The plans of Student Council’s newest committee, the Civic Engagement Committee, will make it a valuable asset to the University community. Although The Cavalier Daily previously criticized the Committee’s goals, the plans the Committee unveiled yesterday will fulfill the role Council committees are best suited for: bringing students together in ways they otherwise would not be.
Committee Chair Laura Nelson described the Committee as having two roles: the first to be an umbrella organization for all the groups that are currently involved in civic engagement projects and the second to initiate projects which the University’s administration would take over once clearly defined. The first role will be the more beneficial to the student body in the long run and efficiently utilize the resources available to Council. Within this role, there are three noteworthy ideas:
consolidating existing civic engagement resources into a central database, presenting civic engagement opportunities to different communities within the student body and hosting a civic engagement fair in the fall. The Committee’s plans will go a long way toward furthering civic engagement at the University without repeating other groups’ efforts and all of Council’s committees would do well to follow its example.
A database bringing together all the civic engagement groups and opportunities on Grounds will facilitate student involvement in civic engagement by making the many avenues for engagement more readily available. As Nelson acknowledged, “A lot is going on at U.Va. in terms of civic engagement.” Civic engagement is a broad concept that encompasses many different areas and the Committee is right not to attempt to create its own projects to cover all these areas. Council is in a unique position to gather and disseminate information from one part of the student body to another and this database will capitalize on that ability. With all of the opportunities for involvement in one place, civic engagement at the University will grow. Presenting the many civic engagement opportunities to different student groups will also further involve the student body. These initiatives will further civic engagement at the University without repeating what other
organizations already do.
Council also is ideally poised to coordinate the civic engagement fair that the Committee wants to hold in the fall. With all the resources and contacts Council has at its disposal, it is the best entity to bring many organizations together for one cause. This is a role Council should be more focused on fulfilling — bringing groups already in existence together to pool resources so that efforts are not repeated. By focusing Council’s unique resources on organizing the opportunities for civic engagement at the University, the Committee will best further its cause.
At the Council meeting last night, Nelson said, “It’s not necessarily creating new things” and the Committee does not “want to re-create efforts.” The Committee’s focus on bringing together groups already working on civic engagement causes is an intelligent use of the
organizational resources available to Council. When the new Council takes over in two weeks, it will hopefully continue gathering existing resources to put them to the best use.
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