History
The American Democracy Project at UM-Flint was initiated by Vice Chancellor Kristen Skivington and then Provost Renate McLaughlin in 2004. Drs Skivington and McLaughlin served as the project's first co-chairs. They and a group of dedicated university faculty members launched the project by starting a study group that explored the civic engagement and the roles and responsibilities of public universities to graduate civically active students.
In 2005, Renee Zientek, then the Director of University Outreach and Dr. Jack Kay, then Provost became the co-chairs of ADP. With this change came the appointment of the project's ADP Faculty Fellow, Dr. Heather Laube, Assistant Professor of Sociology. Dr. Laube conducted a campus-wide study to determine the level of university-community involvement and number and range of civic engagement and service learning projects on the UM-Flint Campus.
In 2006, Ms. Zientek continued to serve as the co-chair with the Acting Provost, Dr. Vahid Lotfi. The second ADP Faculty Scholar, Dr. Jason Kosnoski was appointed. Dr. Kosnoski was instrumental in involving the community with the project and worked with community committee member Dayne Walling to design the now Annual Civic Skills Conference that aims to train over 100 students and community members in critical civic skills. Dr. Kosnoski is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Students Kristi Bartholomew and Leah Petts were awarded the position of ADP Student Scholar in 2006 as well. They were the first students to serve in this capacity.
From 2007 until presently, Renee Zientek, now the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement and Chris Waters, the Acting Associate Provost are serving as the ADP Co-chairs. Dr. Marcus Paroke, Assistant Professor of Communications is the current ADP Faculty Fellow. There are seven ADP Student Scholars (their bios can be found in the "Scholars" section of this website). Dr. Paroske facilitated the ADP sponsored DebateWatch for the City of Flint Mayoral Race. He is working with the ADP Student Scholars on a Signature Project that will be presented at the ADP National Conference in Snow Bird, Utah in June 2008.