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Project Pericles (a PowerPoint overview)
Pericles: Understanding the Legacy (a PowerPoint background)
An initiative sponsored by the Eugene Lang Foundation in 2001, Project Pericles challenged ten colleges and universities to provide a learning experience that will "instill in students an abiding and active sense of social responsibility and civic concern." Elon University accepted the challenge, which fit with the university's stated mission to prepare students to be global citizens and informed leaders and to foster an ethic of work and service.
Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility at Elon
 Elon University has built a reputation as a national model of engaged learning, connecting knowledge and experience in and out of the classroom. One of Elon's primary missions is to prepare students "to be global citizens and informed leaders motivated by concern for the common good." This mission drives both curricular and co-curricular activities at the institution. Eighty-eight percent of Elon graduates participated in volunteer service while in school, serving as tutors in the local schools, mentoring in after-school programs, and building homes for Habitat for Humanity. By graduation, 75 percent of Elon students will have had at least one internship, many of which are with local government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Service learning is a significant component of many classes each semester. Students are attracted to Elon because they will have the opportunity for such engagement; they continuously push us to offer more.
First Year with Project Pericles
Project Pericles enabled Elon to rise to this student challenge. Building on our strengths of student engagement and community service, we crafted an integrated program that invited students to become Periclean Scholars. The first-year objectives included the following:
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Foster a conversation in the community about ways in which Elon can better partner with local organizations
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Be more deliberate about embedding civic engagement and social responsibility in the curriculum
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Invite all constituencies of the university to integrate Periclean values into all dimensions of the institution
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Implement a systematic program for highly motivated students designed to enhance their awareness of civic responsibility and provide them with skills to be proactive members of society.
In June 2002, Elon hosted a highly successful Summit for Civic Engagement, bringing faculty, students and community leaders together to discuss ways that Elon can better partner with local agencies. As a result of this summit, facilitated by Dr. James Applegate (AAHE), the campus not only gained a significant amount of information but also forged partnerships that provided a strong foundation for Project Pericles activities.
 Early in the fall semester of 2002, faculty were challenged to devise ways to enhance civic engagement and focus on social responsibility in their classes. Course enhancements grants of up to $1,000 were offered to support those ideas, and faculty were encouraged to join forces to sponsor larger projects. We devoted $40,000 to this project and were overwhelmed with ideas that faculty submitted. During January 2003, four classes sponsored construction of a global village in conjunction with the Heifer Project. In all, students in more than 15 classes took advantage of the programming that this project offered. Other funded projects included a study abroad class in Australia building a playground in an Aboriginal neighborhood, an education class comparing schools in wealthy and poor districts, and a ceramic art project to benefit CrossRoads Sexual Assault Response and Resource Center of Alamance County. Activities such as these, embedded in academic classes, open students' eyes to the needs of the world and our obligation as citizens to become engaged to alleviate these needs. Approximately 50 faculty members were directly involved in one or more of these projects. All faculty who received Course Enhancement Grants were required to specify how they would document and assess the impact of their project. The assessment data from the most successful projects was used as the foundation for grant applications for additional funds from a variety of external sources.
Additionally, each year Project Pericles has committed to funding up to four service sabbaticals for any university employee. These sabbaticals afford the employees an opportunity to spend a month working with an agency or cause to which they are committed. Funding from Project Pericles pays for their temporary replacement. The first year, funded sabbaticals included the associate registrar, who worked with a shelter for young unwed mothers; and a computer technician, who volunteered his expertise to train technicians and teachers in the local school system. The service sabbatical program enables Elon to reach out to the larger community in a variety of significant ways and to provide exemplary role models for students. Each service sabbatical recipient is encouraged to integrate student interns into their project.
In May 2003, Elon presented the first annual Pericles Award to a faculty or staff person whose efforts as a civically engaged and socially responsible citizen model the ideals of Project Pericles. Establishing this award was an important step in recognizing and honoring an Elon employee who lives the creed that we seek to instill in our students.
Our fifth major commitment was to establish a class of Periclean Scholars each year — students who are committed to civic engagement and social responsibility. All first year Elon students take a course called The Global Experience. Students completing The Global Experience provided a well grounded pool of candidates for the Periclean Scholars program. These young men and women, chosen through a rigorous application process, take special courses their sophomore, junior, and senior years that center around a class project (chosen by the students) focused on civic responsibility and engagement. They acquire multiple sets of skills that empower them to raise important issues and solve problems in a complex global environment.
Students first survey global issues, such as hunger in India, or AIDS in Africa. Their sophomore year involves the selection and development of their project, which they see through completion their senior year. Projects must be creative, original and most importantly, global. Project Pericles not only provides an excellent opportunity to expose young men and women to social responsibility, but will teach them practical ways to get involved. As the program matures, each entering cohort is mentored by those who came before them and, when their turn comes, mentor the classes behind them.
The first class of Periclean Scholars, who graduated in 2006, adopted the mission to make both local and global communities aware of the issues surrounding the spread of HIV/AIDS in Namibia, Africa. Each subsequent class adopts their own unique mission.
Future Prospects for Project Pericles - A Look Ahead
Much of the programming begun during the first year has continued. Every summer, Elon either hosted a summit that built on the one held in June 2002 or sponsored faculty development workshops that focused on incorporating civic engagement and social responsibility issues into the curriculum. The service sabbatical program continues each year. Additionally, each year a new class of Periclean Scholars has been selected who will have the same opportunities as the first class, including the development of their own unique class project.
The goals for the first five years were the following:
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Enable 18 employees to spend a month in service to a cause to which they are committed
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Fund a vast array of special projects embedded in classes that are designed to bring together a concern for the common good with students' academic experience
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Encourage faculty and community partnerships
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Provide a unique environment for four classes of Periclean Scholars, each of which will be working on a major project. The impact on the entire campus community will be enormous. Our dream is to inspire graduates who are as focused on ways in which they will contribute to their local, national and global communities as they are on their future careers. This is a paradigm shift of no small order, but one that, if we examine our mission statement closely, is our destiny.
D4D Debating for Democracy, On April 3 and 4, 2008, Project Pericles held the 2008 Debating for Democracy (D4D) Conference in New York City for 50 student leaders from Periclean colleges and universities. The event consisted of workshops, keynote addresses, panel discussions, and “legislative hearings”. The conference was sponsored by the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and hosted by TIAA-CREF.
A highlight of the two-day conference was the Legislative Hearings. In early March, 41 groups of students from 21 Periclean colleges and universities, who wanted to participate in the hearings, submitted original legislative proposals to Project Pericles addressing a variety of public policy issues. After reviewing these proposals, a committee selected six finalists.
At the conference, the six teams presented their proposals to the legislators and a large audience of students, faculty, and other interested people. The legislators who participated in the event included former U.S. Senator and current President of The New School, Bob Kerrey, and former U.S. Senators Nancy Kassebaum Baker and Harris Wofford. At the end of the event, the legislators selected the winning proposal from Berea College. The Berea team will receive a $4,000 award that can be used to fund advocacy and education activities including lobbying trips and education workshops.
Significant Challenges in Advancing the Goals of Project Pericles
One of the greatest challenges for Project Pericles is financial. Our goal is to immerse Elon students in classes and experiences designed to heighten their awareness of civic engagement and social responsibility and to energize them into action. The specific project adopted by each class of Periclean Scholars will, in many ways, be their laboratory for testing what they have learned, and for testing themselves. We want them to think globally, to unleash their creativity as they dream of the impact that they could have. Financial realities will, of course, govern the extent of their projects. However, our goal is to pursue multiple funding opportunities so that, more often than not, we can say to enterprising young men and women, "Go for it," rather than "I don't think we can afford that."
A second challenge is to continuously raise the bar of expectations for all Project Pericles activities. Leaders should never be satisfied with the status quo; good programs can always become better. The leadership of Project Pericles must continuously devise faculty development opportunities so that the energy we have seen as a result of the first year's Course Enhancements Grants will not be lost.
A third challenge is to seamlessly integrate Project Pericles into Elon's curriculum, joining other experiential elements such as the Isabella Cannon Leadership Program, the study abroad program, the honors program and the fellows programs. Students should never feel that they must choose between becoming a Periclean Scholar and participating in other strong experiential elements of their education. Rather, being a Periclean Scholar should complement their other roles on campus.
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