David Scobey

leadership

I've played leadership roles in a number of settings.  Sometimes this involved program-building and administration at my home institutions; sometimes, board membership in national associations and cultural organizations.  The work has enlarged my teaching, research, writing, and public projects.

Most important has been the chance to launch or lead four initiatives for engaged education.  In 1998, I started the University of Michigan Arts of Citizenship, a program that fostered the public role of the arts, humanities, and design through community partnerships. In 2005, I joined Bates College in Lewiston, Maine as inaugural Director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.  Five years later, at The New School in New York, I became dean of the Schools For Public Engagement, a new division dedicated to interdisciplinary, practice-based, publicly-engaged learning.  I now serve as Director of Bringing Theory To Practice, a national initiative that supports innovative practices to renew the core purposes of undergraduate education.

Nationally I've been active in Imagining America: Artists Scholars In Public Life, a consortium of academic institutions and cultural organizations dedicated to public work in the arts, humanities, and design.  I've served on the boards of other initiatives focused on civic engagement and liberal education. In 2010-12, I was a member of the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.  Our 2011 report, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future, remains a landmark call for democratic engagement in higher education.  

I've also sat on the boards of cultural and civic organizations in Michigan and Maine and publication initiatives for engaged scholarship, as well as serving as an advisor for museum exhibitions, documentaries, and other public-cultural projects.

Below is a roster of this leadership work, with some links to organizations, writing, teaching, and projects.  My vita gives a more complete list of administrative service and consulting.

SELECTED LEADERSHIP WORK