On Civic Engagement in Action

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 25. Early in the afternoon on the east coast, members of the United States House of Representatives — after enduring a three-week stretch without a Speaker of the House — have elected Mike Johnson, a Republican representative from Louisiana, to serve as the next Speaker of the House.

Who is Johnson, how was he able to do what three nominees before him could not, and what comes next will all be the news and talk of the day.

This is a post not about that.

This post is about answering a question I posed in 'Think Globally, Learn Locally'.

There, I wrote about the Jefferson Educational Society’s Global Summit and the role the nonpartisan think tank’s hallmark speaker series plays in civic engagement and civic education. After talking about ‘the theme’, offering a rundown of this year’s lineup, and including videos from past Global Summits, I ended the piece with (spoiler alert):

There are, of course, more examples, which all feature the same macro theme of civic engagement through civic education.

What does that look like in action? I plan to write about that in a future post.

This is that future post.

And to answer that, I’ll point you to an op-ed recently published by the Erie Times-News written by the JES President, Dr. Ferki Ferati: “Jefferson's Global Summit Speaker Series Imports ‘Big Ideas’ to Drive Local Progress.”

The piece details the ‘and more’ — or spillover effect — when it comes to the series’s impact. From meetings and gatherings speakers wish to attend in addition to their public appearances, to using their platforms — from The Atlantic to C-SPAN to CNN to SiriusXM to the Washington Post to spread the word — to forging lasting ties between national experts and local residents.

It also offers a look at how that’s being continued this year, as the Global Summit is underway and runs through Nov. 13.

What’s the key takeaway? I hope you’ll read it (linked above) to discover it for yourself. One line that’s sticking with me, as I’ve been recently writing about the importance of increasing civic engagement and the power of partnerships at the local level, is:

We need to hear each other. That is the essence of democracy.