Allegheny Featured in ‘Diversity & Democracy’ Magazine

Allegheny College’s commitment to the broader community — and the cultural and structural institutional changes that have fostered and strengthened that commitment — is featured in the fall issue of “Diversity & Democracy,” a magazine published quarterly by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

In “Building Momentum for Community Engagement: From Structural to Cultural Change,” Allegheny Provost Ron Cole and Dave Roncolato, director of civic engagement for the Allegheny Gateway, write about recent changes in institutional practices, structures, and momentum for cultural change, all aimed at supporting community engagement.

One of the institutional changes highlighted is the creation of the Allegheny Gateway, a “multi-office center that aims ‘to graduate students equipped to be global citizens of a diverse, complex and interconnected world,’” Cole and Roncolato write. The Gateway provides opportunities for students to study abroad; define and address real-world problems; and engage in collaborative projects with other students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners.

The creation of the Gateway, along with changes to the core curriculum that now includes a civic learning requirement and changes to tenure and promotion guidelines to recognize community-based contributions to scholarship, have built a momentum for cultural change, Cole and Roncolato write.

“As we continue to cultivate excellence in the Allegheny College experience, we will reinforce the value of rigor in the academic disciplines in tandem with the value of community engagement,” they write. “These two pivotal foci should remain perpetually in dialogue; each has something to say to the other.”

Read the full article at www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2016/fall/roncolato.

The same issue also features an article by Katie Beck ’14 about how she connected her academic studies with working in the community and how that experience helped shape her. Beck, who was a Bonner Leader while at Allegheny, is the founder of Gum-Dip Theatre, “a community-based theater that creates plays for, with, and about the people of the Rust Belt.” Read more about Beck’s work at www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2016/fall/beck.