Strategic Geography and the Greater Middle East

Daily events in the Middle East, North Africa, the African Horn, South Asia, and ex-Soviet Central Asia offer little encouragement that this region is at the “end of history”—the end of major warfare and security rivalries. Two Gulf wars have been fought in recent memory, as well as Arab-Israeli and Indian-Pakistani wars. In that obvious sense, geopolitics is alive and well in the Greater Middle East

Thinking about Basing

Recent U.S. experiences—1990–91 in the Persian Gulf, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and then in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003)—have highlighted the complexities and uncertainties of basing access in the post–Cold War period. They have involved questions of access to, and overhead transit rights for, a variety of nations: all over Europe, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Djibouti, and many others. They have also highlighted the crucial importance of the future of American basing access at a time of shifting alli- ances, friendships, and enmities amid wholesale changes in the structure of the international system, and of the movement to the forefront of the issues of ter- rorism, radical Islam, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and a loom- ing hegemonic challenge by China

The Civic Engagement Movement and the Democratization of the Academy

General book summary: Diverse essays create a new definition of leadership education based in colleges and universities The essays in this volume address the idea of leadership education through civic engagement. They delineate a new approach to leadership education reflecting important cultural trends driven by technology, globalization, and demographic shifts; look at some of the best leadership education programs nationwide; and offer “next steps” on how to transform higher education more broadly

Integrating a Commitment to the Public Good Into the Institutional Fabric: Further Lessons From the Field

This essay describes how a group of colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have engaged in sustained efforts over a two-decade period to integrate a commitment to the public good into the fabric of institutional life

De-Platonizing and Democratizing Education as the Bases of Service Learning

The theoretical bases of academic service learning are examined, with particular attention to John Dewey’s contributions. The service learning movement is conceptualized as part of an ongoing—and still unsuccessful—effort to “de-Platonize” and democratize American higher education in particular and American schooling in general

Citizenship, Community Service, and University--Based Community Schools

In the October 6, 1995 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Alexander W. Astin discussed why student interest and engagement in politics are at an all time low. Astin\u27s explanation placed responsibility squarely (and in our judgement appropriately) at the feet of the American university. Despite their traditionally professed mission to promote good citizenship, universities have devoted few resources to that mission and performed it badly. Why has this occurred? Astin\u27s answer was simple and direct- higher education ha

Communal Participatory Action Research as a Strategy for Improving Universities and the Social Sciences: Penn\u27s Work With the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps as a Case Study

As the 20th century closes, a key question is: What can the social sciences do to help solve the problems of our society and world? The authors identify the principal causes of the crisis in the university and the social sciences to be intellectual fragmentation and a structural contradiction that is built into the American research university. They then propose a radical reorientation of American universities toward helping solve real-world problems-particularly those in a university\u27s local community. The authors suggest that such an orientation can be achieved through communal participatory action research projects designed to help change society. This research strategy, they argue, will significantly advance both general knowledge and human welfare. The article explores, in detail, a communal participatory action research project initiated at the University of Pennsylvania and draws conclusions from this case study that might be applied in other research projects