Times Higher Education: Democracy Lab Aims to be ‘Model’ for Overcoming Polarisation

Dr. Nicholas Longo, the inaugural Director of the Rutgers Democracy Lab (RDL), was recently interviewed by Patrick Jack for Times Higher Education about the mission of civic engagement hubs like RDL.

In Democracy Lab Aims to be ‘Model’ for Overcoming Polarisation, Longo explains the concept of "civic mobility" as an antidote to a democratic culture defined by division and disengagement. He emphasizes the role of the university in promoting this mobility by expanding opportunities for students to have "healthy experiences" with democracy. 

At Rutgers University, we’re doing it across all three campuses [and] we’re talking about 70,000 undergraduate students,” Longo continued. “We really wanted to do this work at scale and have Rutgers be a model for what this could look like.

While universities may be tempted to "shrink from their civic missions” because of an increasingly partisan political environment, he implores educators to see the value in equipping students with civic skills through meaningful civic engagement, from finding common ground to collaborative problem-solving. These skills extend beyond the classroom and prepare students to navigate differences, contributing to a more resilient, lively democratic culture..

If you come from a civic desert and you haven’t had opportunities or you haven’t been invited to be engaged, our universities can be these sites of civic opportunity.

Read the full article here.