PACE Conference

Democracy Begins at Home: The Place-Based Imperative of Community and Civic Engagement

February 12, 2025

The Conference Center at Guilford Technical Community College, Colfax, NC 

The 2025 PACE Conference is February 12th and is the 26th convening. PACE 2024 welcomed participants from 29 institutions in five states.

Higher education institutions are mesmerized with the desire to be “national.” From the pursuit of a national reputation, to national memberships, to presenting at national events, to obtaining national awards and recognition, institutions are deeply invested in being acknowledged on the national stage.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this aspiration. However, when pursuing a community engagement mission, the question is, how well has that served us, our communities, and our nation? Are our local communities better off today than they were 50 years ago? Have we alleviated the pressing needs in our local communities such as poverty, educational disparities, and food insecurity? How is social mobility in our local communities?

How about our civic mission? What is the quality of the civic health of our local communities concerning indicators such as trust in institutions, volunteering, participation in groups, and civil discourse? And then there is democracy… Because your institution exists, are local voter registration and turnout rates strong for all elections (national/general, midterms, and municipal/local elections)? Do folks in your community understand for whom, for what, and why they are voting? What is the quality of media literacy in your local community? Are the democratic structures in your community strong and effective? Can residents access and trust the local government? How deep is polarization in your local community and how has your institution helped address this issue?

The higher education community and civic engagement movement is over half a century old.  By all indicators, every issue listed above is worse off today. Furthermore, higher education is under increased scrutiny and criticism. In light of that reality, could this be the time to recommit to our place-based roots and anchor-institution mission?  To take responsibility to help ensure both the quality of life and civic health in our own backyard is stronger and better?

Let’s imagine how we can influence and strengthen America, if we invest fully in our community and civic mission to address wicked social problems, improve civic health, enhance public discourse, and strengthen democracy locally.  Join us at PACE 2025 where we will explore this topic together.

Proposals are now closed. We will announce selections December 17. Questions? Contact Leslie. 

Registration closes January 24 at midnight.

Registration is $125 per person, for individuals from campuses who are members of NCCE or a Partnership Alliance state/regional organization. The fee is $175 for individuals from non-member campuses.

Partnership Alliance organizations: Community-Campus Coalition (OH), Community Engaged Alliance (IN), EngageKY, Engage NJ, LEAD California, Transform Mid-Atlantic (MD, DC, DE), Partners for Campus-Community Engagement (PA/NY),  Washington Campus Coalition for the Public Good, and Seed Coalition (IA/MN).

Dr. Timothy K. Eatman

Timothy K. Eatman, Ph.D., an educational sociologist and publicly engaged scholar, serves as the Inaugural Dean of the Honors Living – Learning Community and Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark. Prior to this current appointment his primary network of scholarly operation and leadership was with the national consortium Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life serving as Faculty Co-Director. Tim currently serves as Board of Directors Chair and Membership Committee Chair of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Also, with AAC&U, Tim serves as a faculty member of the Institute on High Impact Practices for Student Success (HIPS). Hs is national co-chair of the Urban Research Based Action Network, a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Carnegie Engagement Classification for Community Engagement, member of the National Advisory board for Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtP), and elected member at large of the American Democracy Project Steering Committee of AASCU. Tim has served as board chair of the International Association for Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE).

Pursuing a rigorous scholarly agenda, Tim publishes widely, serves on editorial boards and reviews for Academic publishing houses, scholarly journals and conferences. He has written several book chapters and research reports including the widely cited Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University, a seminal report on faculty rewards and publicly engaged scholarship. Tim is co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Service Learning and Community Engagement. He recently accepted an appointment as Guest Editor for the eJournal of Public Affairs.

A widely sought-after speaker, workshop facilitator, and collaborator who has earned local, national and international recognition for his leadership in advancing understandings about the multi-faceted impact of publicly engaged scholarship in the university of the 21^st century, Tim was recognized by the University of Illinois College of Education with its 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award.  For more information see his webpages at http://timeatman.com.

Dr. Peter Levine

Peter Levine is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life. He is a political philosopher and political scientist who specializes on civic life and has helped to develop Civic Studies as an international intellectual movement.

Levine graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in philosophy. He studied philosophy at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, receiving his doctorate in 1992. Before coming to Tufts in 2008, he worked for Common Cause, the Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and the National Commission for Civic Renewal and helped to found and then led CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), which is now part of Tisch College. He is a full professor in Tufts’ Political Science Department, directs the Civic Studies program, and holds secondary appointments in Philosophy, International Relations, Science and Technology Studies, and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI).

In the domain of civic education, Levine was a co-organizer and co-author of The Civic Mission of Schools (2003), The College, Career & Citizenship Framework for State Social Studies Standards (2013) and The Educating for American Democracy Roadmap (2021). The first two are the sources of the “six promising practices” and the notion of “taking informed action” that are widely found in state and local policies and curricula. The last was released in 2021 and is receiving prominent attention.

Levine is the author of eight books, including most recently We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America (Oxford University Press, 2013) and What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life (Oxford University Press, 2022).

He has served on the boards or steering committees of such civic organizations as AmericaSpeaks, the American Bar Association Committee’s for Public Education, the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, CivXNow, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Everyday Democracy, Educating for American Democracy, Discovering Justice, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation.

Brief History of PACE

1999 – NC Campus Volunteers (NCCV) (NCCE’s predecessor org) hosts 1st “Service-Learning Institute” at Elon University

2004 – Name changed to Service-Learning Conference

2009 – Name changed to PACE

2011 – Inaugural Presidents Forum hosted in conjunction with PACE

Summary of Past PACE Conferences

Host Campuses

While the PACE Conference is typically hosted at Elon University, it has also been hosted twice at High Point University and one time at Guilford College, UNC Greensboro, and UNC Wilmington.  

Keynote Speakers

NCCE has been fortunate to host many of the top leaders in higher education and the community and civic engagement field. 

Leaders of higher education and civic organizations (they are listed with the role/title they held at the time they participated in PACE)

• John S. Wilson, Managing Director of the Open Leadership Program, Chairman of the Open Leadership Council, MIT Media LabMIT Media Lab and Executive Director, Millennium Leadership Initiative, American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
• Ted Mitchell, President, American Council on Education
• Jamie Merisotis, President, Lumina Foundation for Education
• Eric Liu, CEO, Citizen University
• Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, president of The ALL IN Democracy Challenge
• John B. King, Jr., president and CEO of the Education Trust
• Jody Kretzmann, co-founder and co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, Northwestern University
• Caryn McTighe Musil, Association of American Colleges and Universities
• President Mark Gearan, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University
• Nicole Gallant, Director, Learn & Serve America, Corporation for National & Community Service

Leading Practitioner-Scholars in the higher education community & civic engagement field (they are listed with the role/title they held at the time they participated in PACE). 

• Edward Zlotkowski, Bentley College
• Patti Clayton, Consultant
• Rick Battistoni, Professor of Political Science and Public and Community Service Studies, and Director of the Feinstein Institute for Public Service, at Providence College
• Byron White, Vice President for University Engagement and Chief Diversity Officer at Cleveland State University
• Barbara Holland, Researcher and Consultant
• Peter Levine, Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs,   Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Tufts University and Director, CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
• Judith Ramaley, President Emerita and Distinguished Professor of Public Service, Portland State University and President Emerita, Winona State University
• Robert W. Franco, Kapi’olani Community College, University of Hawai’i
• Robert L. Sigmon, Service-Learning pioneer
• Kenneth Reardon, Cornell University
• Janet Eyler, Vanderbilt University
•  Robert Bringle, Director of the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning,
• Andrew Furco, Director of UC Berkeley’s Service Learning Research and Development Center
• Barbara Jacoby, University of Maryland – College Park