Research Center
CIRCLE to Join Tisch College, Will Study Youth Civic and Political Engagement
In what Tufts University is calling a “perfect civic match,” leading youth research center CIRCLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) has moved to Tufts’ Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, boosting both institutions’ strength in the field of youth civic and political engagement.
CIRCLE and Tisch College are two of the nation’s leading organizations devoted to researching civic and political engagement and developing young Americans into active and responsible citizens.
The non-partisan CIRCLE, renowned for youth voter election data and analysis, conducts and promotes reliable, relevant and timely research on civic education, community service, young people’s use of the news and electronic media, and other aspects of youth civic and political engagement.
A national leader in civic engagement, Tisch College prepares students from all fields of Tufts University to become engaged public citizens and community leaders. Through a broad array of programming, Tisch promotes new knowledge in the field of civic engagement and gives students, faculty, and alumni the tools to be lifelong active citizens.
“This is an exciting and natural move for CIRCLE. Tisch College and Tufts University have taken an innovative approach to civic education and making active citizenship a defining strategic commitment of the University. Working together will strengthen and broaden CIRCLE and Tisch, opening up new doors and resources for civic and political engagement research initiatives that will influence scholarship and practice and thereby help to renew democracy,” said CIRCLE director Peter Levine.
“We are delighted to have Peter Levine joining us as director of research at Tisch College. Peter and CIRCLE are leaders in research on civic engagement, and their expertise will greatly enhance and strengthen our work at Tisch,” said Robert M. Hollister, dean of Tisch College.
“Research on civic engagement is vital for increasing understanding of the bases of healthy, positive development among today’s adolescents and young adults. Having CIRCLE here will be a great resource for the research that my colleagues, students, and I conduct. In fact, CIRCLE will be an invaluable asset for all Tufts faculty concerned with the health and welfare of contemporary youth and with their role in civil society,” said Richard Lerner, the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science in Tufts’ Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and the director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development.
As a new research arm of Tisch College, CIRCLE plans to expand the breadth of its research on civic and political engagement. Some future areas of study include the changing nature of life between ages 20 and 30 and what that means for civic and political engagement; the relationship between volunteering and political engagement among
young Americans; and the civic and political activities of groups often ignored in studies
on civic education, such as young people who do not attend college.
Tisch College was founded in 2000 to support the core Tufts mission of promoting civic engagement. Today, Tisch College is a national model for integrating active citizenship into higher education. A true university-wide organization, Tisch engages students, alumni and faculty to become civically involved in their communities and beyond. In the 2007-2008 school year, Tisch College facilitated nearly 150 community-based student projects, coordinated alumni mentoring programs in six major cities, and fostered collaboration among the 12 faculty members who hold endowed chair positions with a public service emphasis.
“This election year is sure to provide a fascinating opportunity to examine youth civic engagement. The combined efforts of CIRCLE and Tisch will no doubt be critical in helping increase young people’s participation in our most important civic liberty,” said Rebecca Rimel, president and chief executive officer of Pew Charitable Trusts.
– InsideMedford.com