"To Serve a Larger Purpose"

"‘To Serve a Larger Purpose’ is an extremely timely, important work that synthesizes a long history of the civic engagement movement in particular while providing numerous well-developed examples of both failure and success across a range of initiatives and ideas. By consciously linking the movement for civic education and engagement (for democracy) to the need to transform our educational institutions, this work articulates what many of us who work in higher education know, but can rarely summon the knowledge or time to understand. One finishes this powerful book much better informed about the state of both the civic engagement movement and the very significant problems confronting universities."
—John Wooding, Professor and Former Provost, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

"‘To Serve a Larger Purpose’ offers a series of cogent arguments for using building democracy as the central purpose of institutional civic engagement. The contributors draw on a rich literature, and the chapters are cohesive, building on and sometimes challenging each other’s points; they read as a continuing conversation. The reader is left with an overview of what it means for an institution to be civically engaged, the knowledge that has accrued in the field up to this point, and what working within a democratic framework means within a contemporary context."
—Cathy Burack, Senior Fellow for Higher Education at the Center for Youth and Communities in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University

"The various chapters in this volume represent the viewpoints of many recognized contributors to the growth of this field as well as some new voices. Guided by the careful, but provocative framing offered by the editors, the book holds form while providing an abundant 'democratic flowering of civic engagement' through which the two challenges that Saltmarsh and Hartley outlined are actively addressed.... (T)his book offers an extensive review of strategies and examples of the kind of democratic engagement the authors describe. The diverse backgrounds and visions of the body of articles presented add richness to the discussion surrounding the future of civic engagement and service-learning on college campuses."
—Michigan Journal for Community Service Learning

"(W)ell written and (no pun intended) engaging, (they) elaborate, explore, and to some extent qualify the introduction's overview."
—Change

"(A)ll the volume’s authors examine critically what has gotten the (civic engagement) movement to this point, and all offer careful consideration of what will be necessary if civic engagement is to become a truly democratizing, diversifying force that knits higher education into the social fabric."
— Academe