Presented by Larry Gould, Provost Philadelphia, June 2007

1. The American Democracy Project (ADP) at Fort Hays
State University (FHSU): Emergence, Evolution and
Institutionalization
Larry Gould
Chapman Rackaway
Mark Colwell
“Developing Informed and Engaged Citizens,” The Annual Meeting of
the ADP, June 7-9, Philadelphia, PA, American Association of State
Colleges and Universities (AASCU)

2. Stage One: Gaining Commitment, Making Decisions
about Leadership and Developing a Sense of Need
• Commitment from the President, Provost’s Council,
Faculty Senate, Student Government and Classified Senate
(a reminder about one of the most important purposes of a
state comprehensive university)
• Looking for Level 5 Leadership: Getting the right people
on the bus, the wrong people off and the right people in the
key seats BEFORE deciding direction and outcomes* (do
you have the fire in the belly?)
• Confront the brutal facts: Developing a sense of need with
a campus audit, identifying existing agents and structure,
resources and “pockets of greatness”
• Avoid obsessing on your constraints/instead, focus on the
need

3. Stage Two: Create a Guiding Coalition
• Established a Coordinating Entity: The ADP Vision Team
(positioning for symbolic politics)
• Established the Position of ADP Coordinator reporting to
the Office of the Provost
• Developed ADP Champions, Partnerships and a Sense of
Ownership with On- and Off-campus Stakeholders
(e.g. Departments of Leadership Studies, Political Science,
English and so on, service learning committee, Center for
Civic Leadership, Docking Institute of Public Affairs,
University Relations, general education committee, Tigers
in Service, Kansas Youth Leadership Academy, and so on.

4. Stage Three: Vision and Strategy
• The Vision: An institution where civic education would be
“routine, widespread, legitimized, expected, supported,
permanent and resilient” (embedding ADP into the DNA
of FHSU)
• The Strategy: At FHSU, ADP became its own strategy. It
has become an integrative strategy for teaching and
learning about civic responsibility, reasoning, problem
solving, critical inquiry, information literacy and the
implications and imperatives of digital democracy.
• ADP also has an “internal” deployment table of goals,
strategies and responsibilities to drive its activities and
initiatives

5. Stage Three: Vision and Strategy (continued)
• The idea of the FHSU ADP initiative was to move from
“project” and “program” defined as a set of activities,
events, and an ideology to a “tool for intentionality and
integration” (to move from nominal and marginalized
initiatives to an essential component of a coherent and
comprehensive teaching and learning process)
• Equally important, we have intentionally defined
competence at FHSU as something that goes beyond
voluntarism, participation and service learning to what
Harry C. Boyte calls “everyday politics” whereby students
are urged to co-creators of democracy while developing an
appreciation for the productivity of politics (permits use of
shared governance mechanisms as a learning environment)

6. Stage Four: Communicating and Using the
ADP Vision
• The task has been to communicate that in many
ways, FHSU’s ADP program goes beyond the
institution’s civic competencies goal by
facilitating the realization of other goals, e.g.
institutional outreach, knowledge about America’s
and Kansas’ engagement in international affairs,
interdisciplinary education, faculty enhancement,
a sensitivity to living in a more diverse society, an
appreciation for racial tolerance and community
development

7. Communicating and Using the ADP Vision
(continued)
• The idea has been to “customize” from specific ADP initiatives to
servicing of larger institutional intentionalities, goals and purposes
(e.g. use of “organizational alignment” and integration with the Kansas
Board of Regents Performance Agreements, the HLC’s Academic
Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), the FHSU Strategic Plan and
making it a part of department/program initiatives such as the Year of
the Department (YOTD is a 12-18 month academic audit of learning
outcomes))
• ADP Web Site
• ADP Events Calendar
• ADP Videos
• ADP Newsletter
• ADP Brochure
• ADP Weblog Forum

8. Stage Five: Empowering Participants
• Money (internal financing of the “flywheel” is
essential/external sources are the supplement)
• Shaping Belief Systems: rewards and incentives
for tenure, promotion and merit, inclusion of
student government and organizations, presenting
leadership challenges and generating interest
across campus by including FHSU’s other two
divisions

9. Stage Six: Generate Early Progress Wins
• Examples of Early Progress Wins: Times Talk,
readership program, service learning approaches,
voter registration/education drives, service
projects, e.g. make a difference day, national
youth service day, Tigers in service in the
community, speaker series and forums, and many,
many more
• General Education course review
• Year of the Department: Going Where Faculty
Live

10. Stage Seven: Using Gains to Institutionalize
and Advance ADP
• Combine “hard” tactics with “soft” tactics
• Continue to develop and support special tactical and
continuing activities to link to new participants and
interested parties such as Times Talk/NYTimes readership
program with Department of Philosophy Hays Public
Library colloquium on controversial issues, Political
Science certificate program in Civic Leadership with
university pledge, Seven Revolutions with First Year
Experience, student programming with Habitat for
Humanity and so on.

11. Stage Eight: Anchor ADP Spin-offs and Gains
in the Institutional Culture
• Add value and enhance the quality of institutional
efforts through ADP assessment-generated
improvements (NSSE), direct and indirect
measures of learning and expansion of community
outreach
• Use ADP as foundation for discussion of “second
generation” issues and initiatives, e.g. broadening
the use of what is defined as scholarship,
creativity contracts for faculty, academic citizen of
the year award, provost’s service learning fellows,
inclusion of international students, etc.

12. The End
• Thanks
• Questions?
• Presentation available at www.fhsu.edu/adp or
www.fhsu.edu/provost