The University of Washington Civic Health Initiative announced the award of four small grants worth $2,000 each to University of Washington faculty members from the Bothell and Seattle campuses.
The purpose of these teaching and curriculum awards is to support UW faculty members who have innovative proposals that approach civic health, civic engagement and democracy through new curricular perspectives, methods and activities. Curricular topics ranged in focus from exposing students to elections administration processes to productive engagement with opposing viewpoints.
Descriptions for each of the four projects that were funded during this cycle are:
Project team
Jennifer Otten, Professor and Undergraduate Program Director, School of Public Health
Jillian Youngblood, Executive Director, Civic Genius
Project summary
We propose to design and develop curriculum for a discussion-based undergraduate course aimed at unpacking common notions and questions expressed by students about how our political and information systems work in the context of food and nutrition. For example, “what are the differences between partisan and bipartisan food and nutrition issues and key takeaways from this?”, “are people getting misled, or are they learning from, the wide range of food and nutrition information sources available today?”, “food lobbyists are evil and all they care about is money”, “all food policy is captured by industry”, and “is it even worth engaging in policy when the system is rigged?”.
Course design and implementation will be in collaboration with Jillian Youngblood, a community partner trained in deliberative democracy and who has held governmental positions tasked with developing, passing, and implementing complex policies. Key topics will include ways to exit the echo chamber, how to engage in more purposeful and rational discussion, and how to participate in building and enacting solutions. We will incorporate a tool, developed at Carnegie Mellon University, called SwayBeta.ai, designed to help students safely engage with opposing perspectives. We will workshop the curriculum and AI tool with student volunteers.
Project team
Jason Frederick Lambacher, Lecturer, University of Washington Bothell
Project summary
I am a political scientist who also serves on the King County Citizen Election Oversight Committee (KCEOC). This project would like to do several things. First, we’d like to tour the King County ballot processing facility in Renton and conduct a class with King County Elections staff about relevant elections administration topics, such as ballot security, transparency, signature verification, equity issues and the importance of public confidence in elections. Additionally, through my work at the KCEOC, I regularly engage with two King County government staffers who recently received their master’s degree in public policy from UW Bothell. The second feature of my project would be to arrange a visit to King County headquarters with these UWB grads so students can learn firsthand about what county government does and, potentially, meet King County council members and other county officials.
Seeing how a degree in Law, Economics & Public Policy (a UW Bothell degree) can lead to important careers in the local public sector space will be a powerful experience for many students
Project team
Veronica Cassone McGowan, Director and Senior Research Scientist, University of Washington Bothell
Project summary
The UW Bothell Collaborative for Socio-Ecological Engagement (CoSEE) is a newly appointed community-centered research and education center at St. Edward State Park in Kenmore, Washington. CoSEE is the only research center that branches across all schools as UWB and seeks to engage students from across the UW tri-campuses in socio-ecological research and educational efforts in partnership with faculty, community-based organizations, and are schools. We are currently in the process of creating two credit-based research pathways at CoSEE – one quarterly pathway for students interested in completing shorter research and program development projects, and one year-long pathway for student interested in longer-term community engaged research.
This funding is for a new partnership with the Finn Hill Neighborhood Trails Association (FHNTA) and State Parks to monitor and create management recommendations for a small parcel of public land in Kirkland, WA, and considering its potential for being incorporated into larger green loop efforts within the region. The scope of work includes meeting with FHNTA and related community groups in the area. Setting up monitoring devices within the space, assessing the value and use of the land parcel for wildlife movement and recreation based on collected data, and communicating findings with the local community.
Project team
Clara Berridge, Associate Professor, School of Social Work
Project summary
I propose to develop and pilot a course called Social Welfare and AI: Power, Ethics, and Social Impact. Our students who are Washington’s future social services leaders require tools for critical thinking and engagement with social and ethical problems in the space of AI. This course will pair critical AI literacy and education about AI in social work with exposure to civil society strategies and media communication skill building. The goal is to empower students to engage with AI discourse and decision making for the public interest.
Several goals of this course align with this call and promote civic engagement. Students will:
- Learn about civic engagement pathways for AI policy and practice through assignments on civil society organizations’ efforts to shape AI policy and protect against harms
- Engage with issues of AI and social inequality, civil rights, surveillance, access to services, transparency, accountability, data privacy rights, and public participation in AI policy
- Develop new media communication skills through partnership with UW Libraries to teach podcasting to bring social work perspectives to bear on AI discourse
- Understand the impacts of changing information ecologies on populations served
gain exposure to campus expertise and ability to think and communicate across fields
More information about the Civic Health Initiative Teaching and Curriculum Awards program can be found by visiting its program page.
Approximately 60 faculty members, post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students from across the University of Washington gathered at the Husky Union Building on March 7, 2025 to attend an inaugural Democracy Scholarly Meetup hosted by the Civic Health Initiative. 
The University of Washington Civic Health Initiative has released a funding call for small grants intended to encourage the development of both teaching and curricular innovations and research discoveries for activities and projects that seek to revitalize civic health and bolster democratic institutions across the country. 
In just its second year of operation at the University of Washington Tacoma, the NextGen Civic Leader Corps has empowered many students through its civic engagement and professional development programs. Developed through a tri-campus initiative between the UW Evans School of Public Policy & Governance and UW Bothell’s Office of Community Partnerships, this program helps connect undergraduates interested in public service careers to a national network.
MisinfoDay @ MyCommunity, a program developed and launched by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP), is being adopted around the nation.