Citizen Scholars Program Outcomes

Citizen Scholars have:

• Developed enhanced problem-solving skills.  They have developed a fundamental understanding of the tools that they—as citizens—can use to effect structural change, including but not limited to policy work, legislation, political mobilization, grassroots organizing, action research and advocacy;
• Had meaningful and effective involvement in communities.  They have participated in work with communities that the communities themselves have defined as valuable.  They have interacted with communities that may be unlike their own and exhibited an ability to do so effectively—as allies and in ways that do not reinforce ethnocentrism or systemic injustice;
• Worked in administrative roles in community-based, political, legislative or advocacy-focused organizations.  Many Citizen Scholars have worked in roles that have introduced them to important aspects of community-based organizations, including how the organization’s structure works, how it maintains streams of funding and how it takes steps to eliminate the root causes of the problems it addresses; and
• Demonstrated the ability to translate thought into action by engaging in meaningful social change projects.  Citizen Scholars have successfully implemented social change projects such as establishing a recycling program at a local elementary school; successfully authoring legislation to increase resources for youth; creating a student-led course focused on grassroots community development; increasing resources for domestic violence survivors who have disabilities; improving the affordability of textbooks for university students; organizing for alternate sources of energy; and developing a community-based economic system.