Democracy Inventory Project

A new joint planning effort led by the American Association of Colleges & Universities and Campus Compact to organize collective democratic engagement efforts nationally.

Colleges and universities have developed increasingly sophisticated strategies for advancing civic and community engagement focused on student learning, social impact, and creating healthy and just communities. However, these strategies often remain siloed within institutions and across institutional contexts. This joint planning effort—led by the American Association of Colleges & Universities and Campus Compact—will aim to organize these collective efforts nationally and more fully enable higher education institutions to support and advance democracy.

In its current phase, the project is focused on inventorying existing campus democratic engagement activities and programming to build an understanding of the current landscape. This work is led by a design team that will develop a guide to enable other campuses to inventory their work.

Resource: Democracy Inventory Guide

The Democracy Inventory Guide and accompanying Activity Rubric empower institutions to comprehensively document their democracy-related activities and programming, bringing together a broad range of civic efforts that may currently be siloed across different departments. These tools will help campuses to create a complete, internal map of democratic work, which is crucial for strategic planning, resource allocation, and identifying gaps.

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