Open Mic, Public Art, and Community Engagement

I am Josh Rosenstein and I am a second year UNC-Chapel Hill MPA student getting ready to graduate from the School of Government. I usually blog over at MPA Matters, but it is a real pleasure to get to write a guest post over here about I topic I love and care about: community engagement.

I get to tell you about puppets, Frederick Douglass and community fun and learning.

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Citizen Advisory Committees and Boards: Thoughts from a Recent Workshop

We’re glad to offer some reflections here on the workshop Working with Citizen Advisory Committees and Boards we hosted at the School of Government on May 5th. The workshop consisted of a group of 28 very engaged participants from across North Carolina. These folks were a wonderful, diverse group: elected officials, city and county clerks, program managers, a council of government official, NC Cooperative Extension advisor and appointed members of citizen advisory committees or boards (we’ll use CABs here, for short). In other words, we had, in the room together, virtually all aspects of local government CABs: participants, staff support, and elected officials that create the CABs and seek to utilize their input. Continue Reading

Citizens Academies and Civic Infrastructure

Citizens academies are educational programs conducted by cities and counties aiming to create better informed and engaged citizens. These programs involve ordinary citizens participating in several (usually between six and twelve) sessions taught by local government officials on the wide range of local government services and operations. Programs are usually taught to cohorts of 20-25 residents and end with a graduation. Participants not only learn about their local government, but also learn about how they can be directly involved in it by, for example, serving on citizen advisory boards or committees. Continue Reading