Campus Civic Engagement: Democracy Innovation Prizes

When it comes to the crisis facing American democracy, many informed people ask a version of the question “What shall be done?”

The collective trauma hitting government norms, practices, and institutions elicits a fight or flight response (ask almost any therapist what they are seeing in their patients) - retreat and hide in fear, tremble in powerlessness, or act - resist, engage, and participate in all new ways.

Many Trump-aligned young people do the latter, with Turning Point USA being the most high-profile, but not the only, example. Others are turning to groups like Young Americans for Freedom, local Republican organizations, and elsewhere. Others attend protests for the first time in decades, become poll watchers, or speak up at school board meetings. Students on the left are marching, protesting, and speaking out in ways unseen in decades.

At the same time, colleges and universities are working to foster political engagement that doesn’t devolve into shouting matches (or worse). A lot of schools are finding ways to foster civic dialogue with bipartisan student groups or public events.

The School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, on whose National Council I serve, has an endowed speaker series meant to foster vigorous and healthy debate. The university, like many, has a center for civic engagement that promotes voting and volunteering. All of this work at GW and around the country is important. But it isn’t enough. We need our students not just to be engaged citizens, but also democratic entrepreneurs.

To that end, I endowed a Democracy Innovation Prize in the School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) to promote creative solutions to the challenges facing our democracy. Modeled on business school plan or pitch competitions, the prize will reward students for finding ways to keep our 250-year-old experiment continually workable and meaningful in a complex society. The prize will recognize ideas and projects that are workable and meaningful. Every fall, SMPA will announce a problem that is big enough to matter and small enough to address, and ask students to solve it. For example, how to foster local media that audiences trust and support, how to build faith in public institutions that respond credibly and with impact, how to nurture a next generation of political candidates who bridge divides, or how to find new pathways for local, sustained civic impact beyond political parties and election cycles.

Finally, the Prize makes real the moment we are in. Democracy, its beliefs, and its institutions are not a given. Congress passed one piece of legislation last term. Faith in public institutions is down. The core values of voting and ballot integrity are a national question like never before. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks American politics is healthy and thriving.

The enduring aspects of democracy are the citizens who inherit it and the beliefs shared by a majority. Concentrating hard now on what sustains, what can be fixed, and what can be put behind is the role of the students in these classrooms. The Prize aims to inspire them to bring these challenges to the forefront and make them practical.

This is only one of a few democracy-building programs at US universities - for now. These are investments that match hope with meaning. I fervently hope that others will follow my lead and start similar programs across the country. America is full of entrepreneurs and innovators. Those talents should not be limited to apps and tech; they should also be unleashed on our democracy.

John Barth endowed a new democracy innovation prize at the George Washington University.