New Citizen Participation Program is Offered to HWC Community
By Hector Morales
Staff Writer
A new civil leadership program has been created at Harold Washington College. The name of the program is The Citizens Campaign. The Campaign will have ten Citizen Leadership Centers throughout the county, mostly at community colleges, and HWC has been chosen as one of those centers.
In an April 9, 2021 press release, HWC President Daniel Lopez described the importance of a leadership center at HWC.
“The goal of this center is to heal our political culture by giving every citizen the power to take personal responsibility for repairing our democracy by practicing mutual respect and unselfish service in the search for solutions to public issues. The priority in this endeavor is to close the ‘civic empowerment gap’ that impacts minority and economically challenged citizens,” said Lopez.
According to an April 12, 2021 press release from the Citizen’s Campaign, there will be three core components: (1) citizen leadership training for the communities that the colleges’ serve via their continuing education platforms; (2) Civic Trusts where those who have completed the leadership training can work together in No-Blame Problem Solving sessions to improve their communities and their Country with cost-effective, evidence-based solutions; and (3) the Leadership Centers will also include citizen leadership training for college students in one or more undergraduate courses.
In the same press release, City Colleges of Chicago Vice Chancellor Jennifer Mason said, “It is essential that we equip our students and our community members to be active citizens with the power to shape the future of Chicago and the Nation. Establishing a Citizen Leadership Center at Harold Washington College is important to this critical mission.”
On November 18, 2021, a presentation on the Citizen’s Campaign was provided in Room 1115 at HWC, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., and presented by Director of Special Projects Linh-Trang Williams, who is also the co-lead for implementation of the project at HWC.
Citizens Campaign Team Member David Sherman explained in a presentation that the core program modules would be part of HWC curriculum. Sherwin, who had joined the project in September of 2020, explained that after taking the online leadership course each participant would know their legal rights as a citizen leader who can bring solutions by learning how to navigate through governmental decision-making processes, utilizing a method which focuses on evidence-based problem solving as opposed to finding fault.
The presentation described how the HWC students, faculty, staff, and anyone else interested in participating in the project could enroll in online courses to create problem solving solutions that focus on evidence-based arguments.
Richard Krupa, who has taught political science for 10 years at HWC, will include the Citizen’s Campaign program as part of his curriculum in his class of political science, Political Science 207, US State and Local Government. Krupa said that the online course “would be a great teaching tool.” The professor emphasized that “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”
The course is available to anyone interested in learning about no-fault problem-solving leadership at https://thecitizenscampaign.org/power-civics/online/.
