What are the Campus Civic Summits?
In 2018, the TCDN partnered with The Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy to host the inaugural Tennessee Campus Civic Summit. Participating students had discussions, shared resources, and engaged with civic and campus leaders. The students created and launched civic engagement plans that would be carried out through institutional frameworks and have an impact on student voting and civic literacy on their campus.
In 2018, the summit served 13 campuses; in 2019, two regional summits hosted 19 campuses; and by 2020, three regional summits hosted by The Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, Middle Tennessee State University, and the University of Memphis served 29 campuses.
Overall, the summits impacted an estimated 200,000 undergraduate and graduate Tennessee students by providing institutional, nonpartisan voter education guidance.
Beyond the summits, an organizer follows up and supports each campus as they build their collaborative, diverse civic community. We convene regular network meetings to coordinate national and local partnerships with Tennessee campuses. The campuses and students directly benefit in many areas, including faculty academic materials, student voting resources, grant funding opportunities, and student leadership experiences.
The Tennessee Campus Democracy Network recognizes that institutions of higher education are at the forefront of civic learning and citizenship education in our state. In 2022, we held our first hybrid summit combining virtual and in-person events to optimize accessibility and collaboration for participants.
We hope you will join us next time!
SUMMIT 2022
About this event
The main summit event was held on Friday, February 25th, 2022. This student-led event featured a keynote speaker, a leadership luncheon with civic leaders and elected officials, collaborative campus roundtables, and presentations on the latest civic engagement strategies. Participants engaged in discussions, shared resources, and networked with a community of civic and campus leaders. The students received training on Civic Action Planning to help develop civic engagement plans that they will carry out through institutional frameworks and impact civic capacity and literacy on their campus.
To remove attendance barriers, the 2022 Summit introduced a virtual hybrid model. The main sessions were virtual, while each school hosted its own in-person mini-Summit led by a student/faculty leader. The mini-summits featured a leadership luncheon and a collaborative campus action planning session. Before the Summit, each participating campus team received planning and leadership training, as well as an on-site Summit Toolkit.
This year we introduced the Campus Civic Summit Saturday Social on February 26th. This optional three hour event was dedicated to virtual networking events for students, staff, and local and national civic leaders. Following the networking events, we held a statewide goal-setting session. These objectives will steer our campus network over the course of the next year.
Summit 2020
Growing and Learning Together
By 2020, the TN Campus Civic Summit grew to serve 29 colleges and universities. We continue to advance the TNCDN mission to create spaces that foster civic capacity in TN students.
Students collaborate with community civic leaders, staff, and faculty to further develop their civic engagement plans and build diverse campus coalitions dedicated to executing them.
Summit 2020 Featured Speakers
Felice Nudelman
Verdis L. Robinson
Abby Kiesa
Rachel Clay
Clarissa Unger
Samantha Perlman
Jennifer Domagal-Goldman
Marissa Corrente
Jen Tomasetti
Summit 2019
Discussion and Progress
The 2019 TN Campus Civic Summit expanded to serve 19 schools. Students engaged with new civic planning programming and panel discussions.
Panels offered unique perspectives, highlighted the impact of civic engagement programs, and sparked meaningful conversations.
Students played the civic engagement game Votes & Ballots to take their civic planning to a fun new level.
Summit 2018
Our Inaugural Summit
At our first TN Campus Civic Summit, students, faculty, staff and administrators came together to develop plans to increase access to student voting information and improve civic literacy on their campuses.
The Howard H. Baker Center hosted and supported the first Tennessee Campus Civic Summit, which hosted 13 colleges and universities from across the state and focused on facilitating campus civic engagement education plans to be carried out through institutional frameworks.
Students engaged with the educational materials and resources offered at the summit to create campus-based civic engagement plans and took advantage of opportunities for networking with civic leaders and school faculty.