Civic Engagement

Children as Citizens Video

2-minute video of Mardell and Krechevsky discussing documentation and young children as citizens.

Beyond Wit and Grit: Rethinking the Keys to Success

What does it take to be truly successful in the long run? If you think the answer is "be smart" and "work hard" you need to see and hear my talk.

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

The Declaration of Independence matters because it helps us see that we cannot haev freedom without equality. It is out of an egalitarian commitment that a people grows -- a people that is capable of protecting us all collectively, and each of us individually, from domination. If the Delcration can stake a claim to freedom, it is only because it is so clear-eyed about the fact that people's strengths resides in its equality.

The Declaration also conveys another lesson of paramount importance. It is this: language is one of the most potent resources each of us has for achieving our own political empowerment. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence grasped the power of words. This reveals itself in the laborious processes by which they brought the Declaration, and their revolution, into being. It shows itself forcefully, of course, in the text's own eloquence.

Read more in Our Declaration: A Reading of The Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. 

Humanities Craftsmanship: A Study of 30 Years of Illinois Humanities Council Grant-making

Finding Our Way