Transformative Civic Engagement Through Community Organizing

Maria Avila is a faculty member in the Master of Social Work program at the California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is a member of Imagining America National Advisory Board. Avila's research focuses on participatory action research with faculty and with community partners, aimed at creating democratic, civic engagement inside and outside of higher education institutions. She was Director of the Center for Community Based Learning at Occidental College from 2001-2011, having earlier worked as a community organizer and a social worker in Mexico and in the US for over 20 years. Prior to working in higher education, Avila was a community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the international network founded by the late Saul Alinksy in the 1940s. She has performed volunteer and consulting work with a number of organizations, including Partnerships to Uplift Communities, the Northeast LA Education Strategy, the City of Los Angeles, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, and the Council for Social Work Education's Council on Global Issues. Avila has given numerous talks and workshops in the topics of civic engagement and community organizing at national and international conferences and venues, and has published several book chapters and journal articles. Michael Gecan community organizer, executive member of the Industrial Areas Foundation, and author of Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action. Scott J. Peters

Maria Avila presents a personal account of how, from her experience as a teenager working in a factory, she got involved in community organising and how she has since applied its practices to civic engagement in higher education. Her premise is that community organising can help create a culture that values civically engaged scholarship and thus advance higher education's public, democratic mission.

Foreword by Scott J. Peters Acknowledgements 1. Introduction and Overview 2. Four Community Organizing Practices. Creating Culture Change 3. How Community Organizing Evolved at Occidental College 4. The Market, Civically Engaged Scholarship, and Reciprocity 5. Concluding Points and Final Reflections Afterword by Michael Gecan Appendix Glossary References About the Author Index