Dear Bobbi,
We appreciate everyone who responded to last week's poll on "with whom would you talk." Results from the survey are below and we have a new one for this week. But first, we want to pass along information about important events early next school year.
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Saturday morning, September 20 ... a most remarkable individual will speak with and answer questions from high school students in Civitas programs. His name is Eric Greitens; his experiences range from being a Navy Seal to winning the Fallujah Marathon (Iraq) to humanitarian work in Rwanda, India, Cambodia, and Croatia. The apparent anomolies of his life include being a graduate of Duke University and also an experienced heavyweight boxer. Oh yes, he's also been a White House Fellow.
He is an experiences presenter on a number of topics including the ethics of caring and speaking truth to power.We will announce the location of the event shortly as well as the specific topic of Eric's presentation. Special thanks to former Missouri Governor Bob Holden for introducing us to Eric. You can access more information on Eric by clicking here.
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Thursday evening, September 25 ... Civitas and the Missouri History Museum will inaugurate an innovative program. The genesis of the idea is a remarkable community event that the Museum had several months ago following Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia on civil rights. The Museum invited citizens to come watch the speech and then meet in small groups (approximately 25 groups of eight each) to collaboratively discuss the significance of the speech and to explore ideas to advance racial harmony.
On September 25, we will be bringing students and adults together to have small group discussions on a timely topic. The issue before us will be one that emanated from the Civitas Conference on Active Citizenship last February: should high school seniors and juniors be allowed to vote in school related elections: school board races; tax levies; and school bond issues. Since last February students have presented the idea to MO Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and MO State Senator Jeff Smith. They both expressed considerable interest; we are now ready to explore the topic with a broader group of adults and students.
We are planning for half of the discussion facilitators to be adults; half students. The History Museum and Civitas will begin training student facilitators this summer with the first session on June 13. Please let us know if you're interested. More information to follow.
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Water Wars: Ethiopia and Kenya: this is the first of three projects next year in the Global Gateway project with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Pulitzer director Jon Sawyer informs us that five journalists from the Seattle Times have been covering the story; the will bring their remarkable and distressing information to us next October.
The January, 2009 project will focus on challenges facing emerging nations, with special concentration on India. As sectors in the economy booms many people still remain in poverty. Ethnic, religious, and cultural conflicts continue and successfully addressing these issue may be key to sustaining a vibrant economy.
The April, 2009 project will be an energy vs. environment issue; this time in the Amazon River Basin in South America. The conflict includes preserving the rain forest versus drilling for new sources of oil.
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Less than 2 Weeks until Urban Go-Team
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The Civitas Urban Go-Team begins on Monday, June 9. We will be focusing on active citizenship in our community; registering voters, learning more about our citizens through a variety of polling techniques, learning about the risks and safety features of various forms of voting such as optical scanners, touch-screen, etc. It will also be part of the documentary that filmmaker Frank Popper is making on Civitas as active citizenship.
Below is our tentative calendar of events. You can access more information on Urban Go-Team by clicking here.
We are just about fully enrolled; if you are interested you had better act quickly.
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2008 Civitas Urban Go-Team Calendar
(there will be some upcoming changes in this calendar)
Monday, June 9 -
Introduction / Orientation -
St. Louis Country Board of Election Commissioners -
Sample voting; election administration; voting machines; high school pollworker program -
Lunch -
Training and voter registration at MetroLink stations -
Debriefing Tuesday, June 10 -
Intro / Debriefing -
Meeting with "The Beacon" online newspaper -
Discuss students participation with "The Beacon" - Political Strategizing: Stacey Newman & Tracy McCreery
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Lunch -
Canvassing; polling at St. Louis barber shops, beauty salons, nail salons, and laundromats. -
Debriefing Wednesday, June 11 -
Intro / Debriefing -
"The Art / Science of Public Opinion Polling" -- Dr. Kenneth Warren, St. Louis University -
"Safeguarding Elections" -- Pat Berg, Missourians for Honest Elections -
Lunch -
"Intercept ['person-on-the-street]polling" in Clayton and elsewhere -
Debriefing Thursday, June 12 - Meet at computer lab; input data from canvassing and polling
- Interactive blog activity in computer lab
- Lunch
- Training for auto-dialer phone bank
- Polling using auto-dialer
- Debriefing
Friday, June 13 - Begin team and individual projects
- Introduction to "Student Leadership Program" with Missouri History Museum
- Continue team and individual projects
- Conclusions; ideas for future activities
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Results from "So, With Whom Would You Talk?"
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Last week we queried our readers on one of the key issues emerging in the 2008 presidential election. The question was, "Under what circumstances should the president of the United States speak with leaders of foreign countries."
Let's face it, the preponderance of readers of the Civitas newsletter would consider themselves to be progressive or liberal, although we are working to bring more balance to our community. All the same, by far the largest percentage of respondents [61% -- 17 out of 28] siad that they would negotiate "under any circumstances with any country." Maybe it is because with model U.N. we emphasize settling disputes with talks rather than violence; maybe it is that our approach in other activities is to try to honor as many disparate points of view as possible. In any event, here are the results from last week:
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Because this newsletter is so long, we will not have another survey this week.
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Special Program for High School Girls
Thanks to Lara Granich and Scott Levine for separately sending us information about a special program this summer for high school girls. It is sponsored by the University of Missouri-St. Louis and is free of charge. Girls can talk with women working from Iraq, Central America, and the United States who are employed in a variety of occupations. You can access the information by clicking here.
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Looking for Families to Host Students from Abroad
Megan Green, development director at Metro Homeless Center in St. Louis and a former CORO fellow who worked with Civitas has informed us of the following opportunity. If you can, please give it serious consideration.
CIEE, The Council on International Exchange, the worldwide leader of international education and student exchanges, is looking for 30 families in the St. Louis area to open their hearts and homes to 30 high school students from around the world. Students will be arriving in August and spend the academic year in St. Louis. These students hail from all over the globe including, Brazil, Thailand, Poland, Germany, France, Spain, China, Russia, and Australia.
The program provides an opportunity for families to form lifelong relationships and unforgettable memories while exposing students from around the world to American Culture. Students participating in the program are between 15-18 years old and have studied English for at least 3 years.
If you are interested in participating in this unique experience, contact Megan Green at megan.ellyia@gmail.com or (814) 404-4228. To learn more, visit www.ciee.org.
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Upcoming Civitas Events
(Actual events in bold -- always subject to change when change occurs!) Black: High School Blue: Middle School | Date | Time | Place | Activities | Mon.
06/09 -
Fri.,
June 06/13
| 9:00 AM - 3:30 PM | Varies | Civitas Urban Go-Team | | | | | | Sat.,
08/30/2008 | 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM | Crossroads | First High School Discussion of 2008-2009 |
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Arthur H. Lieber 314-367-6480 |
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Civitas Associates 10845 Olive Blvd.
Suite #155
Saint Louis, Missouri 63141-7760 Phone: (314) 367-6480
Fax: (314) 367-7742 Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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