Dudley-Eshbach Advises American Democracy Project

SALISBURY, MD---Dr. Janet Dudley-Eshbach is one of four university presidents nationwide who traveled to Yellowstone National Park in June as part of the American Democracy Project.  The project is designed to create intellectual and experiential understandings of civic engagement for undergraduates enrolled at institutions that are members of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).  Developed in collaboration with The New York Times, the project focuses on the education of informed graduates who are committed to lives of engagement as citizens in our democracy.  The project grows out of a concern about decreasing rates of participation in the civic life of America in voting, in advocacy, in local grassroots associations, and in other forms of civic engagement that are necessary for the vitality of our democracy. The participants in the four-day design seminar at Yellowstone, the nation's largest and oldest national park, provided advice and assistance to the American Democracy Project using the protection of endangered species as one of several initiatives in the series Civic Engagement in Action. Dudley-Eshbach is president of Salisbury University.