This project is based on the idea that something called "Regionens hus" should be giving something back to the region and city it's placed in, and definitely not totally close of a strategically important site with a Likewise closed program. The propositon is to inject a cultural and educational program of equal size to the suggested office, and at the same time relieve and give more space to the nearby University and Cultural house. The site is treated according to its current flows of people and its status as a transitioning space, and the distribution and room sequence is based on a building where every program enhances each other, and people can experience what is seen as the most qualitative aspect of the city - other people.

This dissertation was a historical study of the lives and contributions to the field of adult education of Harry Allen Overstreet (1875-1970) and Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet (1903-1985) who taught and wrote both individually and as a team. Their adult education efforts as lecturers and authors spanned more than forty years and reached millions of adults. The Overstreets carved out a special niche for themselves as educators who believed it was essential to reach the general public with knowledge that would enable them to lead more productive and fulfilling lives. They believed that adult education held out great promise that mature citizens could effectively improve their minds and could significantly improve social conditions. The Overstreets were fervent believers in democratic traditions and values and they strongly emphasized the need for citizens to step up to their responsibilities with regard to civil rights and community development. The Overstreets' definition of adult education was inclusive rather than exclusive, thus they sought to utilize the findings of the various psychological and social sciences to help citizens in the search for creative fulfillment in human relations. They took it as their task to integrate and clarify the findings of many disciplines for the education of the masses. Their books were widely read and their lectures appealed to a wide audience including businessmen, laborers, parents, minority groups, mental health groups, students and teachers. Harry Overstreet brought to the field of adult education the trained mind of a professional philosopher who enjoyed a civilized argument and spirited discussion. Bonaro brought a poetic sensitivity that could find a meaningful metaphor for most situations. They were also innovators. Harry Overstreet, an adult educator, developed the panel method of discussion that is widely used throughout the world as a means of presenting ideas in action to an audience. He and Bonaro developed a two person give and take lecture method which was called the Overstreet Colloquy and they developed a method of community problem solving through carefully structured workshops. A number of their collaborative publication efforts required extensive research. Their adult education books included Town Meeting Comes to Town, Leaders For Adult Education, and Where Children Come First which was a study of the PTA movement. The greatest commercial success was The Mature Mind in which sales were unprecedented for a book that was essentially about adult education. Aside from its popular appeal it was a solid scholarly achievement which was based on the insights and findings of Pavlov, Freud, Binet and Thorndike. The Overstreets expanded the concept of adult education to include the mental health movement and they succeeded in making a number of contributions to that endeavor. As part of their civic education responsibility the Overstreets researched and wrote a number of books on communism and totalitarian extremism as exemplified by Senator McCarthy and the far right. They achieved some fame in this area when President Eisenhower was photographed reading one of their books. The Overstreets lived full lives to the very end and were a kind of living advertisement for adult education. Norman Cousins, who was an admirer and disciple of both, wrote that as a team they "functioned synergistically." This was an apt description of two dedicated people who thoroughly enjoyed learning and teaching and writing together every day. / Ed. D.

Service-learning is a hybrid curriculum that puts students in direct contact with the needs of a community around them. Taking an experiential approach to learning, service-learning provides an outlet for students to take their education from within the classroom and apply it to a real-world setting. When developed successfully, service-learning challenges students to use the knowledge and skills they gained as a tool in tackling real world civic and social issues. To be successful, these programs must have a component that requires students to actively participate in community partnerships. Effective service-learning acts as a bridge between university and community—giving students an opportunity to grow and develop in their civic positionalities, and offering communities external support and resources they can use to move themselves forward. This relationship sounds picturesque, but the practice is far from perfect. Research demonstrates that certain examples of service-learning curriculum ignore the community perspective or lack the opportunity for students to become actively involved. These issues often result in negligible impact, passive participation, and stunted civic development. To combat these deficiencies, then, universities should adhere to an accountability framework. One way to do this is by conducting comparative analyses of existing pedagogy. By conducting a critical comparative analysis of existing service-learning research and localized service-learning pedagogies/student experience, this thesis asks what happens when you put the student experience into conversation with the pedagogical research. What can this kind of dialogue reveal about the pedagogies that the research advocates for? How do these different pedagogies spark the potential for students and community partners to thrive in a service-learning environment? How do they limit them? Asking these questions will demonstrate how to maintain that service-learning practices, regardless of university differences, follow examples of effective service-learning that's established by existing literature.

A commitment to advancing civic engagement has been evident throughout the history of the U.S. higher education system. Civic engagement is a part of the mission of fraternity and sorority organizations. Because of this commitment to civic engagement, the purpose of this study is to understand what is happening in the development of civic engagement of fraternity and sorority alumni, specifically the role fraternity and sorority life plays in this development. The research questions that guide this study include: 1) How do fraternity and sorority alumni exercise civic engagement upon graduating from their undergraduate college experiences?; 2) How do fraternity and sorority alumni make meaning of the impact past Greek participation play in their current commitment to civic engagement?; 3) What impact do environments along the academic pathway (e.g., high school, college, postcollege) have on the longitudinal process of meaning making around commitments to civic engagement for fraternity and sorority alumni? Levering key perspectives from Astin’s (1984) Person-Environmental Theory, Baxter Magolda’s Self-Authorship Theory (1999), and Musil’s Spiral Model (2009), the literature review synthesizes research on civic engagement inputs and outcomes into a new conceptual model for understanding the complex process of longitudinal civic engagement commitments via iterative precollege, college, and postcollege experiences. The design of this study comes a from a constructive-development pedagogy lens, that used focus groups to collect data from the narratives of 25 alumni members of fraternity and sorority organizations from a single institution site broken down by Council membership of the National Panhellenic Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and the Inter-Fraternity Council. The themes from the results included that most participants took part in a variety of civic engagement experiences prior to college; their commitment to civic engagement grew due to the influence of other chapter members and other student organizations during college; membership commitment due to the foundational leverage of internal commitment to civic engagement; and current environments and previous lived experiences had an impact on participants’ current civic engagement commitment and identity. Additional research should be conducted to determine if this research could be replicated at other higher education institutions and fraternity and sorority communities to better understand the long-term impact of these experiences on alumni’s civic engagement identity.

Contemporary United States has witnessed a gradual shift of political responsibilities to local communities. This shift creates opportunities for a greater sense of democracy among individuals in local communities. This dissertation explores how elements of social capital and civic engagement support participatory democratic processes, and ultimately improve the quality of democracy for individuals. The central premise of this research is that democracy satisfaction includes the ability to influence decisions for individual and community benefits. Thus individuals who possess social capital and actively participate in civic life are likely to experience democracy satisfaction. Trust is specified as a primary social capital measure. Thus, the extent to which ?generalized trust? and ?particularized trust? account for differences in the levels of individual satisfaction with democracy is examined. A parsimonious typology is developed in which four categories of trusters (total trusters, general trusters, particular trusters, and skeptics) are delineated and empirically tested. Three categories of civic engagement; local political, representative and altruistic civic engagement are also differentiated and tested for their explanatory value for democracy satisfaction. To achieve this, data from the 2000 American National Election Study were used in logistics regression models. The study confirms the notion that while trust is important when it comes to democracy satisfaction, it is generalized trust (total and general trusters), rather than particularized trust (particular trusters, and skeptics) that is more important in predicting democracy satisfaction. The results also show that not all forms of civic engagement predict democracy satisfaction. While representative civic engagement and giving to charity have positive effects on democracy satisfaction, local political civic engagement and volunteering time do not significantly predict satisfaction with democracy. With reference to altruistic civic engagement, results show that giving to charity has a positive effect on democracy satisfaction, but not volunteering time. It is concluded that participatory democracy is impeded in communities with strong particularized trust and limited generalized trust. The study points to futures research opportunities to ascertain the extent to which types of trust and civic engagement are pertinent factors in explaining development efforts in local communities that are deficient in civic culture and participatory democracy.

As universities enhance their civic engagement and build connections between campus and communities across the state, the county extension office and local staff have an opportunity to broker resources between the two entities. The question is not ‘if’ this needs to happen, but specifically what role Extension should play. County Extension Coordinators in Alabama have differing opinions about the role of their office and the value of specific engagement activities to the community. These differing opinions may make it difficult to achieve uniformity in what faculty can expect of a county extension office. Three different opinion groups were identified in this study. One group of County Extension Coordinators felt that engagement activities should focus on issues affecting local economic impact. Another group chose activities that would avoid potential problems due to interagency conflict and local politics. The third group saw the civic engagement of their land-grant university as an opportunity to make Extension look good in their county. Group membership could be explained by tenure of the County Extension Coordinator and their subject matter expertise. Given the results of this study and engagement scholarship, strategic areas for Extension to explore include (1) the activities of the county extension office as influenced by local advisory groups, opinions of the County Extension Coordinator, and needs of the Land-Grant University; (2) the role of the County Extension Coordinator in facilitating university-wide outreach; and (3) the need for County Extension Coordinators to have extensive networks and networking skills in order to embrace the breadth of opportunities to facilitate the civic engagement of a Land-Grant University.

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