Build Bridges Not Walls Glynis Stevens

Leo Migdal

-Dec 5, 2025, 8:31 PM

This paper outlines a collaborative university-community initiative, Building Bridges, Not Walls: The Democracy and Diversity Project. Building Bridges emphasizes the critical role of community engagement in reducing barriers to democratic participation, social equity, and student success. In pursuit of these outcomes, we present a model of a sustainable, accessible, and cross-disciplinary network of sequenced engagement projects. The interconnected cross-curricular projects are mutually designed and implemented with community partners, providing an emulatable case study to promote civic engagement in multiple contexts and communities. Building Bridges mobilizes sociological theory to consider the question of how universities can be regularly engaged with our communities in a consistent, collaborative, and sustainable manner. Informed by 'service sociology' literature we outline four stages of our Building Bridges model: design, implementation, evaluation, and reflective revision.

These stages are concretized through application to our public university and community, providing a template for other universities and communities to follow. We propose integrated engagement as a means for universities to combat challenges to equity and diversity. As our communities face unprecedented tests to our democratic institutions, we contend that community engagement is higher education’s keenest armament. Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Augustana University Clinical Psychologist, Andwell Health Partners, Therapy and Early Learning Services USM Graduate 2022, University of Southern Maine

Anderson, D., & Harris, B. (2005). Teaching social welfare policy: A comparison of two pedagogical approaches. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(3), 511-526. https://doi.org/10.5175/JSWE.2005.200303120 You must include the following credit every time you use this artwork online or offline: Sakina Saïdi for OBI x Fine ActsPlease see the READ ME file included in all downloads for proper crediting...

Learn more at fineacts.co/belonging All featured works are published under Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-SA). This means that you are free to share and adapt the content, but you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. And, if you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2018

In the waning hours of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton made an appeal for building bridges and not walls. Since then, in a world of escalating dislocations, Clinton’s call for symbolic bridges spanning differences is ever more pressing. At a time when there are trends to retreat into our own separate corners of the world, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics’ Special Section “Bioethics Beyond Borders” is a form of resistance. The antiglobalization environment has anti-intellectual consequences reaching beyond geographical zones. Closing borders means closing minds. This is where our field comes in.

Rather than dividing walls, we want to build connecting bridges. Instead of closing borders, we want to open them to as much traffic as possible. How can we understand the bioethics debates and policies in our own countries without the advantage of seeing them through the lenses of how others are meeting the same challenges? As insular and often myopic as we may be regarding the larger world of bioethics, isolation is a false assumption. It is only a matter of time before we face the same, or some version of, other countries’ dilemmas in our own neighborhoods. The articles gathered for this Special Section come from ten different countries, ranging across the globe.

All raise pertinent questions and offer readers a view of a landscape that exists beyond their own national boundaries. Special Note: An unredacted version of the Internal Affairs special meeting minutes were uploaded to the Washburn Student Government Association website. The unredacted document was downloaded by the author on Nov. 21, 2025 at 2:41 p.m. It has since been removed from the WSGA website although the redacted version is still available for viewing. The unredacted version is referenced and used as a source in this article.

Washburn Student Government Association President, Kate Coulter, was found guilty of misfeasance in relation to legislative obstruction, after a four-week investigation was conducted by the Internal Affairs committee. The Merriam Webster definition of misfeasance is the performance of a lawful action (as an official duty) in an illegal or improper manner or with an improper or corrupt motive. The investigation into Coulter began after a three page job performance incident report was submitted anonymously to the Internal Affairs Committee. Kira Roth, Chief of Staff, found the document that was slid underneath the door of the WSGA office on the night of Sunday, Oct. 19, when she went in to complete payroll. Welcome back.

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Build Bridges Not Walls Glynis Stevens

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In The Waning Hours Of Her Presidential Campaign, Hillary Clinton