The WV Center for Civic Life is delighted to welcome Brittany Means Carowick to our staff, as part of a one-year fellowship to support Appalachian communities in economic transition. Brittany will be working with our What’s Next, West Virginia? initiative as we expand our work to include communities affected by the floods of June 2016. Brittany… Read More Welcome, Brittany!
Some interesting thinking from Youngstown, where city leaders have apparently decided to “stop trying to return [the city] to its glory days as a city of 170,000 people and instead embrace the idea that maybe smaller is better.” Smaller, in this case, means the city has now adopted an official goal of retaining the 66,000 who… Read More “Embracing the shrinkage” in Youngstown, Ohio
What is the value of the Civic Life Institute, and the Center’s work more generally? “This society is really good at building walls and fighting over them, but how many times can we all go into a room, sit down, talk, and everyone comes out feeling better? That’s what the Center does so well.” Does… Read More Paul Gilmer on the Civic Life Institute: “How many times can we all go into a room, sit down, talk, and everyone comes out feeling better?”
At this crucial moment for the future of Appalachia, we must keep trying to find ways to talk and work together. Even when we don’t see eye to eye. Especially when we don’t see eye to eye. Please join us for the 2016 Civic Life Institute (July 19-20 at University of Charleston) to explore effective practices for: Bringing people together to talk about… Read More Can we talk?
“This is what I want to do when I grow up.” I said these words to Betty Knighton, director of the West Virginia Center for Civic Life, during a break at the Center’s 2011 Civic Life Institute, in Martinsburg. If Betty had asked me what I meant by “this,” I couldn’t have answered with a… Read More A note from the new associate director