NORMAL - Shortly after arriving on campus, Illinois State University freshman Sylvia Rajska learned - even though she's an elementary education major - ISU expects she'll also understand and take part in politics by the time she graduates. | Video

The Normal campus is one of eight in the nation selected to develop a nationwide pilot program whose aim is to inject political awareness inside and outside the classroom, regardless of major. "Oh, you mean the Political Engagement Project," she said.

It is an offshoot of the American Democracy Project, co-sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the New York Times.

The local university has participated in the American Democracy Project for four years. ISU is considered one of the five most-successful out of more than 200 participating state universities.

That's why the group asked ISU Provost John Presley to help direct the American Democracy Project when he steps down from his ISU administrative role this summer. It's also why the group named ISU communications professor Steve Hunt and politics and government professor Bob Bradley to implement the Political Engagement Project in Normal.

"It's filtered vertically and horizontally across the board," said Hunt, who is working with student organizations, general education classrooms, and advanced graduate projects, to name a few.

For Rajska, it's meant an off-campus leadership weekend, a public policy research paper, and a role in a U.S. presidential campaign.

On Saturday, she and her roommate joined about 75 others at the Bone Student Center for a video-streamed town meeting with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who is campaigning for the Democratic primary election.

"It's great to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity, or go into shelters or soup kitchens and help, and we want (ISU students to do that)," Hunt said. "But political participation calls for more."

He and Bradley want ISU students to dig in, sit down with community groups and start addressing why soup kitchens exist, how to solve a housing problem and more.

That's done, Hunt said, by making elements of the Political Engagement Project a part of everything from student club activities, to graded projects for all students, and upper-level seminars on freedom of speech.

It's also done by encouraging leadership in student affairs, organized volunteerism and community-led civic-minded events.

ISU's success in the American Democracy Project was somewhat natural, said Larry Long, who leads the ISU School of Communication.

The university's faculty and staff have a strong work ethic, and the campus' strategic plan directly calls for creating responsible citizens, he said. But there are other reasons.

"This is a place known for teaching teachers to teach," he said. But ISU's requirement that teachers also hold degrees in the subjects they'll teach - history teachers in history, for example, or English teachers in English - means the institution already has a history of integrating programs.

ISU's extensive general education requirements also helped, Long said. Leaders tapped its entry-level courses, such as introduction to speech and introduction to government, as vehicles to spread the Political Engagement Project.

Administrators found some of the project's ideas were in place, just not tracked and organized into a curriculum approach. Now, national organizers are looking to ISU as a model for how to organize the efforts on other campuses.

But the project doesn't stop at the classrooms.

In March, ISU opened a student leadership and service office on the second floor of the Bone Student Center.

The student affairs programs aren't new, but they were located separately in another building. Now joined in a high-traffic location, ISU is putting the extracurricular offerings front and center.

The ISU push for student involvement is obvious to graduate student Nicole Kurtain, who works in the leadership and service office.

In October, an annual event to raise money for Habitat for Humanity drew more than 200 student volunteers. "That's more than twice we had the year before," said Kurtain, who uses an Internet listserv to tell students about various volunteer opportunities.

"Look, I think people generally want to help. What the American Democracy Project does is allow these efforts to be organized and offer people more opportunities to do that," she said.

In April, her group is leading three events to help the McLean County AIDS Task Force. There will be a food drive for its pantry, a benefit concert and a fund-raiser where she has teamed with restaurants to donate part of their sales one night.

Each event allows a volunteer opportunity, but each also carries an educational component for its student volunteers, Kurtain said.

"This is the point in their lives when they are growing, exploring, really identifying who they'll be as adults," she said. "It is part of the college's responsibility to send them out with that knowledge."

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Getting involved

Illinois State University is one of eight U.S. campuses taking part in a pilot project aimed at encouraging college students to become more politically involved. It builds on ISU's four-year participation in the national American Democracy Project.

7 p.m. today -Capen Auditorium, Edwards Hall: "Living Democracy Requires Fair Elections, Clean Elections." Sponsored by Living Democracy, Illinois State University and Heartland Community College.

2 p.m. Wednesday -Prairie Room, Bone Student Center: Rosyln McCallister Brock, NAACP board vice president, speaking at ISU's annual Civic Engagement Celebration.

Noon April 17 -College of Business Room 412: Brown bag lunch, open house for Redbird Outreach Program. Connects ISU and community groups for service projects.

On the Net

www.ilstu.edu/americandemocracy/pep

www.ilstu.edu/redbirdoutreach

SOURCES: ISU Web sites; Steve Hunt; ISU media relations

Compiled by Michele Steinbacher