A program in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs has been recognized as a national model for the incorporation of civic responsibility into undergraduate majors.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities, earlier this year, chose the college’s citizenship and civic engagement program as part of a national, online case study on how to structure majors with a focus on civic impact.

The Daily Orange spoke with Anne Mosher, an associate professor of geography and faculty chair of the Maxwell CCE program, to discuss the distinction and online case study.

The Daily Orange: What is CCE?

Anne Mosher: It is a dual major program where students are able to take their learning from a companion major and put it toward the public good. It serves as a platform where students can design their own experience through sophomore, junior and senior year that culminates with a senior action plan. Seniors work with some community problem at the local level in partnership with a nonprofit, government agency or a grassroots group.

The D.O.: Do you see any trend between what majors dual with CCE?

A.M.: It was initially designed mainly for the Maxwell social science majors. What we have noticed over the years is that we have attracted a lot of people from Newhouse, Whitman and Falk. I think there is potential for some really nice synergy between (the College of Visual and Performing Arts) and engineering. Every unit on campus has the potential to partner with us.

The D.O.: What does it mean to be featured as an online case study?

A.M.: It is pretty cool. It was a really interesting experience for us to go through. The way that they set up the case studies is they all have a uniform structure to them. You can compare and contrast each case study, so you can see all the different ways the colleges and universities tweaked aspects of civic education.

The D.O.: Why was your program recognized?

A.M.: The Maxwell School is nationally unique. We are one of the top ranked schools for public policy. We have a number of interdisciplinary programs that are focused on training students to become public servants, public administrators — to do more international relations work — but we also have the social science departments. That’s really rare.

Usually the social science departments are housed in a different place on campus than the public affairs. The fact that we coexist makes Maxwell a really unique platform. When we designed the program, we wanted to build on the strengths Maxwell has and incorporate the Maxwell DNA into the undergraduate experience.

The D.O.: Can you explain the “team-taught” MAX course dynamic?

A.M.: The team aspect of this starts in the introductory courses, MAX 123 and MAX 132. These courses have been around for a long time, more than 20 years. It is interesting for students because you get faculty from all these different departments getting together and talking publicly about big issues, either globally or in the United States, and bringing their perspective from their home majors on to this problem.

That whole idea, being a team and bringing people from different majors, was really important when we created the program. CCE was invented by a group of Maxwell faculty from all of the different departments.

The D.O.: How long has Maxwell had CCE?

A.M.: The first graduating class was in 2016.

The D.O.: Where would you like to see CCE go in the future?

A.M.: In our strategic plan, there are a couple of things we are focusing on. One of which is internationalizing the program. To date, we have been very locally focused in Syracuse. Certainly there is a lot of things for students to work on here. But there are a lot of students interested in the international scope. For those students, they want to have an opportunity to take their CCE learning global.

This semester we have students in Serbia, a senior working on her action plan. She is working on human rights. She is our test case. If that goes well, we will explore other ways of supporting international interest.

Published on March 7, 2018 at 9:30 pm

Contact Olivia: olcole@syr.edu