The Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program (MWCEP) in the School of Politics, Public Affairs, and International Studies at the University of Wyoming works in conjunction with university, community college, and K-12 partners to support civics education across Wyoming. It supports projects and hosts meaningful dialogue on local, state, national, and international issues of significant interest to Wyoming students and communities.
The Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program offers an opportunity to build upon the legacy of Senator Malcolm Wallop’s distinguished career as a public servant, as well as the generosity of his friends and supporters, who have helped to honor him by supporting this initiative. Senator Wallop’s life was about conversations around ideas, and the Wallop Civic Engagement Program credits that legacy by providing a platform for those making the effort to learn and champion their beliefs. You can learn more about Senator Wallop at this link.
We embrace UW’s land-grant mission by committing to a partnership with Wyoming communities and educators around the state. We work together as an intellectual community to foster excellence in teaching, scholarship, innovation and creative endeavor—to engage in matters of public concern and to provide students with experiences that prepare them to be engaged citizens and to meet tomorrow’s challenges with sustainable solutions.
Civics Education That's Just Right for Wyoming!
The Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program (MWCEP) supports three civics education program areas: 1) supporting K-12 educators and curriculum development, 2) organizing community and school event programming including UW faculty engagement projects, and 3) funding student internships and public service opportunities.
The program is overseen by Dr. Jean Garrison, the Stewart Family Professor in Public Service, who launched the program in 2017. The mission of the program is to engage Wyoming communities as well as support faculty and student opportunities. The Wallop Civic Engagement K-12 Curriculum Project, the program’s signature initiative launched in fall 2020, provides free multimedia lessons for social studies and English language arts teachers across the state as well as professional development workshops.
The Wallop Program was launched to address the need for Wyoming’s institutions of higher education to be contributing, meaningful, and relevant partners in K-12 civics and social studies education. It addresses core issues critical to Wyoming communities, as well as state, national and international topics, by focusing on three areas of civics education:
- Civic Knowledge and Skills. We work with teachers to help their students understand our history and how government institutions work, constitutional rights, and cultural contexts in Wyoming and beyond (including a specific focus on indigenous peoples of Wyoming).
- Civic Values and Dispositions. We work with teachers to provide multi-media content that speaks directly to state social studies standards and professional development opportunities through summer professional development workshops to prepare teachers with the tools to help students appreciate civil discourse, free speech, and engaging with perspectives different from their own.
- Civic Behaviors. We work with teachers to help students develop a sense of personal agency and to develop their confidence to engage with their communities and participate in the civic life of the state/nation through voting, volunteerism, informed discourse, and lifelong involvement.
In addition to increasing the volume of resources in the digital catalog and broadening awareness of the catalog to all teachers in Wyoming, the Wallop K-12 project seeks to utilize this model to build its partnership with educators to further build a P-16 community of practice and support.
Click here for more details on how MWCEP is addressing the pressing need for civics education.
MWCEP would like to thank the Wyoming School-University Partnership and all our partners for helping to make the K-12 Curriculum Project resources and our work with schools across Wyoming possible.
To learn more about this project, or to support the program, contact Dr. Jean Garrison and the Wallop Team at wallop@uwyo.edu.
Profiles in Wyoming Resilience
A successful effort to diversify and grow Wyoming’s economy, address workforce development and retention, and to leverage educational/training programs to retain our talent and promote community resilience starts by gathering the right data. Over the next year, we will be partnering with K-12 teachers through our Wyoming Youth Resilience Project (WYRP) to gather and map youth voices about opportunities and barriers they see to education, employment, and community resilience. WYRP is part of a broader project to gather people’s voices through pictures and narrative using the photovoice research method to get their perceptions of barriers and opportunities to educational attainment, employment, and community resilience.
For more information on our latest project visit the Wyoming Resilience project page.
In the News:
K-12 Curriculum Project
The Wallop Civic Engagement K-12 Curriculum Project is a partnership with the College of Education’s Trustees Education Initiative and Wyoming School - University Partnership designed to provide free multimedia lessons for social studies and English language arts teachers, tied to state curriculum standards, as well as professional development opportunities to support teacher licensure. Please visit our Project Page for more information.
