The Center for Civic Renewal embodies Sweet Briar’s response to rampant civic disengagement in the United States. Whether measured by low voter turnout, high levels of distrust in government, deficiencies in civic education, general apathy toward public affairs, or increasing social isolation, this alarming trend threatens the ability of American constitutional democracy to function effectively in the 21st century.

Civic renewal is the effort to forge or reinvigorate citizen links to public affairs at the local, state, national, and international levels. In turn, this renewed citizen engagement will result in the strengthening of societal, political, and governmental institutions. The civic renewal movement is a major component of both current politics and scholarship.

The Sweet Briar Center for Civic Renewal is unique in its emphasis on citizenship, civic culture, and law. While other institutions purport to foster political leadership, the CCR focuses on the other side of the equation—the role of citizens in a twenty-first century representative democracy. The emphasis at Sweet Briar is on reconnecting people to their polity, not merely by encouraging voter participation or grassroots political organization, but by instilling appreciation for the link between constitutional rights and civil obligations. To be sure, a byproduct of the Center is qualified civic leaders, but they will be leading engaged and informed citizens as a result of genuine civic renewal.

The CCR at Sweet Briar College

Currently, the Center’s offices are housed in the Sweet Briar Government Department in Gray. In the near future the CCR will need separate facilities on the campus. These would include staff offices, as well as seminar and reading rooms for students and visiting scholars and journalists.

The CCR provides a wide array of programs, services, and academic support for SBC students. Courses that relate to CCR symposium topics are a regular feature of the Center. The CCR also awards endowed scholarships to students who demonstrate interest and participation in public affairs. Workshops to train students on how to acquire public service internships and public law careers have been sponsored by the CCR, as well as off-campus trips to locations relevant to coursework and the endeavors of the Center in general, such as the Supreme Court of the United States and George Washington's Mount Vernon. For more information about programs and events, click here.

The curricular foundation for the Center for Civic Renewal is the Law & Society Program. Offering an interdisciplinary minor in how law and society interrelate, the program provides a vehicle for implementing a key component of the CCR’s mission, namely, “fostering the habits of effective citizen engagement by promoting understanding of American civic society, especially democratic procedures, the rule of law, and civil rights/obligations under our Constitution.”

Staff

The Center is currently staffed by Dr. Barbara Perry, Carter Glass Professor of Government (Executive Director), Dr. Stephen Bragaw (Associate Director of the CCR and Director of the Law & Society Program), and Kat Alexander '11 (Student Assistant and Webmaster).