Announcing the Center for Democracy and Civic Life

Mon, 05 Nov 2018 15:39:33 -0500

Dear Members of the UMBC Community,

I’m pleased to announce the establishment of the Center for Democracy and Civic Life, led by Director David Hoffman, Ph.D. ’13, and Assistant Director Romy Hübler ’09, M.A. ’11, Ph.D. ’15. This new center is the latest result of two years of work to realign the structure within the Division of Student Affairs to support both UMBC’s strategic plan and our divisional priorities.

The Center for Democracy and Civic Life’s launch comes at a critical time for our nation, when our divisions and challenges dominate the news and hope for democracy’s future can seem elusive. The center will work with partners to help students develop knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices for deep and effective civic involvement in diverse communities. It will generate, inspire, and share innovations in civic and democratic engagement, and support collaborative activity that helps to build thriving civic cultures at UMBC and in communities involved in the center’s work.

David Hoffman joined the UMBC community in 2003. In Campus Life, he guided leadership and engagement initiatives, student organization support, and student government advising. He has led the development and implementation of UMBC’s BreakingGround initiative, which has fostered civic agency and democratic engagement through programs, courses, and partnerships. As a member of the inaugural cohort of American Democracy Project Civic Fellows, David led the development of the influential Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Emergent Theory of Change. He is a member of the Steering Committee for the American Democracy Project and the National Advisory Board for Imagining America. In addition to his UMBC Ph.D., David has degrees from Harvard Law School (J.D.), the Harvard Kennedy School (M.P.P.), and UCLA (B.A.).

In 2016, Romy Hübler joined UMBC staff as coordinator of campus life for student organizations, designing and implementing programs that supported students’ development as leaders capable of making meaningful contributions to their communities. She has also served as a key strategist for the UMBC BreakingGround initiative, and written about experiential learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, institutional change, career preparation for community engagement professionals, and graduate students’ civic engagement. Romy has held fellowships with Campus Compact, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and Imagining America. Romy received her UMBC degrees in modern languages and linguistics (B.A.), intercultural communication (M.A.), and language, literacy, and culture (Ph.D.).

Please join me in congratulating David and Romy as they take on these new roles.

Nancy Young, Vice President for Student Affairs