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activities and events.

About Civic Participation Events

Projects, activities, initiatives and coursework most reflective of the Civic Participation Project will:

• be officially sponsored or sanctioned by the University of Nebraska at Omaha;
• involve significant undergraduate student participation;
• engage the local, regional or national communities;
• promote the quality of life in those communities by working to make a difference utilizing a combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation, pursuant to the national American Democracy Project initiative.

Deliberative Polling Initiative

The University of Nebraska at Omaha was one of 15 institutions of higher education selected to participate in the AASCU Deliberative Polling Initiative in 2007-2008. As part of this initiative, Dr. Greg Petrow, Assistant Professor of Political Science, will be attending the Deliberative Polling Institute at Stanford University in September 2007. Dr. Petrow, working with our Civic Participation Project team, will organize and conduct a Deliberative Polling event for the campus in Spring 2008. The event will be designed to increase campus understanding and informed opinion about a significant public policy issue. The results will be reported at the annual AASCU-American Democracy Project summer conference in June 2008. For more information, visit this page.

Newspapers in Curricula (NiC)

The purpose of the NiC program is to support the newspapers-on-campus initiative which started at UNO this fall semester 2007 by developing curricula which utilizes those newspapers in the classroom. Students have access to three papers on a daily basis: The New York Times, The Omaha World Herald, and USA Today. Funding for the papers is provided by student fees. The university is committed to civic engagement and writing across the curriculum. Newspapers are an excellent tool for faculty and students in developing civic engagement. In order to promote faculty and student use of the newspapers in the classroom, the university is sponsoring a faculty group to design newspaper-based assignments and explore the influence of the newspaper in the classroom on student behavior and attitudes. A core group has been selected across disciplines to design and promote newspaper-based curricula with the goal of producing shared documents for the university community:

• Patricia Carlson, Social Work
• Christina Dando, Geography and Geology
• Claudia Garcia, Foreign Languages and Literature
• Dennis Hoffman, Criminal Justice
• Jerilyn Hynes Kamm, Communication
• Teresa Lamsam, Communication
• Larry Menyweather-Woods, Black Studies
• Saundra Wetig, Teacher Education

As an AQIP institution, UNO is committed to developing quality programs. The NiC program specifically supports two AQIP categories: Helping Students Learn and Building Collaborative Relationships. In support of the Civic Participation Project on campus, NiC members will develop curricula based on newspaper reading which will mesh civic engagement activities with discipline-specific pedagogy. The program will assist faculty and students in making maximum use of the available newspapers in a manner that promotes learning at UNO.

On November 7, 2007, the NiC program sponsored a presentation by Dr. Carolyn Thompson of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (see photo gallery), who discussed the benefits of newspaper usage in the classroom.

On April 3,2008, the NiC program sponsored a campus conversation about current events (see photo gallery).

Constitution Week activities

The University of Nebraska at Omaha observed Constitution Week the week of September 17, 2007. Visit our photo gallery from the week's events.

Thompson Forum series to be simulcasted

As part of the Civic Participation Project, UNO is once again partnering with the Nebraska Humanities Council to simulcast the Thompson Forum speaker series, which focuses this year on issues related to the global environment. The speakers and dates are listed below. All simulcast presentations will be held in the Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom, on the UNO North Campus at 6001 Dodge Street, from 7:00-9:00 P.M. 

On Thursday, September 13, 2007, National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore presented “Grounded: A Reflection of the Use of Life and Land.”

On Monday, October 15, 2007, Douglas Durante, Executive Director of the Clean Fuels Development Coalition, and Jerry Taylor, senior fellow of the Cato Institute, discussed "Ethanol: Fueling Debate" in the Charles and Linda Wilson Dialogue on Democratic Issues.

The Monday, November 12, 2007, forum featuring Sunita Narain, "Changing Nature in an Unequal World," has been cancelled due to illness. We apologize for any inconvenience.

On Tuesday, February 12, 2008, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute spoke about “Winning the Oil Endgame”

On Monday, February 25, 2008, The Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals presented“For God’s Sake,” discussing climate change and conservation using a right-to-life framework.

On Tuesday, April 22, 2008, William Riley, CEO of Aqua International Partners and former Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will discuss “Corporate Environmentalism: Bridging the Communication Gap”

The university community and the general public are invited to attend free of charge.

By The People Immigration Dialogue

On Sunday, October 14th, 2007, NET Television, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center hosted a By the People Dialogues in Democracy deliberation on the UNO campus. A sample of approximately 100 Omahans discussed immigration in Nebraska, and how the state should address this issue. Many states are considering legislation on a number of contentious immigration related issues.

By the People is an innovative civic engagement initiative aimed at fostering discussion, linkages, and community involvement in a nationwide conversation about America’s role in the world and its relevance to local concerns. Omaha is one of eleven communities across the country that will be participating in the By the People project this year – national discussions on a variety of issues of importance to the country. Besides Omaha, other communities involved in By the People Dialogues in Democracy in October 2007 include Albuquerque, NM; Baton Rouge, LA; Bowling Green, OH; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Kansas City, MO; New Haven, CT; Rochester, NY; and Seattle, WA. Dialogues in Democracy: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is a joint project of By the People and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Support for NET Television and the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center’s local Dialogues in Democracy project is provided by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, and by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. By the People is nonpartisan and doesn’t support any particular policy, position or viewpoint. Its sole purpose is to encourage informed dialogue.

By the People is a partnership between PBS’ MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, local PBS affiliates, universities, community colleges, and civic groups across the nation. A television special on the project will air later on NET Television. A photo gallery is available now.

Leader to Leader Project

Once again, the Civic Participation Project is sponsoring the Leader to Leader Project in collaboration with Omaha Public Schools' Marrs Middle Magnet School. This program provides an opportunity for 64 student council leaders from Marrs Middle School to visit the UNO campus, take part in campus life, and meet UNO student leaders. Plans this year call for the students to attend the October 5th soccer game at UNO, make a campus visit in early November to tour campus, and visit with students from the Goodrich Scholarship program, Project Achieve, Multicultural Affairs, and Student Government. In early 2008, the students will be repeating a high point of last year’s program when they visit campus to climb the rock wall in HPER, visit the Planetarium, and attend a UNO hockey game at the Qwest Center. Watch for more details about this important project that supports tomorrow’s leaders.