"To Serve a Larger Purpose"

"To Serve a Larger Purpose" calls for the reclamation of the original democratic purposes of civic engagement and provides an examination of the requisite transformation of higher education required to achieve it. The contributors and editors to this extremely timely and relevant volume effectively highlight the current practice of civic engagement and point to the institutional change needed to realize its democratic ideals. Using multiple perspectives, "To Serve a Larger Purpose" explores the democratic processes and purposes that reorient civic engagement to what the editors call "democratic engagement." The norms of democratic engagement are determined by values such as inclusiveness, collaboration, participation, task sharing, and reciprocity in public problem solving, and an equality of respect for the knowledge and experience that everyone contributes to education, knowledge generation, and community building. This book shrewdly rethinks the culture of higher education. John Saltmarsh is the Director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, as well as a faculty member in the Higher Education Administration Doctoral Program in the Department of Leadership in Education in the College of Education and Human Development. He is the coeditor (with Edward Zlotkowski) of Higher Education and Democracy: Essays on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (Temple). Matthew Hartley is Associate Professor and Chair of Higher Education Division at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.