Center for Civic Engagement and Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation Merge

A pair of centers at Pacific University have recently consolidated to advance their shared mission to empower students to engage as active members of larger communities.

The Center for Civic Engagement, founded in 2004 as the university's Humanitarian Center, and the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation, which launched in 2010, recently merged to become the Tom McCall Center for Civic Engagement.

Civic engagement has been a core focus of each center, said Stephanie Stokamer, who oversaw the Center for Civic Engagement and will continue as McCall Center for Civic Engagement director.

"Bringing the two centers together puts the university's civic engagement efforts in a single organization, which will strengthen the programming we offer our students, as well as their community outreach opportunities," she said.

Politics & Government Professor Jim Moore, the founding director of the McCall Center for Policy Innovation, will serve as the merged McCall Center's director of political outreach. Under Moore, the McCall Center for Policy Innovation has brought together policymakers and students through internships and campus-based events, as well as public events in the wider community.

"The McCall Center for Policy Innovation's political focus will now be part of the McCall Center for Civic Engagement's overall efforts to foster meaningful engagement in the communities in which our students find themselves," Stokamer said. Part of the goal, she added, is to widen the community of Pacific students who are aware of political internships as a component of civic engagement.

The first public offering of the McCall Center for Civic Engagement takes place Monday evening, Sept. 24, when candidates for the chair position of the Washington County Board of Commissioners will take part in a community conversation at Pacific's Forest Grove Campus.