Summary of Idea
Carlisle, PA does not currently have a conference center for Dickinson College or local organizations to utilize as a meeting space for collaborative work, instruction, or training. The Common Good Institute at Dickinson College is offered as a Revolutionary Idea to create interest and excitement in the formation of formal meeting places and innovative collaborative spaces that do not currently exist on Dickinson’s campus or anywhere in the immediate Carlisle area. The Institute will be composed of initiatives focusing on tangible projects that bring people together both on and off campus to work on solving issues that directly impact the common good in Carlisle and the world. In a world of increasing demagoguery, which focuses on issues that separate us from one another, the Common Good Institute will serve as a light bringing people together; standing out and setting apart a Dickinson education in new and exciting ways. It will be the premier center on campus where Dr. Benjamin Rush’s revolutionary vision combines with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dimensions of a complete life, to provide new opportunities for Dickinsonians to enhance their education, through work at the institute, and begin impacting the world in real ways prior to graduation.
The Common Good Institute (CGI) at Dickinson College
The Common Good Institute at Dickinson College will be composed of initiatives which focus on tangible projects and ideas that bring people together both on and off campus to work on solving issues across disciplines that directly impact the common good here in Carlisle and the world at large. In a world of increasing demagoguery, which focuses on issues that separate us further from one another, the Common Good Institute will serve as a light bringing people together; standing out and setting apart a Dickinson education in new and exciting ways. It will be the premier center on campus where Dr. Benjamin Rush’s revolutionary vision combines with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dimensions of a complete life, to provide new opportunities for Dickinsonians to enhance their education through work at the institute and begin impacting the world in real ways prior to graduation.
The Common Good Institute at Dickinson College is offered as a Revolutionary Idea to create interest and excitement in the formation of formal meeting places and innovative collaborative spaces that do not currently exist on Dickinson’s campus or anywhere in the immediate Carlisle area. The Institute would serve as a working laboratory for addressing the important challenges in our world today; providing a learning experience in the liberal arts that would be challenging to find on other liberal arts campuses. The individual initiatives suggested within the proposal tie directly to Dickinson’s priorities outlined within the strategic framework document, including; intercultural competencies, student retention, internships, opportunities beyond the four-year experience, cultivating community, leadership development, co-curricular and extracurricular activities, working with local, national and global communities, deepening alumni ties, marketing our mission, and working across disciplines. Any one of the initiatives could be broken out from the overall submission as its own revolutionary idea and considered separately from a more holistic Common Good Institute submission.
Carlisle, PA does not currently have a conference center or training center for Dickinson College or local organizations to utilize as a meeting space for collaborative work, instruction, or trainings. This is something that is sorely missing from our area of Pennsylvania. Comparatively, on the other side of Cumberland County, the Shippensburg University Foundation has a conference center that is heavily used by Volvo and other companies for trainings and conferences and is a source of revenue for the foundation. However, due to its designation as a state university, the conference center is rather detached from the university’s mission and operations. As a private college, Dickinson College has a unique opportunity to offer such a center to the Carlisle area that ties directly into the areas that Dickinson values most. Dickinson’s location is within a 1-day drive from nearly 2/3 of the entire country, which provides an ideal place for a state-of-the-art conference center dedicated to Common Good Initiatives closely tied to Dickinson’s liberal arts educational priorities.
Initially, the institute could begin as a campus-wide program made up of a variety of Common Good Initiatives, with the future goal being the construction of a physical building on or near campus. Allison Hall currently has very minimal use on campus. Refurbishing the location and building on an addition which would extend along Mooreland Avenue down toward Morgan Hall for the Common Good Institute could serve as one location that would garner significant interest both on and off campus (amateur concept illustrated at the end of this document). In both sentiment and historical significance, adding onto Allison Hall to form the Common Good Institute at Dickinson College would be ideal. In 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a sermon in Allison Hall entitled the 3 Dimensions of a Complete Life. Those dimensions are; achieving one’s own goals, concern for the well-being of others, and pursuing God. Though much larger in scale, the former Masonic Temple in Glendale California is an interesting example of the potential the Allision Hall location holds for an initiative such as this.
CGI Initiative - Dickinson Leads
Dickinson needs interdisciplinary leadership degrees and credentials offered as programs of study and built into the curriculum. Dickinson has experiential leadership opportunities where students can learn from their individual experiences, but without much formal instruction or credentialing. The curriculum posted on the Dickinson website shows a single course focused on leadership and maybe 3-4 others with limited leadership components. There is a lot of material and communication provided by the college on preparing leaders, but little in the way of academic study on the topic, various leader theory, and what makes a good or successful leader. In my own experience, I have been able to earn a sociology degree in Organizational Development and Leadership, which is an example of an interdisciplinary program due to a variety of concentrations that were offered.
I was able to learn a great deal about leadership theory, methods and structure, etc. while at the same time, taking courses in my area of interest (Higher Education Structure and Policy). This opportunity set me up for future success upon graduating the program. Many liberal arts institutions offer leadership minors to bachelor’s degrees, certificates, or leadership concentrations to degrees, such as Sustainability Leadership, etc. Dickinson is uniquely positioned to offer credentials in leadership due to partnerships with Diamond6 Leadership, the U.S. Army War College, everything that SLCE already does, and yet we are missing the opportunity to expand on these partnerships through degree/credential-earning opportunities that we could offer to our students to prepare them for success as leaders in a variety of organizations and professional capacities upon graduation.
CGI Initiative - Dickinson Dreams
Dickinson College already places a high value on experiential learning, and internship opportunities with the stated goal within the strategic framework of ensuring that every student has the opportunity for an internship. The Common Good Institute helps to make this goal a reality through collaboration with businesses, organizations, and new partnerships formed within the context of the institute. The work and instruction done at the institute would involve local businesses, activists, volunteers, faculty, staff, government employees, and alumni to provide life experience opportunities for students, without the need to leave campus to meet and collaborate, in many cases.
This initiative would provide the opportunity based on interest-level and experiences for alumni to be paired with students for mentorships, internships, and collaborative work in various fields of interest. Work done at the institute and relationships built would increase engagement and retention as there is investment from all parties for success. As new alumni and donors look for ways to provide an immediate impact and see the specific results of their contributions to the college, opportunities such as these partnerships provide new ways of increasing involvement. The Common Good Institute would not only serve as the conduit for building these relationships but would also serve as a physical meeting place and would have areas equipped specifically for remote video-call-based meeting spaces.
The institute could also provide programs for non-traditional students. More and more non-traditional students are seeking and entering into opportunities for higher education. In a very short time, traditional high school seniors will no longer make up the primary pool of college applicants. The United States just hit a 30-year low birth rate and the trends continue to see less high school graduates and more working professionals applying for higher education. In the local area, there are numerous low-wage workers due to increased warehouse construction and other lower-paying jobs in Carlisle and the surrounding areas. The Common Good Institute at Dickinson College would be able to provide opportunities to partner with these companies to offer trainings in the liberal arts, etc. not only in physical training location, but also in the delivery of the trainings. Some offerings through the institute could be for individual courses, day-long trainings, certificate programs, or even scholarship opportunities for those who meet requirements (high performers, interest in advancing career). These opportunities would help to provide a pathway to increased earning and responsibility.
CGI Initiative – Dickinson Drives/Delivers
The Dickinson Drives (or Dickinson Delivers) initiative would be an effort to more effectively utilize Dickinson’s unique location in proximity to major interstates (1-day drive to 2/3 of the country) to forge new partnerships as well as utilize some of the largest events in Carlisle (Car Shows). Work done at the institute through the Dickinson Drives/Delivers initiative could involve the delivery of education (drive to us for training, we’ll drive to you for training). The education delivery could involve leadership education, programs specific to groups of non-traditional students in certain fields relevant to the common good or any other areas that are in need. This initiative could also include Dickinson Drives\Delivers Sustainability, which would include partnerships with businesses, local governments, and activists through work at the Common Good Institute. The Dickinson Drives\Delivers initiative could also overlap with the internship and mentorship program to “drive\deliver partnerships” where opportunities for those involved in the mentorships to meet on campus at the institute or be sponsored by the institute to meet others.
The idea behind the Dickinson Delivers\Drives model is similar to the Agricultural Extension Offices which offer programs for students from elementary school ages all the way through adult programming. It would allow the institute to further build relationships to those in relatively close proximity to the college and open up new partnerships and outreach. The compass-rose logo could even be re-used for this initiative as a branding idea. The Ag Extension Offices offer trainings and meeting spaces for programs from Summer Gardening, Sustainable Gardening, Youth Garden Days, etc. The Common Good Initiative could similarly offer programming or working groups collaborating on ways to address county-wide issues such as air quality (35th worst of all counties in the entire country), light pollution, farmland preservation, or new ALLARM partnerships that may or may not currently exist (4H Outdoor Club, PA Trout Unlimited, Cumberland Valley Trout Unlimited, Yellow Breeches Anglers, Big Spring Watershed Assoc., Middle Spring Watershed Assoc., Yellow Breeches Watershed Assoc., Cumberland County Conservation District – all within minutes of Carlisle) as Pennsylvania is #1 in the nation in steam density. There are many other possibilities for additional initiatives to work with local causes.
CGI Initiative – PA Partnerships
PA is 3rd in the nation in number of higher-ed institutions after California and New York so the opportunities for new partnerships locally, within the state, should be explored much further. The Common Good Institute would provide opportunities for these partnerships to flourish. Currently, there are a large number of local higher-ed IT professionals who meet annually, where local colleges take turns hosting, because of the value they see in yearly collaboration and informal trainings. The meeting starts each year through a posting to a mailing list asking if there is a college willing to host and volunteers for presentations or learning tracks. This is all done informally, works very well each year and has been incredibly valuable for those who attend. There is a significant amount of potential for groups such as this forming through the Common Good Institute at Dickinson College
Liberal Arts institutions (including Dickinson) often cite studies showing the value of a liberal arts background in the workforce. Whenever the dialogue begins questioning the value of a liberal arts education, instead of viewing tech and trade schools as competition, why not make efforts to partner with them for additional learning opportunities in new and innovative ways. We have some of these partnerships in place, but they are many more opportunities for other types of institutions such as Pennsylvania College of Technology. The President of the college, Dr. Gilmore, who I have had the pleasure to meet when I was a Resident Assistant at the College and interview years later for a project on Women in Leadership in Higher Education, is very forward thinking and has helped to build the school in incredible ways including the building of a new library on campus since my graduation. Despite the college being, primarily a technical college, it has quite a few similarities to Dickinson as a private college that could make a partnership, mutually beneficial.
The Common Good Institute could also forge partnerships with local businesses that are new to the area and would like to provide training or a location for training for their employees (similar to the strong relationship between Shippensburg University & Volvo). Many companies work with third party companies to deliver diversity and inclusion trainings. The Common Good Institute could provide the opportunity for these trainings to take place on campus or even deliver the trainings through trained educators and students. Amazon alone, has 5 primary warehouses within a 2hr drive from campus. A partnership with a company like Amazon or other corporations and businesses through the Common Good Initiative would be an incredible opportunity to explore.
Additional partnerships through county government (the courthouse is right down the street) that do not currently exist could also be formed through the Common Good Institute PA Partnership initiative. The county government has many overlapping interest areas to the college that are not fully tapped into such as the conservation district, planning commissions, space allocation committees, farmland preservation, etc.
PA partnerships with additional local school districts are also an under-utilized by the college. We now have the scholarship for a Carlisle school district graduate, what about exploring surrounding districts? Big Spring School District has one of the highest rates of students in households below the poverty level and is one of the largest districts in physical geography in the state as it runs mountain-to-mountain and from Shippensburg to Carlisle within Cumberland County. Due to the district’s rural location, it is frequently overlooked for partnering opportunities. There is great potential to open up a partnership with this district and turn it into a success story.
CGI Initiative – JEDI Training (Justice, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion)
While this initiative would obviously play off the popular culture reference to the Jedi who served as “guardians of peace and justice,” it would also serve as the perfect acronym for many of the trainings and collaborative work done by the Common Good Institute. JEDI trainings (Justice, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion trainings) could be a requirement for incoming students, could be offered to community organizations, school districts, programming events, and businesses as part of their official diversity trainings. This sort of a model referencing both popular culture and beneficial training tracks is not unprecedented but would be more formalized and would not need to go as far as some college courses have in the past. The offerings under the JEDI training initiative could be provided by trained HR staff, interested faculty, as well as Junior or Senior Dickinsonians as internship experience (similar to the Dickinson College Farm’s SEED programs). Currently, programs on campus that focus on this area of instruction and programming are physically disperse. Creating a space for groups such as the Landis collective, the Center for Civic Learning and Action, Diamond6 Leadership, etc. to work together under one roof would allow new opportunities for their existing physical locations to be repurposed for other campus uses if desired.
In Closing
The Common Good Institute and associated initiatives open numerous exciting opportunities for contributions from Dickinsonians to the world around us. These serve as a few ideas of the potential an initiative such as this could hold for the future of our campus and community. Thank you for your time in reviewing this proposal and consideration given to the possibility of moving forward.
Appendix: Location options
The primary suggestion for a location added as part of Allison Hall could be something like in the center of the map below.
Another location could be the refurbishing of Dana Hall.
There is also space behind Goodyear in the top left of the map (if it’s available, I’m not sure what it is currently used for or who it belongs to) that could be utilized as a brand-new space/building.
An additional location option could be the United Methodist Church along the lower-right of the map (if it’s available – they are currently building a giant church campus outside of the Carlisle borough and I’m not sure of the plans for their current location, below just at the edge of the map).
The spaces within the structure would primarily consist of large conference and meeting spaces for trainings and group work. The first level could be more of an informal meeting space which transitions to an outdoor area for larger community events. The second level could be more of a formal layout with larger conference and training rooms with collaboration spaces. A third level could consist of student apartments for seniors who have consistently risen to the top of their class and have dedicated significant work towards the Common Good Institute initiatives.
Appendix: Initiative Links
The initial initiatives that could make up the Common Good Institute are outlined below. Additional partnerships and opportunities could certainly build upon or modify this initial framework and could incorporate more global areas of impact once the more local and domestic successes are established.
