This year’s theme is “From Talk to Transformation: Embedding Dialogue for Lasting Civic Impact.” In recent years, dialogue and civil discourse have become central strategies in higher education’s response to polarization and democratic strain. Campuses are investing significant time, resources, and attention in dialogue initiatives, sometimes driven by external pressures, sometimes by a genuine commitment to democratic learning.

Yet an important question remains: How do we ensure dialogue moves beyond episodic conversations to become a sustained, mission-aligned practice with lasting civic impact?

Learn more and register by May 25.

This year’s theme is “From Talk to Transformation: Embedding Dialogue for Lasting Civic Impact.” In recent years, dialogue and civil discourse have become central strategies in higher education’s response to polarization and democratic strain. Campuses are investing significant time, resources, and attention in dialogue initiatives, sometimes driven by external pressures, sometimes by a genuine commitment to civic learning.

Yet an important question remains: How do we ensure dialogue moves beyond episodic conversations to become a sustained, mission-aligned practice with lasting civic impact?

This year’s CEAC invites community engagement professionals to share strategies, models, and practices that strengthen dialogue and civil discourse on campuses. We welcome interactive and practical sessions, including workshops, facilitated discussions, and strategy-focused sessions in four formats:

1. Standard Workshop
2. Experiential Session
3. Ignite Mini-Sessions
4. Community Conversation/Case Clinic

Proposal deadline: April 25

Request for Proposals

North Carolina Campus Engagement’s PACE conference, now in its 27th year, is for faculty, administrators, researchers, community partners, and students who want to gain skills, knowledge and best practice models for a spectrum of community and civic engagement pedagogies and practices.

Colleges and universities play a vital role in nurturing a vibrant civic culture and in preparing students to engage in civic life. This year’s theme will guide our conversations as we envision the commitments needed to ensure thriving civic health in our communities for the next 250 years.

We will continue our traditional session formats (standard, community conversations, and mini-sessions). For the standard format, this year’s special track is “‘Fortifying Civic Culture & Reflecting on the 250th Anniversary.” We invite presentations demonstrating how campuses are helping students develop the habits outlined in the 2024 American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ report, “Habits of Heart and Mind: How to Fortify Civic Culture.” This track also welcomes sessions that showcase examples of how institutions are designing programs, events, or initiatives for their campus and/or broader community to reflect on the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This year we are adding a Civic Learning Poster Showcase to highlight new and emerging civic learning models in higher education.

Submission Deadline: November 21, 2025

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

CEAC25 registration is open! You won’t want to miss this generative space of learning and encouragement. We will also celebrate 20 years of CEAC. If you have been overwhelmed by the complex times we are living in and wondering how to sustain the work of community & civic engagement, CEAC is for you. We will build connection, discuss the challenging realities of the work at this moment, and engage in self-care, while exploring ways to inspire civic hope and joy that is anchored in civic love.

Who Should Attend

If you facilitate, coordinate, or support community and civic engagement on a campus, you are welcome. Whether you are an office of one or twenty, whether engagement is centralized or all over the campus, whether you have a sufficient budget or are barely scraping by, we see you! No big fancy speakers, or bells and whistles – CEAC is for us and by us.

Learn more and register

North Carolina Campus Engagement’s Pathways to Achieving Civic Engagement (PACE) conference, now in its 26th year, is the longest running regional conference in the nation focused exclusively on higher education’s place-based and public mission (also one of the most affordable!).  We invite faculty, administrators, researchers, community partners, and graduate students who want to gain skills, knowledge and best practice models for a spectrum of community and civic engagement pedagogies and practices. The conference is on February 12, 2025 at the Conference Center at GTCC, Colfax, NC.

Registration deadline: January 24, 2025

This year’s theme invites colleges and universities to recommit to their place-based civic mission to better address the public challenges we are facing and to strengthen democracy.  The agenda includes keynote presentations, workshops, community conversations, and presentation of the 2025 Engagement Awards. We will also integrate opportunities to engage in civic joy.

Keynote speakers:

• Dr. Timothy K. Eatman – Dean of the Honors Living–Learning Community and Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark, chair of the Board of the AAC&U and faculty member of AAC&U’s Institute on High Impact Practices for Student Success (HIPSS)
• Dr. Peter Levine, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life

Sampling of confirmed sessions:

• Making the Case for Community-Engaged Scholarship to Recruit Allies and Investment
• Not a Pain in the Assessment – Leveraging Data to Deepen Impact
• Exploring an Interdisciplinary STEM Curriculum for Environmental Justice
• Advancing Equity Through Place-Based Partnerships
• Engaging Students in Bridging Differences in a Divided State
• Impact of Philanthropy-Based College Assignments on Community Engagement
• Listening to Connect: Introducing Arts and Somatic Practices
• Community-Based Post-Disaster Architecture Teaching for Enhancing Resilience
• Democratic Civic Identity Now: What, Why, and How?
• Lessons Learned from Civically Engaged Research to Advance Children’s Well-Being
• Engaging School Districts in Community-Engaged Scholarship: Practicing Humility, Mutual Benefit, and Authentic Partnership
• Creating the Foundation to Support Pedagogical Innovations through Community-Engaged Coursework

Registration is $125 per person, for individuals from campuses who are members of NC Campus Engagement or a Partnership Alliance state/regional organization. The fee is $175 for individuals from non-member campuses.

Learn more and register.

Sampling of workshop and roundtable topics:

• Partnerships: Where are we? Where do we want to be?
• Grounding Community-Based Programs in Sociological Mindfulness
• Innovating Campus Pantry Inclusivity: Nurturing Communities Beyond Hunger
• Communiversity Partnership: Social Justice and Community Engagement
• High Impact Community Engaged Learning Experiences: A New Framework and Toolkit for Success
• Organizing to Support Broader Impacts Research Collaboration
• Bridge-Building Between Faculty and Staff
• Free speech and brave spaces: The promise of pluralist approaches

CEAC is $75 per person (for NCCE member colleges/universities or institutions who are members of the Partnership Alliance or IKONC) and $100 (for non-members)

CEAC website and registration.

Participants will meet with ACE staff, scholars, and practitioners to discuss their experiences and best practices with community-engaged teaching and scholarship.

Learn more and register by May 29.

Despite these challenges Community Education Professionals (CEPs) continue to facilitate impactful, transformative community and civic engagement courses, initiatives, programs, projects, and partnerships. We bear witness to the transformative impact of these efforts on students, faculty, administrators, communities, and community members. We stay committed to the work and are seeking continuous improvement and impact.

Join us in North Carolina at Elon University on June 13, 2024, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. for reflection, networking, and facilitated conversations to help encourage and support community engagement professionals who do this work every day.

Learn more and register.

In 2023 we released five briefs. The set of topical briefs may be expanded in the coming years as additional topics seem important to include and as additional practitioner-scholarship becomes available.

Each brief includes a summary of the topic and the role of higher education in general and CCE in particular in advancing it, an annotated list of associated scholarship, and a list of references and additional readings; quotes from students, alums, community members, faculty, staff, and literature related to CCE serve to concretize the possibilities and the stakes.

Learn more.

Wednesday, March 29 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Students Breaking Barriers From 1965 – 2022

Wednesday, April 5 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Big Stories, Bold Voices: Activism Redefined

Wednesday, April 12 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Growing Up in the Grassroots

Wednesday, April 19 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): First on Scene

Learn more and register.

North Carolina Campus Engagement’s PACE conference, now in its 26th year, is for faculty, staff, researchers, community partners, and graduate students who want to gain skills, knowledge and best practice models for a spectrum of community and civic engagement pedagogies and practices. We are excited to be back in person after two virtual convenings.

We are seeking workshop proposals in the following tracks: Capacity-building, Pedagogy, and Research and Theory.

Workshop blocks are 60 minutes with three session formats: Standard, Community Conversations, and Mini-Sessions.

The 2023 special track is “Facilitating Civic and Democratic Engagement.” We are seeking presentations on curricular and co-curricular efforts to integrate democratic engagement into campus culture. This may involve efforts to promote civil discourse and dialogue, information literacy, political discussions, election mobilization, public problem solving, or innovative models for strengthening democracy.

Proposal Deadline: November 16, 2022

Learn more and submit a proposal.

Registration opens on October 16.  The fee is $125 per person (for members of NCCE) and $150 for non-members.

All workshops will be delivered during break-out sessions on Saturday, November 19.

We seek proposals for workshops that will:

• help college student leaders develop leadership and advocacy skills
• increase student knowledge of current social issues
• introduce participants to community and civic engagement initiatives or programs that could be replicated on other campuses

Priority will be given to workshops that prepare students to be active citizens and advocates on the front line of social change, or that present new ways for students to be engaged problem-solvers in their communities. Workshops are 60 minutes.

Proposal deadline extended: October 13, 2022

Learn more and submit a proposal.

Register to attend ($75 pp for NCCE members/$100 pp for non-members)