Civic Engagement Dialogue Series

Vital Stats

Iesha Mona W

Carbondale, IL

  • people helped650
  • People Doing It 10

The Problem

CEDS is a series of dialogues, panel discussions, and open forums between faculty, staff, students, and community members of Jackson County. CEDS is a product of the Civic Dialogue Student Forum, which was founded in October 2008 by Iesha Monā Wilson, the AmeriCorps*VISTA of Southern Illinois University, and Mike Lawrence, the former director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute of Carbondale, Illinois. The Civic Dialogue Student Forum was created in response to a campus panel discussion on race, diversity, and justice in the American society, “The Future of Race and Immigration”, in which a challenge was made to all audience members to engage in dialogue about social issues that matter in order to reach a general understanding and create communication amongst diverse populations.

Plan of Action

CEDS was originally an SIUC project, but the founders’ intentions are to spread chapters across college campuses in America using the SIUC chapter as an example. This Summer 2009 will begin the process of establishing the Civic Dialogue Student Forum as a registered student organization at SIUC and create efforts for expansion at the universities connected by Illinois Campus Compact. We are looking for students to head the Forum as well as faculty and staff to train and mentor them. Once students are trained, they will meet with the AmeriCorps*VISTA at SIUC and the staff advisor to take over CEDS as well as create strategies for promotion of it. CEDS will be composed of 1 forum a month on various social issues voted by the Civic Dialogue Student Forum, and 1 major dialogue per semester. In addition, the SIUC chapter will work on a national website, summer conference for new chapters, and various advocacy projects in regards to anti-poverty and anti-injustice movements. So far, 6 dialogues as apart of CEDS have been established at SIUC: • Student Forum: Creating the Legacy: Leadership through Service, September 2008 Presented at the Student Development Fall Leadership Conference • Student Forum: Poverty 101, November 2008 Presented for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week • Film Discussion: “Dark Days”, November 2008 Presented for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week • Keynote Speaker: Arthur Simon, founder of the Bread for the World Campaign, November 2008 Presented as the Keynote for Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger Week at SIUC • Panel Discussion: I Am Not My Hair: The Politics and History of Black Hair, March 2009 Presented for Women’s History Month at SIUC • Panel Discussion: What I Want You To Know: Forum on Diversity, March 2009 Presented for Women’s History Month at SIUC, co-sponsored with SIUC Leadership Council
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