Mesa Community College
Campus Specs
🏫Campus Type: 2 Year, Public, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)
🧑🏾🎓 Enrollment: 16,948
🗺 Location: Mesa, Arizona
Campus Resources
💰Received Funding? $5000 Codesigner Grant
👨🏽💼Leader of Effort? Center for Community and Civic Engagement
🙋🏽♀️Student Power? 10-12 Compensated Student Leaders and 20 volunteers
⏰ Development Time? Over 25 Years
MCC Campus Created Resources
MCC Campus Strategy
Integrating voter registration into existing processes with campus partners to reach every student.
Mesa Community College’s Center for Community & Civic Engagement facilitates the integration of democratic engagement in the classroom and throughout student life on campus. The College’s faculty have designated civic engagement as one of the Institutional Student Learning Outcomes known as “MCC's 4Cs”, which also include communication, critical thinking, and cultural & global engagement. Through this framework, all faculty are encouraged to incorporate civic learning into their courses as part of the class-designated student learning outcomes.
The Center for Community & Civic Engagement supports faculty incorporation of civic engagement into their classes by offering sample content and curricula. MCC even has two Canvas modules any faculty member can add to their class or, if a student is so inclined, students can also sign up for the Canvas course independently. In order to celebrate those who work to advance their own and the community’s civic learning and democratic engagement, MCC awards Civic Engagement Champion badges to faculty and Civic Scholar badges and certificates to students.
Through your chosen process, executing individualized voter registration and democratic engagement tactics.
Mesa Community College works with a number of local and national organizations, which play a significant role in the successful execution of the Center for Community & Civic Engagement’s programming initiatives by offering training, educational materials, grant and funding opportunities, and general program support. These organizations also help support the Center’s weekly Civic Action Hour, which consists of guest speakers and topics on various community- and campus-related issues, such as leadership, service, diversity, equity, and inclusion; voting rights and processes in Arizona; and voter education. The Civic Action Hour takes place online, which allows MCC to reach more students and has encouraged faculty to incorporate Civic Action Hour speakers and topics into their classes. They were also able to reach more students by collaborating directly with the Honors Program, which approved all of the Civic Action Hour speakers as co-curricular events.
MCC also works with local elections officials, including the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and the Arizona Secretary of State Office. Through the County Recorder’s office, students and faculty can take the Deputy Registrar Full Certification Class to learn all about voter registration in Maricopa County and be certified as a Deputy Registrar, who is able to volunteer with the Recorder’s office. Facilitating the training of students and faculty to be Deputy Registrars allows the Center for Community & Civic Engagement to be confident that volunteers, fellows, or staff members who participate in registering voters, will be able to do so correctly.
MCC’s Civic Engagement Scorecard helps encourage students to take action on their own with a list of 80 things they could do to be engaged students. As students completed assignments in the Canvas classroom they earned points towards Civic Engagement awards and recognition from the department including badges, scholarships, and other opportunities. With enough points, students can become a MCC Civic Scholar at the levels of MCC Engaged Students, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Many of the activities may help students qualify for the Chancellor’s Civic Leadership Medallion.
Institutionalizing these tactics to be a sustainable part of your campus culture.
MCC leadership has demonstrated a significant commitment to the institutionalization of civic learning and democratic engagement on campus for more than 28 years. The Center for Community & Civic Engagement has a permanent office on campus, college line item budget allocation, and several permanent employees, including two full-time staff members and three part-time positions, in addition to the 10-12 students typically employed there (although several of the student positions are funded by external partners).
Recently Dr. Lori Berquam, the Interim College President, re-signed the authorization for the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge Presidential Commitment and encouraged participation in the Ask Every Student initiative.
Mesa Community College’s Center for Community & Civic Engagement holds weekly meetings with student leaders and biweekly meetings with supporting national partners. Faculty also play a key role in the support of civic engagement at Mesa Community College, remaining consistently involved from semester to semester and lending stability and continuity to programs and signature events.
