Professor Ira Harkavy of the University of Pennsylvania, United States, will present ‘Creating the Democratic Civic University Through Local Engagement in a Time of Crisis’ at The Washington DC Conference on Education (WCE2026) and The Washington DC Conference on the Social Sciences (WCSS2026).
Professor Harkavy comes to WCE/WCSS2026 with a wealth of knowledge and first-hand experience leading and teaching civic university engagement, having served as the director of the Netter Center for over thirty years.
This keynote presentation will be held both onsite in Washington DC and online via live-stream. To participate in WCE/WCSS2026 as an audience member, please register for the conference via the conference website.
The presentation will also be available for IAFOR Members to view online as part of their membership benefits. To find out more, please visit the IAFOR Membership page.
Speaker Biography
Ira Harkavy
University of Pennsylvania, United States
Professor Ira Harkavy is the founder and Barbara and Edward Netter Director of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, United States. As director of the Netter Center since 1992, Professor Harkavy has helped develop academically-based community service courses and community-engaged research projects that involve creating university-community partnerships and university-assisted community schools with The University of Pennsylvania’s local community of West Philadelphia. He teaches courses in history, urban studies, and Africana studies, as well as in the university’s Graduate School of Education.
Professor Harkavy received his BA, MA, and PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania and has written and lectured widely on the history and current practice of urban university-community-school partnerships and the democratic and civic missions of higher education. He has co-authored and co-edited thirteen books, including Higher Education Leadership for Democracy, Sustainability, and Social Justice (2023), Higher Education’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Building a More Sustainable and Democratic Future (2021), and Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy, and the Future of Democracy (2020). He is also Executive Editor of Universities and Community Schools.
Abstract
Creating the Democratic Civic University Through Local Engagement in a Time of Crisis
Democracy is seriously threatened throughout the world today. Given their intellectual and societal roles, universities have an increased and pressing responsibility to contribute to both the education of informed democratic citizens and the advancement of knowledge for the continuous betterment of the human condition. In spite of important civic and community engagement efforts, universities in the United States have for decades insufficiently focused on their democratic purposes and their contributions to their communities and society. They have overemphasised their economic purposes, amplifying that students are in a university exclusively to gain career-related skills and credentials. Instead, higher education institutions need to become democratic civic universities that advance democracy through democratic means on campus, in the community, and across the wider society.
One difficult hurdle is identifying best practices on how to successfully create and operate a democratic civic university. Dr Harkavy identifies local democratic community engagement as perhaps the core approach for doing just that. Drawing on the history of US higher education, 40 years’ experience developing place-based partnerships between the University of Pennsylvania and its neighbourhood of West Philadelphia, and work with higher educational institutions across the United States and around the world, Dr Harkavy will discuss how local engagement can help universities increase their contributions to knowledge, improve the quality of life in their geographic community, and advance the development of just and fair democratic societies through democratically-focused local civic engagement.
